[CLIENT SUCCESS STORY]

Endgame · January 2025 – Present

Michael Novelle

78 lbs lost in 14 months

78 lbs

Total Weight Lost

−25 cm

Waist Reduction

60→48

RHR bpm

14 months

3 Programs

78 lbs. Fourteen months. Three programs. Zero shortcuts.

This is what the long game looks like when someone refuses to stop.

Who Is Michael?

Michael is a 52-year-old senior cybersecurity executive based in Texas. He works in a high-pressure corporate environment — managing teams, navigating executive leadership programs, covering for direct reports, sitting through board dinners with fixed menus, and flying internationally on tight schedules. His work life is the kind that breaks most health plans before they start.

When Michael joined We Hack Health in January 2025, he weighed 275 lbs. His bloodwork was flagged. His sleep was broken. His after-work hours were constantly ambushed by professional obligations he couldn't control. He'd tried before. The pattern was familiar: start strong, travel disrupts it, never fully recover.

He wasn't looking for a 12-week transformation. He was looking for something that would actually work — and keep working — around the reality of his life.

What followed was 14 months of methodical, documented, relentless progress. Three programs. Two clothing sizes. Blood panels that went from flagged to excellent. A metabolism reset. A mindset upgrade. And a number on the scale that hadn't existed since a different era of his life.

Program 1 — Booting Up

January 13 – March 24, 2025 · 10 Weeks · 275.4 lbs → 258.1 lbs · −17.3 lbs

The Starting Conditions

Michael walked in carrying more than weight. His protein intake in Week 1 was barely half his target — 94g against a 170g prescription. Work demands were already disrupting after-hours training. Sleep was fragmented, with consistent 3:30am wake-ups. He'd been sick. His schedule was a chaos variable he couldn't eliminate, only navigate.

The coaching approach in those first weeks was calibration. Not punishment for what wasn't hitting. Not overhauling everything at once. The goal was to find what could hold in the middle of a busy executive's life.

The First Signal

By Week 2, protein was at 187g. By Week 3, 195g. The pattern was set: Michael showed up, absorbed the feedback, and executed. When he had PTO in Week 3, the metrics didn't fall — they improved.

The 3:30am wake-ups continued. Sleep was a recurring flag throughout the program. But something more interesting was happening on the tape measure. Waist dropped from 115.2 cm to 109.7 cm by Week 5 alone — 5.5 cm in five weeks. Hips from 127.2 cm to 122.7 cm. The body was responding faster than the scale showed.

Japan: The First Stress Test

Week 8 through 9 sent Michael to Japan. Fourteen-hour flights each direction. Disrupted meals. Compressed sleep. Protein dropped to 143g and then 117g. Calories fluctuated. Stress was elevated.

He still lost weight. Both weeks.

That's the data point most people miss when they plan to ‘get back on track after the trip’. Michael didn't fall off. He came back from Japan at 261.1 lbs, bounced Week 10 to a personal program best of 258.1, and closed Phase 1 down 17.3 lbs.

Phase 1 Results

Weight lost

17.3 lbs

10 weeks

Waist

115.2 → 106.7 cm

−8.5 cm

Hip

127.2 → 118.9 cm

−8.3 cm

Quad

68.8 → 64.1 cm

−4.7 cm

Program 2 — The Long Game

March 24, 2025 – January 12, 2026 · 43 Weeks · 255.8 lbs → 201.7 lbs · −54.1 lbs

Why Phase 2 Is the Real Story

Most people do 8 or 12 weeks and stop. They get results, lose momentum, and the weight drifts back. Michael didn't stop. He re-enrolled for a second program in March 2025, starting at 255.8 lbs, and ran for 43 consecutive weeks.

This is where character gets revealed. The data doesn't just show weight loss — it shows who Michael became in the process.

Weeks 1–10: New Habits Grounding In

Michael switched morning training sessions after realising unpredictable evening schedules were compromising his consistency. 6am lifts before work. The data proved it immediately — sessions got done.

By Week 8, medical bloodwork came back with improvements already visible from the prior year. He'd built a supplement protocol. He had a structured morning routine. The system was becoming automatic.

Weeks 11–20: Life Doesn't Stop

This block tested everything. NYC travel. A Metallica concert. Conference weeks. Flight delays. Illness. A dual-blood-draw week that restricted exercise entirely. Job interview stress spanning multiple weeks.

What happened to the weight? It kept going down. 241.5 lbs by Week 11. 234.3 by Week 15. 229.6 by Week 20.

The check-in notes from this period read like a master class in damage control. Fixed-menu conference dinners: “held the line as best as possible.” Concert Saturday: planned it, accounted for it, moved on. The mental model had shifted from ‘hope I don't blow it’ to ‘here's the plan, here's the recovery.’

Weeks 21–30: Clothes Start Failing

Week 22 check-in: “Down some more clothes sizes. Took a bunch of old clothes that no longer fit to drop off for donation.” The scale wasn't always the first instrument to register the change. Measurements and clothes told the story the scale occasionally lagged.

Waist hit 96.5 cm by Week 20. 92.5 cm by Week 30. From 115.2 cm at the start of the full journey, that's nearly 23 cm of waist that just disappeared.

The bloodwork milestone in Week 31: triglycerides down to 61 mg/dL. HDL at 62. A doctor's appointment that started as a worry turned into a report card. His body chemistry was rewriting itself.

Weeks 31–43: The Final Descent

Sleep remained the most stubborn variable. Waking at 3am. Sleep efficiency fluctuating. Michael tracked it week after week, adjusted — cutting caffeine in half in Week 35, which immediately improved sleep quality. He treated it as a system problem, not a character failure.

The scale in Weeks 31–37 was notably sticky, hovering around 211–212 lbs for five weeks. Then Week 38: a 2.8 lb drop in a single week. Bodies batch their adjustments. Patience paid.

Week 42, the coach's note added a line: “We have officially moved you to the Endgame programme.” Michael hadn't just sustained — he'd levelled up.

Phase 2 Results

Weight lost

54.1 lbs

43 weeks

Waist

104.8 → 90.2 cm

−14.6 cm

Hip

118 → 104 cm

−14.0 cm

RHR

60 → 48 bpm

Phase 2 Measurements

Site	Start	End	Change
Neck	43.1 cm	37.5 cm	−5.6 cm
Chest	105.8 cm	96.9 cm	−8.9 cm
Waist	104.8 cm	90.2 cm	−14.6 cm
Hips	118.0 cm	104.0 cm	−14.0 cm
Quad	63.3 cm	53.8 cm	−9.5 cm

Program 3 — Approaching the Target

January 11, 2026 – Present · 203.4 lbs → 197.4 lbs · −6.0 lbs (ongoing)

The New Normal

Michael entered Program 3 on January 11, 2026, at 203.4 lbs. His coach's Week 1 note: “We are officially at an ‘ideal’ body fat percentage for someone your height and age.” That's 14 months in, and the milestone wasn't celebrated by stopping — it was celebrated by setting the next target.

Goal: 185 lbs. Timeline: 90 days from the call. Non-negotiables: 9pm bedtime, 7,000 steps daily, hit nutrition targets. Simple. Executable. His.

Week-by-Week: Steady Signal Through Noise

Week 1 opened at 202 lbs average. By Week 4 he'd hit 197.4 — a 5.9 lb drop in four weeks. Then life injected: illness in Weeks 4 and 7, a steakhouse promotion dinner in Week 5, Valentine's Day, four work meals in one week.

The data shows what the noise covered. Week 5 weight bumped to 199.1. Week 6 dropped back to 198.3. Week 7 ticked to 199.1 again. Week 8 back to 197.4. The oscillation was real — but the direction was consistently correct when you zoom out.

The Promotion

Week 5 check-in: informed of a promotion. The steakhouse that Wednesday wasn't sabotage — it was a celebration of real achievement, in both his professional and physical life. That's the kind of moment you can't manufacture in a testimonial. It happened. It's documented.

Sleep: The Recurring Variable, Finally Yielding

Sleep has been tracked in every single week across all three programs. It's the most consistent coaching conversation in the entire dataset. Early wake-ups. Fragmented nights. Stress spikes that surface as 3am consciousness. Every program, every phase.

By Week 8 of Program 3, the coach's note: “Amazing week as usual Michael... sleep improved.” Not solved. But yielding. Fourteen months of deliberate work on one variable that most people ignore entirely.

The Full Picture

Metric	Day 1 (Jan 2025)	Now (Mar 2026)	Change
Bodyweight	275 lbs	~197 lbs	−78 lbs
Waist	115.2 cm	~90.2 cm	−25 cm
Hips	127.2 cm	~104 cm	−23.2 cm
Neck	46.1 cm	~37.5 cm	−8.6 cm
Quad	68.8 cm	~53.8 cm	−15 cm
Resting HR	~60 bpm	~48 bpm	−12 bpm
Triglycerides	Elevated	61 mg/dL	✓ Normal
HDL	Flagged	62 mg/dL	✓ Healthy

What Made It Work

He logged everything.

275 weeks of daily tracking across 14 months. Weight. Calories. Protein. Steps. Sleep time. Sleep quality. Stress. Every variable with a data point. Not because someone was watching — because he decided early on that accurate data was the only way to make accurate decisions. When his calories dipped below target in Week 26, he caught it. When caffeine was disrupting sleep in Week 35, he caught it. The log is the instrument panel. Without it, you’re flying blind.

He never used travel as an excuse.

Japan. Virginia. NYC. Philadelphia. Austin. Two travel weeks in Program 3 with more coming. Every time, the same approach: plan ahead, identify what you can control, do the best possible with what’s available, move on without drama. The Japan weeks in Program 1 — where protein dropped to 117g and he was on 14-hour flights — he still lost weight. Not despite the travel. Through it.

He treated setbacks as data, not defeats.

When the scale went up after a week of work dinners and a Valentine’s Day blowout, there was no spiral. The check-in noted it, accounted for it, and showed up the following week. When illness hit in Weeks 4 and 7, same pattern. His Week 3 (Program 1) lesson: “Have to show up every day, build and strengthen the habits and not get complacent.” Written in January 2025. Still being executed in March 2026.

He did the hard work on sleep.

Sleep was the most difficult variable in the entire dataset. It is also — by the data — the most improved. Resting heart rate went from 60 bpm to 48 bpm. HRV showed improvement. He cut caffeine. He established a 9pm bedtime target. He stopped looking at his phone during 3am wake-ups. None of this was dramatic. All of it was deliberate.

He stayed in the ecosystem.

The compounding didn’t happen because he did three separate programs. It happened because he never left. Phase 2 picked up exactly where Phase 1 ended. Phase 3 was a deliberate upgrade at the point where Phase 2 was no longer sufficient for his goals. Fourteen months of continuous coaching feedback. No resets. No ‘starting over.’ Just forward.

“We are officially at an ‘ideal’ body fat percentage for someone your height and age.” — Coach feedback, Week 1 of Program 3

That note was the signal to go further, not the signal to stop. That's the Michael Novelle operating procedure.

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