MOTS-C and SS31

[wulf00777]

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

 

[Gt3294a]

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

 

[banditchewy]

wulf00777 said:

dancs said:

cloratheshadow said:

wulf00777 said:

Someone told me that spacing motsc out to every other day keeps the fatigue away. Personally, neither motsc nor Ss31 has produced any noticeable effect for me, though at least the combination of tirz, motsc, and cutting my calories down to 800 has me dropping weight at last.

800 is really on the far end do you track your food on a scale? Have you gotten labs? 800 is not something an adult should be consuming

If you've spent more than 6-12 months dropping weight or attempting to, and plateaus keep hitting you from every direction while you push calories all the way down to 800, my strongest possible advice is to begin again from scratch.

What that means: pause. Give yourself 30-60 days off your current stack(s), then either switch to different peptides OR simply rest so your body's tolerance can drop back down.

OR

If training hasn't been part of your routine, or you're not even doing something as small as walking after meals, that's what I'd add. Starving your body until it flips into extreme mode - fighting as hard as it can to hold onto every calorie (which is exactly why those last few pounds won't budge) - isn't the answer. Honestly, it sounds like your body is starving to death. A reset is what you need.

Or shuffle your approach. If Mots-c is new for you, maybe keep it, but drop Tirz and bring in reta and/or AOD-9604.

Bring calories up to maintenance, or a few hundred over it - yes, some weight may come back, but over time your body will normalize and you'll be able to go back on the original compounds and start losing again.

Or, at minimum, walk right after you eat...

These suggestions come from what I've lived through with long term weight loss, running different peptides/compounds, and exercise.

Every situation is relative, I get that, but 800 calories is crazy....

Nothing but love for you, and I feel lucky to be here because this forum is full of good people!

The issue is really just intense metabolic adaptation from all those years of diets, keto, fasting, and a very low calorie way of living. My exercise background is even more intense—if you saw it, you'd understand. So if 800 is enough to drop weight, nothing is going to stop me from pushing forward.

Is there any way to reset, or is that even on your radar?

 

[wulf00777]

banditchewy said:

wulf00777 said:

dancs said:

cloratheshadow said:

wulf00777 said:

Someone told me that spacing motsc out to every other day keeps the fatigue away. Personally, neither motsc nor Ss31 has produced any noticeable effect for me, though at least the combination of tirz, motsc, and cutting my calories down to 800 has me dropping weight at last.

800 is really on the far end do you track your food on a scale? Have you gotten labs? 800 is not something an adult should be consuming

If you've spent more than 6-12 months dropping weight or attempting to, and plateaus keep hitting you from every direction while you push calories all the way down to 800, my strongest possible advice is to begin again from scratch.

What that means: pause. Give yourself 30-60 days off your current stack(s), then either switch to different peptides OR simply rest so your body's tolerance can drop back down.

OR

If training hasn't been part of your routine, or you're not even doing something as small as walking after meals, that's what I'd add. Starving your body until it flips into extreme mode - fighting as hard as it can to hold onto every calorie (which is exactly why those last few pounds won't budge) - isn't the answer. Honestly, it sounds like your body is starving to death. A reset is what you need.

Or shuffle your approach. If Mots-c is new for you, maybe keep it, but drop Tirz and bring in reta and/or AOD-9604.

Bring calories up to maintenance, or a few hundred over it - yes, some weight may come back, but over time your body will normalize and you'll be able to go back on the original compounds and start losing again.

Or, at minimum, walk right after you eat...

These suggestions come from what I've lived through with long term weight loss, running different peptides/compounds, and exercise.

Every situation is relative, I get that, but 800 calories is crazy....

Nothing but love for you, and I feel lucky to be here because this forum is full of good people!

The issue is really just intense metabolic adaptation from all those years of diets, keto, fasting, and a very low calorie way of living. My exercise background is even more intense—if you saw it, you'd understand. So if 800 is enough to drop weight, nothing is going to stop me from pushing forward.

Is there any way to reset, or is that even on your radar?

Research indicates that glp1s don't truly offer a reset. After weight loss from these medications, continuing them and increasing the dose is the better approach. At just 4mg of tirzepitide, I still have room to go higher, but I'm already shedding pounds and feeling quite good on 800 calories daily—particularly since my carb cravings have faded. That boundless energy similar to keto starts to kick in.

 

[lessthanhalf]

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

 

[wulf00777]

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

For me, exercise has never made much difference when it comes to losing weight, regardless of how much I do. I'm serious—I pedaled a $50 bike all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from Canada down to Mexico.

lessthanhalf said:

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

My starting point was Reta plus a bit of trt on the side, but then I experienced tachycardia, likely from elevated red blood cells. At that point I had just reached 4.5mg of Reta, so following that episode I got my testosterone use under better control and stopped Reta over concerns about its potential cardiac effects. After a month without any glp1s, I hadn't put weight back on despite having lost 15lbs, so I've now spent 3 weeks on tirz and shed another 12lbs thanks to tirz's appetite suppression, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. After that, I introduced motsc and BPCl57, having first completed 4 weeks of Ss31 taken 5 days per week.

As of today I woke up singing, full of enthusiasm, completely satisfied with my 800 calories, and I even added 200 extra calories of high omega foods. I believe my carb need is broken, and when autophagy starts there's typically more energy. With this combo, right now I feel invincible.

 

[Gt3294a]

wulf00777 said:

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

For me, exercise has never made much difference when it comes to losing weight, regardless of how much I do. I'm serious—I pedaled a $50 bike all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from Canada down to Mexico.

lessthanhalf said:

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

My starting point was Reta plus a bit of trt on the side, but then I experienced tachycardia, likely from elevated red blood cells. At that point I had just reached 4.5mg of Reta, so following that episode I got my testosterone use under better control and stopped Reta over concerns about its potential cardiac effects. After a month without any glp1s, I hadn't put weight back on despite having lost 15lbs, so I've now spent 3 weeks on tirz and shed another 12lbs thanks to tirz's appetite suppression, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. After that, I introduced motsc and BPCl57, having first completed 4 weeks of Ss31 taken 5 days per week.

As of today I woke up singing, full of enthusiasm, completely satisfied with my 800 calories, and I even added 200 extra calories of high omega foods. I believe my carb need is broken, and when autophagy starts there's typically more energy. With this combo, right now I feel invincible.

Unless there is some unusual problem that would be visible in your blood work, the only physically plausible explanation for exercise failing to influence weight loss is that you consume extra food while exercising, thereby offsetting the additional calories burned. This frequently occurs because the body signals you to eat. Still, I cannot see how a person could burn calories without that having an impact on weight loss, especially when sessions last beyond 1 hour at a low intensity, since if you are not eating poorly, your body will use up the glucose available and then begin generating AST from fat stores. That is simply how the body operates. That said, I acknowledge you might have a hormonal or thyroid condition that interferes with this to some degree.

 

[wulf00777]

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

For me, exercise has never made much difference when it comes to losing weight, regardless of how much I do. I'm serious—I pedaled a $50 bike all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from Canada down to Mexico.

lessthanhalf said:

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

My starting point was Reta plus a bit of trt on the side, but then I experienced tachycardia, likely from elevated red blood cells. At that point I had just reached 4.5mg of Reta, so following that episode I got my testosterone use under better control and stopped Reta over concerns about its potential cardiac effects. After a month without any glp1s, I hadn't put weight back on despite having lost 15lbs, so I've now spent 3 weeks on tirz and shed another 12lbs thanks to tirz's appetite suppression, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. After that, I introduced motsc and BPCl57, having first completed 4 weeks of Ss31 taken 5 days per week.

As of today I woke up singing, full of enthusiasm, completely satisfied with my 800 calories, and I even added 200 extra calories of high omega foods. I believe my carb need is broken, and when autophagy starts there's typically more energy. With this combo, right now I feel invincible.

Unless there is some unusual problem that would be visible in your blood work, the only physically plausible explanation for exercise failing to influence weight loss is that you consume extra food while exercising, thereby offsetting the additional calories burned. This frequently occurs because the body signals you to eat. Still, I cannot see how a person could burn calories without that having an impact on weight loss, especially when sessions last beyond 1 hour at a low intensity, since if you are not eating poorly, your body will use up the glucose available and then begin generating AST from fat stores. That is simply how the body operates. That said, I acknowledge you might have a hormonal or thyroid condition that interferes with this to some degree.

No one else gets it either, me included. Not one of my doctors has shown enough interest to probe with the right questions or order the right tests. Still, the fact that for 7 years I had no car, ate vegan, and biked 50 miles every day between school and work—yet never dropped any weight—strikes me as pretty remarkable.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

For me, exercise has never made much difference when it comes to losing weight, regardless of how much I do. I'm serious—I pedaled a $50 bike all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from Canada down to Mexico.

lessthanhalf said:

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

My starting point was Reta plus a bit of trt on the side, but then I experienced tachycardia, likely from elevated red blood cells. At that point I had just reached 4.5mg of Reta, so following that episode I got my testosterone use under better control and stopped Reta over concerns about its potential cardiac effects. After a month without any glp1s, I hadn't put weight back on despite having lost 15lbs, so I've now spent 3 weeks on tirz and shed another 12lbs thanks to tirz's appetite suppression, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. After that, I introduced motsc and BPCl57, having first completed 4 weeks of Ss31 taken 5 days per week.

As of today I woke up singing, full of enthusiasm, completely satisfied with my 800 calories, and I even added 200 extra calories of high omega foods. I believe my carb need is broken, and when autophagy starts there's typically more energy. With this combo, right now I feel invincible.

Unless there is some unusual problem that would be visible in your blood work, the only physically plausible explanation for exercise failing to influence weight loss is that you consume extra food while exercising, thereby offsetting the additional calories burned. This frequently occurs because the body signals you to eat. Still, I cannot see how a person could burn calories without that having an impact on weight loss, especially when sessions last beyond 1 hour at a low intensity, since if you are not eating poorly, your body will use up the glucose available and then begin generating AST from fat stores. That is simply how the body operates. That said, I acknowledge you might have a hormonal or thyroid condition that interferes with this to some degree.

That claim doesn't hold up entirely. Research of solid quality has examined this. When calories are restricted in particular, the body resists raising energy expenditure. Evolution strongly favors conserving energy, since that aided survival through food shortages. Exercise must burn some calories as a matter of physics, but the efficiency with which the body uses those calories both during and after activity can shift, and what a person does afterward can shift too. As a result, the rest of the day often sees lower energy expenditure that offsets what the workout used, largely through less movement outside of exercise.

My own weight-loss experience fits this pattern. I went from being almost completely inactive to walking 3 hours daily on uneven bush trails, yet neither my rate of weight loss nor my calorie intake changed in any noticeable way, even though it "should" have burned several hundred calories per day. This happened partway through the process, while I was still losing weight, so energy expenditure had not yet fallen to the minimum of 1600-1800 kcal/day.

In states without calorie restriction, this probably does not apply to the same extent. Still, some evidence suggests there are daily upper limits to energy expenditure: past a certain point, additional exercise no longer raises energy expenditure, because the body simply becomes more efficient.

 

[Gt3294a]

lessthanhalf said:

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

Gt3294a said:

wulf00777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

800 calories really isn't that drastic. A large body of research exists on VLCDs—very low calorie diets—where people take in roughly 400 calories daily, occasionally for extended stretches lasting close to a year. Before GLP medications existed, this was how individuals with severe obesity attempted weight loss without surgery. Protein typically makes up the bulk of those calories.

At that level of intake, electrolyte disturbances become a real possibility, and tiredness tends to be worse, so having a doctor monitor things somewhat seems wise.

Taking in so few calories and only barely losing weight would be unusual—unless substantial weight has already come off, or a low intake has been maintained for a long time, causing metabolic adaptation to drag energy expenditure down considerably. Being very small could also explain it. In my own case, expenditure fell by half going from 145kg to 75 kg. Early on, 1600-1800 kcal/day produced 6kg of loss per month; once I reached 75kg, the loss halted and that same intake became what was needed just to maintain. Still, 1600-1800 is far easier to sustain than 800, and prior to starting GLP's, sticking to it was genuinely difficult and meant being hungry almost constantly. Regaining the weight would also put me at serious health risk. From your remark that 800 calories beats being dead, I gather you may face something similar.

On the idea of taking breaks, I'd have to push back. No evidence supports tolerance developing to the long-term weight loss effects of GLP drugs, with perhaps 1 exception: a recent animal study where mice given GLP's intermittently lost much less weight. That's a single study, not replicated, not in humans—but the effect was quite strong and unexpected. Some people here have also reported struggling to lose weight after restarting GLP's. Often that's simply because they've already shed a good amount of weight, and at that point the drugs work to block regain rather than drive further loss—effectively a stall. If the stop-start effect were genuine, though, it wouldn't be doing you any favors.

Are you currently on 15mg of tirz? Higher doses offer metabolic benefits that could boost weight loss or let you eat more while losing at the same pace, if you haven't gone that high yet. Reta is also worth a look—its glucagon agonism adds another 1 to 200 kcal/day of energy expenditure, and every bit counts. Much depends on what you've already tried and your side effects, though.

I appreciate the detailed response. Currently I'm on 4mg tirz, so increasing the dose is an option, but truthfully, as long as I keep dropping weight at 800 calories, I feel fine throughout the day and have no hunger. So I'm sticking with it. Over the past few years, I've done 36-hour fasts multiple times, plus many more 24-hour fasts. Now I'm introducing a few days at 1000-1200 calories, but those additional calories have to come from healthy fats only—olive oil, avocado, or a handful of nuts. I've read that this approach can help boost metabolism without causing weight gain. If I continue losing with the added calories, I'll increase them further and keep pushing my intake up. The main reason I'm in a hurry is because of serious foot problems (metatarsalgia) and severe knee arthritis. I can barely do any cardio, but I attempt many other activities like lifting weights, swimming, using the sauna, and walking whenever possible. My whole family wonders why I eat less than they do yet I weigh 280lbs. My weight now matches what it was at 16, and I've pretty much stayed there my entire life.

I also believe there's now sufficient evidence showing that cycling is actually harmful and that changing to a different glp1 can cost you several months of progress. My goal is to gradually reach 12.5mg and then add Reta or cagri if necessary.

Wishing you success! One thing worth mentioning: the swimming and walking you're doing matter a great deal, and it's good that you've kept them up. When you break down how the body actually produces energy for burning (atp), there are 3 fundamental pathways. To put it briefly, that extremely low-intensity cardio, even though it demands a lot of time, is almost certainly the most beneficial option available to you at the moment. It's slower, but genuinely effective. And when you consider your calorie deficit, you might even be able to eat slightly more. In any case, in my view that will do far more for you than adding another peptide, so it's excellent that you're putting your attention there.

For me, exercise has never made much difference when it comes to losing weight, regardless of how much I do. I'm serious—I pedaled a $50 bike all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from Canada down to Mexico.

lessthanhalf said:

From what I've seen with metabolic adaptation, the phenomenon is definitely genuine—thankfully it doesn't mean surviving on 800 calories daily—but during 2012-2014 and again from 2022 onward, I reached normal or close-to-normal weights, yet maintaining that required a relatively low calorie intake, and there's no sign of it becoming easier with time, as I've needed around 1600-1800 kcal/day just to stay weight neutral since late 2023.

No approved medical treatments boost energy expenditure aside from SLGT2i's, which can cause you to excrete as much as 200 kcal/day in sugar, but because the body typically responds to weight loss or increased calorie burn by eating more to compensate, people generally only drop a couple of kilos on them. The next nearest option is likely reta, since it's now in up to stage 3 human trials, which can raise energy expenditure by 1-200 kcal/day, but it doesn't come with an automatic appetite increase because it actually suppresses appetite.

It would be wonderful if far more research were conducted on less risky mitochondrial uncoupling agents such as Bam15, which might offer a long-term answer, provided studies ever reach a point suggesting it could be safe—and a few small short-term mouse or rat studies are far from sufficient to indicate it might be safe for human trials.

If hunger isn't an issue and you're still losing weight, then upping the dose isn't truly necessary. The main challenge is really the long-term tolerability of the medication and the diet and so on, so that maintaining a lower calorie intake over time supports weight loss and, even more crucially, weight loss maintenance.

My starting point was Reta plus a bit of trt on the side, but then I experienced tachycardia, likely from elevated red blood cells. At that point I had just reached 4.5mg of Reta, so following that episode I got my testosterone use under better control and stopped Reta over concerns about its potential cardiac effects. After a month without any glp1s, I hadn't put weight back on despite having lost 15lbs, so I've now spent 3 weeks on tirz and shed another 12lbs thanks to tirz's appetite suppression, which I'm absolutely thrilled with. After that, I introduced motsc and BPCl57, having first completed 4 weeks of Ss31 taken 5 days per week.

As of today I woke up singing, full of enthusiasm, completely satisfied with my 800 calories, and I even added 200 extra calories of high omega foods. I believe my carb need is broken, and when autophagy starts there's typically more energy. With this combo, right now I feel invincible.

Unless there is some unusual problem that would be visible in your blood work, the only physically plausible explanation for exercise failing to influence weight loss is that you consume extra food while exercising, thereby offsetting the additional calories burned. This frequently occurs because the body signals you to eat. Still, I cannot see how a person could burn calories without that having an impact on weight loss, especially when sessions last beyond 1 hour at a low intensity, since if you are not eating poorly, your body will use up the glucose available and then begin generating AST from fat stores. That is simply how the body operates. That said, I acknowledge you might have a hormonal or thyroid condition that interferes with this to some degree.

That claim doesn't hold up entirely. Research of solid quality has examined this. When calories are restricted in particular, the body resists raising energy expenditure. Evolution strongly favors conserving energy, since that aided survival through food shortages. Exercise must burn some calories as a matter of physics, but the efficiency with which the body uses those calories both during and after activity can shift, and what a person does afterward can shift too. As a result, the rest of the day often sees lower energy expenditure that offsets what the workout used, largely through less movement outside of exercise.

My own weight-loss experience fits this pattern. I went from being almost completely inactive to walking 3 hours daily on uneven bush trails, yet neither my rate of weight loss nor my calorie intake changed in any noticeable way, even though it "should" have burned several hundred calories per day. This happened partway through the process, while I was still losing weight, so energy expenditure had not yet fallen to the minimum of 1600-1800 kcal/day.

In states without calorie restriction, this probably does not apply to the same extent. Still, some evidence suggests there are daily upper limits to energy expenditure: past a certain point, additional exercise no longer raises energy expenditure, because the body simply becomes more efficient.

Everyone should stick with whatever approach suits them. I'll also grant that if your body suddenly burns 400 fewer calories in a day, then walking 4-5 miles to torch 400 calories makes no real difference. Once you push into larger calorie expenditures, though, that logic stops holding up. Movement demands energy, and producing energy is required for that. No ceiling can exist. Science doesn't allow for one. It's like claiming someone who walks 40 miles in a day simply quits burning energy at mile 30.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Studies have examined this, and over short periods—like during ultramarathons or cycling races—expenditure can reach 10000 kcal/day. A study of the Race Across the USA, a 140 day event, found that energy use initially hit 6000/day, yet that level cannot be maintained over the long haul and gradually falls to roughly 2.5 times basal metabolic rate, or about 4500 kcal/day. That figure matches the peak growth phase of pregnancy, and it may be capped by how many calories can be taken in and absorbed by the gut, along with limits on tissue repair and metabolic pathways. So the second law of thermodynamics remains intact, and walking 40km will burn more calories than 30 km, but any calories beyond that ceiling will probably be recouped in the following days by being too exhausted to manage the 30km daily.

The mechanisms that restrict energy expenditure when calorie intake is low are not identical, but they do suggest the body possesses adaptive systems for regulating energy use over time. In weight loss, energy expenditure stays far below this hard ceiling, though it seems likely the body can establish varying limits under different physiological conditions.