Working out made things worse

Hey Beyonder!

I thought I was winning.

I've been playing badminton almost every day. Sweating it out. Pushing hard. Feeling good about it.

So last week, I went and got a DEXA scan done. If you don't know what that is — it's basically an X-ray that tells you everything. Your fat percentage. Your muscle mass. Your bone density. The full picture.

I walked in confident but walked out confused.

The scan showed I had lost muscle and gained fat.

Not what I expected. That's literally the opposite of what I wanted.

Here's the thing that messed with my head.

I wasn't lazy. I wasn't sitting around eating junk. I was working out. Hard. Consistently. And yet, the results said otherwise.

Turns out, too much cardio (like long badminton sessions every day) can actually break down your muscles over time. Your body starts pulling from muscle for energy instead of fat. So I was putting in all this effort and undoing my own progress.

Nobody tells you this stuff.

We're so wired to think: more effort = better results. But that's not always how it works. Sometimes the effort is real. The intention is right. But the direction is off, and direction matters more than intensity.

If I want to build muscle, I need more weight training. Not more badminton.

Badminton is fun. Badminton is good for me. But badminton alone won't get me where I want to go.

And I think this is true for a lot of things, not just fitness.

Just because something feels productive doesn't mean it's moving you toward your actual goal. The feeling of effort and the reality of progress are not always the same thing.

Now I know. I'll fix it. Strength training is back on the priority list.

On a lighter note: Spencer Plaza.

I went there for the first time last week. Yes, I know. Everyone's been there a hundred times. But not me.

And it surprised me.

The best way I can describe it: imagine all the roadside shops you love, the ones with good stuff, friendly people, that slightly chaotic energy and then someone moved them all into a mall and turned on the AC.

That's Spencer Plaza.

It's got this very different vibe from your usual malls. The people feel more approachable. Less formal. More like a neighbourhood than a shopping centre. I liked it. I'm glad I finally went.

Big update on the work side.

As a team, we spent a lot of time this week building a proper system for YouTube videos. We mapped out the full journey, from the idea to the script to the final upload.

The target? 15 days from start to finish for every video.

That's the box we've given ourselves, because a clear timeline forces you to actually move. Without it, things just drift.

Starting now, we'll be putting out one YouTube video every week. Every single week.

I'm not going to oversell it. I'll just say, if you watch it, you'll get something out of it. That's the promise I'm making.

Here's the thought I keep coming back to from this week:

Working hard in the wrong direction just makes you tired.

The DEXA scan reminded me of that. So did building the YouTube process. You need the effort, yes. But you also need to check, is this effort actually going where I want it to go?

Sometimes the answer is no. And that's okay. That's just good information.

See you next week.

Cheers,

Epaphra

P.S. —

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