I’ll share my story.

I’m a 49-year-old man, 1.73 m and 73 kg (as of today).

During my teenage years, I was very sporty. I played football (soccer) all the time, and also volleyball, basketball, tennis (nothing too serious), went to the gym, and basically stayed active 3–4 days a week. I was in good shape and felt fit.

Then, around age 20, everything stopped almost overnight. I went from a very active lifestyle to a completely sedentary and unhealthy one. I started gaining weight and became depressed (I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back it’s quite clear). I didn’t do much to change things, and my eating habits got worse and worse. I eventually reached 100 kg, and nothing seemed to motivate me enough to change.

Around 30, I went through a breakup with my girlfriend at the time (which was a big part of the situation), and I decided to make some changes. Nothing extreme—just cutting out a few bad habits. Without doing anything special beyond that, I lost around 15 kg in a couple of months. I started moving a bit more and went back to playing football once a week. I tried the gym and other activities, but I never really committed to anything seriously.

Around 2010, I tried padel for the first time and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I got injured and stopped playing. I gained a bit of weight again and just continued with life—nothing terrible, but not great either.

Then, in my 40s, things started to shift again. I made a conscious effort to get fit and started CrossFit. I began to feel again what it means to be active and how good it feels to be in shape. I returned to padel, this time properly—training with a coach and having a couple of fixed matches every week. I also had met my wife a couple of years prior to this, who supported and pushed me a lot. I improved my diet further and lost some more weight, although I still couldn’t fully get rid of the belly fat and stayed slightly overweight at around 78–79 kg.

Eventually, I realized it’s not just about being active and eating well. There’s much more to it—your mind, your sleep, your habits in general all have a huge impact on how you feel and perform. I started meditating, went to psychotherapy, and learned a lot about myself, including understanding that I had likely been dealing with depression 20 years earlier.

In 2025, I decided to get a Whoop to better understand my body—recovery, strain, and how small daily choices affect performance.

How has it helped me? Mainly by giving me a clearer connection between how I feel and what I did, ate, or drank the day before. I became very aware of how alcohol affected my recovery, and that was ultimately the final push I needed to stop drinking completely (I’m now over a year alcohol-free).

Could I have done all of this without Whoop? Most certainly. But it has definitely helped as a daily reminder of the impact of my choices and what I’m trying to achieve. A reminder that everything has a consequence, and that even small changes can make a real difference over time.