Teen Drops 150 Pounds With Video Game-Inspired Diet

Taylor LeBaron weighed nearly 300 pounds when he was 14 and has lost half of that, thanks, he told the Today Show, due to a strategy he got from video games.

LeBaron told the Today Show that he tackled his weight loss as if he was confronting a series of enemies in a video game. In his case, the enemies were things like being idle, skipping key meals or experiencing stress. He also gave himself a currency to work with, calories that he classified as "money."

MSNBC explains a little more:

In devising his Ultimate Fitness Game, LeBaron calculated how many calories - converted to money - he had to spend each day. He set about going through a maze of rooms without running out of dough; for example, eating a cookie would cost him 200 points. Exercising upped his cash reserves.

LeBaron's program may not sound that much different than other exercise strategies, but if the model of pursuing weight loss as if it was a video game worked for him, more power to him.

More details on how LeBaron did it — and about the book he's promoting about it, "Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost One Byte at a Time" — at the link below.

Teen cuts size in half with ‘video game diet' [MSNBC.com / Today Show]