Chair-based work that genuinely built strength

Started 28 March 2026 · 13 replies · 89 hearts · read 1.3k times

OndineLausanne, CH · 28 March 2026

4 months ago

Something I have been sitting with: Chair-based work that genuinely built strength Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

What I am after is the version of this that works when nobody is helping, because that is my situation and most accounts assume otherwise.

Every piece of advice I read appears to have been written for somebody with a completely different week from mine, so I am asking people whose weeks look like this.

If anybody has an arrangement that works and is willing to write it out, I would be very grateful.

BastianFreiburg, DE

My dietitian gave me a target and then, more usefully, gave me three ways to hit it that did not require me to want food.

10me too 5

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK

Facilitator note: nothing in this circle is medical advice and the practical arrangements still need agreeing with whoever prescribes for you.

NkemPort Harcourt, NG

Building on what Ren wrote rather than answering the original question.

What I got right was starting the lifting early rather than waiting until I felt ready, because I never felt ready.

MaritGroningen, NL

I found that a lot of the general advice assumes a large appetite, and the useful adaptations all came from people here.

OsricSalisbury, UK

Marking that I am here, in case that counts for anything today.

NemoneLewes, UK

My dietitian was clear that hitting roughly the right amount most days beat hitting exactly the right amount some days.

RufusGuildford, UK

The advice that helped least was to eat more protein without any suggestion of how, when my appetite had gone.

BramGhent, BE

What Rufus described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I found the strength work protective in a way I did not appreciate until a difficult stretch where everything else fell away.

5me too 6

BertrandToulouse, FR

Gently disagreeing with Bram, or rather adding the other half of it.

The list on the fridge idea came from this circle and it is the single most useful thing I have taken from anywhere.

RonanBelfast, NI

#10

My experience is that this needed a plan for about eight weeks and then became automatic and I have not thought about it since.

TanviMumbai, IN

#11

Not a solution, just company.

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK

#12

Holding a boundary kindly: we do not discuss what anybody should be eating in this circle. A couple of replies have edged that way and I am steering us back.

BoWhitby, UK

#13

What Tanvi described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

My grip strength has improved steadily and it is the only number I still track, because it is the one that means something to me.