Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

I apologize, but today's (Monday's) post will be up tomorrow (Tuesday). It just took too long to put together, and... well, I really had to go on that Heroic UB run before I wrote it. Rhese didn't give me a choice. He really wants his Earthwarden, and you know that joke about where bears sleep? Well, it goes for when bears instance run, too. Any time they want to!

I have been working for hours, though, so I promise that the post will be well worth the extra time. Please bear with me, and check back soon. :)

Your humble host,
~Rhoe

Stat-Balance the Human: Snacking Well-Fed

Before I get into today's post, there is one thing that I want to make competely clear. I am not a nutritionist. I haven't been trained in the metabolic process or the roles of the various vitamins and minerals in your body's vital systems. What I have done is read, experience, live and learn for the past *cough* many years about what is recommended, what was recommended, why things changed, how judgements were made, and who says what about nutrition. Let's face it - there have been a lot of voices in the choir about all things dietary over the last decade or two, and I've found that it's toughest to choose who to believe and who to ignore. Thus, I've kind of mixed and matched and formed my own opinions on the larger 'plans for eating right'.

So these are my thoughts and my suggestions based on experience, common sense, and research. In that order. My hope in presenting them is that you'll read, consider, and then maybe go do your own research into what makes sense to you. See if you can agree with me.

The Well-Fed Concept:

'Eating well' is the name of the game - not just eating, not just 'too much' or 'too little', but truly eating what your body needs and can use and avoiding the things that it is not designed to handle well. That's what I call 'eating well', and it should be a lot easier than it is!

... but really, it's so difficult. In the interests of economics, portability, and an eat-on-the-run modern mentality, the food that is easiest and cheapest to obtain often falls completely outside the realm of what is desirable to your body. Oh, sure. It's all 'eating', and it can make your stomach and your taste buds happy (mmm... pizza ... :D), but what is it putting into your system that you don't want? That you can't process? That affects your mood or your blood chemistry?

By now, I think everyone has seen or read some sort of documentation on the horrors of a fast-food diet and just what goes into fast food. I'm not going to beat that dead horse. I'm not going to tell you to boycott Burger King or avoid McDonalds like the plague. I'm not even going to tell you that burgers are the devil and french fries are little railroad ties on the train track to an early grave. We're not in the business of overdramatizing, here. I just want to encourage you to eat as smartly as you can and know what you're eating. You deserve to be healthy, and I think that with a few suggestions and some facts under your belt, you can take a simple, important step toward being just that.

What is that step?

Eat 'au naturale'.

If I had to sum up what's wrong with 9/10ths of the convenience food that we all (Americans or not!) eat, I would do it like this: It's fake.

Flashy, chemical preservatives. Color-enhancing additives. Oodles of strange sodium constructs to cover the other odd flavors. Processed flours. Processed sugars. Artificial flavors, textures, and scents. These types of things inundate the food we consume from restaurants and from groceries. Take a look at the back of your next pack of crisps and Google every ingredient you don't recognize. Are you sure you want that stuff in your body?

I know I don't. That's why I try to pick up simple, natural foods and avoid all the crazy chemicals. If I can't pronounce its name, I'm pretty sure my stomach won't know what to do with it. Sure, it's not a hard and fast rule, but you'd be surprised by how many of those bifurcated whoseewhatsis chemicals have nothing whatsoever to do with me or you getting sustenance from what we eat.

Snacking Well-Fed:

"Okay, Rhoe. That's great," you say, "but this is a gaming blog. You're supposed to talk about World of Warcraft and fun stuff like that."

True. I want you, as a player sitting in a chair behind a large, bright screen, to be healthy. And I know as well as you do just what influences World of Warcraft and its ilk can put on your life. Food often comes below raiding. Below farming mats for consumables. Below dinging 53. Below tanking that UBRS run. You're hungry, but you have two minutes until the next big thing hits in-game, so you need to grab something super-quick.

That's not necessarily bad. Some experts recommend eating 5 "small meals" a day instead of our standard three. I think that makes a lot of sense from a metabolic standpoint, but the fact is that it's still enough under debate that you should work out what's best for you. Me, I feel better if I eat about four 'snacks' a day and then one reasonably-sized meal (dinner for family time, really). Because of that, I'm always hopping up from the game to go grab a bite of something.

I want to share some ideas for that super-quick snack that are my favorites. I like natural, flavorful, but simple. Take these ideas and the guideline of 'no artificials' and play with them. Find your own snacks with ingredients you can recognize, and tastes you will appreciate on a daily basis. Healthy does not equal yucky. That's a myth of epic proportions, and I hope my snacks will prove that to you:

• 
  Baby Carrots - I eat mine plain, because I love fresh carrots. A handful of 5 or 6 of these little babies will always quench that little hunger bug. If you like a little extra flavor with yours, I recommend a really simple dip made from plain yogurt and a ranch dressing mix (such as Hidden Valley Ranch's powdered Ranch mix). Take ten minutes to mix it up, and you can store it in the fridge for a week. Best of all, you can grab, dip, and munch between pulls and still have both hands free for pwnage when the next mob is pulled.
  
  
• Celery and Peanut Butter - Well, of course you can eat just celery, but even
  
  I find celery sticks alone to be... rather boring. And we're talking about the person who can eat plain rice very happily. Thus, I recommend eating celery sticks with a little dollop of peanut butter. Not only is it tasty, but a good, organic peanut butter has great nut proteins and a large percentage of unsaturated fats as well as vitamin E, niacin, phosphorus and magnesium. In moderation, it's a beautiful supplement to celery, which has very little flavor of its own. As an added bonus, there are some common snack-pack products out there that give you a handful of celery sticks with a little dip-pouch of peanut butter. Read the label and see if you can live with the inevitable preservatives in these, but remember that even baby steps are still steps towards nutritional eating.
  
  
• Fruit and Dairy - Personally, I use Dannon All-Natural Vanilla yogurt as a dip for my fruit when I don't want to eat it plain (which, honestly, I usually do), but you can also use plain yogurt for a less-sweet alternative or even cottage cheese. These are great little snacks because you can get a huge variety of tastes by varying the kind of fruit you pair with your dairy product du jour. Want a bit of crunch? Add some granola to make it even better!
  
  
  
  Best of all, you don't need to keep fresh fruit on hand. I've recently fallen in love with Dole's Plastic Fruit Jars for the ability to eat however much I want, then screw the lid on and save the rest for next time. There's no need to feel like I need to eat an entire can or wonder if that old can with the foil over the top is going to reach up with moldy fingers and bite me when I open it. Even better, the ingredient list on one of these babies is short, sweet, and completely recognizable. Neither Dannon nor Dole sullies the mix with additives or preservatives.
  
  
• Veggie Chips
  
  - Veggie chips are a great alternative to the usual potato chip. There are sort of two 'types' of veggie chips, though, and you will want to know the difference. The original and authentic veggie chips were lightly salted, flash-fried vegetables that are most often available in the bulk aisle at your local grocery or health food store. As such, they have some fat and sodium content, but it's a small amount when compared to potato chips. Also, they retain a lot of the vitamins and minerals and the unique flavors of the vegetables.
  
  Also in the 'veggie chips' category are flour based, vegetable-flavored chips that have more of the consistency of potato chips. They are still lower in fat and sodium content than products like Doritos and Lays, but they lack a lot of the natural vitamins and minerals from true veggie chips. They're less authentic, but still a good alternative. What you can find depends on your grocery and your region and sometimes the phases of the moon, so you need to take every product to the firing range and check its ingredients and nutritional information before you judge it fit for consumption. Because my local grocery doesn't carry true, fried veggie chips, I like to get the Jensen's Orchard variety. Just remember, every kind of veggie chip is a little bit different, so if you don't like the first ones you try, that doesn't mean you won't like the second.
  
  
• 
  Rice Cakes - You're groaning; I know. I'm here to tell you that rice cakes don't deserve their reputation, any more. Sure, if you get 'plain' rice cakes, they are a little bland, a little dry, and a lot of BLAH. Not many people get plain rice cakes for a good reason, but Quaker and other manufacturers make some great, flavorful variants that are completely worth checking out. Flavors like Apple Cinnamon and Chocolate Crunch make great banes for a sudden sweet tooth, while Cheddar Cheese and Buttered Pop Corn have that nice, salty tang that makes you crave potato chips. Even the men in my life are willing to admit that the Quaker Rice Snacks I get are worthy of the name food. I'm betting you'll be surprised, too.
  
  

It's just a start, but here we have five different snacks that are really just themes for you to explore. Think natural. Think fresh. Think about the foods that your human body was made to consume instead of the crazy stuff we've adopted in this modern day. Next time you're in the grocery, hit the produce section first and skip the soda aisle. Look for snack packs or pre-cut fruit containers. Check out your options in the canned fruit and veggies aisle. Snag some yogurts and other dairy products to use in moderation as your dips and sauces. You can absolutely bring healthy snacks back with you that won't interfere with your play time but will satisfy your cravings.

So, these are my solutions. What are yours?

Back After These Important Messages!

Today is a very important day in my husband's life. It only comes once a year, so I am required by contract to coddle and spoil him all day. That doesn't leave time for blogging. I'll be back with an off-schedule entry later this week to make up for it.

In the meantime, please enjoy a moment of graphical zen that I've retrieved from my screenies folder for your viewing pleasure:

Stat-balance the Human 01: It's a Sedentary Life

Look. Let's face it. The gaming lifestyle is not exactly friendly to the human animal's body. Your character may be faster than a speeding hippogryph, more powerful than an enraged gronn, and able to leap tall zeppelins in a single bound, but you are probably something shy of a Man (or Woman) of FelSteel. After all, you're not quite spending your time working out, eating right, and relaxing away stresses while you're doing all these digital works of wonder. In fact, if you're anything like the average gamer, you're probably practicing poor posture, leading a typically-modern sedentary lifestyle and actually adding to your stress level by involving yourself in tense situations and (perhaps) some digital-social drama. I know. I do it, too.

You don't even have to be overweight. You could be Olive Oyl's long lost twin, but you may still be dangerously unhealthy. After all, physical health and well-being require so much more than a boney butt, a strong mind and witty reparté to share over voice chat. They require a balanced caloric flow, regular exercise, careful nutrition, a solid mental state, and a certain amount of ... well, not to sound too Zen about it, but a certain amount of periodic cleansing in both the literal and figurative sense. Mind and body both should remember the last time they had a bit of a wash. Meditation (or whatever you call a few minutes of peace and quiet and reflection) and showers are must-haves for any cool gamer.

Yes, that's right. Cool gamer. Times have changed, my friend.

Still, the human body remains the human body. Society may accept that your 4 hours in Zul'Aman are truly a worthwhile expenditure of time and your PDA is actually sleek and stylish instead of geeky and unnecessary, but your thyroid isn't going to kick it up a notch just because Nalorakk drops purples you reallyreally need. It's a stubborn little organ; I hear that convincing it to make that kind of adjustment can take generations and a liberal application of natural selection. So, I submit to you that you would probably be better off just doing what you can to work some good, healthful habits into your sedentary life.

The reality is that if we aren't attentive (or very lucky*), these poor mental and physical health habits will start to turn us into the Stereotype.

What Stereotype? Here. South Park illustrated it for you just perfectly:

Southpark DVD cover - Season 1 Normal little South Park kiddies

--->>

Southpark DVD cover - Season 10 Fat, greasy little WoW-playing South Park kiddies

We weren't designed for this modern lifestyle, so if we want to be able to live it well, then we need to understand how to incorporate as much of what we were designed for as possible. I don't know about you, but I want to maintain a healthy, active body and mind and still be able to get my video-game on. :) But where can we adjust our habits to help take care of our weight, our wellness, our muscle mass, our skeletal structure, and even our mental state? What does a gamer's lifestyle already have that we need? What does it lack?

What we have:

1. Mental Intellectual Activity: You and I are already exercising our brains when we game. We are strategizing, analyzing, and problem solving as we optimize our play via spell rotations, gear sets, talent points and many other game mechanics. Running, jumping, jinking, hiding, and getting up on that darn fountain in Stormwind are improving our hand-to-eye coordination and our three-dimensional spatial recognition. Raids, pets and even chat channels are exercising our mental capacity for handling multiple tasks at once. Depending on who you talk to, we might even be forwarding our careers via the social contacts we create. (It's an ongoing argument.) We're giving our brains, our intellectual thought centers, constant growth and endurance training.
   
   
2. Global Social Interaction: Modern games very often involve some sort of inherent or optional multiplayer functionality, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the MMO genre. World of Warcraft, like its predecessor MMOs, relies on its multiplayer content to enrich and enliven the in-game world. More than that, though, its global popularity makes it arguably the most interesting and unique social opportunity the world has ever seen. Where else can you meet and foster real-time activity-oriented friendships with people who live hundreds, thousands, even tens-of-thousands of miles away? It's not just text chat, any more. It's play style. Voice. Guild-inspired social dynamics. The only thing we're still missing is body language and ... maybe smell? :P

What we lack:

1. Physical Activity: Obvious? Oh, yeah. We all know that sitting for four hours on our butts in front of a Karazhan raid, clicking and typing and maybe jawing on our voice chat program isn't exactly going to make us lean, mean fighting machines in real life. There's nothing to work out those biceps, triceps, delts and quads, and there's certainly nothing in there to get the old heartrate up to aerobic levels. (Unless you're practicing questionable activities in the Deeprun Tram (PG-13 language)?** Or maybe you just get really, really into your PvP (PG-13 language)?)
   
   
2. Nutritional Eating Habits: Let me give credit where credit is due. I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who do eat right. Kudos to you! I submit, though, that the lifestyle doesn't do much to encourage it. We grab snacks (often fatty, well-processed snacks) and yoink them into the computer room, munching while we play without paying attention to how many / how much / how crumbly***. Meals get skipped in favor of "just one more run" or get inhaled because the party is waiting. Fast-food is always an attractive dinner option when you're rushing home from work or school to make raid. These little dietary faux pas add up quickly and become blind habit far too easily.
   
   
3. Introspection: If that doesn't sound like something you need for a healthy lifestyle, then let's try some different words. Meditation. Mental Self-examination. Emotional Cleansing. Hey, it's just "me time". You do need some for your emotional well-being, and I'm becoming pretty convinced that the quality of introspection you get while you're autoshot-grinding CE rep mobs is just not sufficient. Games - especially MMOs - encourage a rush from one activity to the other. Play downtime is frowned upon, and I think that has become so engrained in us all, that we sometimes forget that personal downtime is so important.
   
   
4. Informed Interpersonal Relations: "Informed" because as wonderful and diverse as our game-based relationships may be, they are missing some critical communication tools. Body language. Facial expressions. All the visual clues that inform us about intent, sincerity, depth of emotion, and even more animalistic things like physical appeal and compatibility. In this day and age, these are not requirements for friendships and fledgling relationships, but I do think it's very important to remember what you are lacking as you get to know someone in an online environment and know how that might effect your perception, his / her perception, and others' perceptions of your relationship.

In future Stat-balance the Human articles, we'll take a deeper look at each of these areas with the goal of helping us all avoid South Park's Stereotype and keep our mad pwning skillz. Knowing our lifestyle's weaknesses is a start, but we're going to discuss some ways to correct or at least minimize their effects. I've got some tricks and tips for snacking smartly and eating right, getting into the little habits that add up to big muscular and skeletal benefits, working exercise into our gaming day, facing what's going on inside our emotions and avoiding repetitive stress. There's plenty to share, and hopefully you all can bring some other good advice to the table!

Until next time...

* Congrats, you lucky few! We want to mug you for your metabolism wish you all the best in your continued, impenetrable skinniness.
** Please don't. Ew.
*** Alas. Many the keyboard has regretted the crumbly snacks.

Intro: The Author

We writers are masters of disguise. I'll just bet you didn't know that. It's a well-kept secret in our world, but it's so critical to what we are, what we do. We put on faces like hats, taking on many different identities in order to express ourselves and our purposes through these little pixels that you read as words. Language. Our nifty little brains twist and turn until we are what we're writing, and we imbue every ounce of identity that we can create on all kinds of wild and wacky persons, places, and things. On bad days (or are they extra-good days?), we can get very, very confused by it all. :)

Because of that, I can't tell you who I am in just a few stats and sentences. No, especially for this eclectic and rather schizophrenic journal, I need to tell you who I am in pieces, give you the parts of my identity that you're going to hear from in the various entries. And because I am a being who loves efficiency, I am also going to use this as an excuse to introduce you to my organizational tool - color coding.* I want to let you know at a glance whether the entry you are looking at is fiction, philosophy, or fact. No guesswork involved for my audience, nosirree!

So meet Rhoelyn in all her incarnations and appearances. She and I** are looking forward to sharing our thoughts, our lives, and our adventures with you, and I hope we'll inspire you to share the same with us. :)

./who AC Bamblett

Age: 25 years
Gender: Female
Day Job: Designing Casino Game Cabinets
Creed: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
Likes: Creative expression, philosophizing on the mundane, eating chocolate, not LOOKING like you eat chocolate, and cuddly cats.
Dislikes: Math, closed minds, impolite people, chaos, and tentacled overlords of evil that are bent on the destruction of all life.
Phobias: None, but arachnids are gross, icky, and horrible.

Overview:

I fought hard to not play World of Warcraft.

Surprising, isn't it? I knew that the game was going to be an impressive synergy of fun play, an intriguing world, and measurable goals. I knew I'd love it. I knew I'd want to explore it fully and thoroughly and (in all likelihood) repeatedly... which is precisely why I didn't want to play it. I knew it would be a huge time sink and a good time that I simply wouldn't want to resist. My only chance was to never even set foot in that huge, immersive world.

Needless to say, I failed in my attempt to avoid it. My husband turned those lovely, blue eyes of his on me, asked politely (and repeatedly for about 2 months), and I caved. I crafted a toon, dreamed up a name, logged in and was lost. I'm still lost, and to add irony to injury, my husband stopped playing about 6 months ago. So here I am, 3 years and 8 alts later, still rushing home after work to make raid, still geeking out on a daily basis about spell damage, talent trees, and guild e-drama, and still researching Lore on my lunch break. He just laughs at me, an evil kind of 'look how I've corrupted you' laugh.***

Involved as I am, though, I still fight the pull of the game long enough to find occasional time for my other activities. Goodness knows, it's not enough, but then my list of interests is about five miles long and three feet deep. Two lifetimes and an extra century could quite possibly still not be enough. I do what I can, treading carefully to try to find time for writing; art; fantasy, sci-fi, and romance novels; arts and crafts; home improvement projects; friends; pets; web design; decorating; and sports around the immense time sink that is this wonderful, fascinating game. I share information about these hobbies and the more personal side of myself as vayenne on Livejournal, but part of this blog will be sharing WoW-related art, fiction, news, and crafts from other artists as well as myself. It's part of making the game a larger experience, and I just love to see how it inspires and motivates all of us outside of Azeroth.

That's why I know that I'm going to have fun with this journal. By spending time here, I will get to geek out about WoW as well as polish my writing, explore my love of creating and appreciating art, nail down all those philosophical ponderings that the intricate social situation of an MMO spawns, and also pass along the knowledge and interesting information that I have gained, both in real life and in the game. It is my most fervent intention to do this in a way that will be educational, amusing, and interesting to all of you, but I hope that you will feel free to tell me whether I am succeeding or failing. I am always open to questions, suggestions, critiques or even guest content. Feel free to leave me comments or notes at any time!

The Gyst: Author-posts are from me, the person behind the words - that real, live being whose fingers are tappity-tapping away at the keyboard right this minute. Journal entries in 'Default Teal' will be about the real-life influences and consequences of World of Warcraft, helpful hints for treating your body with the same care you give to your toon, and the philosophy of the virtual world's reflections in the real world. Here is where you will find social commentary, mental and physical health and wellness advice, guild information, and real-world news related to Warcraft and other gaming.
______
* Ah, who doesn't love a good bit of color?! (Apologies to the color-blind, but I'm 1/2 artist. I couldn't do without my chartreuse and cornflower blue.)

** See? Told you it gets confusing for me, at times. :P

*** Lesson to learn, here? Men are evil. The truth is out...