The physique gets the attention. It's the least interesting thing that happened.
The energy is what I still can't get over. Most days it feels close to endless, and after nearly 18 months of it, I'm not used to it yet. I get to the end of a day with plenty left. I'm not counting down to the couch by three. When one of my kids wants to do something at seven at night, there's no math to run. I just go.
That's the part I would not trade. Not the mirror. The fact that I have more to give at the end of a day than I did at the start of one five years ago.
And it didn't stay in the gym. Better energy made me better at work. More present at home. More patient. More willing to say yes to things. It touched every part of my life, and I'm plainly happier than I was. I didn't expect that. I thought I was training for a body.
Nobody photographs this. There's no before and after for having something left at dinner. So it gets left out of the conversation entirely, and people chase the visible part while the thing that would actually change their life goes unmentioned.
The lifting, the walks, the sleep I stopped treating as optional. It bought me a body I'm glad to have. But mostly it bought me my life back at full volume.
Ben