Xbox Fitness Challenge Kickoff

For those who don’t know, Xbox Fitness was a free app that was launched with the Xbox One that took advantage of the system’s Kinect peripheral to track the user’s movements and grade how well they were following the exercises and provide helpful advice on how to improve. Users earned Fitness Points for each exercise done, and completing certain challenges rewarded users with stamps that helped them earn new fitness cards. It’s a bit of a convoluted system, but the key takeaway is that Fitness Points generally measured how much a person worked out while stamps were more like rewards that were gained only for doing specific things. The idea was to motivate people to compete against their friends and constantly improve their personal best. It was a good idea, but apparently not a popular one because earlier this year Microsoft announced that they were retiring Xbox Fitness in June of 2017. There has been a lot of digital ink spilled online over what this means about the future of digital content and gaming consoles in general.

This will have nothing to do with that.

No, this is about the challenge that I have undertaken. A quest to try to get as many Fitness Points and stamps as possible before Xbox Fitness is shut down for good.

So what are the specifics of this challenge?

  1. Fitness Points: This one is simple. I’m in a straight up competition with fellow Discourser Andrew to see who can acquire the most Fitness Points before the shutdown. I currently have a lead of just over 2 million Fitness Points. I estimate that if I can average 1.5 million Fitness Points a month, I’m in good shape.
  2. Stamps: This one is a little more complicated. There is an achievement to get Fitness Card 100. I’m currently on card 38 and I estimate it will take an average of 18 stamps to advance a card. This amounts to something around 140 stamps per month, 4.5 per day. That’s a lot, and it definitely feels like a stretch goal, but there are milestones on the way so I’ll be pushing for those if getting to card 100 seems out of reach.
  3. Body Metrics: Pure numbers. I’ll be tracking my weight, body fat and muscle mass, with the intention of improving across the majority, if not all of them.

xbox_fitness_beforeStarting metrics:

  • Weight: 192 lbs
  • Body Fat: 20.2%
  • Muscle Mass: 37.7%

Of course, no workout plan is complete without a diet plan to complement it. I don’t have any specific diet I plan to follow, but I do plan on logging all my meals (and workouts) with MyFitnessPal to assist me in keeping my total net calories under 2,200 a day, with at least 25% of my calories coming from protein and no more than 45% of my calories coming from carbohydrates. It’s certainly an ambitious goal, and my past history indicates I’ll fall a bit short, but the only goals worth pursuing are the challenging ones, right?

The plan is to check in every month until the challenge ends. And because no discussion of a workout challenge is complete without a pathetic looking before picture, I’ve included one on the right.

See you all in 30 days.

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Paul Essen
Founder and Chief Discourse Officer at Rampant Discourse
Proud geek. Trekkie. Browncoat. Entil'Zha. First human spectre. Hokie. Black belt. Invests Foolishly. Loves games of all types and never has enough time to play as many as he wants. Libertarian who looks forward to the day he votes for a winning presidential candidate. Father to two beautiful daughters.

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