GuidesSupport guide
The daily rhythm of a protocol that works
The unglamorous operating system: one anchor day a week, sleep treated as treatment, the honest word on alcohol, and how to track like a physician instead of a critic.
One anchor day
The whole protocol hangs on one weekly action, so give it a fixed home. Pick a day, tie it to a ritual that already exists — Sunday-evening wind-down, Saturday coffee — and let repetition do the remembering. Members who anchor the day stop thinking about it by week three; members who “fit it in somewhere” are the ones messaging about missed doses.
Two practical notes that come straight from the clinical protocol: rotate where you inject week to week exactly as your physician showed you, and don’t improvise around disruptions. Traveling across time zones, a missed day, a dose that arrives late — each has a correct answer, the answer depends on your situation, and it costs nothing to ask through the portal. The medication guides cover the missed-dose question specifically; the one-sentence version is: don’t double up, ask.
Sleep is doing half the work
Short sleep works directly against the medication. Run on too little and the body shifts hunger hormones in exactly the wrong direction — more appetite signal, less satiety signal — while cravings skew toward the quick-carbohydrate end of the kitchen and the discipline for everything else in these guides gets thinner. You are, in effect, taking one medication to quiet appetite and administering a nightly counter-agent.
The target is the boring adult standard: seven to nine hours, kept honest by a consistent wake time. If the protocol itself is interfering — some members notice vivid dreams or early waking in the first weeks, and an evening dose sitting uneasily is a real thing — that’s worth saying at a check-in, because timing adjustments exist. Treat the wind-down hour as part of the protocol: screens dimmed, kitchen closed, tomorrow’s friction removed.
Alcohol, honestly
Nobody signs up for a weight-loss protocol expecting a lecture about wine, so here’s the plain version instead. Three things change: a slower-emptying stomach makes alcohol land less predictably, and many members report a given drink simply hits harder now; alcohol is calorie-dense and completely invisible to your quieted appetite; and two drinks in, the deliberate eating this whole guide system describes tends to leave the building.
The workable settlement most members land on: noticeably less than before, slower, always with food, never on an empty stomach — and reported honestly on your intake and check-ins, because your physician calibrates against the life you actually live, not the tidied-up version. Interestingly, a meaningful number of members find the desire for alcohol fades alongside the food noise; if that happens, take the win.
Track like a physician, not a critic
Your check-ins are only as good as what you bring to them. The tracking that helps is light, scheduled, and unemotional — the point is signal for your physician, not a daily verdict on your worth.
| The habit | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Weigh on a schedule you can stand | Weekly, same morning, same conditions — or daily if you genuinely read it as data. Either way the trend line is the truth; any single number is mostly water. |
| Log side effects when they happen | A two-word phone note — “Tue: queasy evening” — beats reconstructing three weeks from memory at check-in. Dose decisions get made on this. |
| Count strength sessions | The muscle guide explains why your physician asks. A tally is enough. |
| Keep a running check-in list | Questions evaporate the moment the message box opens. Capture them when they occur. |
| Record the non-scale wins | Stairs, sleep, clothes, bloodwork, the food thoughts that stopped. On a plateau week, this list is the evidence the scale can’t show. |
Head hunger vs. stomach hunger
A few weeks in, most members notice something strange: the biological hunger is quiet, and yet the 9pm pull toward the kitchen still fires. That’s because they were never the same signal. Stomach hunger is the body requesting fuel — the medication turns that down. Head hunger is boredom, stress, procrastination, celebration, or plain habit wearing hunger’s clothes — and the medication doesn’t touch it.
The skill is simply naming which one is talking, and the test is specificity: real hunger accepts eggs; head hunger holds out for something crunchy, sweet, or salty at a specific hour. You don’t have to win every round — swap the ritual (tea, a walk, actually going to bed), notice the pattern, and if eating is doing a lot of emotional work in your life, say so at a check-in. That’s a clinical conversation your physician is genuinely equipped for, and the months on protocol are the easiest window you’ll ever have to renegotiate those habits.
This is what the check-ins are for
Everything on this page is the general shape; your physician runs the specific version. Dose timing, sleep interference, alcohol questions, a tracking cadence that doesn’t spike your anxiety, plateaus that feel personal — these are exactly the size of question the monthly check-in exists to catch. The members who get the most from the protocol aren’t the ones with perfect habits; they’re the ones whose physician actually knows what’s going on.
Questions members actually ask
Does it matter what time of day I inject?
Consistency matters more than clock time — the medication is a weekly steady signal, not a daily spike. Pick a time you can repeat and keep it. If you suspect timing is interacting with your sleep or side-effect pattern, that’s a legitimate check-in question; adjustments are routine.
What about travel and time zones?
For most trips, keep your usual injection day and don’t overthink a few hours’ shift. For long trips across many zones, or anything that would stretch or squeeze the week substantially, message your physician before you fly — the answer is specific to your dose and schedule. Also: the pen has storage requirements, so check the shipping-and-storage instructions that came with it before packing.
I missed my day. Now what?
Don’t double up, and don’t guess. The right move depends on how many days have passed, and it’s covered in your medication’s guide and — better — by a quick portal message. It is one of the most routine questions physicians get; the only wrong version is the improvised one.
Is daily weighing bad?
It’s a temperament question, not a moral one. Some people find daily data calming precisely because it teaches them how noisy weight is; others find it corrosive. If a bad number can bend your whole day, weigh weekly and read trends monthly. The scale is an instrument, and an instrument that raises your anxiety is measuring the wrong thing.
Can I keep my morning coffee?
Yes. If coffee on a fully empty stomach turns queasy — which some members notice in the early weeks — a small protein-first breakfast beforehand usually fixes it. The thing to audit isn’t the coffee; it’s what the coffee order smuggles in with it.
This guide is educational and is not medical advice. It restates the Conduit clinical protocol in plain language; your physician’s individual guidance always comes first. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.