The teacups didn't go well.
It was a community family fun day in July 2026 — the kind of summer afternoon you bring your kids to and spend most of walking around eating something fried. My middle son Jacob, who is eight, spotted the teacups and dragged me over. Simple enough ride. The kind that fits three or four children comfortably, or adults with their kids with room to spare.
I couldn't fit properly. I squeezed in, squashing Jacob against the centre wheel — the spinning mechanism that's supposed to make the cup go round. His ride was ruined. When it stopped, he looked up at me with the honest curiosity that only children have and asked: "Why are you so fat, Daddy?"
He didn't mean it unkindly. He just wanted to know.
I didn't have a good answer.
Let me be straight with you before this goes any further. My name is Colin. I'm Irish, I live in the UK, I'm 30 years old in my head and about 50 everywhere else. I'm married with three boys — six, eight and ten — and as of July 2026 I weigh just under 100kg at 5'11". That puts me in the "obese" category, which I have spent a considerable amount of mental energy refusing to accept.
Three years ago I was 85kg. I stopped vaping around that time, which is apparently when my body decided to start storing everything I ate. I don't exercise. In my mind's eye I'm a reasonably healthy man in his thirties. In the actual mirror I'm a 100kg man whose 34" work trousers — same brand since 2018 — started getting tight in January. By February I was using button extenders. By the end of May I'd given in and bought 36", and even those are a struggle to close.
The teacup moment was the thing that made it real.
So why actually do something about it now, at 100kg, when I'd been ignoring it for three years?
Because I've got three boys who are six, eight and ten, and I'd like to still be here and still be useful to them when they're twenty. Because I haven't been to a doctor in twenty years, which most men my age will recognise and none of us will defend. Because I drink too much at home and I eat badly, and I can feel the whole thing sliding in one direction.
I know exactly what I'm supposed to do about that. Eat properly. Move more. Every man reading this knows. Knowing has never once been the problem.
I did try, for what it's worth. Earlier this year I started getting up at 4am — less heroic than it sounds, I'm usually awake around then anyway. Ten minutes of meditation. Ten push-ups, and I'd be lying if I told you all ten were good ones. Then a 45-minute walk around the neighbourhood before work.
It worked. I was losing about half a kilo a day, and I only know that because I'd started weighing myself for the first time in years.
Then I had one long, rough day at work. And that was that. The whole thing went out of the window and never came back.
That's the part I'd want you to know about me before you read any further. It isn't that I don't know what to do. It's that I've already proved I won't keep doing it.
So here's where I actually was, and I'd rather say it plainly than dress it up as something more considered.
I wanted the magic pill. The quick fix. Something I could start taking that would show me results before I'd earned them — because I think that's the only thing that gets me moving. If the scale starts going the right way without me having to be a hero about it, I believe I'll start doing the rest: the walking, the drinking less, the eating like an adult. That's the bet I'm making.
It isn't a noble plan. It might not even be a good one. But it's the honest one, and if you've read this far you've probably had the same thought and been too embarrassed to say it out loud.
I'm not a supplements person. Not a gym person. I'm deeply sceptical of anything the government actively encourages me to do, which includes getting jabbed with things, taking prescription medication, and apparently eating less. I don't preach about this — I just quietly ignore it.
So the weight loss injection conversation had been bouncing around in the background for a year or more — Mounjaro this, Ozempic that — and I'd paid absolutely no attention to any of it. Not my world.
After the teacup incident, I asked Jarvis (my AI assistant) what new weight loss products were on the market. What followed was about 48 hours of going very deep into a rabbit hole I hadn't meant to open.
The headline answer: GLP-1 drugs. Semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Mounjaro), and a newer one called Retatrutide. They work by mimicking gut hormones that tell your brain you're full, slowing digestion, dramatically reducing appetite. The results being reported — 15–25% body weight loss over a year — are unlike anything that existed five years ago.
The cost, however.
The established UK clinics — Numan, Juniper, Manual — start at around £70–130 for your first month, then climb as your dose increases. By maintenance dose, you're looking at £250–300 a month. Per month. That's a car payment. Not happening.
The NHS has it free — with a two-year waiting list and eligibility criteria. Also not happening.
I'd almost written the whole thing off when I came across what people were calling "research peptides." I asked Jarvis what they actually were.
The short version: semaglutide, tirzepatide and retatrutide are synthetic peptides — short chains of amino acids that mimic hormones your body already produces. The pharmaceutical version comes in a pre-filled pen, regulated, exact doses. The research peptide version is the same active ingredient, made in a lab, sold as a powder. Priced accordingly.
We're talking £35–70 for a kit that lasts months. Versus £300 a month from a clinic.
The catch: you reconstitute the powder yourself with bacteriostatic water and inject with an insulin syringe. No pre-set pen. Manual dosing. No regulatory oversight on purity or potency.
I also had a significant personal objection, which Jarvis dismantled rather efficiently: I hate needles. Always have.
He pointed out that an insulin syringe is 4–5mm long and hair-thin. Nothing like a blood test. Most users describe it as painless. The pharmaceutical pen uses the same needle — you'd just be drawing your own dose rather than clicking a dial.
He also pointed out that injectables produce 15–20% body weight loss versus 8–10% for the oral tablet, cost a fraction of the price, and require a 3-second injection once a week rather than a daily tablet with a strict fasting protocol.
Fine. Sold on injections.
I found a UK-based reseller sourcing research peptides from China. The prices were striking. Retatrutide — the newest and reportedly most effective of the three — enough for several months at standard doses, for under £70.
I compared the options. I went with Retatrutide.
I paid via PayPal — the slightly paranoid choice, but it meant buyer protection if nothing arrived. Then added the kit from Amazon: bacteriostatic water, insulin syringes, alcohol wipes. The whole setup.
Now the wait begins.
Before you go
This is not medical advice. I'm a man who squeezed himself into a teacup ride and decided to do something about it. If you want a regulated clinic with proper medical oversight, there are options listed in the resources section. If you're just here for the diary — welcome. Let's see where this goes.