UFC Personal Trainer 30-Day Challenge – The Final Update

Welcome friends, followers, fellow gamers and fitness fanatics. This is the final tale of my journey to better health and a higher gamerscore. As those of you who have followed from the beginning will be aware I have been taking part in a challenge set by trade publication MCV in partnership with THQ. MCV called for games industry workers from all areas to set aside their differences and work towards a common goal destroy the opposition by bulking up the muscle and slimming down the fat with the aid of Kinect game UFC: Personal Trainer. UFC:PT uses MMA-based activities and routines to provide focused and rounded workouts with various programs available.

The past 4 weeks has been rough, there is no lie. Sweat, hardship and pub lunches all attempted to stop me in my path and destroy my goal. The past week especially has been difficult with illness forcing me to miss 3 of the 5 planned workouts. Today I am pleased to announce I have now made up for missed time and officially completed the 30 Day Cut Weight program (check my achievements list if you don’t believe me. My gamertag: aelincorp).

For 30 days I tackled T-ups, V-ups, sprawls and all manner of ferocious activities. Hardly being the healthiest of people to begin with I overhauled my diet and started extra weight training and cardio activities. For 30 days I gave up caffeine, alcohol, double bacon burgers and extra fries. This competition wasn’t without it’s smack talk – I wasn’t actively participating but you may have seen elsewhere Gamespot UK’s Johnny Chiodini and Ginx TV’s Neil Gorton attempting to one up each other.

1. Johnny Chiodini lays down the challenge
2. Neil Gorton kicks it up a notch
3. Chiodini responds in kind
4. Gorton sets the world on fire

Pity they’re wasting all that energy. The holiday is mine! We’ll find out who the winner is when everyone finishes at the end of this week.

Here are some posts from my fellow competitors: Guy Cocker, Greg Ellwood, Steve Hogarty, James Harvey and Neil Gorton.

The game itself isn’t perfect. Kinect’s tracking is a little iffy, to say the least, and frequently loses track of you during ground work. Sometimes it plain out refuses to register a rep. Other than that, UFC:PT holds up fairly well [though that’s a fairly crucial thing – Ed]. The menu system is well designed and there are plenty of different activities and programs to keep you busy, from quick 5 minute workouts to intensive 40 minute sessions burning hundreds of Calories. Of course UFC:PT has the added bonus of achievement points and rewards for completing set challenges. What better way to appeal to the heart of a gamer? Despite all its flaws I have enjoyed my time with the game and am now all too aware that I “don’t want to exercise cold muscles”.

I am now much healthier and much much fitter. My recovery time has decreased dramatically and activities that used to wear me out are overcome easily. V-ups have been mastered and sprawls dominated. Self-motivation was the most difficult part but after I got into a set routine of doing 2-3 hours of workout a day including long hikes and runs, it was easy to keep up. Having seen the results so far I plan to jump straight back into a new workout plan on Friday and keep going. I think I might be crazy.

This all brings me to the final weigh-in. Before I started the challenge I weighed in at 117 KG, a lot lighter than I had been but still not an ideal weight for someone with a sedentary lifestyle. I now fit into jeans 2 sizes smaller then I did before and my upper half is nowhere near as tight in my favorite tees. I am pleased to reveal that I now tally up at 107.5 KG – a loss of almost 10KG or well over a stone. To all those who followed me along the way, those who gave me the motivation to carry on through illness and pain and especially to all those who took part in the UFC:PT MCV Challenge, I sit here drinking a hard-earned cider and say thank you, congratulations and lastly… see you from Vegas.

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