I began tirz a few months back and have increased the dose at a very gradual pace. Weight has come off, and I'm roughly halfway to my target. One reason I prefer a slower loss is to avoid people asking "what are you on". I keep my medication private. The other reason for going slow was loose skin, though I did just start klow. So here's my question: it seems like everyone tries to lose as fast as they can—what benefit does that give? Would I be better off switching up my approach? To me this is a marathon, not a sprint, since I expect to stay on this med for life.
Is losing slowly a mistake?
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byefatlicia
Explorer
That's a great question.
Sometimes I wonder whether I ought to have been more aggressive early on, back when the Tirz was at full strength. I figured I could go at my own pace and that I would reach "there" sooner or later.
Yet as the months pass and the scale moves less and less, I catch myself thinking that maybe the window for a big loss has already closed.
What the best approach actually is, I can't say. This is simply the path I picked, and every so often I ask myself whether it was the correct one.
Sometimes I wonder whether I ought to have been more aggressive early on, back when the Tirz was at full strength. I figured I could go at my own pace and that I would reach "there" sooner or later.
Yet as the months pass and the scale moves less and less, I catch myself thinking that maybe the window for a big loss has already closed.
What the best approach actually is, I can't say. This is simply the path I picked, and every so often I ask myself whether it was the correct one.
Zydeceltico
Explorer
From my perspective, the way you're going about it is sensible, sustainable, and good for you. I wouldn't change a thing.
Starting with the smallest dose that still works is a completely reasonable approach, and plenty of people do it. If the weight is coming off consistently, there's no reason to change course. Also, asking that is a wise thing to do, not a foolish one.
rixsternaz
Explorer
Getting halfway to your goal in just a few months is something to celebrate. Taking the weight off gradually is a good approach for keeping muscle intact and reducing loose skin. At this point, I wouldn't tweak your routine. Nice job, keep it going!!
deleted.user.16
Explorer
My reasons:
1) Patience isn't my strong suit
2) I'm female and preserving muscle isn't a huge priority for me (plus my body puts on muscle with almost no effort)
3) My personality means I get a kick out of doing extreme things just for fun.
4) I've noticed many people here and on Reddit mention they built up a tolerance very fast and end up needing larger and larger doses, so I'm aiming to drop more weight sooner in case the same thing happens to me.
I hear this said constantly EVERYWHERE but I've never actually come across proof that slower loss is gentler on your skin. If somebody has it, I'd genuinely like to see it and it would truly alter how I'm handling this. But I've been lurking in assorted weight-loss subreddits for years (while putting off starting my own weight loss) and I've watched folks in the fasting subreddit drop 50 lbs in 40 days with no loose skin, while others say they meticulously tracked every calorie to eat just 200 kcal below their TDEE for years and their photos show rolls and rolls of loose skin. (I'm not claiming faster loss is better for loose skin, just that I haven't noticed any correlation).
Not if it aligns with your own goals and it's working for you.
Great, keep doing what you're doing and don't let other people's choices sway you if your goals differ from theirs.
Back when I began tirz 2 plus years ago, the common wisdom favored keeping doses low and progressing gradually—loose skin and adverse reactions were things people worried about. You only increased your dose once the current one stopped being effective. I'm not sure what drove the shift toward treating weight loss like a race now, or toward seeing how many compounds you can pile together. My advice would be to stick with what you're already doing and follow the approach that suits you.
AcadiaPeptides
Explorer
I share that “marathon, not a sprint” outlook. Tirz has been part of my routine for roughly 4 months, and I added Reta on top because the whole process has felt good and consistent. My weight is down 27 lbs since Christmas, and that number still surprises me.
This week I’ve also got some KLOW and TESA on the way, and I’m looking forward to giving them a go. The KLOW is mostly for me because I’m in my 50s and have pain plus old injuries that date back decades—and there’s the loose skin beginning to appear too. As for the TESA, it’s meant to address the remaining belly and organ fat that refuses to move.
To me, the speed was never about rushing as fast as I could; it’s about a rate I can maintain and that keeps me driven. Each person’s protocol winds up differing somewhat, and that’s fine. The key thing is that it suits your body and your longer‑term aims.
This week I’ve also got some KLOW and TESA on the way, and I’m looking forward to giving them a go. The KLOW is mostly for me because I’m in my 50s and have pain plus old injuries that date back decades—and there’s the loose skin beginning to appear too. As for the TESA, it’s meant to address the remaining belly and organ fat that refuses to move.
To me, the speed was never about rushing as fast as I could; it’s about a rate I can maintain and that keeps me driven. Each person’s protocol winds up differing somewhat, and that’s fine. The key thing is that it suits your body and your longer‑term aims.
miss-sanne
Explorer
Nope, not me. I'm basically at the weight I was aiming for, and I was shooting for roughly 0,5-1 kg weekly. In practice, it came out to 0,5 mg each week. Over the course of 10 months, I dropped 23 kg's, which is around 25 % of what I weighed when I began.
If it's working in your case, there's no reason to switch things up.
Everyone's different — plenty of folks chase quick outcomes, but you should just do what suits you.
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I'm also in my 50s and I'd rather not appear older. My Mum carries a bit more weight and looks younger than she is, whereas my grandma was very small and appeared much older than her age. My aim is to have grandma's size together with Mum's looks.
If you've already dropped 1/2 of the weight you wanted to lose after just a few months, that suggests your starting excess wasn't huge. That context matters, because other readers of this thread may be at the very beginning with far more to lose.
You're asking for the opposite perspective on the slow-and-steady approach, so here it is: for those carrying a lot of excess weight (which, again, may not describe you), there seems to be a limited "window of opportunity" — roughly 12 to 16 months — before glp-1 driven weight loss typically decelerates and stalls. Changing drugs or stacking could potentially overcome that plateau, though that's a whole other topic.
Given that window, low and slow may not be the optimal plan for someone with morbid obesity. Since the tirzepatide trials, the medical field seems to have updated its thinking on titration: if a patient keeps losing and has solid appetite suppression, there's no reason to go up in dose. On the other hand, if someone isn't losing or is battling food noise while handling their current dose well, increasing the dose is logical.
What worries me for people with a lot of weight to lose is that they might buy into the idea that low and slow is "better" and "less cheating," and in doing so miss out on the treatment's full potential — ending up short of the goals they could have hit with a more aggressive titration schedule, assuming they could tolerate it.
Now I finally get it. Altogether, I need to drop roughly 50 pounds. Right now I'm shedding around 1/2 pound each week. Hearing others describe bigger drops left me puzzled and somewhat envious, thinking maybe my method was off. Thanks
Your objectives determine this. My blood panel was terrible—truly terrible—so I stuck with the trial protocol. Since I work remotely, nobody is peppering me with questions. Over 6 months, I dropped an average of 2 lbs per week. That doesn't mean the trial is mandatory for everyone, since we can choose a pace that feels manageable. I also respond very well, with few or no sides, and that matters. The blood work I had done in January came back as the best I've ever had, so Reta seems tailored to me. No two people are alike.
LabRatts
Explorer
Building HEALTHY habits deserves the time to be done properly.
Since no 2 people are identical, each person has to figure out what this looks like for themselves.
But keep in mind that “comfort is a slow death” and let that shape how you live.
latviantower
Explorer
I went up in dose as quickly as I could - I was thrilled to finally have found a method that did the job. As a result, those 100 pounds came off over roughly 9 months. Would a slower pace have been better for me? Absolutely. I had been taking 4 different BP medications, and I tapered off all of them while needing to monitor my BP multiple times daily. Then orthostatic hypotension set in - standing up would send me straight down unless I grabbed onto something. According to my PCP (who was aware of and involved in my compounded journey), she felt strongly that a more gradual weight loss would have let my body adapt more smoothly. Things are fine at present, but a few months there were genuinely frightening!
Great question, though I don’t think anyone has studied it for glps.
Rapid weight loss does seem to make faces look gaunt at first, and that usually settles again — I saw the same thing in plenty of people back before glps existed. What I am not aware of is any real study showing a lasting difference in skin laxity based on how fast the weight came off.
In the same way, before glps there were large multi-year studies finding that fast weight loss was not any less likely to still be held at the 3 year mark, and because the excitement tends to produce the motivation to stay on a strict calorie limited diet, the rapid losers actually appeared to lose more.
When something works for you, your own case is the only data point you have that it works for you. I suspect we could all look inward and work out whether our reasons are internally or externally driven.
The one thing I keep coming back to is that the longer we sit at an unhealthy weight, the longer the problems tied to it — inflammation, for instance — keep affecting our health, possibly irreversibly. I have not seen data saying rapid weight loss is unhealthy unless malnutrition comes into it.
The mortality drop from glps (12%) appears to hold across all-cause death and across people with various or no underlying conditions, so glps probably do more than just keep weight off — they likely improve health regardless of that. (For comparison, tirz against glp1s in type 2 diabetics showed a 42% better mortality rate.)
I don’t think we really understand how the body adapts and accommodates to glp1 meds. They do trigger antibodies, but those do not seem to generally neutralise. We do know the body adapts in some ways, which is why paced escalation is recommended. Whether people stop responding and regain while on these meds would be a study well worth having… from what exists, it seems to work for 4 years at least.
Overall though, I don’t think anyone can tell you for certain. What you are doing is very health positive, so if being in control of your health matters to you, that is a good thing in itself.
Rapid weight loss does seem to make faces look gaunt at first, and that usually settles again — I saw the same thing in plenty of people back before glps existed. What I am not aware of is any real study showing a lasting difference in skin laxity based on how fast the weight came off.
In the same way, before glps there were large multi-year studies finding that fast weight loss was not any less likely to still be held at the 3 year mark, and because the excitement tends to produce the motivation to stay on a strict calorie limited diet, the rapid losers actually appeared to lose more.
When something works for you, your own case is the only data point you have that it works for you. I suspect we could all look inward and work out whether our reasons are internally or externally driven.
The one thing I keep coming back to is that the longer we sit at an unhealthy weight, the longer the problems tied to it — inflammation, for instance — keep affecting our health, possibly irreversibly. I have not seen data saying rapid weight loss is unhealthy unless malnutrition comes into it.
The mortality drop from glps (12%) appears to hold across all-cause death and across people with various or no underlying conditions, so glps probably do more than just keep weight off — they likely improve health regardless of that. (For comparison, tirz against glp1s in type 2 diabetics showed a 42% better mortality rate.)
I don’t think we really understand how the body adapts and accommodates to glp1 meds. They do trigger antibodies, but those do not seem to generally neutralise. We do know the body adapts in some ways, which is why paced escalation is recommended. Whether people stop responding and regain while on these meds would be a study well worth having… from what exists, it seems to work for 4 years at least.
Overall though, I don’t think anyone can tell you for certain. What you are doing is very health positive, so if being in control of your health matters to you, that is a good thing in itself.
lessthanhalf
Explorer
I believe your perspective is spot on—treating this as a very long-term or even permanent matter. If that's the case, the speed at which you reach the goal isn't hugely important. The main argument for eventually using full doses is for people with more severe obesity, since higher doses likely do a better job of lowering long-term health risks compared to lower doses. With a total of 50 lbs of excess weight, I'd guess you probably aren't in that group. However, if you have conditions such as high blood pressure, high lipids, or high sugars, and/or you're older, then higher doses might be worth thinking about—but even then, getting there gradually is still fine. Rapid weight loss definitely comes with added risks, such as gallstones, fainting, and fatigue, though it can help with motivation because results show up sooner.
HereKittyKitty
Explorer
There's nothing you've overlooked. Stick with the approach that's giving you results.
