Quick note. I had to take a few days off from the challenge this week. I tried adding weights to my fitness plan and I aggravated a medical issue I’ve had for the past year. So taking a few days to get back to normal (and ditching the plan for weights during the experiment).
Hoping to return to the VR Spin Bike on Monday, which mean only losing two days of Fitness work. Still tracking progress and sticking with my eating plan, so health has improved overall this week, but I needed a little time away from the bike and the cardio to feel better.
Today was a travel day down to Nebraska (where I’m writing tonight’s update). I wasn’t able to cram all 15 miles into my morning, but I got to 8.2, so that’s something at least. I also managed to get my Supernatural Cardio in (thankfully it was a shorter session today).
Taking the whole weekend off from workouts, since the majority of my gear is back in Minnesota (though I have a Quest 3 with me, so maybe I’ll squeeze in some cardio tomorrow if there’s time).
Another day out of sync, versus the pacing of the first week. We head out of town tomorrow, so it was a busy day wrapping up the work week, and getting ready for the road trip. So I had to bypass both minigolf and treadmill today. But I still managed my 5 mile bike, 50 jumps, and my daily standard stuff. Definitely missed the mark, but not by too much today!
Somehow I need to cram everything into the early morning tomorrow. We’ll see if I can pull that off.
Quick post tonight, as I was out most of the evening and don’t have time to think this through completely. Good Fitness Day. Did my cardio in the morning, since I knew I wouldn’t have much time in the evening. But I did have to do my 10 miles after dinner and cocktails. So that was fun. And for some reason I chose HIIT training for it, which can be kind of intense. But I tried a new course that was spectacular! You even bike through the Star Wars movie set at one point along the way! Not my favorite ever, but definitely high on the list.
Here are some screen images of the two courses I biked today.
Today was a wellness day (aka rest day, kinda). I added the cadence tracker to the Elliptical and it worked great! But 2 miles of Elliptical is NOT the same as 2 miles on the spin bike. I was running (pun intended) very hot!! So skipped my 20 minute walk on the treadmill today. I will have to ponder how to integrate the Elliptical into the routine in the future. But I prefer the Spin Bike for certain.
Otherwise a pretty normal Wellness Day. Tried out “Jump Rope Jacks” with the weighted CrossRope tonight. Did it with double jumping, so two jumps for every rotation. Takes some coordination, that somehow I managed to demonstrate in the cold garage!
That’s it for today. Back to Fitness tomorrow and a nice long bike ride.
For the purpose of simplicity, I am only counting weekdays for the FiTech count. So it will be 40 days total.
I had a rough weekend with eating too many jelly beans (tis the season). Went up a pound on the scale today, so that wasn’t a great start. But I didn’t overdo it today either. My old method would be to push super hard to make up for my “mistake”, but I dodged that bullet, and didn’t throw my back out. So we’ll call that a victory, no matter what the scale says. Wellness day tomorrow.
Welcome to our next experiment with virtual and mixed reality!! In the Fall of 2022 we did a two month experiment for “VR for Productivity” using exclusively Virtual Reality to see if such spaces could be useful in the workplace. The results were very positive, though never published publicly. Part of the reason for the lack of follow through with that first experiment was my own health. I have struggled for the past 1.5 years with various issues, and I’m finally at a point where I can begin to regain lost strength and get to a much healthier place. This task before me is daunting and I hate working out. But I also have a bunch of fitness tools in my house, so I thought it was a perfect time to do another experiment.
Combining “Fitness and Technology” gives us “FiTech”!! This one will truly be “mixed reality”, using the powerful full-color passthrough of the Meta Quest 3 in many instances. I am also pairing things like cadence trackers to my spin bike and elliptical to create synched VR experiences. So far it’s been going great!!
As I did with the VR for Productivity experiment, I will list the tools I am using. In the coming weeks I will include reviews of these tools, as I use them more often. These include hardware and software.
My home gym consists of a treadmill, elliptical, and spin bike. I have equipped both the elliptical and bike with a cadence tracker that allows me to link my physical movements with movement in virtual reality. I also have a CrossRope, which I use for jumping rope 5 days a week. I use a quarter pound rope at the moment, but also have a half pound rope option that I might switch to at some point. I also use a HydrateSpark smart water bottle to track water consumption, a Withings Scale and Blood Pressure cuff, and I use an Oura Ring for the majority of my metrics tracking. In addition to hardware I am using three pieces of software for VR Fitness. I use Supernatural VR for cardio boxing, Holodia Holofit for Cadence tracker Spin Bike and Elliptical, and Meta Browser to watch YouTube while walking on the treadmill. Finally I use the software NOOM for tracking calories and tying all my health metrics together. I might add more software during the experiment if it makes sense, but this is where things begin. (I also use a Quest 3 for VR exclusively)
Each week I will post my weekly summary of all activities and some health metrics to help show how these activities are impacting my overall health. Hopefully these numbers trend in a positive direction, but only time will tell.
I will modify these posts as it makes sense. This is just where we begin. These are changes I must make and I am happy to share this journey publicly, in hopes that my story might inspire others to take their health seriously, and to realize that Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality could serve as powerful tools for Fitness. Here we go!
Starting Point. I began the NOOM program 5 week ago, and only began introducing exercise this past week. I started out at 236 pounds (which makes me obese…). I also have a history of high blood pressure, averaging 136/95 with medication. My numbers have seen dramatic improvement since beginning the NOOM program. I start this phase of the experiment at 219 pounds, with an average blood pressure within a healthy range!! But there’s more work to do, as my weight goal for weight loss is 50 pounds!
Technically this is Day 7 of Week 1, I just only started tracking things formally on Monday. Over the weekend I will put together my full 7 day week totals and share both my exercise totals and my health metrics (things like BP, weight change, resting heart rate, etc).
It was a good first week of tracking. Seven weeks to go with this experiment of VR for Fitness!!
Today was a rough work day, and so I took a few extra laps around Venice on the Spin Bike to work out some feelings. Wrapped the evening playing a round of the Land of the Elves with my wife, which was relaxing. Almost done with this week. One day to go! A Fitness Day!!
I didn’t manage to get on the bike in the morning today, so I had to do all 15 miles after work, which was a lot. I broke up the VR into three different worlds though, so I didn’t get bored doing that same loops over and over again. And kept that techno blasting through my Airpod Maxes (strapped over the top of my VR headset). A good fitness day.
Carrier Pigeon XR 