In the last couple of days, I had the opportunity to reflect on my current situation. To be honest, it is great! I am in the perfect position to start this journey and actually become the authority in esports. I turned my life upside down, went from obese to fully shredded, started a job, added another job, got promoted, started to save money and invested it wisely. All of it within the last 4 years. I believe that these things are necessary. Pillars which serve as a strong foundation to live a worthy life and be able to achieve more. Physical strength, mental strength, financial independence, a partner you love, family and a home you built with your own hands. Some of these things I still want to accomplish. Nevertheless, I learned the most important lesson already. Patience.

Success doesn’t come over night. It requires daily effort and decisions. Once I integrated workout, saving money and the job into my life, I put it on autopilot and keep doing it without complaining or asking any questions. I know it is required. People at work think I am insane for doing so many hours. It is hard physical work, but I like to be active. It soothes my mind and I also love to make my own decisions, which happens quite often. Though, one challenge appeared. I realized the day only has 24 hours. This makes it extremely tight to produce any content on social media or building an esports related organization to conquer the industry.

In the past I uploaded gaming videos and gaming guides. I can’t do this anymore, at least not as frequently as I used to, because it requires also a lot of playing time to figure out what works and what doesn’t. In general, I only have 5-10 hours per week available for this new project. What is crystal clear to me, I have to decide between being a gamer or being a content creator. I never thought I say this, but at 41 years, this decision is pretty easy. I have to become a content creator first. When I think about it, it is also not that unrealistic. Instead of putting in the hours to play, I have to put in the hours to lead other people. With this approach I can build at least something and leverage the time and passion of others. I don’t know which of the following things makes the most sense: esports organization, hosting esports tournaments or something completely different. But I will figure it out through patience, discipline and brave decision-making.

I give myself 18 months to build a social media foundation. I commit to learn as much as I can about it on my own, because I believe making my own experiences outweighs watching other people’s journeys. What I want to do is also pretty unique. You gotta be a little crazy to even think about starting such an endeavor. I enlisted into a course to learn the basics about making films. I even asked the artificial intelligence Grok to analyze my astrology placements and help me to find the correct form of content I should produce. With Pluto in the 1st house in Scorpio I am a Pluto dominant person. This makes me pretty intimidating. Transformation, depths and truth are my main traits and motivation. With Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune in the 3rd house in Capricorn, it favors clear and structured communication with a touch of dreaminess. My Venus and Mars in the 5th house of Pisces make me a strong competitor, but not so much against others and more against myself.

Grok says, I should focus on YouTube, X and Instagram in this order and leave TikTok completely out, as it doesn’t match my style. I should use Twitch rarely, and surprisingly not for gaming, but instead for IRL or Just Chatting streams. Each platform favors a different approach. Personally, on YouTube I spend the most time. Mainly to learn something or to listen to long music mixes. Learning here can be very different. From financial channels which teach me all about stocks, resources and blockchains over to small channel sports documentaries with high production quality. In the end there are editing techniques to keep me hooked and I have to learn all about them. X on the other hand is news driven now with a lot of rage baiting posts. In order to become relevant on this platform, I have to acquire a lot of knowledge about the esports industry. The more I know, the more my word matters. And last but not least Instagram. When I scroll through reels and random searches, I get bombarded with posts of young women showing their racks and car accidents. Instagram used to be a platform to share your lifestyle. Traveling, food, fitness, cars, actually all the stuff most people only dream about. Over the years, posts drifted more and more into sensation seeking. It will be tough to build an audience here, especially as an introverted gamer. Nevertheless, I enjoy this challenge. Writing you about my thoughts also helps me to reflect on my own opinions to have a clearer vision in which direction this project will go.

Thank you!

My parents bought their first PC in 1997 or 1998 I believe. They locked it with a password to limit my time. In 2000, I bought my first PC for DM200 (~€100) from a schoolmate. The machine was totally outdated, but I opened it up and it helped me a lot to understand how a computer works. In 2001, I tried to build my own Gaming PC, but I made a mistake. I tried to run a Pentium CPU on a Celeron motherboard, both used the same socket. This got fixed with the help of a local computer store. I played countless hours THPS 2 and Diablo 2 on it.

When I bought World of Warcraft, I needed a new machine. This time I went for a Laptop and it lasted 3 years before falling apart. Then I bought another PC in 2008, but a couple years later in 2011 it had a problem I couldn’t fix at the time. So I bought the cheapest replacement on the market, something for less than €500. This PC had also so many problems and when Diablo 3 got announced it rebooted out of nowhere. I replaced the PSU without any change. Then I used the GPU from the older PC and it finally worked again. But the system was too slow and in 2013 I built another computer. This one lasted for over 10 years until January 2024 when I built my current system.

My experience is, as an ambitious gamer you always want to build your own computer. Then you know what is in there and then you know the system will last. There is not a single exception, every PC I built lasted until it had to be replaced due to performance issues, and every PC I bought fell apart or stopped working.

Which parts are required and what I actually went for

This question is very easy to answer: a gaming computer only needs 8 components. The following list shows what I bought specifically.

• Case be quiet! Silent Base 802

• PSU be quiet! Dark Power 13 1000W

• Motherboard Asus ROG STRIX X670E-A

• CPU AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

• CPU Cooler be quiet! Silent Loop II 360

• RAM G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32GB 5600MHz

• GPU Sapphire Nitro+ 7800XT

• SSDs I used my old ones but will upgrade with Samsung 990 Pro soon

Usually, I check benchmarks what is currently good and then I read reviews and see which parts fit together. For example motherboard and CPU have to be a match, and the RAM should also be supported by your motherboard. Here in this case I decided for a very powerful case, PSU, motherboard and CPU cooler. These are all premium with the objective to upgrade further. The CPU is pretty weak and will be replaced with the last generation of AMD CPUs which run on this motherboard. The GPU is good but not overkill. This one can also be replaced later. There are more things I want to buy. First a couple of SSDs, because I still run my old drives from 2013 and then I want to improve the airflow with premium Case Fans.

It took €1,998.51 and 11 months to buy and gather all the parts. With the intention to upgrade further this is not the end, but I think I positioned myself for the first time to not have to worry about outdated hardware anymore. There is a clear path on how to improve this machine and make it run for at least another 8 to 10 years.

Thanks for your time!

Introduction

A lot of friends and acquaintances contacted me over the last few months to ask me the same question: “How did you do it?”. They want to know how I transformed from 140 kg and totally untrained to 80 kg with a decent physique. I could say it wasn’t easy, but the truth is different. It was actually the most boring thing I did so far in my life. If I had known how little effort it takes to maintain such a body, I would’ve been shredded decades ago. Many people struggle with weight. The media suggests we have to live healthy, workout and do this and that. I am not here to tell you what to do and I am not here to judge your body. The only thing I want to accomplish with this blog post is sharing my story. If I tell you that I haven’t seen the inside of a gym yet, because I am too intimidated by everyone else there, you might laugh about me. But it is the truth and I will list every little detail that led to this transformation. Perhaps someone finds some parallels to his own life and gets inspired to change.

“By definition I wasn’t just obese, I was morbidly obese.”

First let me clarify something. In the headline you can read “obesity” and “hardcore gamer”. Obesity can be defined by a BMI (Body mass index) above 30. The formula is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Don’t worry, there are BMI calculators all over the internet. I am 185 cm or 6’1 tall and with a body weight of 140 kg or almost 310 lbs, my BMI was even above 40. By definition I wasn’t just obese, I was morbidly obese.

Hardcore gamer has no real definition, but I think most people would agree that someone who plays video games for 16 hours each day over years, is considered hardcore. I dropped out of college twice and I couldn’t hold on to any job, because I was too busy playing World of Warcraft. The last time I checked my playtime, it was over 60,000 hours and this was before World of Warcraft Classic got released back in August 2019. Add a Scarab Lord and a Rank 14 to this, which required insane preparation and sleepless nights for weeks, additionally all classes on max level in Wrath of the Lich King Classic and you can add a few thousand hours on top. I don’t play that much anymore, but when I play, I want to accomplish something and it doesn’t matter if it is in League of Legends, Diablo, World of Warcraft or Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. I probably still spend 40-50 hours per week at my computer and at least half of it is for gaming, the other half for researching and content creation, whatever that means these days.

Harsh reality and wrong approaches

When I look back, my weight struggle wasn’t there from the beginning. As a kid I was in a pretty good shape and very active. I think the first real hit I took when my grandaunt died back in February 1993. I stopped being active and spent most of my available time in video games. Playing video games always worked as an escape mechanism for me to hide from responsibilities in reality. When I became too heavy, I hungered myself down to a decent weight, just to fold under the pressure at one point and put even more weight on afterwards. Today looking back at this behavior, I can only shake my head. Like most people, I didn’t understand how the body works. That’s why I went up and down in weight a lot, because I only checked the scale instead of looking into the mirror and even more importantly, listen to my inner voice. Being comfortable and at peace with my innerself is something that took time.

“Having a decent physique was a game I couldn’t figure out.”

If you struggle with weight, then I am sure you experienced guilt when eating. I felt a lot of guilt. During school I was obese, felt hungry all the time and my parents told me to not eat that much. This was a recipe for disaster. I say it again. I felt hungry almost all the time, got told to eat less and was totally overweight. You can’t imagine the psychological pressure. Having a decent physique was a game I couldn’t figure out.

“I wasn’t aware how much I actually have to eat and how little I have to train.”

In November 1999, my grandmother died. Another big knockdown in my life. Instead of eating a lot and playing more video games, I compensated with push-ups. I reached a point where I could do over 150 push-ups in a row and did way above 1000 each day for a couple of weeks. But guess what, my physique still looked terrible. I did also a lot of cycling back then and trained twice per week in a sports club. The results were always disappointing. Training like a maniac, I looked at other teenagers of my age and couldn’t understand why they were so much more defined. Even during military, when I was in the shape of my life, I couldn’t reach the look I have now. I wasn’t aware how much I actually have to eat and how little I have to train.

The Turning Point

From 2010 to 2022 my weight was almost constantly somewhere between 110-130 kg. I peaked at 140 kg in March 2022 and then something happened. I discovered someone over the internet and fell in love immediately. This love wasn’t returned as far as I know, but it was the beginning of my transformation. I became sick immediately, and to this day I am not sure if it was Covid-19 or just a really bad cold. I believe, this was my immune system kicking in, telling me to get healthy for this woman. It was so bad, that I contacted a friend and told him, if I’m not gonna make it he can have my World of Warcraft account. He replied, I sound like an old man in his last breath. I’ve spent 8 days in bed and made the first step into a good physique. I changed from soft drinks to water. My idea was to have a six pack by August 2022. Little did I know how massive the steel kettle around my belly already was.

“I think a lot of people have this psychological barrier, where the fear is just bigger than the hunger for results.”

For decades I have told myself to train and to get in shape, but never started. I think a lot of people have this psychological barrier, where the fear is just bigger than the hunger for results. Fear to do something wrong, fear to fail, fear to give up, fear to not see any results, no matter how hard they try. I was in the same situation and I am thankful that on 24th March 2022, my life got kicked into a different direction. A Turning Point, an event that makes it inevitable to go this path helps a lot, and if you haven’t experienced one it might be a lot harder to find the motivation to start and keep doing this transformation you dream about. But even without such a Turning Point, let me tell you this: It is way easier than you might think! You can eat more, you only have to train a little, you will sleep better and you approach crisis calmly. At least for me it works this way. Before, I had many sleepless nights and tried to force myself to sleep, just to be awake until I had an appointment or had to go to work, and right at this time I fell to sleep and slept like a stone. I gave up on my duties and responsibilities and suddenly I could sleep. Now is different, I can stay awake for longer hours, fall to sleep immediately and I wake up before the alarm rings. It is very surprising, but everything works for me now and I have to say it again. It is easier than you think!

My Step by Step Plan

Having a good looking physique is based on 4 pillars and I had to master all of them. The name of these 4 pillars are water, nutrition, rest and workout. I would keep them in this order to give you an overview about the priority. For me it took 20 months to accomplish a six pack and striations everywhere. But only a few people know that I started with workout in May 2023, 14 months after I began my transformation. I wanted to do it step by step to experience the results of every little change. I strongly believe, for most of you it will be the best approach too.

“Don’t worry about the correct workout or the nutrition before you got used to water.”

► Step 1: Water

Don’t worry about the correct workout or the nutrition before you got used to water. It is hard to tell how much water you should drink. I started out with around 4 liters per day which is 1.06 gallons. Now, I still drink around 3 liters or 0.79 gallons. Don’t feel bad to drink a lot of water. It cleans your body from the inside and boosts your metabolism. It also leads your body to store less water. With this change to water, I reduced my weight to around 110 kg within the first few months, without changing anything else. I lost between 2 – 4 kg per month.

“I had a tower of empty pizza boxes that reached from the floor of my apartment to the ceiling.”

► Step 2: Nutrition

The next step is nutrition. It was time to remove fast food from the menu, something that can be really hard as a hardcore gamer. During my Scarab Lord and Rank 14 grind in World of Warcraft Classic, I ordered pizza almost every day. I had a tower of empty pizza boxes that reached from the floor of my apartment to the ceiling. The second tower of empty pizza boxes next to the first one was almost my height tall when it collapsed. Then we also have “Döner Kebab” here in Germany which is the number one fast food. There were Sundays, when I ate three of them back to back, just because super markets are closed on Sundays and I failed to buy anything in advance. A lot of you are probably in the same situation right now. But with a bit of planning you will never fall into this trap anymore.

For me the goal was to eat 2 g protein per kilogram of bodyweight. So in my example right now with around 80 kg of bodyweight, I want to consume 150-200 g of protein each day. First this sounds easy and for the first days you will think yeah this isn’t hard. But if you have to do this every single day, you will realize how much you actually have to eat. Protein in form of chicken and fish is also pretty expensive. Fortunately, here in Germany we have “Magerquark” which is lowfat quark. 500 g Magerquark have almost 70 g of protein for only 1.35 €. I eat the entire thing mixed with water and a sliced apple or a sliced banana for breakfast and another one after workout. This is an entire bowl of food, which fills the stomach for quite a while. Especially, when I drink a lot of water too. Get used to Magerquark! It is something like a cheat code when it comes to your body.

Before every workout, I try to eat a lot of carbs to have the required energy. My standard meal are 150 g rice, 500 g frozen vegetables and 300 g chicken or fish. I put all of it into the rice cooker and fill it up with a bit of water and some seasoning. This one-pot meal takes less than 2 minutes in preparation and I don’t really have to watch anything. For this little amount of effort I get something really delicious which is also easy to consume. I wouldn’t cook like this for my girlfriend, family or friends. But for me personally this is alright. It gives me more time to do something useful, like writing this blog post. I try to eat this around one and a half to two hours before workout. Immediately after workout, I take a shower and eat the meal I described earlier.

If I feel really hungry, I eat some raw nuts. They have a lot of fat but they also fill your stomach like crazy. I chew a few, keep them in the mouth and put a few more in. This way your mouth becomes really filled and you are busy chewing for a while, similar to putting more and more chewing gum into your mouth. Once you have enough and swallow it down it feels like you have eaten an entire meal, when it was just a few nuts.

To keep it more interesting I also eat tuna salad with iceberg lettuce, kidney beans, cucumber and a bit light shepherd’s cheese. I don’t use any dressing. Dark rye bread with a little butter and light cheese or “Lachsschinken” is also great. Lachsschinken is dry-cured and cold-smoked ham and all of these things are pretty popular in Germany and also relatively cheap. You see, no fancy stuff. For me it is important how I look in the mirror and not how good the food looks. I also buy the cheapest apples and the cheapest bananas. The only exception I make are eggs. Here I buy the more expensive ones. Not for ethical reasons, but for the highly increased quality and taste.

I don’t count any calories. I only look into the mirror and see how my body looks after a couple of weeks. I know exactly what I eat, because it is every week the same. If I feel like I am too skinny or lost a lot of volume in my muscles, I just eat an extra meal or add 50g of rice each day. If I feel like my abs are washed out again, I reduce the carbs and fat a little bit. But this didn’t happen yet. I still feel like I am not eating enough for the physique I want to accomplish. My goal is something around 85 to 90 kg of weight with razor-sharp abs and right now I am at 80 kg with abs and striations. Building muscles takes time!

“Your goal is to add enough layers of muscles that your body burns fat while you do nothing.”

► Step 3: Rest

Alright, this is probably one of the most underrated steps. As mentioned already with the nutrition, guilt can be a huge factor, and this guilt can also apply when you start resting. At least it did apply for me. I thought, I have to workout hard and non-stop to be in a decent shape. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Most people think that the workout will bring them into shape. Then others say, muscles can only grow when you rest. I want to visualize it a bit differently to make it easier to understand. Imagine your body as a racing car and you are about to tune it. If it has 50 hp, it will be really hard to compete on a racing track. Even if you go full throttle, you won’t drive fast. After a couple of weeks you put in a new engine. Suddenly, you feel your car goes faster, but you lose traction in the corners. You add better tires and improve the aerodynamics. Over time your car turns into a super racing car that drives very fast without even trying. You don’t have to go full throttle anymore to outperform your first version. I think this summarizes it best. Your goal is to add enough layers of muscles that your body burns fat while you do nothing.

Another factor is enough sleep, and I don’t talk about hours. It doesn’t mean anything to lie in bed and waste the entire day. I am talking about quality sleep. For me sleep was always an issue. I was in bed worrying about the next day. Since I have changed my diet and started working out, falling to sleep within minutes is no big deal anymore. Sometimes, my mind is still too busy thinking about stuff. Then I simply skip sleep and go on. I don’t even think about it anymore, I have no worries. I just go. Perhaps this is still related to the things I have written in the previous chapter about the Turning Point. But what I know is, that this kind of energy is new to me and I totally love it!

“Suddenly my fat was melting and veins were popping everywhere.”

► Step 4: Workout

The goal is to put on muscles. From following bodybuilding on YouTube for the last 10 years, I already knew that this is accomplished with split training. It means that you only train certain muscles per workout. So I gave it a try, took my cheap dumbbells and started with biceps curls. I finished 3 sets of 10 reps with 10 kg or 22 lbs in each hand. The form was not really good and I was more or less swinging the weights in the end. Nevertheless, the muscle ache was so bad, I couldn’t make my arms straight for the next 2-3 days. At this point I knew, I was totally untrained and it will take a lot of time to get used to the workout. On the other hand I was happy, because it only took me 10 minutes to finish these 3 sets.

I searched on YouTube for dumbbell exercises, specifically for shoulders, chest, back and legs. In the beginning I kept the amount of sets low and rarely trained up to 20 minutes. Since I started working out, my ideal week looks like this:

• Monday: Biceps

• Tuesday: Shoulders + Triceps

• Wednesday: Chest

• Thursday: Back

• Friday: Legs

You definitely want to do legs on a Friday or Saturday, because the muscle ache comes with 24 hours delay and if you do it right, you will have huge problems walking downstairs or doing a squat motion even without weights. When you have to do this at work a lot, you don’t want to be handicapped by a leg workout early during the week.

What really made the workout enjoyable for me is its simplicity. You only have to focus on one part of your body per workout. This gives also some variety over the course of a week and keeps it fun. It is very straight forward and your brain can handle it easier. You are not overwhelmed by thinking, oh I have to train hours now. My amount of sets and reps went up a lot, but I still train only up to 4-5 hours per week and often drop back or leg workout. This is how my workout looks these days after training for almost 10 months:

• Biceps: 10 sets

• Shoulders: 23 sets (2×5 front, 7 side, 6 back) + Triceps: 6 sets

• Chest: 18 sets (7 lower, 7 upper, 4 side)

• Back: 18 sets (7 upper, 7 lower, 4 side)

• Legs: 20 sets (5 glutes + hamstrings, 5+10 quads)

I use my favorite exercises that don’t cause any pain and I stick to 15-40 reps with an average of 20-30 reps. Don’t focus on reps too much, instead try to make your muscle tired enough that you have real problems finishing another rep. This can be done by reducing time between sets or for squats not doing any break when you are up. Have fun, get a feeling for your muscles and don’t think too much about doing anything wrong. If you are doing something wrong with dumbbells in the beginning, you train other muscles of your body. Sooner or later you will get a feeling for your muscles and how to isolate them more and more.

My dumbbells go up to 15 kg or 33 lbs, but for a lot of exercises I still use only 10 kg. So don’t be too focused on weight, sets or reps. If you exhaust your muscle and the overall amount of weight you move goes up over time, you are doing it right! The goal is to destroy your muscle during workout and then give it a week of rest to rebuild.

After 10 weeks I could already see the first row of belly muscles, but the progress was slow in the beginning. It went really crazy after like 6 months, when I had build up a lot of muscles already. Suddenly my fat was melting and veins were popping everywhere. Patience and consistency made this possible.

A few words about stretching. You should always stretch before the training and never after! I repeat, DO NOT stretch immediately after workout, because it can cause injuries. Stretching though is important. I trained my calves on Mondays too, until I had a tendonitis in my foot. I couldn’t walk for 2 weeks. Since then I dropped calves from my workout plan and do stretching regulary to make my tendons more flexible.

“For me, surgery was never an option. I knew right from the beginning, no matter how bad it gets, I will live with the results.”

Problem: Loose Skin

We all want to look great in the eyes of others. But let’s be real, perfection is boring. Only the little imperfections separate us from the rest and make us unique eventually. Be it with facial features, character flaws or hanging skin. If you have scars on your body, they tell a story, sometimes a great one. I treat my loose skin the same way. For me, surgery was never an option. I knew right from the beginning, no matter how bad it gets, I will live with the results.

Nevertheless, I took my time to transform. And I think this is the main reason my skin still looks relatively great after losing 60 kg or 130 lbs. My experience is also that eating fat in form of raw nuts and butter makes the surface of the skin a bit smoother, which is good. The skin has more flexibility and can adjust. Drinking a lot of water also helps.

If you deal with such an amount of weight loss or even more ahead of you, then you will have loose skin sooner or later. So don’t be afraid and simply see the other positive effects a transformation to a decent physique will give you. Nobody sees your hanging nipples or hanging belly skin under a T-Shirt and no sane person would ever judge you by it, actually most are impressed about your discipline and efforts. So don’t worry!

Final Thoughts

After decades of being obese, I finally managed to take full control over my body. This process was easier than I thought and I hope this blog post inspired a few of you. People always tell you it takes so much discipline, but for me it was like heaven. I can eat more than before, I sleep better than before, I look better than before, I have more energy than before, I get more done than before, the list goes on and on. I was used to sitting in the tram, and even when it was totally overfilled, nobody wanted to sit next to me. These days, good looking women take the seat next to me even when half the tram is empty. I am not used to this. During summer, I often went out for a walk and almost every woman was seeking eye-contact with me, even when they were walking with their boyfriend. Perhaps this is mainly because I am such a strong presence when I walk and I am sure, the weightloss gave me a lot more confidence. But this is also totally new to me and something I am not used to. I was always too ashamed to go to the beach, because of my overweight. Now, with abs and striations everywhere, summer can’t come fast enough. There is no more shame to be outside without wearing a T-Shirt.

Once you understand what it takes and got used to it, this is the easiest ride ever. I hope you enjoyed this blog post, see you in the next one! Bye Bye!

Introduction

When it comes to life you have to train yourself and do the uncomfortable regulary. This prepares you well for situations you aren’t prepared for usually. Be it through workout to strengthen your physique or through learning to strengthen your mind, both exercises make certain situations easier. For example, if there is a fire and you have to rescue people, you don’t wanna end up in a situation where you only can watch, because you are too fat and untrained or too scared to jump in. Another example, you are at work and it is total chaos, and it requires a lot of smart decisions to compensate for this uncomfortable situation. Here you also don’t want to stand around and waste everyones time, because you haven’t trained your mind. These are just two examples and the first one probably a bit extreme, but I hope you get the point. Training and personal challenges are important to push your own limitations.

“I like to compare this with a sponge that gets fully soaked in water …”

For me it was always fascinating to stay awake for long hours. When I was younger I could go for 3 days and nights straight without sleep. 72 hours is a number that I achieved multiple times. But doing this live over the internet is something different. Especially, when you do it alone in your apartment. And even more so, when I look at my age of 39 years. I am not a teenager anymore that gets away with stupidity. What I can tell you from experience though, the body takes the sleep back over a period of time. You can make this experiment on your own. When you have a rough week, where you only sleep for 4 hours each night, eventually you will sleep for way longer on a free day to compensate for this. You can go for a long time on a tight sleep schedule, but sooner or later the body will take it back. I like to compare this with a sponge that gets fully soaked in water during a long sleep and when you are awake the sponge is wrung out. Even half soaked, there is still enough water left in the sponge to stay awake, but eventually at one point there is no drop of water left. This is the time when your body shuts down to hibernate. And you won’t be able to fill the sponge during one sleep session. For me it requires two or three nights to fully recover and be back at my usual rhythm.

My Twitch Stream Settings

For a very long time my stream appeared pixelated and the audio quality was horrible. In short, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I upgraded my PC recently and you can see the specs in the sidebar to the right or below this blog post if you are on a mobile device. There is a new AV1 codec out, but it hasn’t been implemented on Twitch yet, so my stream settings are still for the older .h264 codec, which was the standard for a very long time. I used OBS Studio 30.0.2 for my 24 hour League of Legends stream, but by the time you read this, there might be a new version available that offers even more features. To get access to the OBS Studio Settings, you want to click on ‘File’ in the top left corner and then on ‘Settings’.

> File > Settings > Output > Streaming

Audio Encoder: FFmpegAAC

Video Encoder: AMD HW H.264 (AVC)

Rate Control: CBR

Bitrate: 8000 Kbps

Keyframe Interval: 2s

Preset: Quality

Profile: high

Max B-frames: 2

If you struggle with encoding overload in your OBS which results in a lot of stuttering, you want to reduce the Max B-frames to 0 and the Preset to either Balance or Speed. Your stream will become pixelated during sudden movements, but at least it will run fluid even on an old machine.

Why I chose League of Legends

If you read the address of this website then you notice the word esports. I am working hard to become the authority in esports, be it by building knowledge to have an educated opinion or by founding an organization that competes with the best in the world. Latter is far in the future, but I am already thinking about it. League of Legends is probably the most recognized title when it comes to competitive gaming. Counter Strike, Dota and some others are up there too, but League of Legends might have a small edge. So it was just a matter of time to dive into it.

“I wanted to create some muscle memory and become more relaxed.”

I picked up the game in 2022 and played casually ranked, which is the competitive mode. I started out in Bronze IV and made it up to Gold I, first as an Udyr Jungle and later as a Sona Support. After falling down to Silver IV again with Sona, I knew it was time for a change, so I commited to Maokai Support. Maokai has a great kit for playing objectives and slowing enemies down. He can zone out an entire team and is also great for punishing opponents out of position. I climbed up to Emerald III and then dropped back to Platinum I in the end of 2023. The Season ended in early January and shortly after a new Season started, I did my stream marathon. League is a game that keeps you awake, because it can be very intense and every game is different. I also wanted to overcome my anxiety from playing ranked. Most of the time I only do 1 or 2 games and then shut it down, because I am too exhausted. I wanted to create some muscle memory and become more relaxed.

What are the key factors that motivated me to do this

Let’s be honest, sitting on a chair for 24 hours and more to play video games is not normal. But I wouldn’t call it insane either. As I mentioned earlier, for me this is some kind of training. I want to be able to stay awake for long hours, I want to be able to perform on a high level for long hours and I want to limit test myself regulary. Playing video games for so long without sleep is extreme and I like to explore the extreme. Some people climb mountains, something I definitely want to get into this year too. Others drive extremely fast cars, something I could easily enjoy here in Germany, because on the Autobahn we have many tracks without speed limit. I am pretty sure the YouTube video with the 417 km/h fast Bugatti was recorded on the A2, a relatively quiet track with long straight parts that is right infront of my door.

“I think success in life comes from doing the uncomfortable on a day to day.”

I can see myself driving over 300 km/h there and I am a little sad that I haven’t done this already. I have a license for cars and trucks, but never purchased my own car. I drove a lot when I was younger, but that was many years ago and the fastest I hit so far was something around 240 km/h. I think success in life comes from doing the uncomfortable on a day to day. It gives you resilience and it makes you feel life is a boring thing, because you practiced the hard stuff already. Now challenges start to feel easy. And when I look back, this 24 hour stream passed so fast, it was no challenge at all.

A look on the restaurants menu

Some people might wonder what I eat during such an event. Nutrition can be very important when it comes to gaming. I remember during my grind in World of Warcraft Classic for Grand Marshal back in 2020, I had to play 18 hours each day for a couple of weeks. Back then I was unemployed and could afford it more or less. It becomes mind-boggling, when you start thinking about what you must eat to reduce your time in the toilet. You want to have as little downtime as possible and you don’t want to feel heavy or tired, because you have to perform on the highest level. For Grand Marshal I had to chase as many Honorable Kills as possible to maximize my Honor and secure my first place in the leaderboards. In League of Legends I also had to be at the top of my game. Ranked is no joke and you don’t just deal with your opponents, but also with your teammates who might have a mental breakdown at any time for no reason.

Fruits and a lot of water helped me to stay light and focused. I also ate 2 packs of Magerquark over the day. I don’t know if you guys have this in your country, but in Germany this is the cheapest protein source you can get and mixed with a bit of water and an apple or a banana, it tastes really good and fills your stomach for quite some time without giving you that tired feeling. I also ate a few slices of dark rye bread with butter and light cheese or Lachschinken. I didn’t find a good translation for Lachsschinken, but I think it is dry-cured and cold-smoked ham. It has very low fat and high protein which I really like. Later during my 24 hour stream, I also ate some nuts.

I am a bit surprised how much protein this was. But then it also goes hand in hand with my lifestyle. In March 2022 I’ve reached the highest weight of 140kg and was really unhappy with myself. Since then I have made a lot of changes which let to a total body transformation.

You can check the before and after picture on my X account:

X Link

and while you are at it, please consider pressing the follow button. For you it is only one click which cost you nothing, but for me it is the motivation to create content like this blog post, thank you!

Analyzing my ingame performance from start to finish

Having such a long gaming session especially in competitive means that there might be some fluctuation in performance. I play Maokai Support which is pretty chill, unless I become impatient. Then it can be a recipe for disaster. Imagine I engage and my ADC, Jungle or any other laner doesn’t follow. Then I am in a place without escape. I recall that there was a time when I almost fell asleep and closed my eyes for several seconds. I also remember that I had really bad games. So let’s take a look on the Wins and Losses first.

Total Matches: 40

Total Wins: 24 (60%)

Total Losses: 16 (40%)

Longest Winning Streak: 7

Longest Losing Streak: 3

Wins and Losses are telling quite a story. Overall my performance was pretty good and I won 60% of my games. But winning alone isn’t all. In League of Legends a lot depends on your matchmaking. This is probably the most important lesson I have learned over the last couple of months. Usually, the outcome of my games is pretty streaky, which means I win a lot or lose a lot of games in a row. As a result my matchmaking gets either catapulted way above my skill level, where winning anything becomes impossible. Suddenly, every step I make is a mistake and I get punished for it. Or the other extreme, my matchmaking falls so low that every game becomes a joke and I end up with insane KDA and losing is impossible even if your Top Laner goes 0/15/1 in his lane. Another effect are your League Points, the LP which you either win or lose depending on the outcome of a game. Each Division has 100 LP and once you reach that threshold, you get promoted. If you lose while being at 0 LP you drop a Division. If you keep winning or losing you change Tiers as well. In League there are Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Emerald and Diamond and each of these Tiers has 4 Divisions. Beyond that are the Tiers Master, Grandmaster and Challenger and here only your LP matters.

“This is a plus of 315 League Points.”

During my 24 hour League of Legends stream, I started out with Platinum IV and 25 LP which is very low in Platinum Tier and by the end I was Platinum I with 40 LP. This is a plus of 315 League Points.

Another way to look at it from an individual perspective is KDA which is your ratio for Kills and Assists combined and this is divided by Deaths. For example as a Support you end up with the stats 2/5/8, which means 2 Kills, 5 Deaths and 8 Assists then your KDA is 2. Hopefully I did no mistakes, but I have submitted all my stats into a spreadsheet and the result can be seen below.

Total Stats for all 40 Ranked Games

Kills: 98

Deaths: 263

Assists: 512

Avg Stats per Game

Kills: 2.45

Deaths: 6.58

Assists: 12.8

KDA: 2.32

There were two games I would call outliers. In Match #23 I was forced to play Braum, because someone picked Maokai against me. I didn’t enjoy this one and I lost well deserved. Then in Match #30 the ADC picked Yumi after I already locked in Maokai. Yumi is another Support which forced me to play Maokai as ADC. I made the best out of it and we won so easily, it was unbelievable. In this game I also recorded my highest KDA with 19, while being executed once for tanking a turret without giving any indication of moving out. At this point my brain was a bit slow in processing the given information and I died like a man. You can watch the clip right below, but I recommend checking out the entire match, because it is evidence that nothing is written in stone when it comes to League of Legends and every challenge should be treated as an opportunity.

Twitch Clip:

Twitch Link

What I have learned from this

An entire week has passed from my stream marathon and I am able to reflect a little bit on the valuable lessons learned. First of all it was a very rewarding experience. I peaked at only 9 viewers, but overall there were 26 people chatting and 128 unique viewers watching. Nobody was rude and even if people made some jokes I could laugh about. The best example was calling me out as grandpa. The beard and the low bodyfat probably make me look older than I am. Forming a bond with a partner and having a family is something I definitely want to achieve rather sooner than later. So you see, it is still a very long journey to achieve grandpa status.

“But then when the moment came, I choked.”

I could have reached way more people, but I was a bit too scared. I prepared 400 flyers that listed all the details of the event and I even drove into the center of the city to hand them out. But then when the moment came, I choked. I wasn’t ready to talk to strangers and I wasn’t ready for such an exposure. I am a guy that feels out the situation a lot and trusts his guts. Even if I can’t explain my decision with words immediately, I trust my instincts blindly. I think for the next stream marathon in a couple of months I will be ready to hand these flyers out. The University might be a good place to start.

I might want to pick up a different game then, because League of Legends is very demanding and doesn’t leave much time to interact as much with the chat as I wanted to. Viewers and especially active chatters make a stream marathon easier and way more enjoyable. Unfortunately, I know my work schedule only 2 weeks in advance and last minute changes happen all the time. That’s why I do these streams from Saturday to Sunday 10 PM each. This gives me enough time to get home from work in case I have to work late at Saturday and also provides enough space to recover in case I have to work Monday morning.

I hope you enjoyed this first blog post and the only thing left for me to say is thanks for reading! You find the entire stream marathon below and I would love to see you in the next one! Bye Bye!

24h League Stream Part 1:

Twitch Link

24h League Stream Part 2:

Twitch Link