How To Increase Your Real Life Hit Points

or You Don't Seriously Think You'd Survive a Real War Scenario, Do You

Difficulty: Moderate

Cost:

Hit points - the amount of damage you can take before falling unconscious. As any self-respecting RPG fan will know, hit points are boosted by your constitution modifier. Here's how to make sure that your constitution is up to scratch.

Eat healthy food. It's very important to get good nutrition if you want to keep your hit points. Why else do you think Mario is constantly on the lookout for those green and white mushrooms?
- Get your five-a-day: The World Health Organisation says that adults should eat at least 400 grams or 14 ounces of fruit and vegetables every day. Make it 5 portions per day and you get an easy 80 grams (2.8 ounces) per serving. That's roughly a handful of most fruit or veg, but if you want to find specific amounts, there are plenty of websites that will show you.
- Eat a range of fruit and vegetables and you'll get most of your vitamin, mineral and fibre requirements. You also need protein and carbohydrates to keep you going. Protein helps to build and maintain muscles while carbs will give you energy. Don't eat too much, though!
- Track your eating vs. energy requirements by weighing yourself twice a month. The average woman only needs about 2000 calories per day, while the average man needs 2500.
Build up your strength. Who do you know that has the strength and endurance to hold off an entire army of Locust all by himself? The Cole Train, that's who! Have you seen the size of his arms? Yep, strength is an important part of keeping your real-life hit points in the triple digits.
Tips for increasing your strength:
- Maintain good form. When lifting weights, the most important thing to do is to lift them properly. There's no point in slapping extra weights on your biceps if you have to recruit your entire back to lift them. You'll increase your risk of injury and your arms won't get a proper workout. Stick to lighter weights and only increase them when you can maintain control.
- Give your muscles time to grow. When you work out for strength, you are breaking down muscle fibres so that your body can build them up even stronger. Working out too often means that your body doesn't have time to rebuild. Avoid this by giving each muscle group at least 48 hours of rest between workouts. If you must train every day, alternate among different muscle groups.
- Make progressive improvements. Every time you work out for strength, you should be able to do slightly more than last time. Doing one more rep, or lifting heavier weights or doing the same workout but faster - these all count as improvements. If you're unable to improve on your last session, you need more recovery time for that body part.
Increase your endurance. Cardiovascular training is the final key to an improved constitution. It's all very well thinking that you'll never need to run 2 kilometres in your life and you're happy with your desk job. What happens when there's an outbreak and you find yourself trapped in the local mall surrounded by flesh-eating zombies? Are you gonna cower under a desk in the Security Room waiting for death or pick up a baseball bat and start whacking away with your newly built-up strength? Yes, I thought so.
Thing is, unless you've been doing your cardio training, you'll last about 2 rounds before Bob from the office down the hall is eating your brains...

OR... you could do your cardio, fight your way through the zombie masses and live long enough to get your story. Get on that treadmill!
- Train regularly. In order to improve your fitness, you need to train three times a week. To maintain fitness, work out twice a week. Exercising once a week is better than none at all, but you won't see much long-term improvement.
- Keep it fun. You're going to do this three times a week, so it needs to be something you enjoy. Find your own alternative to the standard running or rowing - try dance classes or swimming or a sport. Play Wii Boxing or Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Choose something you enjoy so much that it doesn't feel like an obligation.
- Don't overtrain. When you first start training, it's tempting to run faster and faster until you feel the burn. Don't do it. You'll tire yourself out before reaping the benefits.
  The best way to improve your cardiovascular system is through sustained effort. You should increase your heart rate to hit 60 - 80% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) and then keep it there for longer and longer periods of time. If you're a complete beginner, keeping it up for 5 or 10 minutes is a good start.
  
  A very rough guide to your MHR uses one of the following formulae:
  - Beginners: 210 - your age = maximum heart rate
  - Regular exercisers: 205 - (your age/2) = maximum heart rate
  Check dedicated fitness resources if you want a more precise way to measure your MHR. It's not essential to buy a heart rate monitor, but it will make it much easier to control your training.