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New arrival here, writing from the States. Retatrutide has been part of my life for approximately 14 months at this point, and below is roughly how that journey has gone.
Some background: I'm a Caucasian male in my late 20s, living in the U.S., 6' tall. I work in healthcare in some capacity, which probably comes through in how I write and what I do. Growing up I was always very active — track and cross-country all through high school — and since then cycling and backpacking have been constants. Once I got older and settled into a career, my activity level dropped off on its own, yet I kept eating like an active 19-year-old.
Come the end of 2023 I was in the worst shape of my life. I'd taken a far more sedentary job, was emerging from a difficult relationship, and wanted something to change. I gave dieting a go and tried to push my activity back up to what I could handle years earlier, but I kept getting injured and couldn't hold habits together for all sorts of reasons (willpower and motivation definitely among them). I did get roughly 15–20 lbs off, though keeping it off turned out to be hard.
Worth noting too that April of 2024 brought prescriptions for dexmethylphenidate and bupropion, for ADHD and depression respectively. They do have an appetite effect, but I doubt they played much of a part in what follows.
Retatrutide entered the picture in December of 2024, at exactly 230 lbs. My starting dose was 2 mg/week for 6 weeks. Week one brought some vague cold or URI-ish symptoms, possibly down to the new drug but more likely coincidence. Week two is when the real shifts showed up: bloating, nausea and foul-smelling gas. Those came and went across the following 2–3 weeks, and then I was back at baseline with appetite slightly reduced.
Nothing moved on the scale until week 4, when about 0.75 lbs came off. That pace held through the next step up to 4 mg.
At the 6-week mark I moved up to 4 mg. Same symptoms as before came with the higher dose, only far gentler and gone within 4–5 days. Appetite kept falling, and for the first time I felt genuinely in control and at ease around food. I could eat until full and be content on far more sensible portions, while still knowing what my body wanted — never feeling like I was actually depriving myself. The downward trend carried on, averaging a shade under 1 lb each week.
Another 4 weeks later I stepped up to 5 mg per week. Side effects didn't get worse at all. Still, once the first week at 5 mg was done, my calories had clearly dropped, food noise had quietened a lot, control improved and weight fell faster. Weeks 2 and 3 at 5 mg brought an even quicker rate, and by weeks 4 and 5 my weekly average loss was sitting around 3-3.5 lbs. That felt tolerable, so I chose to stay at 5 mg.
I should add that logistics had something to do with going to 5 mg — I was finishing off my first order of 12 mg vials and switching over to 10 mg ones.
I held at 5 mg/week right up until hitting my target of 165 lbs in early July. Working out a sensible maintenance dose from there was a struggle. One month at half the dose, then another 8 weeks at half of that. By then I was pushing how long I was willing to store reconstituted retatrutide, and still shedding more than I wanted. By the end of October the scale read 150 lbs.
November and December were retatrutide-free. Appetite climbed during that stretch, but activity and eating habits held steady. By the new year I was back to approximately 165 lbs — exactly where I wanted to sit.
The one meaningful thing about stopping completely was that first week with no redose: my stomach was fairly unhappy and I needed to stay near a toilet. My guess is faster gastric emptying and more peristalsis — as though my GI tract was booting back up.
Since that big drop in weight I feel considerably healthier: lighter on my feet, more able, more self-assured, and honestly delighted with how it turned out. The one big cost has been losing a good deal of muscle and strength along with the fat.
What I want now is to treat retatrutide as a tool for keeping and improving my physical health while I build strength back. I'm testing how it might be used during a deliberate weight-gain phase. Over my two months off at the end of 2025 I put a lot more time into the gym. Historically cardio has been my thing (cycling, running, hiking, climbing), yet focused strength work with classic compound lifts has genuinely won me over. Those high-appetite months were what I used to get reacquainted with lifting, and the mental health and general wellbeing payoff was considerable.
Weekly dosing restarted in January at 1 mg per week, and four weeks in I've noticed nothing much either way. Today's weigh-in was 168 lbs, and my weekly average is trending up by roughly 0.8–1.0 lbs. I want to keep the gain under 1 lb per week — nearer 0.5 lbs if I can — and keep strength as the priority.
Whether retatrutide is the right instrument for this particular phase I can't say, but I've always tolerated it well and intend to test things carefully. It may well need stopping, or dropping to a very small dose — time will decide.
I'll keep posting updates on progress, thoughts and anything I'm weighing up, and I'm glad to be taking part in this forum.
Some background: I'm a Caucasian male in my late 20s, living in the U.S., 6' tall. I work in healthcare in some capacity, which probably comes through in how I write and what I do. Growing up I was always very active — track and cross-country all through high school — and since then cycling and backpacking have been constants. Once I got older and settled into a career, my activity level dropped off on its own, yet I kept eating like an active 19-year-old.
Come the end of 2023 I was in the worst shape of my life. I'd taken a far more sedentary job, was emerging from a difficult relationship, and wanted something to change. I gave dieting a go and tried to push my activity back up to what I could handle years earlier, but I kept getting injured and couldn't hold habits together for all sorts of reasons (willpower and motivation definitely among them). I did get roughly 15–20 lbs off, though keeping it off turned out to be hard.
Worth noting too that April of 2024 brought prescriptions for dexmethylphenidate and bupropion, for ADHD and depression respectively. They do have an appetite effect, but I doubt they played much of a part in what follows.
Retatrutide entered the picture in December of 2024, at exactly 230 lbs. My starting dose was 2 mg/week for 6 weeks. Week one brought some vague cold or URI-ish symptoms, possibly down to the new drug but more likely coincidence. Week two is when the real shifts showed up: bloating, nausea and foul-smelling gas. Those came and went across the following 2–3 weeks, and then I was back at baseline with appetite slightly reduced.
Nothing moved on the scale until week 4, when about 0.75 lbs came off. That pace held through the next step up to 4 mg.
At the 6-week mark I moved up to 4 mg. Same symptoms as before came with the higher dose, only far gentler and gone within 4–5 days. Appetite kept falling, and for the first time I felt genuinely in control and at ease around food. I could eat until full and be content on far more sensible portions, while still knowing what my body wanted — never feeling like I was actually depriving myself. The downward trend carried on, averaging a shade under 1 lb each week.
Another 4 weeks later I stepped up to 5 mg per week. Side effects didn't get worse at all. Still, once the first week at 5 mg was done, my calories had clearly dropped, food noise had quietened a lot, control improved and weight fell faster. Weeks 2 and 3 at 5 mg brought an even quicker rate, and by weeks 4 and 5 my weekly average loss was sitting around 3-3.5 lbs. That felt tolerable, so I chose to stay at 5 mg.
I should add that logistics had something to do with going to 5 mg — I was finishing off my first order of 12 mg vials and switching over to 10 mg ones.
I held at 5 mg/week right up until hitting my target of 165 lbs in early July. Working out a sensible maintenance dose from there was a struggle. One month at half the dose, then another 8 weeks at half of that. By then I was pushing how long I was willing to store reconstituted retatrutide, and still shedding more than I wanted. By the end of October the scale read 150 lbs.
November and December were retatrutide-free. Appetite climbed during that stretch, but activity and eating habits held steady. By the new year I was back to approximately 165 lbs — exactly where I wanted to sit.
The one meaningful thing about stopping completely was that first week with no redose: my stomach was fairly unhappy and I needed to stay near a toilet. My guess is faster gastric emptying and more peristalsis — as though my GI tract was booting back up.
Since that big drop in weight I feel considerably healthier: lighter on my feet, more able, more self-assured, and honestly delighted with how it turned out. The one big cost has been losing a good deal of muscle and strength along with the fat.
What I want now is to treat retatrutide as a tool for keeping and improving my physical health while I build strength back. I'm testing how it might be used during a deliberate weight-gain phase. Over my two months off at the end of 2025 I put a lot more time into the gym. Historically cardio has been my thing (cycling, running, hiking, climbing), yet focused strength work with classic compound lifts has genuinely won me over. Those high-appetite months were what I used to get reacquainted with lifting, and the mental health and general wellbeing payoff was considerable.
Weekly dosing restarted in January at 1 mg per week, and four weeks in I've noticed nothing much either way. Today's weigh-in was 168 lbs, and my weekly average is trending up by roughly 0.8–1.0 lbs. I want to keep the gain under 1 lb per week — nearer 0.5 lbs if I can — and keep strength as the priority.
Whether retatrutide is the right instrument for this particular phase I can't say, but I've always tolerated it well and intend to test things carefully. It may well need stopping, or dropping to a very small dose — time will decide.
I'll keep posting updates on progress, thoughts and anything I'm weighing up, and I'm glad to be taking part in this forum.
