Fair enough, but you could have sorted the stress and losing weight by actually doing some exercise, even a small amount per day.
I'm not having a go and its good thats it's helped you but thats a lifestyle choice that you could have done something about ages ago, you didn't need VR in your life (or to live your life in VR) to make that change.
Again its good that its helped, but you've pinned a lot on VR helping you where really it hasn't.
Hi, you are assuming a lot and you know what they say about the word assume it makes an ass of both U and Me
So let me give a little background info to better explain things, I am 46 and for the last 19 years I have been primary carer for my wife who is dying from an incurable illness, it is very slow and the only drugs which stop it from happening quicker cause side effects very nearly as bad as the illness itself, at the start she was able to do all the normal things we take for granted but as time has gone on this has meant me making "lifestyle" choices.
In the early days it was simple pay an electricity bill or visit her in hospital, keep up with the rent or take her to town on the one day out from hospital because the next day a treatment was starting that could kill her.
Lets just say my credit rating ended up in the dumpster lol.
Lets fast forward and as she got more disabled she needed my help 24/7 (I gave up my job and career to become a full time carer) at the same time so called friends stopped visiting and thus we became very insulated, even going to the shop for 15 minutes was some times too long away.
We all make choices and I am at peace with mine.
I used to comfort eat a lot due to stress (see below)
Stress well it slowly builds up inside everyone has it but then add this little scenario, that person you met who you fell in love with the first moment, who you never get sick of spending every moment with, that person who can debate you on the best episodes of Ds9 and who is also your best friend one day she faints on the way to college.
The doctor takes you aside and tells you "prepare yourself its going to be bad"
Your friends take you aside and tell you to leave her that you are throwing away your career and life (we were only BF and GF at the time)
They got kicked to the kerb and we got married in hospital
You watch as the person you are meant to be with goes through so much pain and suffering, you watch as at 23 she needs a cane to walk and her leg muscles begin to waste away and she still smiles and you can't fix the one thing in the universe you know you need to.
Tick tick tock time goes on and you deal with it, you make sure she smiles every day and you do everything you can to allow her to have some sort of life.
Then the universe seems to think you do not have enough to deal with so the one person who has been with you from the start and supported you, your mum (her family disowned her when she got ill it didn't look good) is diagnosed with dementia and the other amazing woman in my life is now a child.
Rational tells you one thing but your heart tells you another and the self hatred starts when you see yourself failing those most important to you.
Computers and gaming have been the saving grace for us both, we can explore universes together and apart do things we can never do in real life, we may never be able to do something as simple as walk to the local shop together but we can instead team up together in EVE or explore a new MMO.
But some times the stress gets to you and you know what is good for that ? good for all that anger and frustration, turn on the VR, load up Zombie simulation, HordeZ or Pirate trainer and for 30 minutes to a couple of hours it all goes away, the immersion level of these games means I can completely let go (wife has me on skype and phone + knock so if needed I can be out of it in seconds).
Games without VR are okay but it is like you are looking inside through a window, games in VR you are in the game.
Now as for weight loss, over the last 10 years I have tried many times and I get down from 20 stone to 15 stone and then a bad hospital visit, a bad week or and it all gets lost in the mess.
Now remember I play games a lot, I love games, now every game I play is building up a sweat, is cardio, and it in on way feels like work, its fun, its kick ass and it feels better that a 5 mile jog (I was in training for the stoke half Marathon, my mum used to look after my wife while I did it).
I am not the only one who thinks this, I said about VR parties, a couple of friends visited over the weekend, they are heavily into martial arts, both of them healthy and with good stamina (they are training for ma contests) 30 minutes on Pirate training dodging and ducking plus others like Thrill of the Fight gave them a work out like the best stuff they do out in the so called "real world".
VR has made one hell of a difference, I stand by my post.