Rick Valentine

My doctor said I was fine. I was 213 lbs and couldn't figure out why.

At 45, I was riding 100+ miles a week, eating in a deficit, and still getting softer. My labs came back "normal." It took me 4 years to find out what normal missed. I'm 49 now, 191 lbs, and I'm in the best shape of my life.

Take the assessment Read the story ↓

Today49 · 191 lbs

213 → 191 lbs2021 to today

32.6 lbsof fat gone, measured by InBody scan

10 → 3visceral fat, from the danger range to healthy

49turning 50 in December

All body composition numbers are from my own InBody scans, 2021 to 2025.

2021

I wasn't lazy. The work had stopped paying off.

In 2021 I was 45, 213 lbs, and 25% body fat. My visceral fat score, the fat packed around your organs, was a 10. That's the danger line.

I wasn't sitting on the couch. I was riding over 100 miles a week and eating less than I burned. I was in the gym. I kept getting a little softer anyway, and I started getting hurt on basic movements I'd done a thousand times.

I bought black shirts to hide my body. I avoided cameras. When a photo was unavoidable, I worked the angle.

Wanting it was never what I was short of. The work had stopped paying off, and nothing I tried explained why.

Then my doctor ran my labs. Everything came back within normal range.

Rick Valentine in 2021 at 213 lbs — 202145 · 213 lbs · 25% body fat

What normal missed

"Not sick" and "working right" are two different tests.

A standard physical is built to answer one question: are you sick? I wasn't. But nobody had asked the other question: is your body actually working the way it should?

I run my business on data. Every problem gets a diagnostic before it gets a solution. I'd been running my own body on feel and guesswork for over 40 years.

So I kept looking. I got comprehensive labs and worked with a specialized doctor who could read them. They showed I was hypothyroid, which can slow your metabolism, and my testosterone was lower than it should be. Both had come back "normal" on the standard panel.

Once I fixed those and paired it with lifting and a good diet, my body started responding again. I felt much better within a month. I could see I was losing weight within 30 days. Within 2 months, my body composition had visibly changed.

The labs didn't do the work. They told me what work I needed to do.

Step 1, 2021 to 2023

In the first 6 weeks, the scale went up. That was the best thing that happened to me.

Here's what my InBody scans showed between November 24, 2021 and January 4, 2022:

+5.4 lbs

Scale

−5.7 lbs

Fat

+5.7 lbs

Muscle

If I'd only been watching a bathroom scale, I would have quit in week 6. Right in the middle of the thing that was working.

Over the next 14 months, the scale did not show the full extent of the change. My InBody scans showed:

Fat mass−18.6 lbs

Skeletal muscle+8 lbs

Visceral fat10 down to 6

Weight vs. fat mass
Nov 2021 to Jan 2023

WeightFat mass

"The scale reports one number for two different changes. You can't manage what you can't see."

Step 2, 2025

Then I learned there was a second step.

In 2025 I learned about the next piece: peptides. I added it on top of a body that had already been fixed.

Between my June and October 2025 scans:

Additional fat loss12.4 lbs

MuscleHeld, not lost

Visceral fat6 to 3, cut in half

Rick Valentine before and after comparison, 2021 and today — 2021 to todayMeasured with InBody scans

The 4 years

It took me 4 years to figure out what to do, and in what order. You don't have to spend 4 years finding it.

I found step 1 in 2021. I didn't learn about step 2 until 2025.

Those 4 years weren't my biology. They were me not knowing what to look for, who to ask, or what order to do it in.

That's the part I can shorten for someone else. Not the work. The work is still yours. But the searching, the guessing, and the years of trying harder at the wrong thing? Nobody else has to repeat those.

Measure.

Find out what's actually going on inside your body, not just what the scale says.

Understand.

Get a clear explanation of what the numbers mean and what's working against you.

Intervene.

Fix what's off, in the right order, and measure again.

The decline is visible. What's contributing to it may not be.

What I'm building

Arxus is what I built so other men can get their answers faster than I got mine.

It starts with measurement: comprehensive labs and a body composition scan. Then a licensed clinician walks you through what your results mean and what, if anything, needs fixing.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't give medical advice. I'm the guy who went through it, and the operator who built the system around it. Licensed clinicians handle the medicine.

Take the assessment

It Shouldn't Be This Hard. A free assessment. Takes a few minutes. Helps you see where the decline shows up and what's still unanswered.

Who I am

Husband. Father. Operator.

10+ yearsbuilding acquisition systems

$20M+in managed ad spend

2023agency sold

I've spent more than 10 years building customer acquisition systems. I've managed over $20 million in ad spend and sold my agency in 2023. I was also an operator inside a men's health clinic, where I saw from the inside how the industry works, and how it doesn't.

I'm not a fitness guru. I'm an entrepreneur. I know the early mornings, client dinners, travel, and days that fall apart before 9am. I know what it's like to have the business, the family, and your health all pulling on the same 24 hours.

I'll be 50 in December. I'm stronger than I was in my early 40s, and I walk into a room differently than I used to. Men I haven't seen in years stop me and ask what changed.

This site is my answer.

I share what I learned, as I learn it.

Scan data, what I got wrong, and what actually moved the numbers.

You already know what to do. The question is why it stopped working.

Take the assessment