julia.endo said:

Training does two things here and only one of them is on the scale.

Gym confidence after training weight loss: walked into a gym for the first time in 8 years yesterday. Was terrified. But you know what? Nobody stared. Nobody judged. Everyone was focused on their own workout.

Started with 20 minutes on the treadmill and some machine-based resistance exercises. Nothing fancy. But I DID IT. And I'll go back tomorrow.

To anyone too intimidated to start: the hardest rep is walking through the door. Everything after that is just movement. 💪

Following on from Dr.ObesityMed — and this may be the naive question:

What would you measure differently if you were starting again?

DanielChem_CHI said:

Gym confidence after training weight loss: walked into a gym for the first time in 8 years yesterday.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false. If nothing would look different, it is not a claim about the world and no amount of discussion will settle it.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Reporting back with a partial result, because a partial result is still better than silence. Two of the three things suggested helped; I cannot separate them and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

Dr.PulmRoch said:

It is worth asking what the claim would look like if it were false.

No disagreement, though the timescale matters more than the mechanism here. Most of what looks like a difference in kind turns out to be a difference in how long somebody waited.