How to break through a plateau?

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Kyli

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Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
 
Is your carnivore approach a high-fat one or a low-fat one? Are you training at all? It's possible you've settled at a new set point. Or it may simply be too soon to tell. A 750-1000 kcal deficit is a serious amount. Keep going.
 
This has come up in another thread as well

1.5 weeks tells you nothing. Fluctuation driven by water retention, hormones and so on is completely expected.

Here's the reply I gave over there about stalling:

CICO. Mathematics does not negotiate.

As you shed pounds, the daily energy your body needs to hold its current weight falls. A smaller body costs less to run than the bigger one it replaced. Stretch that across several months (day-to-day or week-to-week wobbles don't count) and a stall means your intake now matches maintenance for the weight you are at.

The way out is to eat less, move more, or do both. Reta assists with each, but it cannot do the work for you, particularly once you are further along and already lighter.

Eating fewer calories means counting them and then cutting. Nothing complicated. Choose foods with a low calorie density that are rich in protein and fibre, so you fill up sooner and your lean tissue is protected. Burning more means lifting. Holding on to muscle costs more energy than holding on to fat, and a leaner body burns more calories at rest per pound than a heavier one.

Final thought - perhaps you already do all of this. You now have a smaller, leaner, more muscular body. Muscle is heavier than fat, so the scale might not budge while the body itself gets leaner and healthier. The aim was never weight loss; it was fat loss. The figure on the scale is not the measurement that counts.
 
Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
Tesa is what has you holding onto water. And water has mass. There's your answer.
 
High fat is still where I am. Carnivore is no longer accurate though - call it carnivore plus fruit. Processed junk is still completely out. As for activity, nothing beyond the normal work of running a household and the garden.

ultima thule said:

Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
Tesa is what has you holding onto water. And water has mass. There's your answer.
Click to expand...
I realise that. Right now I'm even questioning whether Tesa was the right call at all...
 
Kyli said:

High fat is still where I am. Carnivore is no longer accurate though - call it carnivore plus fruit. Processed junk is still completely out. As for activity, nothing beyond the normal work of running a household and the garden.

ultima thule said:

Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
Tesa is what has you holding onto water. And water has mass. There's your answer.
Click to expand...
I realise that. Right now I'm even questioning whether Tesa was the right call at all...
Click to expand...
My view is that Tesa gets introduced far too early. And no offence intended, but that includes you. The point at which I would bring it in is once body fat is genuinely low and there is still stubborn belly fat refusing to shift. I am working towards a 10% body fat level myself, and if I get there and still cannot see a six pack, that is when Tesa comes into consideration. In my opinion there is no sense starting it above 10 - 12% bf....
 
Tirz (yes, a different drug, I know lol) stalled me too, so I have been where you are. The first stretch came off fast, then it slowed and more or less stopped for a couple of months, and these days the drop is gradual but steady. That low feeling is familiar, and I had exactly the thoughts you are having.

What I would suggest is putting your energy into working out the Reta dose and timing that suit you, then holding that steady. Find the amount that gives you the results you want and stay at it for as long as you can. You are only 2.5 months in lovie!!! The drugs do work, we just have to give them the time they need to do so...

Tesa is supposed to make you hold water (so I hear) - can I ask what made you add it to your stack?
 
Stace_wow said:

Tirz (yes, a different drug, I know lol) stalled me too, so I have been where you are. The first stretch came off fast, then it slowed and more or less stopped for a couple of months, and these days the drop is gradual but steady. That low feeling is familiar, and I had exactly the thoughts you are having.

What I would suggest is putting your energy into working out the Reta dose and timing that suit you, then holding that steady. Find the amount that gives you the results you want and stay at it for as long as you can. You are only 2.5 months in lovie!!! The drugs do work, we just have to give them the time they need to do so...

Tesa is supposed to make you hold water (so I hear) - can I ask what made you add it to your stack?
Click to expand...
My reason for adding Tesa was to attack the visceral fat. In my view that matters more than the fat sitting under the skin. I do understand that the fatty acids released still have to be oxidised and burned off. But the visceral fat around the belly is the thing I care about most, and I wanted it gone as quickly as possible.
 
ultima thule said:

Kyli said:

High fat is still where I am. Carnivore is no longer accurate though - call it carnivore plus fruit. Processed junk is still completely out. As for activity, nothing beyond the normal work of running a household and the garden.

ultima thule said:

Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
Tesa is what has you holding onto water. And water has mass. There's your answer.
Click to expand...
I realise that. Right now I'm even questioning whether Tesa was the right call at all...
Click to expand...
My view is that Tesa gets introduced far too early. And no offence intended, but that includes you. The point at which I would bring it in is once body fat is genuinely low and there is still stubborn belly fat refusing to shift. I am working towards a 10% body fat level myself, and if I get there and still cannot see a six pack, that is when Tesa comes into consideration. In my opinion there is no sense starting it above 10 - 12% bf....
Click to expand...
^ this.

Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
The water you are carrying comes from two places - the Tesa, and the extra carbs that arrived with the fruit over these last two weeks.

Kyli said:

Hey everyone,

I've been on Reta for roughly 2.5 months now. At the moment that's 2.5mg on a 2x a week schedule, and the weight has genuinely come down — about 14kg across that stretch. But for the last 1.5 weeks or so, ever since Tesa went into my stack, it has actually crept upwards. My CW right now is 131kg, and the lowest I saw was 129kg. Which leaves me with no clear idea what to do next. I've reached the point where my motivation is slipping too.

The 130kg mark has some kind of magic to it for me. It was my weight for a very long time. Even back when I was in the gym 5x a week (15 years ago) I could not get underneath it.

Beyond the Reta, I'm currently running IF from 17/18:00 through to 12:00. To be honest, the weeks before this I was on a strict carnivore diet. These past 2 weeks I've added more fruit — summer makes me want watermelon, raspberries and so on. Even so I'm still sitting in a deficit of roughly 750-1.000 kcal a day.

When I first started the Reta, almost every single day brought a new lower number on the scale. And now... it's depressing....
Click to expand...
If I had to bet, nearly everything you have put on in recent weeks is water.

Kyli said:

Stace_wow said:

Tirz (yes, a different drug, I know lol) stalled me too, so I have been where you are. The first stretch came off fast, then it slowed and more or less stopped for a couple of months, and these days the drop is gradual but steady. That low feeling is familiar, and I had exactly the thoughts you are having.

What I would suggest is putting your energy into working out the Reta dose and timing that suit you, then holding that steady. Find the amount that gives you the results you want and stay at it for as long as you can. You are only 2.5 months in lovie!!! The drugs do work, we just have to give them the time they need to do so...

Tesa is supposed to make you hold water (so I hear) - can I ask what made you add it to your stack?
Click to expand...
My reason for adding Tesa was to attack the visceral fat. In my view that matters more than the fat sitting under the skin. I do understand that the fatty acids released still have to be oxidised and burned off. But the visceral fat around the belly is the thing I care about most, and I wanted it gone as quickly as possible.
Click to expand...
Losing weight at all still takes visceral fat with it, Tesa or no Tesa. You can think about hitting it specifically once you are nearer your goal weight, if that is even needed.
 
Calling it a genuine stall is not really fair unless you have been sitting on solid doses for a year or longer.

Where you are now, plenty of water has come off and a decent amount of fat with it - -14kg over 2.5 months, and if I had to guess, something like 5kg of that was water and 9 was fat. Then you introduced a compound that makes the body hold fluid, namely Tesa, so anything shifting in the short term afterwards is most likely that retention, and it will not clear until the tesa stops. Assuming your daily intake has not moved, fat is almost certainly still coming off at the same rate, whatever the scales are telling you.

The speed you are losing at is nothing extreme - 1kg a week at the most. Can't speak to what side effects you are getting, if any, but is there a reason not to push the reta dose up? And why has motivation gone this early? Is the diet and exercise you have committed to actually hard to live with? Is hunger constant? Increasing the dose can address all of it by making the whole thing more tolerable and leaving you less hungry.

Fruit such as raspberries or watermelon will not do any harm unless you are specifically chasing ketosis. The calories per gram in either are minuscule, and you would need kilos every day before they added up to anything meaningful. In practice it is close to impossible not to lose weight while eating that much of them, because you simply cannot get through that many kilos a day of such low calorific density fruit, no matter how hard you try - your gut gives up long before the calories matter. I used exactly this trick to hold my weight steady before I came across grey glps, eating a kilo or 2 of strawberries or raspberries with high protein yoghurt every day.
 
^ This - retention of water is the obvious explanation, it happens routinely on tesa and usually sorts itself out within a few weeks. You are barely at the start of a health journey you will be on for life. Give it time, and pay attention to how you feel rather than what the scale reads
 
ColdSmoke said:

^ This - retention of water is the obvious explanation, it happens routinely on tesa and usually sorts itself out within a few weeks. You are barely at the start of a health journey you will be on for life. Give it time, and pay attention to how you feel rather than what the scale reads
Click to expand...
I brought gh back in the moment I started Reta, and to begin with I put on more pounds than I had taken off - then it began falling again roughly 2 weeks later.
 
lessthanhalf said:

Calling it a genuine stall is not really fair unless you have been sitting on solid doses for a year or longer.

Where you are now, plenty of water has come off and a decent amount of fat with it - -14kg over 2.5 months, and if I had to guess, something like 5kg of that was water and 9 was fat. Then you introduced a compound that makes the body hold fluid, namely Tesa, so anything shifting in the short term afterwards is most likely that retention, and it will not clear until the tesa stops. Assuming your daily intake has not moved, fat is almost certainly still coming off at the same rate, whatever the scales are telling you.

The speed you are losing at is nothing extreme - 1kg a week at the most. Can't speak to what side effects you are getting, if any, but is there a reason not to push the reta dose up? And why has motivation gone this early? Is the diet and exercise you have committed to actually hard to live with? Is hunger constant? Increasing the dose can address all of it by making the whole thing more tolerable and leaving you less hungry.

Fruit such as raspberries or watermelon will not do any harm unless you are specifically chasing ketosis. The calories per gram in either are minuscule, and you would need kilos every day before they added up to anything meaningful. In practice it is close to impossible not to lose weight while eating that much of them, because you simply cannot get through that many kilos a day of such low calorific density fruit, no matter how hard you try - your gut gives up long before the calories matter. I used exactly this trick to hold my weight steady before I came across grey glps, eating a kilo or 2 of strawberries or raspberries with high protein yoghurt every day.
Click to expand...
Well, next time I could pin 3mg rather than 2.5mg. Or bring Cagri into the stack.

Honestly though, I have no idea where the motivation went. Maybe I want instant results? Or maybe it is because nearly every day used to bring a new number on the scale and that has stopped?

As for the food noise and the hunger... I don't know. Even if my last meal was at 17:00 and I'm out in the garden the next morning, I have no trouble waiting until 12 or 13:00 before I eat anything. But it is a strange sensation. I don't feel hungry as such. Something is there in the background. It's like telling my GF I'm not angry and having her say: I can see that you're angry.

There's also this: I tried to get under 130kg before, over a long stretch, and couldn't. Even on prescribed medication. I was on Alvalin at the time.

Redz said:

ColdSmoke said:

^ This - retention of water is the obvious explanation, it happens routinely on tesa and usually sorts itself out within a few weeks. You are barely at the start of a health journey you will be on for life. Give it time, and pay attention to how you feel rather than what the scale reads
Click to expand...
I brought gh back in the moment I started Reta, and to begin with I put on more pounds than I had taken off - then it began falling again roughly 2 weeks later.
Click to expand...
ok, I read up a bit more and decided to keep going with Tesa for a while. I'll take 2mg / day. Mo-Fr. Let's see how it develops.

You know, somehow even through writing with you guys, it gives motivation back. 🥰
 
At 2.5 months you are still at the beginning. On top of that, your body is adjusting to the new "system" now that reta/peptides are in place. Do you use a smart scale? It's possible you're dropping fat while gaining water. Beyond that, it's really worth adding some form of resistance work - even just exercise bands, if the gym or lifting doesn't appeal.

Speaking for myself, I've hit several stalls and had small panics, because watching the scale fall feels so good. What helped was switching to measuring my waistline. It kept improving even while the weight sat where it was. I've been steadily adding resistance training, averaging 10k steps, and so on. So part of my "stall" came from added muscle and water.

With reta I use a single bolus rather than spreading it over the week. Mostly that was E6D, but after the recent stall (I'm close to my body fat % goal, and this is where things get harder and your body adapts) I have gone to E5D. There's been some improvement, though my plan is to go back to the 6 days routine eventually and drop to a maintenance dose.
 
I know that feeling of motivation draining away, but if your dose is doing its job this becomes a minor irritation rather than something that knocks you off course. By now I would have quit more than ten times over, because there are always stretches where you dwell on how long it is taking, wonder why it has slowed, and cannot picture ever getting to the goal. A week and a half, or even three or four weeks, is just noise if you know you are eating at a deficit.

Over the last month I was also holding water and bloated much of the time (sermorelin may be the reason) and my weight hardly moved. But I knew the deficit was there and that it would pass, and this week the scale has started coming down again.
 
As several people have said, CICO is an unforgiving rule. Energy in minus energy out leaves you with a surplus or a deficit.

The difficulty people run into is the energy out side, because the exact expenditure is not something we can know. All we can do is make an educated estimate.

Of the many GLP drugs around, Retatrutide is the one that directly raises BMR, but even then there is no cheating CICO.

I completely understand the struggle. Before reta, 240lb was the wall I could not pass, and nothing short of a 5 day water fast moved it. Now I'm on TRT, reta and some anabolics, so I've put on some muscle and am technically still above 240lb, yet my waist has come down by 10cm.

You haven't told us your daily intake.
 
Honestly, I don't understand it. Yesterday I was around 130,5kg and this evening I'm back close to my lowest of 129.2kg. And that's after drinking plenty - a 2L bottle of water plus 1-2L of tea and other liquids. Though I also spent today working on my car in the sun and my T-Shirt was soaked afterwards. So having drunk all that and without a bowel movement, I'm back at my minimum. And it feels good, honestly. Last time round I raised the reta dose by 0.5mg / 1mg Week.

Let's see how the journey carries on. The worst side effect so far is that my shorts keep falling down 😉
 
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