A normal week

Lifts alternate: week 1 is A / B / A, week 2 is B / A / B, and so on. Weigh yourself every single morning regardless of what day it is.

Warm-up, starting weights, and progression

• Warm-up: 5 min easy on the bike, then two ramp-up sets on the first compound only — roughly 50% and 75% of your working weight for 5 reps each. Don't warm up every exercise; the ramp-up on the first lift is enough.
• Picking your first working weight: choose a load you could do about 15 reps with, then do 8. It will feel embarrassingly easy. That is the point. You have the muscle memory of an experienced lifter and the connective tissue of a detrained one, and the tissue is the thing that fails in week three.
• Weeks 1–3: finish every set feeling like you had 4–5 reps left. No exceptions, no ego, no testing yourself.
• Week 4 onward: 2–3 reps left in the tank on the last set. Never train to failure on compounds while in a deficit — recovery is impaired and the risk isn't repaid.
• Progression (double progression): when you hit the target reps on all sets with clean form, add weight next session. Upper body +2.5 kg · Lower body +5 kg · Neck +1.25 kg. If you miss the target reps two sessions running, drop that lift 10% and build back up.
• Neck work is never ballistic. 2–3 second lowering, always. Bodyweight and hand resistance only for the first 2–3 weeks before any load goes on.
• Log the top set of each exercise on the Training tab — weight, reps, sets. That's what drives the progression charts.

Cardio, precisely

• Zone 2 — 45 min, 2–3×/week. Roughly 105–125 bpm for you, but the talk test beats the number: you should be able to hold a full conversation, slightly breathier than normal. If you're breathing hard, you're going too hard — this is the most commonly botched session in all of training. Put the Greek lessons on here.
• VO2max 4×4 — once a week, ~35 min total. 10 min easy warm-up → 4 min hard (~160 bpm, RPE 8–9, you can manage a few words but not a sentence) → 3 min easy → repeat four times → 5 min cool-down. The auto-resistance bike makes this simple to program.
• Heart rates above are estimated from age. If anything you take affects heart rate, use the talk test instead and ignore the numbers.
• Never do cardio before lifting. After, or on separate days.
• Grip and balance cost about three minutes: the farmer's carries at the end of each lift, stop using straps on rows and deadlifts, and hold a 30-second single-leg stand on each side while the kettle boils.

MacroFactor — setup and daily use

Why this app: it works out your actual energy expenditure from your real intake versus your real weight trend, rather than using a formula. That matters because your maintenance will fall as you get lighter, and this tells you when — instead of you stalling for six weeks and wondering why.

• Setup: goal Lose weight, rate 0.5–0.6 kg/week, program mode Coached (it adjusts your targets weekly). Set protein to 190 g and let it distribute the rest. Starting calories ~2400.
• Weigh every morning — after the toilet, before food or drink, same conditions each time. This is the single input the whole engine depends on. Missing days degrades it; missing weeks breaks it.
• Log everything you eat. Save your default breakfast, lunch and snack as Saved Meals on day one — after that they're two taps each and the whole day takes under a minute.
• Watch three numbers only: protein (the hard target), trend weight (never the daily reading), and the expenditure estimate — when that falls, your calories need to come down and the app will tell you.
• Ignore: hitting 2400 exactly, the fat/carb split, and any individual scale reading. Daily weight swings 1–2 kg on salt, carbs and bowel contents.
• How long to log: keep logging food through at least the first 12 weeks, not 3. The coached algorithm needs continuous intake data to keep adapting — if you stop logging, it stops working. After 12 weeks you'll be able to eyeball portions, but keep weighing daily regardless, right through to maintenance.

Sunday meal prep — 90 minutes

This covers every weekday lunch and half your snacks. Breakfast is assembled fresh in two minutes each morning and needs no prep — just keep the ingredients in stock. If Sunday doesn't happen, the week degrades to whatever's convenient, which is how most plans quietly die.

Buy

Do

1. Oven to 200°C. Season the chicken, spread across two trays, 22–25 min. Don't crowd the trays or it steams instead of roasting.
2. Rice on while the chicken cooks — 300 g dry. Or potatoes cut and into the oven alongside the chicken for 35–40 min.
3. Eggs on — 12 in boiling water, 9 minutes, then straight into cold water. Store in the shell.
4. Chop salad veg. Store with a sheet of paper towel in the container; it keeps twice as long.
5. Rest the chicken 10 min, then slice and portion into 5 containers at roughly 180 g cooked each.
6. Assemble: chicken + 150 g rice (or 200 g potato) + salad into each container. Dressing and olive oil go in separately — added on the day, not now, or the salad is ruined by Wednesday.
7. Portion the almonds into 15 g bags while you're at it. Loose nuts are the fastest way to accidentally eat 400 calories.

Lunches keep 4 days refrigerated. Freeze Friday's portion on Sunday and move it to the fridge Wednesday night if you're being careful.

Weight — daily readings, 7-day average, and target path

Judge progress on the 7-day average line only. Daily readings swing 1–2 kg on sodium, carbs and bowel contents — individual points are noise.

Protein vs 190 g target

The one hard target. Everything else has slack.

Measurements

Date

Weight

Waist

Neck

Chest

Thigh

Body fat %

SourceTapeDEXA

Photos takenYesNo

Save

Weekly compliance

Sessions completed per week against target. Darker = more complete.

Lift progression

Recent sessions

Today's plate

Tap a meal to log it. Calories and protein on the Today tab update automatically — you don't need to add them up.

Add a custom meal

Slot BreakfastLunch SnackDinner Dessert

Name

Items

kcal

Protein

Fat

Carbs

Add

Add a result

Date

Marker

Value

Unit

Ref range

Note

Add

Results — baseline vs latest

Targets

Daily meal template

Breakfast and lunch are identical every weekday — that locks in ~110 g of protein before a single decision gets made. Dinner stays the family meal: same food, bigger protein serve, half the carb, more veg. Never cook separately.

Sugar protocol

• ~200 kcal/day, after dinner, deliberately. A fixed allowance at a fixed time beats an open-ended "be good" policy you renegotiate twelve times a day.
• Single serves only. Treats will be in the house with two kids — but nothing you personally binge on comes home in a family-size box. The friction is the intervention.
• Guard 3pm and 9pm. The two failure windows. The 3pm shake exists for the first one.
• Zero liquid sugar. Soft drink, juice, sweetened coffee.
• Swaps: YoPro tubs and ice cream, Chobani Fit, Greek yoghurt + berries + honey, two squares of 85% dark chocolate, protein hot chocolate, frozen grapes.
• Cravings may be partly downstream of poor sleep and low protein — reassess after the sleep study, not before.

Training week

Lift A — Squat 3x8 · Bench 3x8 · Chest-supported row 3x10 · RDL 3x10 · Lateral raise 3x15 · Neck 2x15
Lift B — Trap-bar deadlift 3x5 · Overhead press 3x8 · Pulldown 3x8 · Split squat 3x10 · Face pull 3x15 · Neck 2x15

First three weeks at ~60% of what you think you can do. Tendons adapt far slower than muscle, and the returning-lifter injury happens in week three.

Neck protocol

• Four directions: extension (thickness in profile), flexion (front definition + fixes forward-head posture), lateral flexion (widens the neck head-on — your priority for the oblong face), rotation (low priority).
• 15–25 reps, 2–3 sets per direction, 3x/week. Postural muscle — high rep, low load.
• 2–3 second eccentric. Never ballistic. That single rule is the entire injury risk.
• First 2–3 weeks bodyweight/manual only, then progress in 1.25 kg increments. Not 5 kg.
• Never train through neck pain. Clear any existing disc issues or arm symptoms first.

Skin — Fitzpatrick III–IV

• NO IPL. Genuinely unsafe on olive skin — burns and hypopigmentation. If a clinic offers it for the sunspots, walk out.
• Safe options: Nd:YAG 1064nm or conservative fractional non-ablative, by someone experienced with skin of colour.
• Tretinoin 0.025%, twice weekly to start, build slowly. Over-aggressive retinoid causes the exact pigmentation you are trying to fix.
• The raised acne bumps need identification before treatment — hypertrophic scarring, closed comedones and sebaceous hyperplasia look similar and are treated completely differently.
• Daily SPF 50. Laser and resurfacing only in low-UV months — realistically autumn/winter 2027.

Sauna

• The Finnish mortality data is from 80–100°C traditional saunas. Infrared delivers a lower heat load — do not assume those numbers transfer.
• Best use: ~90 minutes before bed. Heating then cooling accelerates the core-temp drop that initiates sleep.
• It does not treat sleep apnoea, and it does not meaningfully burn fat — post-session weight is water.
• Keep it off lifting days or well separated; pairing with cardio is fine.
• Heat triggers hyperpigmentation on your skin type, no UV required. Cool damp cloth on the face, don't sauna near tretinoin application, cleanse straight after.
• Hydrate hard — you're in a deficit. 500ml before, electrolytes on long sessions.

Haircut spec

• Textured crop with a fringe worn forward. The fringe shortens the visual forehead — the single biggest lever for an oblong face.
• Taper, not a skin fade. Fades strip side width and lengthen the face further.
• Avoid volume on top, pompadours, quiffs, slicked back — all add height.
• Facial hair: short stubble, or a beard full at the cheeks and short at the chin. Never long or pointed.
• Keep the temple grey. At your density it reads distinguished and adds contrast.

Greek — for Cyprus 2028

Which Greek: Cyprus uses Standard Modern Greek for everything written, official and broadcast — that's what to learn, and what every app teaches. But everyday spoken Cypriot Greek is a distinct dialect. You'll follow a news broadcast long before you follow a conversation in a kafeneio. That's normal, not failure. Cypriots switch toward standard Greek readily.

• Language Transfer — "Complete Greek". Free, 120 audio lessons, app or web. Teaches you to construct Greek rather than memorise phrases. Best Greek resource available, and not close.
• Run it during zone 2. 2–3 sessions a week at 45 min is ~2 hours of dead time at an intensity where audio learning works. The whole course finishes in ~3 months at zero added time cost.
• iTalki or Preply from ~month 3, two sessions a week, $10–25/hr. Filter for Cypriot tutors — the accent and idiom you'll actually meet. Audio builds comprehension; only speaking practice produces speech.
• Anki for vocabulary, ten minutes daily. Unglamorous, works.
• Duolingo only as a streak mechanic, or for the kids — it's built for exactly the engagement problem teenagers present.
• Two years to the stint is comfortably enough to arrive conversational. Doing it with the kids beats assigning it, and turns the trip into something you all prepared for.

Eyewear shortlist

Same principle as the haircut: add width, break up vertical length. The spec that matters most is lens height — target ≥42 mm — then total front width around 140–148 mm. Most heritage frames run 50–54 mm lens width, which lands near 130 mm across and will read small on you.

• Buy now: Ray-Ban Bill One RB2205 in 57, havana, polarised. Oversized square, flat double bridge, acetate.
• Phase 3: Persol 649 in 56, havana — keyhole bridge shortens the nose/forehead line, and the Supreme Arrow temple detail adds the sideways emphasis the Bill One's slim temples lack.
• Lens height isn't published for the Bill One or Persol 649. In store, hold either against a standard Wayfarer — visibly deeper means it clears the threshold.
• The "D" in RB4458D means Low Bridge Fit — built for a flatter nose bridge. Mediterranean structure usually runs the opposite way. Only right for you if your sunglasses habitually slide down.
• Get a second cheap polarised pair for driving and outdoors so the good frames aren't living in the car.

Also on the list

• Social connection — the biggest gap here. Isolation carries mortality risk comparable to ~15 cigarettes a day and is the strongest single predictor in the long-running longevity cohorts, ahead of cholesterol. It's what quietly erodes for men in their forties once school and early career stop supplying structure. It can't be bought, which is probably why it gets skipped. Needs a recurring commitment with a date on it, not an intention to see people more.
• Home blood pressure cuff (~$60). Hypertension is silent and consequential. Home readings beat annual GP measurements — no white-coat effect, and you get a trend.
• Baseline audiogram. Hearing loss is the largest single modifiable risk factor for dementia in the Lancet Commission analysis, and almost nobody screens in their forties. Then protect it — gym music, power tools, live events.
• Grip and balance. Grip strength predicts all-cause mortality; single-leg balance time predicts falls independently of strength. Near-zero cost: drop the straps on rows and deadlifts, add farmer's carries, hold a single-leg stand while the kettle boils.
• Fibre ~30 g/day. A protein-heavy plan crowds fibre out, and low intake will show on the bloods. Fix inside the existing template: berries are already in breakfast, add legumes to lunch, keep the potato skins on.
• Sleep environment. 18–19°C, genuine blackout, consistent wake time — consistency matters more than duration. Makes apnoea treatment work better; doesn't substitute for it.

Phases

• Phase 1 · Aug–Nov 2026 — baselines, bookings, strength habit, retinoid started, quick visual wins (barber, tailoring). Everything with a long lead time or an expiring window.
• Phase 2 · Nov 2026 – May 2027 — body composition is the whole job. Zone 2 + VO2max added. Re-run bloods at month 6.
• Phase 3 · mid–late 2027 — reassess the face at its new composition, then decide on injectables and resurfacing. Laser timed to low-UV months.

Phase 1 overlaps the pre-July-2027 CGT execution window, and the whole arc completes before the Cyprus stint in 2028. The strength habit is what dies first when things get busy — protect it.