37, self-employed — my whole schedule belongs to me. Sounds nice, right up until it hits you that no one is standing over you to make sure you eat right or actually turn up for training. So rather than lean on discipline, I've built systems around myself: the protocol is decided beforehand, calorie targets are locked in, the supplement stack is locked in, and a large share of my intake is liquid meals, all so that the number of choices I make each day stays as small as possible. It's deliberately dull, and dull is the only approach that has ever held up for me over the long run.
For most of my adult years, weight has been the thing that keeps coming back — the familiar loop of getting into shape, drifting off track through a hectic work period, then restarting a year down the line heavier than where I began. The shift lately is that I no longer frame it as a willpower issue.
Right now I'm 4 weeks into reta and roughly 10kg lighter, and so far there's been no measurable muscle loss. I lift 4 days per week and get bloodtests every 4 weeks, since walking into something like this without data struck me as a bad move. To be honest, the results so far are amazing — this is the first time appetite isn't a thing I have to actively battle, and I'm feeling great.
That's precisely why I want to speed up and learn. I'd rather know what is actually going on inside my body than keep coasting on momentum and nice scale numbers. So I'm mainly here to read — there's obviously a lot of accumulated experience in this place, and 4 weeks of my own results doesn't make me an expert on anything.
If anyone else here pairs this with serious lifting, or is at a similar early stage, I'd be glad to hear how it's going for you. I log everything anyway, so I'm happy to share my own numbers as things progress.
Thanks for having me.
For most of my adult years, weight has been the thing that keeps coming back — the familiar loop of getting into shape, drifting off track through a hectic work period, then restarting a year down the line heavier than where I began. The shift lately is that I no longer frame it as a willpower issue.
Right now I'm 4 weeks into reta and roughly 10kg lighter, and so far there's been no measurable muscle loss. I lift 4 days per week and get bloodtests every 4 weeks, since walking into something like this without data struck me as a bad move. To be honest, the results so far are amazing — this is the first time appetite isn't a thing I have to actively battle, and I'm feeling great.
That's precisely why I want to speed up and learn. I'd rather know what is actually going on inside my body than keep coasting on momentum and nice scale numbers. So I'm mainly here to read — there's obviously a lot of accumulated experience in this place, and 4 weeks of my own results doesn't make me an expert on anything.
If anyone else here pairs this with serious lifting, or is at a similar early stage, I'd be glad to hear how it's going for you. I log everything anyway, so I'm happy to share my own numbers as things progress.
Thanks for having me.
