So a lot of apps employ the same psychology that casinos do. If you ever played mobile games I'm sure you've come across the games that give you a badge for hitting level 25! Good job, 5 more levels and you get a gold star! A lot of these apps are designed with fake achievements that give a small release of dopamine and it makes you feel good.
Now I personally have an addictive personality, and I have always had massive problems playing videogames for way too much time. I'm kind of lazy, and I started my weight loss journey (well restarted... For like the 5th time) at 345lbs (6'0) It's actually the biggest I've ever been. But I started thinking, taking inspiration from podcasts like JRE and other places, what if I used my biggest flaws to my advantage. Specifically my addiction to technology.
I've downloaded 2 apps that I love, and I'm open to reccomendations for other similar apps if you guys have any you'd like to reccomend. I have "Pedometer Step Counter," "Myfitnesspal" and "Pokemon go" now on my phone. See now I'm "addicted" to hitting 10,000 daily steps for step counter. I like keeping my daily calorie intake somewhere between 1200-2000 calories. And pokemon go rewards me every monday if I walk 50km in 1 week. And it's worked! In two months time I'm down to 309! That's ~36 lbs lost and all I've done is count calories and walked.
Here's the thing, if I didn't have these apps to log everything everyday I wouldn't be able to hold myself accountable. Now essentially my addiction to the apps holds me accountable. I'm walking between 10k-12k steps a day (previously I doubt I had many days over 4000) and I'm looking at the achievements like "Hiker badge" on the step counter app, 20k steps in 1 day. That is now a goal of mine for this weekend, I'm gonna hit 20k. I just got rewarded with a 13 day in a row badge (not sure why it was 13 and not 14) and much like snapchat snapstreaks I'm addicted to keeping this going so I don't break my streak.
I'm intending on, once I get a bit lower, adding another app, or maybe just creating an excel spreadsheet with my own goals and achieving them, but something for weight lifting. I am getting a used squat rack and bench press for my basement. I got to get a 45lb bar still but once I do I'll find some way to get myself addicted to getting streaks or maybe setting strength goals etc. But like I said, I'm gonna wait until I get to a bit of a healthier weight first.
I also plan on running a 5k by April next year, unfortunately, walking my daily 10k steps still makes my back a bit sore, and I definitely don't have the king capacity yet to get even close. But I have been able to jog 1 mile without stopping a few times since I've started this. Its time for me to find an app that requires me to either A run a mile every day or something like that to use to hold myself accountable with.
Thanks for reading if you got this far, and Please if you have some great apps you think I or others could be using like this drop them below!
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