gimmeshelter
Explorer
I'm aiming to reach my target and have the lifestyle shift keep the results long-term—time will tell, though this is already on my mind as I begin.
After hitting your target weight — do you taper off, or settle on a maintenance dose and stay there?
- Thread starter gimmeshelter
- Start date
skeptick
Explorer
Great question... I'd been considering putting up a thread to ask about the maintenance dose and how often people take Tirz, though I'm also interested in hearing about other GLP's. I'm still a long way from maintenance myself...
DunningKruger
Explorer
Even when metabolic or autoimmune problems make extra pudge harder to shift, the change can last. 26 years back, I dropped 70 lbs (using the older WeightWatchers approach), and it has stayed off the whole time since.
Any regain for me has never gone past 10 to 15 lbs, and across the 2 plus decades after that it has only occurred on 2 occasions. Both times, indulging went up, fitness went down, and self care disappeared (stress + holidays + breakups =
).Inside and out, you genuinely put in the work on yourself. You come to see your own patterns and deliberately try to alter them (such as heading to the fridge out of boredom or stress). You build love and respect for yourself, and your whole lifestyle changes. It can happen, and it feels glorious.
The better your body feels, the better you begin treating yourself, until you choose to stop hurting yourself. It is not quick, but it can last.
DunningKruger
Explorer
Not sure, Calm. Did you look at the study funding and the conflicts of interest? If your lifelong purchase put money in my pocket or my shareholders' pockets, I'd also be advising you to keep taking it.
Calm Logic
Explorer
Best of luck with it, then. To me, it couldn't be clearer.
desinr-gal
Explorer
Exactly this. It's the same as having to follow that absurd titration plan..
I'll find out on my own. Maybe I'll be most content continuing precisely as I am indefinitely, who can say.
Calm Logic
Explorer
If my home food surroundings were more within my control, GLPs might never have been necessary for me—though aging and other factors make that uncertain. Up until I married at 35, my BMI stayed in the normal range. Mayonnaise almost never made it into my cart, chips were a rarity, and donuts or brownie mix were never purchased.
My spouse, who is lean, has a serious craving for sweets, and right now a slice of carrot cake packing 870 calories sits on the counter. On GLPs, I can stop after a bite or 2. Off them, heaven help me, even when I try to keep temptations hidden away.
Every family's kitchen mirrors the wider food landscape of society, where ads for Papa John's latest pan pizza keep those mental marathons running.
My spouse, who is lean, has a serious craving for sweets, and right now a slice of carrot cake packing 870 calories sits on the counter. On GLPs, I can stop after a bite or 2. Off them, heaven help me, even when I try to keep temptations hidden away.
Every family's kitchen mirrors the wider food landscape of society, where ads for Papa John's latest pan pizza keep those mental marathons running.
desinr-gal
Explorer
Exactly the same for me. I have no problem when it's just me, but the rest of my household keeps wanting chips, appetizers, desserts... and they're all over the place!
I'm with you on that. I had no idea what people meant when they talked about food noise — not until it disappeared!
lessthanhalf
Explorer
Nice work on dropping the weight and holding it there back before GLP drugs existed. That is definitely something I pushed hard at and could not pull off; my best result was reaching a normal BMI and holding it close to 3 years, only to regain and wind up at 145kg roughly 8 years afterward. Everything I have come across in the literature indicates that although it is possible, it is truly uncommon — roughly only 5% of those who shed a large amount of weight via diet and exercise manage to keep it off over the long haul.DunningKruger said:
Even when metabolic or autoimmune problems make extra pudge harder to shift, the change can last. 26 years back, I dropped 70 lbs (using the older WeightWatchers approach), and it has stayed off the whole time since.
Any regain for me has never gone past 10 to 15 lbs, and across the 2 plus decades after that it has only occurred on 2 occasions. Both times, indulging went up, fitness went down, and self care disappeared (stress + holidays + breakups =
Inside and out, you genuinely put in the work on yourself. You come to see your own patterns and deliberately try to alter them (such as heading to the fridge out of boredom or stress). You build love and respect for yourself, and your whole lifestyle changes. It can happen, and it feels glorious.
The better your body feels, the better you begin treating yourself, until you choose to stop hurting yourself. It is not quick, but it can last.
For the majority of people dealing with substantial obesity, particularly when obesity-related health conditions are present, continuing the drugs indefinitely for maintenance and the extra health advantages beats quitting them. Among those who have dropped a lot of weight and then discontinue, most will either put the weight back on, go back on the GLP's, or do both.
In most or all severely obese people who lose a great deal of weight, there are mechanisms at work that make holding the loss difficult. As weight comes off, hunger rises while metabolic rate drops. While someone is obese, metabolic rate tends to run above normal, largely because of the additional lean and fat mass plus the energy needed to move that extra mass. After major weight loss, this settles back to normal as the extra mass disappears, and then metabolic adaptation pushes daily energy expenditure below what would typically be expected for a person of that weight, age and activity level. Consequently, keeping the weight off demands eating fewer calories than average, even with greater hunger, and this issue persists for years or perhaps permanently. Sustaining it takes mental effort, and in almost everyone that effort eventually runs out and weight comes back as intake rises.
I began GLP's purely for maintenance.
I have fairly recent firsthand experience of losing about 70kg without any GLP medication and holding it for a year. Back then, as far as I could tell, the expense simply was not workable for me. Eventually I figured out there was a reasonably cheap legitimate route to ozempic in Australia and began it. The contrast in holding that loss with versus without GLP medication is enormous — even on a low ozempic dose, it was worth enduring the nausea and malaise for a year in return for reduced hunger. And after I found grey GLP's, the improvement was even larger, since I could handle standard tirzepatide doses and also added some retatrutide to boost the effect.
When I was trying to hold the weight off without GLP's, I worried constantly that I would slip up, eat the wrong things, or start regaining, and I never truly believed I could keep it off long term, because that is exactly what had occurred every previous time. And I was hungry much of the time. That was the case even with daily exercise and a very healthy diet.
On GLP medication, I have reasonable confidence the weight will stay off. And life is nicer without the almost constant hunger and the fear of setting off overeating. I am expecting far more than the studies have demonstrated in using them to help hold onto a 54% weight loss, but so far it appears to be working.
For most people, remaining on GLP's after losing weight raises the odds of sustaining healthier lifestyle choices. Multiple studies have found that while on them, people purchase and consume healthier, less processed, lower fat and sugar foods. And at lower weights, exercise becomes easier, more enjoyable, and less likely to cause injuries or long-term joint damage, which improves the chances of sticking with exercise by preventing regain. For most of the population, cost is a major factor in staying on them long term. Grey GLP's are priced so low — 25c/mg for tirzepatide and around 50c/mg for retatrutide — that this is a non issue even for fairly poor people.
Zydeceltico
Explorer
I began at 232.6 lbs on June 6, 25 (before that, I'd dropped 10 lbs from 245 through sheer willpower, and it was miserable). By October of last year I'd reached my initial target of 190, then dropped another 5 lbs just to be safe. Since October of last year I've been on 7.5 mg of tirz and 1.8 mg of survo, and I haven't changed that routine at all. I haven't gone above 190 since, and for months my average has been 187.5. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want (though honestly, that's completely different and much healthier than it was before June 2025), and I've actually come to enjoy exercise and — believe it or not — walking, especially stairs. I still get a huge thrill from climbing stairs without feeling utterly drained. Grey glps are incredibly cheap, and I see zero reason to feel bad about looking after myself or to buy into that old moralizing nonsense about effort, backbone, willpower, weakness, and character flaws. What a waste of time, energy, and emotion to think I have anything to prove. To whom? For what? Geez
RoadRash
Explorer
From my own time using GLP1s, on and off across more than 2 years, I've found that reaching goal doesn't make it easy to shed every pound and keep it off with the glp1. Still, when my lifestyle has genuinely improved — meaning a clean diet plus consistent exercise — I won't regain the entire amount. Others here have made the same point, and I agree... if I'm fine taking other medications for life without a second thought, why would I hold glp1s to a different standard?
Zydeceltico
Explorer
....and what difference does it make to you, anyway?
That's what I can't wrap my head around.
