There is a point in almost every GLP-1 journey when the initial excitement starts to settle and you realize that, while the medication may have dramatically changed your relationship with appetite, it hasn’t magically answered every other question you have about your body or your life.
Maybe you’re eating less without having to fight yourself through every craving, maybe food noise has finally gotten quieter, and maybe the scale has started moving in a direction you have wanted for a very long time. But eventually, usually somewhere between the excitement of seeing progress and the reality of actually living inside a changing body, a different set of questions begins to show up.
The medication can change your appetite, but it cannot automatically teach you how to live differently.
Losing weight and building a life you can actually maintain are not the same thing.
You still have to figure out how to eat enough protein when nothing sounds particularly appealing. You have to learn what protecting muscle actually looks like when your body is losing weight quickly, how to incorporate movement without turning exercise into punishment, and how to handle the weeks when the scale suddenly decides it has absolutely nothing to say to you.
At some point, you may also find yourself wondering what happens if the medication feels less effective, what life might look like if you eventually stop taking it, or whether you’re actually building habits that will support you beyond the part of this journey where the medication is doing some of the heavy lifting.
The frustrating thing is that people are very good at warning you about all of this without necessarily helping you figure out what to do next. You’re told to eat more protein, but nobody explains what that looks like when your appetite has disappeared.
You’re told to strength train, but that advice can feel wildly unhelpful if you’ve never been someone who goes to the gym or if you’re still trying to figure out how to fit movement into an already full life. You’re warned not to lose muscle, and suddenly you’re looking at your arms wondering whether they look different or whether you’ve simply spent too much time staring at them in the bathroom mirror.
I get questions about this part of the journey every day. Is it normal that it feels like my medication just stopped working this week? Did I lose muscle because my arms look different? What do you eat when absolutely nothing sounds good? What happens when you eventually stop taking the medication?
After more than three years on my own GLP-1 journey, I understand why these questions keep coming up, because there is so much about actually living this life that you cannot fully understand until you’re in the middle of it.
The part nobody can do for you
I’ve learned a lot over the last three years, and not all of it came from doing everything perfectly. Some of it came from figuring things out slowly, changing my mind about what worked, realizing that something I thought would be easy was actually harder than I expected, and occasionally discovering that I had somehow accumulated enough protein products to survive a small natural disaster.
The longer I do this, the more I realize that the biggest difference between people who keep moving forward and people who constantly feel like they’re starting over is not perfection or motivation. It is learning how to keep showing up for the small things long enough for them to become part of your actual life.
The medication can help create the opportunity for change, but you still have to decide what you want to build inside that opportunity.
That is why I’m doing something a little different this month.
Starting September 14, I’m hosting 28 Days with Nyk, a 28-day challenge for people who are currently on a GLP-1, thinking about starting one, or simply trying to figure out how to make the habits around weight loss feel more sustainable. I didn’t want this to be another challenge that gives you an aggressive checklist and then expects you to emerge four weeks later as a completely different person with perfectly portioned meals and a sudden passion for waking up at 5:00 AM to exercise. I wanted to create something that focuses on the part of this journey that happens after the prescription is filled, when you still have to learn how to take care of yourself inside your real life.
We’re going to work on the things that actually matter
Over the 28 days, we’ll focus on the habits that tend to matter long after the excitement of starting a new medication or seeing the first few pounds come off. We’ll talk about protein, fiber, movement, strength, sleep, food noise, plateaus, mindset, and the all-or-nothing thinking that can make one imperfect day feel like an excuse to abandon an entire week. Some days will be educational, some will be practical, and some will simply ask you to do something small enough that you can stop overthinking it and actually follow through.
The month begins with the foundation, including why you’re here, setting a strength goal, creating a workout plan that makes sense for your life, understanding protein, and learning to look beyond the scale. From there, we’ll work through high-protein breakfasts, walking, fiber, food noise, planning meals, getting outside, and continuing to show up when the initial motivation starts to wear off.
Later in the challenge, we’ll talk about plateaus, sleep, strength, being treated differently as your body changes, the relationship you have with the version of yourself you used to be, and what it actually looks like to keep going without constantly starting over.
The goal isn’t to completely transform your life in 28 days. The goal is to spend 28 days practicing the habits you want to keep.
That distinction matters because I don’t want anyone joining this challenge expecting perfection. Your life is still going to happen while we’re doing this. You will still have busy days, low-energy days, weekends that don’t go according to plan, meals you didn’t prepare, and moments where the scale annoys you for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with whether you’re making progress. The point isn’t to avoid those things. The point is to stop treating them like evidence that you’ve failed.
Consistency has to survive your real life
I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when we’re trying to lose weight is creating a version of consistency that only works when life is unusually cooperative. We convince ourselves that we’re doing great as long as we have time to cook exactly what we planned, exercise exactly when we intended to, sleep perfectly, and wake up feeling motivated. Then a normal inconvenience happens and suddenly it feels like everything has fallen apart.
Real consistency has to be able to survive a bad Tuesday.
It has to survive the week your weight doesn’t change.
It has to survive the day you don’t want the protein shake, the week you miss a workout, and the moment you realize that motivation has quietly left the building and apparently didn’t leave a forwarding address.
The habits that last are usually the ones you can still do when life isn’t going particularly well.
I want these 28 days to help you practice returning to yourself instead of constantly starting over.
That’s also why I’m excited that we won’t be doing this alone. The challenge takes place through the WayBetter app, where we’ll have a group going through the experience together, checking in, sharing their progress, and, hopefully, occasionally admitting the slightly ridiculous things that happen when you’re trying to reorganize your life around protein, fiber, movement, and the fact that you apparently bought another protein powder despite already owning several.
There is something powerful about seeing other people navigate the same struggles in real time. Someone else is also having a week where the scale isn’t moving. Someone else is trying to figure out how to eat enough when they aren’t hungry. Someone else is discovering that they own six bags of chia seeds for reasons that remain unclear. Progress can feel less lonely when you’re surrounded by people who understand what the journey actually looks like.
And yes, I’m giving you a reason to show up
The challenge is $50 to join, and that is a one-time payment, not a subscription. If you complete 24 out of the 28 days, you’ll earn $25 back through PayPal.
I genuinely love this idea because it isn’t meant to be a punishment or a way to make anyone feel bad if they have an imperfect month. It’s simply a little extra reason to take the commitment seriously and see what happens when you give yourself a full month to practice showing up.
It’s not a discount. It’s a dare to see what you’re capable of when you stop waiting to feel perfectly ready.
And honestly, I think there is something worth learning from that even beyond the $25. We spend so much time telling ourselves that we’ll become consistent when life calms down, when we have more energy, when we’re more motivated, or when we finally find the perfect plan. Sometimes the only way to learn whether something can become part of your life is to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and practice doing it imperfectly.
Why I’m inviting you to do this with me
After more than three years on this journey, I know that weight loss is about so much more than watching the number on the scale go down. Your body changes, your habits change, your relationship with food changes, and sometimes the way other people treat you changes too. You have to learn how to navigate all of that while also figuring out who you are becoming and what you want your life to look like when weight loss is no longer the only thing you’re focused on.
That is the part I wish more people talked about.
Your GLP-1 can change your appetite, but the rest of your life still deserves your attention.
So if you’ve been feeling like you have the medication part figured out but you’re still trying to make sense of everything around it, I hope you’ll join us.
If you’re just starting and want to spend your first month building habits alongside people who understand the journey, I hope you’ll join us. And if you’re simply tired of feeling like you’re supposed to figure out every part of this alone, then I especially hope you’ll join us.
28 Days with Nyk begins Monday, September 14, and runs through October 11. It costs $50 to join, it is not a subscription, and if you complete 24 of the 28 days, you’ll receive $25 back.
More importantly, though, I hope you finish those four weeks with a little more than you started with. Maybe you’ll have found a breakfast that makes getting enough protein easier. Maybe walking will have become part of your day instead of something you keep promising yourself you’ll start next week.
Maybe you’ll understand your body a little better, stop panicking quite so quickly when the scale stalls, or finally see that one imperfect day doesn’t have to turn into a month of telling yourself you’ll start again tomorrow.
The medication can help you eat less. It can quiet the noise. It can make weight loss possible in ways that may have felt impossible before. But building the habits that support the life you want to live is still something you get to practice.
And for the next 28 days, you don’t have to practice it alone.
I’ll see you in there.
Nyk