*This is my first issue. If you’re new here, so am I. Welcome.
I haven't lifted a weight in four months.
My son was born in November, and somewhere between the 3am handoffs, the sales calls, and the general fog of new parenthood, the gym became a fantasy. I stopped pretending it was happening and accepted the season I'm in.
We have a work trip coming up in May. Warm, beach-ey place. The kind of place you want to have your six pack showing when you visit. Problem is, I have fallen out of shape over the past 6 months. This is largely due to excuses - but seriously, have you ever been a new dad while balancing a demanding role at a series B? This is my first time.
So I was genuinely surprised when I stepped on my Hume Pod last Sunday morning — post-pee, pre-coffee, the only way the number means anything — and saw that my body fat had dropped while lean mass had gone up. No gym. A few slip days on the diet. One rough week of sleep.
I don't have a clean explanation for it. But I have a few honest observations.
The measurement ritual matters more than the result
I weigh in once a week, Sunday mornings, same conditions every time. That consistency is the whole protocol. You can't manage what you don't measure, and when life is chaotic the single most useful thing you can do is maintain one reliable data point. The Hume Pod gives me body composition, not just weight — so I'm not chasing a number on a scale, I'm watching the relationship between fat and muscle, which tells a more honest story.
Sleep is doing more work than I realized
My nights aren't perfect. My son is four months old and we're still in the thick of it. But my wife and I worked out a system: I sleep in the guest room on weeknights, she takes nights, I take 6–8am so she gets two hours of uninterrupted sleep before the day starts. It's not glamorous. But it means I'm consistently getting a solid block most nights, which I think is doing more for my body composition than any supplement or training protocol could right now.
Doing less, consistently, beats doing more, occasionally
I'm not optimizing hard. I'm taking creatine loosely, staying reasonably on top of protein, using LiquidIV when I remember. Nothing heroic. But I'm not stopping either. The bar right now isn't performance — it's maintenance with a slight edge. And apparently that's enough to move in the right direction.
If you're in a similar season — new kid, demanding job, Helsinki dark outside at 3pm — this is the newsletter for you. I'm not going to tell you to wake up at 5am or commit to a six-day training split. I'm going to tell you what's actually working with 45 minutes and imperfect conditions.
That's the whole premise.
Next issue I'm going to break down the exact Sunday morning weigh-in protocol and what metrics I actually track on the Hume Pod. Because I know I’m not the only new dad who’s busting his tail for his family, and finding it difficult to balance.
See you next week.
— Tired Dad