Request for Comments — weight-loss protocol
Finally, a system that tracks what matters and adapts to your unique physiology.
A 14-day kickstart, specified like software. We don't ask for a new you — we attach a handful of moves to commits you already make, and ship the first wins before willpower can fail.
Allocated against the 90-minute plan you were sold and never had. The rest of the bar is the time you keep.
# personalized at calibration · adapts weekly
[protocol]
avatar = "tech-pro" # engineers & PMs
window = "14d" # short tier
anchors = ["standup", "pr_review", "eod_merge"]
willpower_required = false
[budget]
active_min_per_day = 15
new_alarms = 0
new_apps = 0
[guarantee]
refund_if_no_delta = "30d"Motivation
Three problems observed in the field, filed before any solution was written.
Not a motivation problem. A systems problem. Three failure modes show up in nearly every engineer and PM who tried to fix this with willpower — and lost.
You sit through 6 hours of meetings and the only walk you get is to the fridge. By 4 PM you've consumed 0 vegetables and 3 espressos. You're not sedentary by choice; you're sedentary by architecture.
Doom-snacking during sev2 incidents is the only stress release you have. You've tried calorie counting, but there's no data integrity to your eating. No commit messages. No recovery.
Every 'lifestyle' app assumes you have a flexible 6 AM wake-up for the 'ideal' routine. You don't. Your ideal morning is one where you don't wake up at 2 AM to page on something that could have waited.
Specification
Normative requirements. The keywords MUST, SHALL, and SHOULD carry their RFC-2119 meaning.
The same loop you already run on your work — calibrate, attach, retro — applied to your body. Here is the change it introduces, written as a diff:
We map your protocol around your actual calendar: on-call weeks, planning weeks, ship weeks. The protocol changes. Heavy weeks are maintenance. Recovery weeks are adaptation. Like actual agile.
Movements happen during PR reviews (stand, stretch, 2-minute walk between reviews). Meals are decided with git discipline (breakfast at standup, lunch before pairing sessions). No willpower; just architecture.
20 minutes, every Friday. What worked. What didn't. Root cause (was it the week, or was it the protocol?). We iterate.
Rollout
first releases
Short and honest. Before the scale moves much, the build turns green — and you feel it in the 4 PM meeting and the 3 PM slump.
Validation
Acceptance tests run against the weeks that break ordinary diets.
A protocol is only as good as its worst week. Each of these is a real edge case — and a test the system is built to pass.
Holds through an on-call rotation — maintenance mode, zero streak penalty.
Survives offsites: hotel-room circuit plus a 4-restaurant decision tree.
A 2 AM page does not revert the week — you resume at the Friday retro.
No measurable change by day 30 → full refund, no friction.
Reimbursable at most tech employers — invoice template provided.
“The Friday retro is the only ritual that survived a re-org and two on-call rotations. I stopped restarting on Mondays — there was nothing to restart, the protocol just kept running.”
“I don’t need motivation, I need something that tolerates a sev2 at 11 PM. First plan that treated a bad week as a logged incident instead of a personal failure.”
“Calibrate, attach, retro. I run my team on that loop now. Did not expect a weight protocol to ship me a management framework.”
Questions
Pre-cached. Every one has been filed in a retro before.
The four objections every engineer raises. Resolved, with no fine print.
Yes. The program has 'maintenance mode' weeks designed around on-call. Most engineers actually lose weight during on-call because the structure forces it: you have a protocol, you don't improvise meals, you sleep better.
No. There's a travel protocol with hotel-room workouts and a 4-restaurant decision tree. You've shipped code from hotels; you can eat from a decision tree.
Noom is a generalist app. CENTUM is a cohort built for your calendar. Noom says 'drink water.' CENTUM says 'drink water during PR reviews because that's when you zone out.' Different goal.
Many tech employers do via wellness stipends (Carta, Compt, Forma). We provide an invoice template. It typically shows as a wellness or professional development expense.
A 14-day kickstart, assembled entirely from the calendar you already keep. The quiz takes two minutes, reads your real calendar, and returns a candid protocol you can run solo or with a cohort. No upsell mid-quiz. No shame copy.
[ok] calibration scheduled (2 min)
[ok] anchors standup · pr_review · eod_merge
[ok] rollback enabled (30d refund)two minutes · no credit card