INTRO My first month of Reta

[myboysherman]

Bastogne22 said:

myboysherman said:

Spent a couple months reading without posting. The folks in this community are genuinely great, and I'm thankful for that. My BMI has sat around 31 for quite some time. A few years back, keto worked and I shed roughly 30lbs, but a long illness followed by recovery undid all of it and the weight came right back. Over just under five weeks I've moved from ca. 234 down to 227 — roughly matching the pace I had on keto with mild IF, except now I don't need to dodge my wife at dinner. Way better.

During week one at 1mg x2/week, I ran into some concerning arrhythmia, so I eased off and began again gradually. That early hiccup put my progress on hold for a bit, and things seem to be leveling out fine now @.75mg every three days. My plan was to move back up to 1mg tomorrow, though this morning's scale reading looked good enough that I might hold off.

I drink in moderation. Reta has clearly changed how alcohol hits me. Still, avoiding overdoing it isn't hard. That first week I went entire days without any alcohol, but that phase has passed for now.

Once sema/ipa shows up, I plan to add it. What worries me most is the risk of turning this into a hobby. I could use the anti-obsessive peptide.

Glad to have you here! This thread has some really good conversation and a wide range of approaches. You see schedules like E7D, E5D, E4D, and E3D, and starting doses anywhere from .25 up to 2.0. What made you land on your particular choice? Did someone with experience walk you through it and give pointers? Places such as this one and Reddit? Tiktok? I'm always interested in how folks arrive at these calls!

My starting dose was 1mg, which I chose after reading posts here, checking some Reddit threads, watching YouTube vids, and going through a widely shared suspicious-link-removed penned by an X/Twitter person I follow who is mostly decent. Above all, I study the tables from Lily studies and search their data for specific sides.

Since the sides were manageable and the effects faded within a few days, I simply added another 1mg to reach 2mg per week. By dose 3, the sides hit hard, so I paused, then crept the dose upward in response to my hunger and sides, using Shotsy to monitor levels and stay within a range.

One more wrinkle: my dilution is 1:20 and I want to keep each dose below 30 units. Next time I mix a vial, I'll make it more concentrated and hopefully switch to once a week then. Even that plan is tentative.

So I'm limited by the research, nudged along by social media, and otherwise figuring it out by ear (scale.)