The Biggest Change for My Well-being Yet

This blogpost continues from my last post, where I am taking what I've learned from a Hollywood icon and reworking my life into something that I can find happiness in.

My first takeaway was to let go of bad habits. So far, this has been going ok - I feel I need more time to reflect on the lasting effects this change will have.

Here's my second take away from Dick Van Dyke's life: Go to the gym.

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I've talked about it before: I hate exercise.

Physically exerting myself has never felt "good". I've done it before because you had to do it for school, or because I wanted to prove to people I was stronger than I looked.

The only middle school year I attended (I lived in the UK during my 7th and 8th grade years, so technically, I only went to 6th grade), I actually had to bike to a neighborhood a couple blocks over from mine to attend the middle school I wanted. They had a great band program, and that was important to me. My parents for some reason wouldn't drive me there - I suspect it was because they already had to drive my other sister to her middle school at the same time. So I had to get myself to the bus stop so I could attend the school I wanted.

Getting there was not bad: I lived in the middle of a fairly steep hill, so I raced down it in the morning so I could catch the bus on time. After the hill, the rest of the way was mostly flat, so not a problem in the morning.

The issue was getting home. I was a young person pushing my mountain bike up that hill in the sometimes hot, humid afternoons. It sucked.

And yet I did it for a whole year before we moved overseas - I suspect I really enjoyed the downward coast in the morning enough to trudge up the hill in the afternoon. I loved my friends, and I loved my school. And I think I sometimes got rides home from my friend that lived in the neighborhood I went to for bus pick-up.

I've talked about the "Seven" Summits UK trip on this blog prior to now; I know we weren't qualified to make that trip as we did, now that I look back. I learned some valuable lessons about not giving up that I am grateful for. But that was a painful physical excursion.

Even still, I did long-distance track after school in high school because it delayed my return home. I just didn't want to be home.

I figured out later that the reason was because I didn't want to be at home with my family. This was close to the time my parents finally separated, and maybe teenage me could feel that. So, in a way, the pain of physical exertion became more desirable than spending time with my family.

How sad is that?

When I left high school, however, I managed to keep up a sort of physical fitness "routine" by walking or biking around my college's campuses. The terrain was flat, thankfully, even if the effort to walk and carry a heavy backpack was a struggle.

And then I began noticing the after-effects of exercise: After biking in middle school, I had time to sit and recover on the bus before I was forced to sit in school. I could sit at home for a moment before doing homework after trudging up that hill in the afternoon. Not so in college. I did not like having a foggy brain from physical exertion when I sat down for class. The adrenaline rush and the sting from rushing air is just what happens when you exercise, and I wasn't a fan of those things anyway - but when I had to sit down and use my brain immediately afterwards, the strain from physical exertion was downright distracting.

I just felt like I couldn't think straight - it would always take me 5-10 minutes to calm my racing body enough to just be able to focus.

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I really stopped maintaining a "routine" once I graduated college.

Over the years, I don't feel like I've been restricted in any way - but I do realize that certain movements or exertions that were once easy, now require a little effort.

As depressing as it could be to realize I am getting older, I'm doing what I can to enjoy my life, and I'm even trying new hobbies that do require physical effort. Archery has been very fun, and when compared to other exercise, it's really not all that strenuous. It makes me feel powerful without exerting much effort.

But then there's Heavy fighting.

I've been enjoying it more than I ever thought I would: A few months ago, I bought a helmet from my local SCA Master in Blacksmithing. He made this helmet, and was looking to rehome it - when I placed it on my head, it fit so nicely, I snapped it up immediately! This helmet doesn't have metal grills on the front, which makes it feel lighter. And, I can flip up the front panel when I need a break without taking the whole helmet off.

The trade-off for not having a grill(and therefore a lighter helmet), is that there is more limited airflow. The steel sheet won't protect your face if there are too many holes in it, so the air holes are smaller and more widely spread out, for safety. If they were bigger with each hole next to each other, the face plate would crumble into my face from the impact of a sword blow. I had to take a moment to find my way to breathe sufficiently for fighting.

In November, I was able to find time to put it on my head, and my best friend, the Knight, was able to swing a sword at me. He didn't hit hard, it was more to see how well the helmet reacted to force, and so I could register a blow while also figuring out how to breathe.

Thankfully, breathing turned out to not be a hard problem for me to solve.

My first helmet was a good introduction to the reality of fighting - that you need solid head protection to stay safe. But I never felt at home in it. It felt 'perched', like it was in place, but only just barely.

The new helmet feels one with my head  - I was able to focus on my breathing, without being distracted by a helmet feeling loose on my head. It's really funny, because the Master who made it, made it especially for his own head. We must have similar head shapes! XD

With this, I truly feel like my Heavy kit is complete: it took under 6 months for me to go from owning nothing to now owning my own kit that feels good when I wear it.

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I am obviously VERY blessed for the short amount of time it took to get a kit that feels good - it can be very costly to buy a kit (or even single pieces) custom measured to your specifications. The alternative is to make your own armor. I have two very good friends who were able to find helmets that work for them, but made their own leather and lamellar pieces.

It took them over a year to make them to their specifications. And that was because they worked on them constantly.

Because it took such a short time for me, I am onto my next phase in my Heavy fighting journey:

Finding a way to Exercise.

.....

Lovely.

There are many health benefits for gym attendance - there are many mental benefits for gym attendance. Many people can find at least one reason to go to the gym that is beneficial for them in some way.

And yet I still hate it - nothing I have tried to tell myself in the past has gotten me to go to the gym yet.

As much as I don't like this, I am finding my own ways to combat this: Just as I've found my own reasons to fight, I had to find my own reason to exercise.

I found one of them - it came from a very silly place.

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Ever heard of Pokémon??? 😆

I believe I have talked a little bit about my love of Pokémon here before - if you weren't here for that, here it is:

I LOVE Pokémon.

I was introduced to the cards first, on the bus, in Kindergarten: A 5th grade student showed off his cards, and then asked if I wanted a Ponyta card. I grew up with horses, and was wild about them, so of course I said yes. I fell in love with the Fire Horse Pokémon (yes, that's literally its Pokédex designation) and then Pokémon in general, when I met a friend who was also crazy about them. We watched the anime, and played Pokémon Stadium mini games at her house after school.

When I moved a couple years later, Pokémon was out - it was all about Yu-Gi-Oh in the new place I moved to.

I did get into Yu-Gi-Oh, and I still have a collection of cards, some from my old collection, and some from new purchases. But I never stopped loving Pokémon. My first video game console was a Nintendo Gameboy Advance, and I got Pokémon Sapphire with it - I was 12. I loved playing the story, but I didn't know anyone else who played, and I was too afraid to ask anyone my age if they had a copy. With no trading capabilities, I eventually lost interest.

In high school, I knew a couple friends who got Diamond and Pearl on the Nintendo DS - I was very jealous. But Pokémon wasn't supposed to be cool, so I used that jealousy to "not like Pokémon". Still, I never got rid of my Pokémon card collection, and it miraculously survived moving across the ocean twice!

I didn't even tell my now husband when we were dating that I liked Pokémon - a part of me felt like I had to be an adult with no weird hobbies or interests. But he showed me how nerdy he was, and I shared a few of my nerdy interests, and he liked me anyways.

Still, it wasn't until 2015 (literally 3 years after we had known each other, with two of those being married) I asked him if I could buy a Gameboy Advance and four Generation 3 Pokémon games. I had to ask, because we were a newer-wed couple with a meager income and more important financial responsibilities - I asked to be considerate of our joint income. He said yes, and with that, I finally revealed how much I loved Pokémon. Since then, he has not only tolerated my love of Pokémon, he has enabled me to secure every Generation 3 Pokémon game, their consoles, the trading links and accessories for those games, several Pokémon card sets, packs, and singles, games, consoles and accessories for Gens 1, 2, 4 and 5, and even a Gen 7 game.

After 10 years of building my own Pokémon collection, you'd think I would be done. I'm not, but I'm also not willing to shell out RIDICULOUS amounts of money for used games and equipment (I'm glad I got Emerald before the Pandemic, but good luck if I can find Platinum or HeartGold today for under $100...)

Through various ways, I was able to purchase games and even receive a few as gifts in very sporadic and frugal ways, over the last 10 years - This post is not about how I get games, and it's not meant to make you worry about the money I spend in my hobby. Just know that I am as frugal and patient as I can be in my collecting.

The focus of this post is how I'm using this hobby to help me get physically active again.

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"But Isabel", you may ask, "How on earth are video games going to help you get active?"

Happy you asked, and even happier to tell you!

Once I realized I wanted to keep fighting, I realized I needed to solve the inactivity problem in as fun a way as I can. And I thought of Pokémon, because it's the funnest thing I love.

At this point, some of you are wise enough to think "Oh! She's going to utilize Pokémon GO!"

And you would be wrong! XD

I don't have Pokémon GO, or any other Pokémon mobile game on my phone. I see the danger of having something I love being too accessible - if I were to have Pokémon GO on my phone, I would LITERALLY do nothing else in my life.

That's why my husband has our Pokémon GO account - sometimes when we have time, he will drive while I catch Pokémon or swipe the Pokéstops as the passenger. It's fun. But again, it's on HIS phone, so I have one step removed from this addictive game.

We drive, because I don't want to walk around my neighborhood. Or my town.

I don't live in a dangerous area - the reason I don't like walking in my neighborhood is because every time I walk by a window, I feel like people are inside looking out at me.

What a silly thing to think, and yet, it's true - I don't like people watching me be physically active.

There's no body shaming involved here - I actually like my cute little body for the most part. I simply believe my body is for me and my husband to enjoy, and nobody else.

So being on the roadside in workout clothes for anybody to see makes me feel like my body is weirdly public.

The good news is that my husband has a gym membership, and has invited me to go with him to the gym. That's good for the weird 'public' thing I have, but Pokémon GO is not built for stationary play - it encourages people to explore their town, city or neighborhood in the name of being active.

And that's fine, but not a good fit for me.

Thankfully, there's a different avenue, utilizing older Pokémon technology.

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Ever heard of the Pokéwalker?

Don't go look it up yet, I can tell you what it is!

The Pokéwalker was released bundled with two Generation 4 DS games called Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver. These games are remakes of Generation 2's Gold and Silver games.

The Pokéwalker is a pedometer, if you can believe it - the goal was to play the DS game, then transfer one of your Pokémon characters to the pedometer. If you couldn't play the game, you could carry the pedometer, where steps would transfer into 'watts'. These watts could be used to unlock mechanics in the Pokéwalker, like access new areas, find catchable Pokémon, and find items. When you wanted to trade the Pokémon back to the game, all the items and Pokémon you caught would be uploaded to your HeartGold or SoulSilver save file.

This Pokémon page has more info if you're curious about the added benefits of the Pokéwalker to Gen 4 Johto games: https://pokemondb.net/heartgold-soulsilver/pokewalker

Pokémon has always been about going out into the world and sharing your love of the game with other people, but this was the first time Pokémon acknowledged the single player - those players who couldn't afford two gaming systems and/or games, or who didn't have siblings or friends that played Pokémon. This also released during a period of lower interest in the Pokémon franchise, so maybe this was a way to keep isolated players interested.

Regardless, Pokémon never released a pedometer again, or anything close to this, until Pokémon GO.

The benefit of the Pokéwalker is that it's not tied to the internet, or any cell network.

It works if you have a Nintendo DS, a copy of HeartGold or SoulSilver, and a Pokéwalker with a working battery.

It also doesn't make you explore - it just counts steps. And that's all I need to walk or run on a treadmill at the gym.

I've had a Nintendo DS for a few years now. And I was gifted a copy of SoulSilver in 2023, by a dear friend.

I was able to finally pick up a Pokéwalker a couple months ago - I couldn't find it second-hand for a price under $50, so I waited until the time arrived that I could get it without hurting our finances.

I was also able to pick up a Japanese copy of Pokémon Sapphire last year. 

Why is this relevant?

Long story shortened: I bought my Japanese copy so I could send it to a gamer on YouTube who completed a challenge I did not want to complete myself. They returned that game back to me a few months later, and my cartridge contains a prize that this gamer claimed and was gracious enough to send it to me. Once I got it back to me, however, I didn't think I needed that cartridge for much else.

But here's where part two of my plan comes into play.

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My first Pokémon I loved was Ponyta.

I still have that card I received from that 5th grader all those years ago. I couldn't tell you which one it was, because I have a few copies of that card in my original childhood binder.

We lost our first car in 2021- Frosty was our 2006 Hyundai Santa Fe that we loved for many years. It was our first family car. And we lost her as the Pandemic was starting to wind down.

I was very sad to lose Frosty, so I decided to shiny hunt Ponyta in Pokémon LeafGreen to make myself feel less sad.

"Shiny" Pokémon are monster characters with an alternate color palette. When they show up in the wild, or are thrown from a Pokéball, sparkles are seen with this altered sprite. The odds of finding a shiny Pokémon in any Generation 3 Pokémon game (including LeafGreen) is 1/8192. There are no ways to reduce the odds of finding a shiny in this generation, like you can in current generations of Pokémon games. It's a random chance, if you play the game normally, which means you could find it sooner than 8192 encounters, or much, much later. Each encounter has a 1/8192 chance, and that chance resets with each encounter.

I spent a couple days turning the game on for a few hours to hunt - on the third day I did this, I was sitting in my bathrobe, watching a YouTube show, when miraculously, there, on my Gameboy Advance screen, was a Shiny Ponyta!

I recorded myself catching it, it's on my YouTube channel.

I named it Frosty, after our car.

It's my favorite Pokémon I own right now.

But it's not perfect for battle, so it sits in my box mostly untouched (I did give it TM27, which is a move called 'Return': basically, if the Pokémon loves me, it will hit it's opponent harder. The power of friendship can be powerful - Don't judge me too harshly! XD).

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Two ways to increase shiny odds were finally created for Generation 4 Pokémon games: The PokéRadar, and the Masuda Method.

I've tried the PokéRadar method, and I'm crap at it. Maybe I'll try to revisit this another time, but for now, I have given up on radar hunting.

The Masuda Method was invented by Junichi Masuda, one of the Pokémon game developers. Basically, if you breed a Pokémon in your game, with a foreign Pokémon (a Pokémon not from your region; a common pairing is an American English Pokémon with a Japanese Pokémon) your odds for finding a shiny through hatching eggs was reduced from 1/8192 to 1/2048 odds in this Generation. It's still a random chance, if you play the game normally.

So my plan was, I was going to breed some Ponyta on my Japanese Sapphire save file, which would give them Japan as their country of origin. I would then transfer them up from Generation 3 to a Generation 4 game (I have the consoles and games to do it without needing another person to help), so I can utilize the Masuda Method.

And then fate changed that plan!

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A couple weeks ago, I was able to successfully RNG manipulate!

I'm NOT a computer person - if you really want to deep dive into what RNG Manipulation in the Pokémon world is, then please refer to this YouTube video:

https://youtu.be/4G_fWWnlKWg?si=mXogoSAIyzRHnp6b

I don't enjoy software science - I enjoy YouTube videos, typing on my blog, and surfing the web. The original process for making RNG manipulation happen was SO tiresome and confusing to me. But there is a fairly broken way to obtain shiny Pokémon if you upload a certain game save file within a certain time frame.

It's called the Cute Charm Glitch.

For some unknown reason, the software developers of Pokémon in Generation 4 games had a glitch where if you had a certain trainer ID and secret ID, carrying a Pokémon with the ability "Cute Charm"  at the front of your party would generate shinies of the Pokémon's opposite gender. It brings the odds of finding a shiny Pokémon down from 1/8192, to a mere 1/5 encounters - as long as the Pokémon are the opposite gender, and fall within a range of natures tied to the glitch.

I love shinies like any true Pokémon fan - but I'm not a fan of shiny hunting. I am super grateful when any pop up randomly in my journey, especially when a few in Generation 3 have, but shiny hunting can be long and tedious.

I know, because my Shiny Ponyta hunt was REALLY under odds - I've tried to find a shiny Charmander starter in FireRed in the past, and never found it. And I'm technically hunting a shiny Ditto in LeafGreen - that's an on-going hunt since I found Frosty, with no luck. So obviously, 1/5 odds is VERY appealing to me.

Last year, I had tried to RNG manipulate a save file for my Birthday on SoulSilver - I took most of that day to try it, and I downloaded the tools needed to help me do it. I very much wanted to spend my Birthday doing this, but I was not successful. I decided at that time that RNG manipulation was just not a skill I had. But last week, I decided to try it on a whim.

Loving shinies, getting a Pokéwalker, and deciding both would motivate me into getting physically active helped; being unemployed, I figured I had time to sit and figure out RNG manipulation over the course of a couple days, weeks, or even months, if needed.

This time, I didn't need to download anything: Someone had set up a website with all the instructions, and had built-in calculations for the Trainer and Secret ID save file data. They even had timers linked to the information I needed - with all this organized for me, I felt like I understood the process much better this time.

It still took a few tries, but after 6 -10 tries, I was staring at the save file I wanted for the Cute Charm Glitch.

I couldn't believe it! I had done a computer thing that didn't involve typing, or scrolling the internet! I felt powerful!

And then I felt it was too easy, so I attempted to RNG manipulate a shiny starter Chikorita.

This one took me 3 tries, and it shined on the third try!

RNG Manipulation takes time and dedication to learn, but is so broken once you get used to it. What I consider the best part about this save file is that you can 'turn off' the 1/5 shiny odds if you want to: I can just put my Cute Charm boy into a storage box, where it's not in my party, and the glitch is considered "off". That way I can train up my Pokémon without the fear of running into any shiny Pokémon.

That's how I found a full odds, 1/8192 shiny Kakuna on my RNG manipulated save file the very. next. day.

I posted my capture of this shiny to Reddit, and told people the circumstances of finding it - a few people there told me it was like the game was telling me I didn't need a Cute Charm Save File for shinies. How ironic! 😅

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I've been mulling over what I should do about shinies I find.

My plans keep changing, and I've continued to think over it so much, that I ended up finding ANOTHER 1/8192 shiny in Pokémon Ruby last week; a shiny Seedot.

Maybe I'll just use shinies that have meaning to me in the Pokéwalker; I am tempted to transfer my new Seedot from Gen 3 to Gen 4... Maybe my Kakuna (now a shiny Beedrill) and my shiny Seedot and my shiny Ponyta (when I find it) will be my gym buddies for the moment.

SoulSilver has access to Ponyta in the post-game content, so I am playing through the game to get my blue Fire Horse there. Having found a full odds shiny on this save once already, I am tempted to shiny hunt my horse with full odds, or even the Masuda Method (as I had originally planned) - but I'm glad I have a backup if that doesn't work within my time frame!

I want to start my workout routine after the holidays - in January.

Yes, it's very corny to start a life-changing thing at the start of the year, I know. I don't do New Years Resolutions because I think it's silly that there's only ONE time a year dedicated to making changes for yourself.

But this is not a New Years Resolution - this is a personal choice I am making to get my butt in gear and take care of myself. I know it will be uncomfortable for me.

I'm not going to start big - I plan to start small. Going to the gym every other day, in the morning (And yes, I even fixed a new alarm setup for myself so I get up with no distractions!), starting on the treadmill. I'm not even going to run at first! I need to make going to the gym fun first - then I will work on pushing myself.

I am hoping that accepting uncomfortable activity now, will help me bear the brunt of fighting for longer.

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I'm excited to see how the Pokéwalker changes my view on exercise.

I will not be taking it with me everywhere I go. I am only going to don it when I am going to the gym. I'm hoping that having a digital creature relying on me to walk around and get healthy in order to get bonus gaming content will be enough. But on the off-chance that it isn't, I have another plan to help me.

And you can read about it next when I post again later this week! 😊

Do you have a weird way to motivate yourself into doing something good? I would love to know that I am not the only one! XD

Please let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for reading - Until next time!

XOXOX