Vanity gets a bad rap from some people, but I've found it to be quite useful at several different times in my life. I spent a good chunk of my adult life going on stage for a living, and the beginning of my stand-up career was what inspired me to get in shape for the first time. (I don't count being skinny my senior year of high school because I'd just had a growth spurt as "in shape.")
I am once again on a fitness journey because I want to be healthy. However, I would also like to look good enough once again that I want to linger in front of the mirror a bit.
I've been walking a lot since the beginning of 2025, which I wrote about last year. If I were in my 30s or 40s, that might be all I needed to do. Alas, I am a bit older than that, and the pounds can be rather stubborn. At the beginning of this year I added a personal trainer into the mix and had some success with that.
About five weeks ago, I got injured and just sat around being mad for a while. My dietary choices were tragic, unless you happen to be a professional beer drinker. It isn't as if I lost all of the year-to-date gains, but a backwards step or two was taken. In my mind, I'm Jabba the Hutt, but without the whole "hot princess on a chain" thing going on.
I'm in the mood to really get things moving, so I've been looking into various peptides. I know some people who are having success with them, but there is a lot of conflicting information out there. Unless you're talking about the brand name GLP-1 stuff, almost everything else comes with a trainload of caveats. Because I want to live to be a quality 120, I already take a lot of supplements. It should also be noted that, even at my slower metabolism age, I am not on any prescribed medication, so I've got that going for me. I should be in a good position to add something new and exciting to the regimen.
This isn't about a quick fix. I'm still with my trainer and I now walk 12,000 steps a day minimum instead of 10,000. I'm riding my bike again too. It's about giving the finger to the last of the pounds I am trying to shed. If I can get a popular assist, let's do it.
There's just so much information though. I started researching everything last week, and the Instagram algorithm practically sang a Hallelujah chorus. I have never seen it so aggressively hawk something like it does the GLP-1s and company. ChatGPT is helpful for research, but I never know when it's just going to decide to kill me and tell me to take something that will make my kidneys fall out. I do have one person I can trust about all of this, but that situation is weird and will just get weirder if I text 40 peptide questions a day while she's adjusting to a new job.
Down the rabbit hole I will keep going for a while. This could all backfire and see me deciding that the Summer of '26 should be spent writing a beer blog. I do want to get back to some quality mirror time, though. All I know for certain is that when I finally do make a decision, I will do nothing but research Norwegian models for a week to see if that resets Instagram for me.
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