Between abstinence, training, sleep, diet, and stress— which factors truly matter, and which are just noise?

Sleep and stress run the show everything else just tweaks the edges.

Training and diet matter, but without sleep they don’t hit the same.

Stress will wreck progress faster than a missed workout ever will.

Abstinence gets way overhyped compared to recovery basics.

Dial sleep first, then food, then training in that order.

You can out-train bad diet for a bit, but not bad sleep.

Most “noise” comes from people ignoring stress load.

Consistency beats optimization every time.

The basics work, people just get bored with them.

If energy and mood are trash, it’s usually sleep or stress, not the gym.