I’ve been kicking around these threads since the old compounding spreadsheet days, and the part nobody prepares you for is the quiet flatness. I’m about 62 lbs down over the last 19 months, and most days my appetite is a non-issue. The weird part is that reward feeling: music, dumb shows, even my Sunday bike loop went gray for a while.
What helped wasn’t a big fix. I put a $3 pack of sidewalk chalk in the trunk and now I draw one bad animal on the driveway every Friday. I also keep a “pointless jar” — slips with 10-minute ideas like rearranging the bookshelf by color, making a collage from junk mail, or learning one card trick. I pull one when the evening feels like a waiting room. It’s not euphoria, but it’s texture. Curious what small, silly things are working for other people.