The Plateau Broke
Last week the scale didn't move and I wrote about staying calm through the first plateau. This week the answer came: 109 kg (240 lbs) on Sunday morning. A clean kilo down, and confirmation that 2.5 mg is still doing its job. The "trust the trend, not the weekly number" approach paid off exactly as expected. The body just needed a beat before catching up.
That's 9.5 kg (20.9 lbs) total since starting. But honestly, the number on the scale wasn't even the headline this week.
My Blood Pressure Is Coming Down — and That Needs Watching
I've had high blood pressure for years. Medicated, but typically still running high — around 140-150 over 100. It's one of the main reasons I started this whole journey: not vanity, but health.
This week I felt dizzy several times, especially standing up quickly — that lightheaded sway where the room moves for a second. So I took my blood pressure. It read 120/80. For most people that's textbook normal. For me, it's remarkably low — lower than I've seen in years.
Here's what's happening, and it's important if you're on blood pressure medication too: as you lose weight, your blood pressure naturally falls. But your medication dose was set for your old, heavier body. So the same pills now push your pressure down further than before — sometimes too far. The dizziness on standing is a classic sign of that.
Significant weight loss can lower your blood pressure to the point where your existing medication becomes too strong. Dizziness, lightheadedness, or feeling faint when you stand up are warning signs. Do not adjust or stop your medication on your own — but do contact your doctor to have your dose reviewed. This is a common, manageable situation, and it's exactly the kind of thing your care team wants to know about. I'm booking a call with mine.
I want to be clear: this is good news. The weight loss is doing precisely what I hoped — improving the health marker that mattered most to me. But "good news that needs managing" is still something to manage. I'll keep monitoring my readings, and if it drops much further or the dizziness gets worse, that's a same-week call to my doctor, not a wait-and-see.
A Low-Energy Week, Honestly
This was the toughest week since I started — not emotionally, but physically. I was tired in a way I haven't been on this medication before. Less in the tank, harder to get going, a general flatness to my days.
Some of it is probably the blood pressure dip. Some of it, I suspect, is that on a few days I simply under-ate — not enough fuel going in. When appetite is suppressed it's easy to drift below what your body actually needs, and the result is exactly this: low energy, low mood, no spark for training. A reminder that the goal isn't to eat as little as possible. It's to eat enough protein and enough total food to fuel a body that's still training and walking.
GLP-1s make it easy to eat far too little without noticing. That feels like "progress" but it backfires — you lose energy, you lose muscle, and your training collapses. If you're dragging through your days, the fix is often more food, not less: hit your protein target, and don't fear a proper meal. Under-fuelling is not discipline. It's a mistake.
Training Took the Hit
With energy this low, training was the thing that gave. I'm not going to pretend otherwise — this was not a strong training week, and that's okay.
- Saturday & Sunday: Two long walks instead of structured training. Glorious early-summer weather. I stopped at a jetty, sat in the warmth, and just took in the stillness and the green for a while before heading home. Easily the best part of the week.
- Monday: Complete rest. I felt worn down and listened to it.
- Tuesday: A good strength session followed by the treadmill. Then the air went out of me.
- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Energy just wasn't there. I chose not to force bad sessions.
The plan: a good night's sleep tonight, then pull myself together for a proper strength session tomorrow (Saturday) instead. One missed-around week of training will not undo seven weeks of consistency. Knowing when to back off is part of training, not a failure of it — especially when your body is sending real signals like low BP and fatigue.
The Bigger Picture Is Excellent
It's worth zooming out. Yes, this was a hard week. But look at what's actually happening:
- Weight is going down — 109 kg, plateau broken, 9.5 kg gone.
- Blood pressure is coming down — from 140-150/100 toward normal, the exact health win I started this for.
- Sleep is dramatically better — one of the quiet, underrated wins of losing weight.
Three of the biggest things I wanted to change are all moving in the right direction at once. A low-energy week is a small price, and probably a temporary one. The job now is simple: get the energy back, eat enough to fuel the work, keep an eye on the blood pressure, and keep going.
Weight loss doesn't happen in isolation — it changes your whole physiology, including how your other medications behave. If you treat a condition like high blood pressure, losing weight is a moving target your care team needs to track with you. The wins and the things to watch are often the same event. That's not a setback. That's the treatment working.
Next entry: Week 8 — chasing the energy back, a doctor's call about the blood pressure medication, and hopefully a return to full training.