Who said gaming was bad for you?
Pokemon Go has sparked a quiet fitness revolution around the world,
getting gamers off their settees and out into the big wide world.
The app has only
just launched in the UK but already thousands of people are tearing around towns, cities and countryside looking for Pokemon to catch.
The augmented reality game, which overlays digital Pokemon over your real-time camera view, is devilishly clever in getting people more active without them even realising.
The more miles you cover, the more progress you make in the game. A stroke of genius.
But now more and more gamers are realising that it could be a serious fitness tool and are looking to use it to achieve their fitness goals.
You can burn more calories than you think by walking - it's easy exercise which taps into your fat reserves - and with Pokemon Go there's
a lot of walking.
Pokemon trainers on Reddit are walking anything up to 10km a day (6 miles) which is an incredible amount.
This Reddit user has set a goal of losing 3-stone in weight by October by just walking around catching Pokemon on a smartphone.
Using Go to lose 3st from PokemonGoFitness
After putting the fitness idea out to the crowd on the Pokemon Go Fitness subreddit and got some very reasoned responses.
Losing any amount of weight require a calorie deficit - so you're burning more calories than you're taking in from food.
The
NHS says a safe level of weight loss is around 1-2lbs per week. So on that basis shedding 42 lbs slowly and steadily could take anywhere between 21 and 42 weeks which would mean hitting the 3-stone mark in at least five months time (around Christmas).
Science says it takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose 1lb of fat - so that would be 500 calories down a day.
An average British man needs around 2,500 calories a day, so that would mean cutting down to eating 2,000 calories daily.
The best place to start is to find out how many calories your body needs just to maintain weight - you can check it with this
Mayo Clinic calculator which bases it of your age, height, weight an sex.
But exercise also helps give you a calorie deficit and so for an average British bloke (12st 6lbs) walking 5km every day chasing Pokemon, that's almost 300 extra calories burned.
It's not an exact science, but combine that regular exercise with a reduced calorie intake and some good whole foods, and the weight should start falling off.
