Considering Reta, Tesa, and recovery peptides after stopping Mounjaro — seeking feedback

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guster

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Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
 
Many who switch from tirzepatide report that retatrutide doesn't keep their appetite in check as well. Keep that in mind and judge for yourself how much it matters in your case.
 
Habibibi said:

Many who switch from tirzepatide report that retatrutide doesn't keep their appetite in check as well. Keep that in mind and judge for yourself how much it matters in your case.
Click to expand...
To be honest, tirz gave me the same result. My take is that the blood sugar management played a bigger role for me.
 
guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

So Tirz took 26kg off you, yet your plan is to go back on Reta. What came back on, and what number are you aiming for? Have you gotten a DEXA scan yet to see the split between fat and lean mass? Also, how long has it been since your final Tirz dose, and what dose were you running at which intervals (this matters for figuring out your present Tirz level and where it needed to sit for compliance).

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

Among the big 3, per mg Reta controls intake and food noise (GLP1) the least well. It can definitely work, but usually the dose has to climb high enough. To avoid bumping my Tirz dose back up, I moved from a 5.5mg collective peak (not steady state) on Tirz to roughly an 8mg cumulative peak on Reta. GCGR is believed to shield lean mass and to give metabolic rate a boost so more calories get burned, which lines up with your other goals.

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

For cutting, Reta works well, but if the GCGR side isn't something you need, Tirz may do the job.

A DEXA scan also gives visceral fat as a metric. Based on what I understand, my forecast is that my visceral fat will drop under population norms before I reach my target weight — though I had the same thought about using Tesa to target it if it came to that.

Ipa... these days I take magnesium.. at this stage I'm mostly reluctant to lean on anything for sleep. Sleep is borderline "good" for me right now, and I'd like to get there as unadulterated as possible, if that's doable.

KLOW... broadly I prefer not being locked into fixed mixed vials; I'd rather keep them separate. As of now I'm nearing week 4 of an 8 week BPC cycle for rotator cuffs and acute tennis elbow, .5mg twice a day.

BPC or TB500 long term isn't in my plans, unless angiogenesis risks get clearer. GHKcu I might cycle for longer, but I'm not at that point in my journey yet. So choosing not to take everything just to take what I want became the baseline route I picked.

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

Nothing reads to me as a problem, though it does look like you went from Tirz alone to wanting to stack 7 things for different reasons. Once we know where you are versus where you want to be (how aggressive the cut will be), timing advice may be simpler to give.

Right now I'm in an aggressive cut using Reta alongside other tools and metrics. I'm 28% of the way to my evaluation goal, so there's a ways to go — my perspective might be quite different if I had a 5% cut, for example.
 
woundcarping said:

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

So Tirz took 26kg off you, yet your plan is to go back on Reta. What came back on, and what number are you aiming for? Have you gotten a DEXA scan yet to see the split between fat and lean mass? Also, how long has it been since your final Tirz dose, and what dose were you running at which intervals (this matters for figuring out your present Tirz level and where it needed to sit for compliance).

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

Among the big 3, per mg Reta controls intake and food noise (GLP1) the least well. It can definitely work, but usually the dose has to climb high enough. To avoid bumping my Tirz dose back up, I moved from a 5.5mg collective peak (not steady state) on Tirz to roughly an 8mg cumulative peak on Reta. GCGR is believed to shield lean mass and to give metabolic rate a boost so more calories get burned, which lines up with your other goals.

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

For cutting, Reta works well, but if the GCGR side isn't something you need, Tirz may do the job.

A DEXA scan also gives visceral fat as a metric. Based on what I understand, my forecast is that my visceral fat will drop under population norms before I reach my target weight — though I had the same thought about using Tesa to target it if it came to that.

Ipa... these days I take magnesium.. at this stage I'm mostly reluctant to lean on anything for sleep. Sleep is borderline "good" for me right now, and I'd like to get there as unadulterated as possible, if that's doable.

KLOW... broadly I prefer not being locked into fixed mixed vials; I'd rather keep them separate. As of now I'm nearing week 4 of an 8 week BPC cycle for rotator cuffs and acute tennis elbow, .5mg twice a day.

BPC or TB500 long term isn't in my plans, unless angiogenesis risks get clearer. GHKcu I might cycle for longer, but I'm not at that point in my journey yet. So choosing not to take everything just to take what I want became the baseline route I picked.

guster said:

Hey everyone, I’d like some opinions on the plan I’m running and if this combination is logical.

A bit of context:

Mounjaro helped me drop a lot of weight (105 kg to 79 kg). I came off it gradually, but a month in Japan with heavy eating brought back my appetite and food noise, and my weight began rising again. That’s why I’m adding a GLP-1 back in, choosing Retatrutide this time, mostly to control appetite and get leaner again.

What I’m aiming for now:

get my eating under control again

keep losing fat

hold on to as much muscle as I can

improve recovery

deal with some loose skin on my stomach

look after an old knee injury (cartilage damage from an MCL tear)

For training, I do weightlifting 4 times a week, plus swimming and squash for cardio and conditioning.

Here’s the stack I’m thinking about:

Retatrutide – appetite suppression and fat loss

Tesamorelin – aimed at visceral fat and skin quality through GH/IGF-1 signaling

Ipamorelin – for sleep and recovery via nightly GH pulses

Klow Blend (BPC-157 + TB-500 + GHK-Cu + KVP) – mostly for local tissue repair, knee support, collagen/skin, and overall recovery

Retatrutide’s main job is managing food intake and food noise. The other peptides are for recovery, skin, and keeping me functional while cutting. I’m not going extreme or stacking lots of hormones, just trying to keep things balanced.

Does this combo make sense physiologically?

Is there anything you’d drop, hold off on, or rethink while cutting with Reta?

Thanks for any input from those who’ve done similar stacks or know the mechanisms.
Click to expand...

Nothing reads to me as a problem, though it does look like you went from Tirz alone to wanting to stack 7 things for different reasons. Once we know where you are versus where you want to be (how aggressive the cut will be), timing advice may be simpler to give.

Right now I'm in an aggressive cut using Reta alongside other tools and metrics. I'm 28% of the way to my evaluation goal, so there's a ways to go — my perspective might be quite different if I had a 5% cut, for example.
Click to expand...

On mounjaro I dropped from 105 kg to my lowest point around 78 kg. Since stopping, over the past months I've bounced back up to 86 kg. That's mostly lifestyle-driven rather than losing control: December holidays, birthdays, and a month-long Japan trip with plenty of eating. I'm quite sure the bulk of that regain is glycogen, water, and some fat — not a full relapse.

My starting point was 32% bodyfat. Right now I'd estimate ~19–21. At my leanest I was probably ~17–18%, which isn't stage-lean. The current target is sub-15%, ideally 12–14%, while bringing back muscle fullness and firming up skin after such a long aggressive cut.

So my goal weight is dynamic; realistically it lands somewhere near 78–82 kg, depending on how the recomp goes. The number itself isn't what I'm after — composition is.

No DEXA so far. I know that would give cleaner data, but my longitudinal measurements have been consistent:

  • fat mass went from ~32–33 kg → ~15 kg
  • lean mass lost over the whole cut was ~1.5–2 kg

    Given how fast and how long the cut was, that trade-off sits fine with me.

Full Tirzepatide history#-full-tirzepatide-history

  • Start: April 22, 2024
  • 2.5 mg: ~4 weeks
  • 5 mg: longest phase, several months
  • 7.5 mg: shorter period
  • 10 mg: 3 weeks
  • Total run: ~9 months
  • Last dose: several weeks ago

So GLP isn't new to me, but I also haven't just come off a long stretch at max dose.

Why Reta now#-why-reta-now

I accept that Reta is weaker per mg for food noise vs Tirz, and replicating Tirz-level appetite suppression isn't the aim. "Eat nothing" isn't the goal — controlled intake while cutting is.

What makes Reta sensible now:

  • I want to shred again and get under 15%
  • I want lean-mass protection after a long cut
  • I want some metabolic support (GCGR leg) rather than leaning harder on GLP
  • Restarting Tirz and flattening out completely again isn't appealing

I know full well that Reta usually requires a higher cumulative dose to match Tirz's appetite effects. That's acceptable. Titrating until intake control is sufficient — not absolute — is fine by me.

Stack philosophy#-stack-philosophy

This isn't stacking for the sake of it. It's consolidation after a hard cut:

  • Reta as the main cutting agent
  • Any GH-related support serves recovery, tissue quality, and fullness, not fast fat loss
  • I'm wary of long-term repair peptides for the same angiogenesis reasons you raised
  • None of this is intended to be permanent

If I were still sitting at 28–30% body fat, I'd be running something far simpler and more aggressive. I'm not. This is a second-phase cut + recomp, not a crash diet.

I appreciate the pushback. Mostly I'm sanity-checking direction and dosing strategy, not trying to overengineer it.
 
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