Balancing Post-Workout Protein and Fasted State on Reta

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MietekFogg

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Hi all 👋

I’m in week 3 of Reta, dosing 1mg once weekly. Results have been great and my weight is dropping steadily. I train 6 days a week. My eating pattern is 3 meals: breakfast at 7, brunch around 10, and lunch at 13.30. After that I stop eating for the day to remain fasted, but I usually hit the gym after work and begin training around 5. Sessions run 1-2h and combine cardio with resistance work.

So my question, given how much I’m reading about muscle loss while on Reta: would a post-workout protein shake, or a full meal once I’m home, be the better choice overall? I’d rather not trigger insulin with another meal and break my fasted state, but I also know protein after training matters. Any thoughts or personal experience would be much appreciated. Thanks
 
Personally, I won't skip protein following a training session. Hitting my daily protein target is already a struggle, and right now preventing muscle breakdown matters more to me than dropping weight. If the scale keeps dropping by 1 or 2 pounds weekly, that's fine.
 
The short answer: yes.

When it comes to strength training, getting carbs in within 30 minutes after your session matters a lot for replenishing glycogen. On top of that, protein should be consumed within 2 hours to support building and repairing muscle.

Recovery and muscle growth happen while you sleep, and your body requires fuel to carry that out. My suggestion would be to either move your training to the morning or adjust when you eat.
 
Research on protein timing is extensive, yet findings and viewpoints often clash. Following a training session, muscle protein synthesis climbs and doesn't max out until roughly 24 hours afterward. That knowledge has led me to schedule my eating in phases. These days I'm older and only do 2 resistance workouts weekly, though each one is lengthy, intense, and hits the whole body. Recovery in my muscles remains decent, but other connective tissue needs 6-7 days to bounce back after heavy loading.

Since my sessions almost always happen in the afternoon, I aim to take in some carbs 1-3 hours beforehand (a fairly recent study indicated that pre-workout carbs matter considerably more than post-workout carbs, mainly so your glycogen stores have fuel available to support a better session). Right after training, I make sure to consume at least 30g of protein within 1 hour, since that point is the one nearly every study on protein timing for muscle synthesis treats as crucial. Across the 24 hours that follow the workout, I eat fairly freely. Any junk food I decide to have gets slotted into this window, though I still mostly stick to healthy whole foods with plenty of protein. In practice, this hands me 2 cheat/refeed days each week.

Once those 24 hours are up, I go back to an AMPK focus (low carb, plus AMPK helpers like MOTS-C/SLU/ATX-304) until the next 24 hour mTOR session arrives. I'm roughly six weeks into this approach, and so far it's been working really well as I close in on my goal. After sitting stalled near 212 for a few months, I've dropped six pounds this way (goal of 199.9).
 
psycho_driver said:

Research on protein timing is extensive, yet findings and viewpoints often clash. Following a training session, muscle protein synthesis climbs and doesn't max out until roughly 24 hours afterward. That knowledge has led me to schedule my eating in phases. These days I'm older and only do 2 resistance workouts weekly, though each one is lengthy, intense, and hits the whole body. Recovery in my muscles remains decent, but other connective tissue needs 6-7 days to bounce back after heavy loading.

Since my sessions almost always happen in the afternoon, I aim to take in some carbs 1-3 hours beforehand (a fairly recent study indicated that pre-workout carbs matter considerably more than post-workout carbs, mainly so your glycogen stores have fuel available to support a better session). Right after training, I make sure to consume at least 30g of protein within 1 hour, since that point is the one nearly every study on protein timing for muscle synthesis treats as crucial. Across the 24 hours that follow the workout, I eat fairly freely. Any junk food I decide to have gets slotted into this window, though I still mostly stick to healthy whole foods with plenty of protein. In practice, this hands me 2 cheat/refeed days each week.

Once those 24 hours are up, I go back to an AMPK focus (low carb, plus AMPK helpers like MOTS-C/SLU/ATX-304) until the next 24 hour mTOR session arrives. I'm roughly six weeks into this approach, and so far it's been working really well as I close in on my goal. After sitting stalled near 212 for a few months, I've dropped six pounds this way (goal of 199.9).
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Yes, and whether you're in a surplus or a deficit changes things. When you're overfed, I'd say timing matters far less. However, lifting weights starts out catabolic. My take: during a substantial deficit, carbs ahead of training and protein afterward should definitely be the priority… adding a few carbs to support nutrient uptake.

If a meal isn't happening within 60 minutes after training, I'll take a shake or at minimum a bar.
 
I haven't come across any research looking at carbohydrate and protein consumption before and after training in people using GLPs. Because digestion is slowed down so much, I find it very difficult to accept that this timing makes any real difference.
 
MikeyMike said:

The short answer: yes.

When it comes to strength training, getting carbs in within 30 minutes after your session matters a lot for replenishing glycogen. On top of that, protein should be consumed within 2 hours to support building and repairing muscle.

Recovery and muscle growth happen while you sleep, and your body requires fuel to carry that out. My suggestion would be to either move your training to the morning or adjust when you eat.
Click to expand...

Shifting your training session to the morning is a solid call 👍
 
Pete369 said:

staffn1 said:

I haven't come across any research looking at carbohydrate and protein consumption before and after training in people using GLPs. Because digestion is slowed down so much, I find it very difficult to accept that this timing makes any real difference.
Click to expand...

PMC case series: preserving lean mass on GLP-1/GIP agonists, and on GLP-1, while weight falls
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting this. It was at least an engaging read. No solid takeaways can be drawn from it, though maybe additional research on the subject will appear down the line.
 
After the gym I go with a protein shake. To make it really thick I use double the scoops relative to the water, and that takes care of 60g of protein for the day. When I get that extra urge to chew something near the end of my dose, I'll eat a hard boiled egg.

Hard boiled eggs give me a strong Proustian Madeleine reaction — they bring back childhood memories of the order of the arrow ordeal, shivering out in a dew covered field while eating a hard boiled egg.

Without taking in a lot of calories, protein shakes are the only route to reach my goal. Just get yourself to the point where your goals are met and keep hydrated. No matter what the reta is telling your body, you still need some fuel.
 
as long as you get at least 100g of protein at any point during the day and you train, you won't lose muscle

i went 2 weeks with no solid food and under 50g of iso protein in that stretch because reta gave me crazy GI problems

i dropped 5% strength ... and regained it in under 1 week of refeeding

and there's no need to train 6 days a week

give yourself at least 2 days to recover
 
Protein shakes after a workout are excellent, particularly for making sure you reach your protein targets when you're falling short (1 gram per kg of desired weight). If you're already meeting them, I wouldn't call it essential, though it should still support protein synthesis overnight. . I once won a gym contest while training fasted early in the morning and not eating until lunch, and I still put on 1 kg of muscle while dropping 6 kg of fat. Plenty can be accomplished without chasing an ideal. —for my part, I'd choose burning body fat over topping up glycogen stores before or after training, since your body isn't building those up while you're in a calorie deficit anyway. Burn body fat instead!
 
Protein timing is something u shouldn't brush off, particularly following a training session. When u skip protein and carbs after a tough workout, the odds go up that u drift into a more catabolic state, and recovery can take a hit.

Not trying to be rude, but going 12 hours without eating after a hard 1–2 hour workout is nowhere near optimal when the aim is holding onto or adding muscle. People tend to oversell the upside of staying fasted, and that's especially true here. Skipping your post-workout meal doesn't translate into extra fat loss

Lifting weights ramps up muscle protein synthesis and turns on mTOR signaling. Without amino acids coming in afterward, that anabolic signal stays capped. AMPK activity rises instead, pushing the body toward energy conservation and fuel utilization rather than maximizing muscle protein synthesis, which is the whole point of weightlifting

That's not to say muscle starts getting burned in place of fat right away, but stacked against getting enough protein after training, it's a weaker approach for keeping muscle and recomping.
 
MietekFogg said:

Hi all 👋

I’m in week 3 of Reta, dosing 1mg once weekly. Results have been great and my weight is dropping steadily. I train 6 days a week. My eating pattern is 3 meals: breakfast at 7, brunch around 10, and lunch at 13.30. After that I stop eating for the day to remain fasted, but I usually hit the gym after work and begin training around 5. Sessions run 1-2h and combine cardio with resistance work.

So my question, given how much I’m reading about muscle loss while on Reta: would a post-workout protein shake, or a full meal once I’m home, be the better choice overall? I’d rather not trigger insulin with another meal and break my fasted state, but I also know protein after training matters. Any thoughts or personal experience would be much appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
That comment about the data being conflicting is spot on. To phrase it differently, these approaches are like assholes—everybody's got one. My own take is that you've got to figure out what suits you, so that both the way you eat and the way you train can be kept up over time. From what I've found, when I'm doing a lot of cardio, I turn into a seriously irritable guy unless I get some carbs in. That's why I'll have 130 calories from a small serving of oats or oatmeal with blueberries. And I always have shakes during the day, even when I'm in a deep calorie deficit or doing keto. Best of luck!
 
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