
I want to tell you a story about #wobblefit. The #wobblefit hashtag started as something I used on Bluesky to share my fitness journey, particularly how I’m using games to lose weight.
I mentioned my weight in my 2025 goals post, and that I’d planned on doing something about it. In that post, I had a few nebulous plans about how I wanted to go about that. Since then, I’ve revised those plans into something that seems to be working:
- Exercise daily (primarily a daily walk, but gym days a few days each week)
- Eat one-meal-a-day
- Weigh in once a week
I weighed in for the first time on Tuesday, and these efforts seem to be paying off. I’ve lost 4.8 lbs already. I only weigh in weekly — weighing myself more frequently makes me obsess over the numbers, and more often than not, that ends up discouraging me.
The first few days of daily exercise, I was riding the high of the New Year. I always feel inspired to make life changes this time of year. But I knew from past experience that motivation for exercise and healthy eating would fade quickly.
I needed to find something else to keep myself motivated to stick with this quest for weight loss.
I Like Games A Lot More Than Fitness
I often feel a sense of dread before I start exercising. I’ll procrastinate on it, or slack off when I should be pushing myself. I drink my coffee in the morning and groan to myself that “ughhh, I need to take a walk today.”
Some people genuinely love physical fitness and athleticism and live for it. I’ve got a friend that bikes for miles every day. Another friend is on a municipal baseball team, jogs every morning, and usually hits the gym on top of that.
That’s not me and never has been. I hated sports in school and even as an adult, exercise has never been something I liked much. I engage in fitness despite my general dislike of it simply because I recognize the amazing benefits it has for my body and my health.
On the other hand, there’s never a time when I don’t want to talk about games. I can talk about games all day long — roleplaying games, videogames, board games, card games, solo games. Games are something I’ve enjoyed for my entire life.
So what if I did something new this time? I enjoy creating Youtube videos and I enjoy talking about games. What if I combined those two things and start using games to lose weight?
I decided that I would take a walk every day, and record a YouTube short where I talked about games and gaming while I did it. Using games to lose weight seemed like an interesting and new way to motivate myself to stick with my exercise goal.
Here’s the first #wobblefit short I recorded:
Humor and memes shared in the #wobblefit hashtag on Bluesky are another thing motivating me. A chat with one of my followers led to the Wobblefit logo (at the top of this article):
DramaticChipmnk: Surely we must be able to turn this into an RPG experience, right? How much XP did you get today? When do you level up? Can you defeat monsters via exercise? How does that combat work? I believe this great community can answer these questions and more.
Wobblerocket: Well. I took a walk and recorded a video. And then I got up and walked more because I fucked up the first video. 😂 So I feel like I beat a monster. Losing the first 7 pounds and dropping below 400 is a level up. Combat might mean fighting the little old Asian grandma who lapped me twice today.
DramaticChipmnk: I’m just imagining the logo for this, and it’s a guy hopelessly falling off a Wii balance board.
And sometimes I just share dumb memes I make:
My Community Rallied Around Me
In high school and college, I did a lot of strength training, but it’s been years since I’ve done that. I know, though, that I like my body best when I’m lifting regularly.
I also find that I am more motivated when I exercise outside of my home. I do have some dumbbells, fitness bands, and a treadmill at home, but when I’m home, I’ll cheat.
This isn’t a condemnation. It’s just a fact that I know about myself. I’ll set up for a 20 minute treadmill walk and stop at 18 minutes. I’ll decide to do a dumbbell workout and slack off before I finish it. I also wanted to get a gym membership so that I could get back to lifting and so that I had a place to workout when the weather didn’t cooperate with outdoor daily walks.
There was just one problem. My epilepsy has kept me from steady traditional work, so the disposable income for a gym membership isn’t really something I had on hand.
Then something incredible happened.
On January 1st, I opened a Ko-fi goal for $50 to fund enough for one month at my local gym. I figured if I could get one month, I’d find some way to sort out funding for the rest month-by-month. By January 3rd, my Bluesky followers had met that goal.
I updated the goal to cover February’s gym membership, and added the goal tracker to my stream for my Final Fantasy 4 Ultima stream on Saturday. I really didn’t expect much — if I picked up $5-15 in donations over the course of the stream, I would have been incredibly happy.
Instead, over the 2 hours I was streaming, my viewers donated $360 — enough for me to get not just one month of a gym membership, but an ENTIRE YEAR. At one point in the stream, I got a little overwhelmed by the generosity. Here’s the moment:
After the stream was over, I had to sit and process what just happened for a while! I was literally shaking after I logged off. I called my mom to tell her what happened.
Once I got my composure back, I was filled with a sense of excitement. I headed off to the gym to sign up! It…didn’t really go as planned:
I signed up at the gym on the 6th, and today will be my third workout there. On days when I’m not at the gym, I take a daily walk around the track at my local park. In 2025, I’ve exercised 10 days out of 10 this year.
Adding Party Members To My Fitness Quest
The more I shared my #wobblefit adventure, I started finding more and more people who wanted to use the #wobblefit hashtag to share their own fitness efforts.
To be fair, I kinda bullied cajoled sweet-talked my first party member into signing up. Rich the First-Time DM is a YouTuber who regularly talks about Dungeons and Dragons. He’s also a fellow big guy gamer — 6 foot 6 and over 300 lbs and he had recently shared some thoughts on wanting to lose weight, particularly after a recent fight with bronchitis.
So I decided to issue a challenge:
Rich took the challenge on in ways I didn’t expect. He’s actually kicked off an entire YouTube series of his own where he walks around his neighborhood and talks about Dungeons and Dragons. You can watch his first video here:
Rich and I both noticed something after we started sharing our videos publicly:
Wobblerocket: just watched that first video! you killed it dude!
Rich the First Time DM: Thanks! Didn’t feel like 15 minutes because my brain was focused on talking and I had music in one ear.
Wobblerocket: That’s exactly what I find too — if I’m talking and thinking about my videos, I’m not focused on how much I’m hating the walk. lol. really helps make the time pass.
Exercising while talking about games seems to do something really interesting to the fitness motivation cycle. Exercising releases feel-good endorphins, but it only does that after you start exercising. You still have to get past the initial dread to get there.
Because our brains are already primed to enjoy gaming, talking about games while exercising bridges the gap until those endorphins kick in and exercise becomes enjoyable on its own.
Other gamers have hopped on board too. Magpie actually started working out while watching one of my streams and updated chat on his efforts. Indie TTRPG creators Reyes and Pasta Parade hopped onboard too.
Other gamers messaged me privately to tell me about how my posts had inspired them to start exercising, and some asked if I could put together a chat channel for #wobblefit accountability.
So the Wobblerocket Discord was born, with a dedicated #wobblefit channel. Although we’ve now added channels for music, learning, pets, and of course, lots of gaming discussion, the #wobblefit channel remains one of the most active.
Hit the link if you’d like to join the Discord: https://discord.gg/U6TCwCxhAA
The Flipside Of A Public Weight Loss Journey
Something else happened when I started sharing how I was using games to lose weight so publicly.
Everyone seemed to have their own advice to offer. My inbox and replies have been flooded with lots of tips, tricks, and advice.
This is something I expected, and I don’t mind it so much because I know they’re just trying to help, but a lot of that advice is contradictory or addresses something well beyond where I currently am.
It ranges from advice on how often I should be hitting the gym (“Aim to be in the gym 6 days a week!”) to managing macros (“Here’s an article on the optimal macros you should be hitting!”) to what and how and when to eat.
At this point, 6 days a week in the gym is simply not possible for me. The day after a gym day, I am absolutely exhausted. Part of that comes from the exertion it requires to get an incredibly obese body to move in ways it hasn’t moved in years.
Part of it comes from doing anything with a chronic illness like epilepsy, which causes fatigue just by virtue of the fact that brain likes to taser itself on occasion. (Incidentally, the meds that keep my brain from going zap-happy ALSO cause fatigue.)
There may come a point where I start hitting the gym almost every day, alternating muscle groups, but if I tried that right now, I’d quickly injure myself because my body just isn’t ready for that level of exertion.
I’m also not the least bit interested at this point in tracking macros. I’m not chasing optimal.
In general, I do try to eat more protein and good fats and try to limit my carbs. That’s as much level of detail as I have the mental bandwidth for at the moment.
Those things will probably come in time. I do plan on increasing my gym time once my body adapts to it. I will focus more on macros once my weight loss plateaus off and I need that level of detail to hit my goals.
Intermittent Fasting Is More Controversial Than I Expected
A fair amount of this advice has to do with my decision to use intermittent fasting and a one-meal-a-day diet. Several people have commented that I should instead be eating several small meals throughout the day, for various reasons – “So you won’t get hungry!” or “To boost your metabolism!”
Here’s a post on UCLA Health that weighs the pros and cons of eating several small meals:
When blood glucose levels drop, hunger and cravings spike. By eating six small meals per day, the thinking goes, you’re ensuring that blood glucose is available at all times. By controlling the trigger for cravings, you’ll eat less and won’t be as likely to give in to the siren song of that bag of chips or chocolate bar.
But does it work?
While the logic is solid, results have been mixed. Participants in a study who ate six small meals showed no metabolic advantage over those who ate three large meals. What did separate them from the three-meal group was that they reported higher levels of hunger and an increased desire to eat.
That last part is 100% something I experience. When I eat more frequently, I find myself distracted by hunger all day long. There is a persistent food noise that draws me to the kitchen looking for snacks.
I’m not new to different diets and eating patterns. Most fat people aren’t. I’ve tried a variety of diets over the years.
The decision to eat one meal a day is one I’ve come to from evaluating all the different diets and eating patterns I’ve tried over the years. I feel best when I eat one meal a day spaced 21-23 hours apart.
There’s a few challenges with it, of course. My meals need to be sufficient to provide my daily calorie needs and the timing is a bit odd. I eat earlier in the day now, taking my meal about 3:30-4:00 p.m.
Here are some of the things I’ve been eating: one night this week was steak fajitas and another was grilled chicken breast with lots of roasted veggies. Yesterday was scrambled eggs and bacon with black beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, and avocado.
Pretty much all of my meals are a combination of meat, beans, and veggies, but that’s how I eat most of the time anyway. The major change is that I’m just eating less often throughout the day and my snacking has dropped to zero.
My meals lean heavy towards protein and good fats, while limiting carbohydrates. I haven’t experienced many cravings for sweets (possibly because I feasted from a bin of leftover desserts just after Christmas 😬, so I’m kinda burned out on them.)
It’s Exciting Not Being Alone
Even if some of the advice is stuff that I have to disregard, it’s really exciting to see the messages, comments, and cheers from everyone in my community.
Weight loss is often a lonely endeavor. Being able to share my journey — the wins, the setbacks, the jokes — is a massive boost to my motivation, and it feels good to know that my quest using games to lose weight is inspiring others to do better things for their own lives.
I feel honored and blessed by my community’s generosity and that’s something I don’t think I can ever thank them for enough.
So here’s to 2025 and getting #wobblefit.
How You Can Support My Wobblefit Adventure
- Use the #wobblefit hashtag on Bluesky to share your own fitness goals and progress or to see my latest updates.
- Here’s a link to the playlist where I share all my Wobblefit YouTube shorts. Comments, likes, and shares of those videos really help keep me accountable. Be sure to subscribe to the channel! Another of my goals this year is to hit 1,000 subscribers. Right now I’ve got a little over 200.
- Join the Discord and use the #wobblefit channel.
- I regularly provide Wobblefit updates in my Monday newsletter, The Weekly Wobble. There’s a subscription form just below if you’d like to receive those updates along with cool TTRPG discounts.