Eighteen months, four lifting days, and a different kind of result

Congrats—this is the kind of recomp I keep hoping for. The pull-up jump is huge. I’m curious: when your waist started dropping, did you notice it in clothes before the scale moved?

I’ve started tracking waist at navel plus progress photos, and it’s helped me stay patient through stalls. Also, for your four lifting days, do you run upper/lower or a different split?

And how do you decide when to deload—sleep, soreness, or a set schedule? I’m cautious about pushing when recovery feels off.

Man, this is refreshing. I’m a year into maintenance and the scale is the least useful metric now. One thing that helped me: I set a “strength floor” — if my pull-ups drop below 5 or my waist creeps up 1 inch, I

Numbers person here—43 lb over 18 months is ~0.55 lb/wk average, but was it front-loaded? I’m 14 months in, down 31 lb, waist -4 in, and my log shows the scale basically flat since month 10 while bench went up 25 lb. Did you lose most early, then weight held while waist kept dropping?

Also, how are you measuring waist—navel, widest point, same time of day? Pull-ups 0→6 with lifts back to 5-year highs is the stat that actually matters.

tbh night shifts here. 43 in 18 months isn’t modest. Scale lies. Tape and pull-ups are better scoreboards.

One thing I’m curious about: how did you fit the four lifting days around shifts? I had to move mine to after waking, not before a day sleep.

Otherwise recovery tanked and my waist stalled. Did you do the same, or just eat the bad weeks?

ngl man the scale stalling while your waist shrinks is such a mindfuck. i had a 6-week stretch where weight barely moved but my belt went in a notch.

what helped me was tracking waist at navel + hips every sunday before food, same tape, logging it in a notes app. also swapped my late-night soda for zero-sugar sparkling water with a squirt of water flavor, mostly to keep my hands busy while gaming.

question: did your grip/forearms catch up with the pull-ups? mine lagged bad until i started dead hangs after lifting. curious if that’s just me.

I’m curious about the lifting structure behind those pull-ups. Are you running upper/lower four days, or something like push/pull with a dedicated hinge day?

I ask because my weekly averages for sleep and steps look great, but my program tends to become “whatever isn’t sore.” Also, do you deload every fourth week or just wait until your joints file a formal complaint? Six strict pull-ups after starting at zero is the real headline here.

This is the kind of result that makes me want to keep a tape measure nearby. I track waist at the same spot every Sunday morning before food, and the quarter-inch noise used to mess with my head until I started averaging two weeks.

Curious: when sleep goes sideways for a few nights, how do you decide whether to trim volume or just hold protein steady and ride it out? I’m trying to get better at listening to energy levels instead of forcing a plan.

The seven-day average thing saved my sanity — I log morning weight and waist every Sunday, compare week over week instead of day to day, so a salty Friday doesn't convince me I'm going backwards. What I'm curious about: do you still hit four lifting days when work gets stupid, or do you drop to three and just protect the pull-up work?

That's the tradeoff I keep fumbling.

43 lbs in 18 months is ~0.55 lb/week, which is a solid rate for holding strength. I track cost per gram of protein at three local stores—whey and chicken thigh are within a few cents, but eggs and cottage cheese have gotten stupid.

Curious: of your 165g, what’s the split between powder and whole food? I’m trying to keep grocery spend flat while protein stays high, and recomp math gets weird when you’re not chasing scale weight.

This is really encouraging to read as a brand-new week-one person. My only plan right now is a 15-minute walk after dinner and lights out by 10:30, because I’m nervous about doing too much and burning out.

The sleep piece caught my attention: did you build up to treating sleep like training, or did you pick a hard bedtime early and stick with it? Also, in the first month, was there a non-scale sign you paid attention to—like energy, clothes, or how stairs felt?

Sorry if that’s a basic question.

The pull-up jump from 0 to 6 is the part I’d frame. I’m on the road most weeks, and the only travel hack that’s stuck is a “hotel gym audit”: I snap the dumbbell rack and cable setup at check-in, then pick two lifts that won’t need a bench or barbell.

Airport food is usually a chicken salad if I can find it, plus jerky in the laptop bag as backup. Curious — did you keep your four lifting days exactly the same on travel weeks, or swap to two full-body sessions and call it good?