Just started Reta: questions about early weight loss

Aukwerd

Aukwerd

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Good Evening Weight-loss Page:

I'm picking up new things every day, and there's a lot to absorb. My question today is about diet. The protocol I'm following is producing good results: fat is coming down and muscle has ticked up a little. Building muscle isn't my goal — fat loss is, and visceral fat matters most to me. A fad diet that pushed protein and a harsh calorie deficit is what caused me to put on a lot of visceral fat; my body went into starvation mode, dropped weight, and then when I returned to normal eating it stored visceral fat rather than subq fat. So now I'm worried about the deficit I'm in while taking Reta. Today I've eaten protein, drunk protein, added fiber, taken my daily multi-vitamin, and consumed calories throughout the day. Today I had a salad with salmon that came to only 500 calories, and my other snacks added up to about 500 calories.

I don't feel hungry and my body is still passing waste. No nausea, and honestly no negative side effects at all. My only worry is that a severe deficit will make my body hold onto the visceral fat I'm trying to get rid of. I'm avoiding fatty foods and I have no interest in sugar. My doctor says I need roughly 2100 calories to lose weight "naturally". I'd like to stay near 1800 calories. Today was really low, and that can lead to complications.

Other than eating high fat foods, what are some ways I could "force" calories in without feeling nauseous?

Thanks for your help!
 
There's not enough here to go on. Are you already on Reta, and if so, how much are you taking? Our approach was a low carb setup. We ate meats and fresh vegetables, mostly steamed, plus cottage cheese. Lunch was protein shakes, and we really reduced the beer and booze. Calories were never tallied, and side effects never showed up for us, so that wasn't a problem. Don't forget your electrolytes.
 
Get the loseit app, choose the sedentary setting, and don't add back the calories you burn through exercise.

Stay at a dose that keeps a calorie deficit tolerable and something you can keep up with.

Weight loss means you'll also be shedding visceral fat.
 
500 cals won't work long-term if you're hoping to keep your hair, sleep, muscle and health.

You need carbs, rice included. My own daily shake — double protein scoop plus Greek yogurt and banana — already comes to 500 cals. My guess is you have to eat far more, at minimum 3 times your current intake.
 
Redz said:

500 cals won't work long-term if you're hoping to keep your hair, sleep, muscle and health.

You need carbs, rice included. My own daily shake — double protein scoop plus Greek yogurt and banana — already comes to 500 cals. My guess is you have to eat far more, at minimum 3 times your current intake.
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Their intake was 1000 (500 from snacks, 500 from a meal)
 
Previously I used tirz, moving up from 2.5mg to 7.5mg across a three month period. My first Reta dose was Saturday (this post went up Monday). I take 1mg of Reta on Tuesday and again on Saturday, which adds up to 2mg per week. The plan is to titrate to 6mg, and maybe 8mg if that turns out to be necessary.

Alongside that I use KLOW, Mots-c, and NAD+. My intention is to cycle Tesa/ipa together with KLOW, 4wk/6wk.
 
Aukwerd said:

Previously I used tirz, moving up from 2.5mg to 7.5mg across a three month period. My first Reta dose was Saturday (this post went up Monday). I take 1mg of Reta on Tuesday and again on Saturday, which adds up to 2mg per week. The plan is to titrate to 6mg, and maybe 8mg if that turns out to be necessary.

Alongside that I use KLOW, Mots-c, and NAD+. My intention is to cycle Tesa/ipa together with KLOW, 4wk/6wk.
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Because of water retention, Tesa/Ipa usually brings weight loss to a halt. When people are close to their goal weight, they frequently get better outcomes with Tesa/IPA or CJC/IPA. I'm not sure what stage of the process you're at....
 
When I simply can't get regular protein down, I lean on nutritional shakes as a fallback. Protein comes first for me, ahead of carbs or anything else... and at 22 weeks on reta, things are going well so far.
 
Wakesetter5477 said:

Because of water retention, Tesa/Ipa usually brings weight loss to a halt. When people are close to their goal weight, they frequently get better outcomes with Tesa/IPA or CJC/IPA. I'm not sure what stage of the process you're at....
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Someone gave me a heads-up that hunger that gets out of hand can drive gh in that way. Water retention, though, was news to me. My main aim is to attack visceral fat aggressively and quickly. The way I'm running it: low dose (1mg each) 6 days per week across 6 weeks, and I intended to do two cycles while I'm away from KLOW(3mg daily/4weeks on- 6 off). I keep moving — walking, lifting light — with the goal of holding onto muscle while shedding fat. Results so far: 1.4lbs of muscle added, 18lbs of fat gone. To make a long story even longer, I'm early in this whole thing and still learning. Thanks for getting back to me!
 
All these various injections out there. Honestly, what everyone else chooses to do isn't my concern — it just leaves me confused. My approach was simple: Reta once a week, and since the start of the year I've dropped 60lbs. For the past couple of months I've been in maintenance.
 
Without knowing your starting point it's hard to say, but when it comes to visceral fat, the dominant factor by a wide margin is overall fat loss — visceral fat comes down along with it. That makes tirz or reta far more potent at cutting visceral fat than the secretagogues, which in practice will only take off a few kilos, whereas reta or tirz can remove a great deal if you drop a lot of weight. And if you're already building muscle while shedding fat, is there any need for growth hormone stimulating drugs?

From what you've described, I can only see tirz at 7.5mg together with reta at 1mg, an 18 lbs fat loss and 1.4 of muscle gained, starting 3 months ago — but nothing about age, height, start weight or target weight. Those details would make it easier to give you answers that are actually useful.

Since your worry is getting more calories in, the underlying situation is that your glp drug dose is too high, and the fix for that is to lower the dose. I also don't know your current rate of weight loss, which is quite relevant. For the short term, the thing to do is eat richer, higher fat foods, though I'm not convinced at all that you need to go above 1800 kcal per day — unless you're large and very active, most people won't lose weight at any meaningful rate on that intake. Day to day swings in calories don't really matter much in the short term, other than perhaps leaving you tired or worn out if your intake stays too low for a few days while you're active
 
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