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idontlikeneedles

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So, peptides. The postie dropped mine off this morning — roughly 24 days from when I placed the order.

There was a time I was in good shape; only 12 months back I'd clock 30-50KM a week running, yet I could never sort out my eating enough to capitalise on all that effort.

Something happens in the evenings — a voice in my head gets louder, and resisting it is really hard, so more often than not I give in and snack. Between a holiday and Christmas, my weight climbed from a decent 94KG to a 'this needs fixing' 104KG.

Since just before Christmas I haven't gone back to the gym in any proper way, but I've drawn up a 24 week plan mixing running with resistance work that I'm hoping to see through — this time, though, with retatrutide as the 'secret weapon'. With any luck it keeps my diet on track, and at last my training will actually go somewhere ...

Day one is today.

Age: 45.

SW: 104.9KG.

Starting dose: 0.5MG

I want to end up somewhere around 85KG, though as a 6ft3 male I'm unsure how realistic that is.

I'll keep updating this thread as things progress, and I'll likely have a few questions to ask along the way.
 
85 kg is a completely reasonable goal — for your height, that sits squarely within the healthy BMI range, and it works out to an 18.9% drop in body weight. From what I recall, certain participants in Lilly's trials lost as much as 28%. At .5mg to begin with, you likely won't see much appetite suppression, maybe none at all, but if the point is simply checking whether you tolerate it, moving up fairly fast to 2 mg or more is fine — that's still on the low side compared with the starting doses those trials used.
 
If you haven't had any side effects and your appetite hasn't changed noticeably, you might consider taking another 0.5mg dose 4 days later.
 
For you, .5mg is far too small a dose. Begin at 2mg, stay there for 4 weeks, and then make a decision. What source is giving you .5mg? To even measure that quantity, you would likely require a .3ml syringe.
 
Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
 
idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
I went the other way. My Reta journey began prior to signing up for this place, and my opening dose was 2mg, which I picked because of the E Lilly trials. Those trials used 2-4-8-12 across 4 week cycles. From what I can tell, that schedule has since been revised to 2-4-6-9-12.
 
idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
A number of us also lean toward the cautious approach.
 
Currently in week 2 at .5 mg. My preference is to stay at the lowest dose that works. Might move up to 1mg when week 4 comes around.
 
idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
When it comes to medication, I believe beginning at a lower dose is the safer route. Certain people see effects from smaller amounts, and that way the increase happens more gradually. That describes my husband: he began shedding pounds at .5 and remained at 1 for quite a while with solid outcomes. Only now is he beginning to bump it up slightly.

PS-I like your user name. I should have used it, haha. If you don't like needles as much as me, try a pen (you can use the small 32g 4mm size with those)
 
Bucky said:

Currently in week 2 at .5 mg. My preference is to stay at the lowest dose that works. Might move up to 1mg when week 4 comes around.
Click to expand...
Most likely I'll take the same approach — since it appears the medication needs a while to accumulate in the body (I've got the shotsy app, which people here recommended!). I'll just see how it goes. No need to hurry.

WLBLD said:

idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
When it comes to medication, I believe beginning at a lower dose is the safer route. Certain people see effects from smaller amounts, and that way the increase happens more gradually. That describes my husband: he began shedding pounds at .5 and remained at 1 for quite a while with solid outcomes. Only now is he beginning to bump it up slightly.

PS-I like your user name. I should have used it, haha. If you don't like needles as much as me, try a pen (you can use the small 32g 4mm size with those)
Click to expand...
Honestly, they're not something I enjoy. Until yesterday, I'd never injected myself, nor had an injection outside a medical setting! For this I'm using a convipen, along with those 4mm needles!
 
I do not see much point in beginning at 0.5mg; beginning at 1mg at least has some logic to it, since that is half of the recommended starting dose. Going extremely low does not stop side effects from happening. In the end, you will experience them at whatever dose triggers them for you once you reach that dose, whether it is 1mg or 10mg. At best, a very slow start postpones the side effects or makes their onset less abrupt, but I doubt it does much to alter their total burden or which doses provoke them in a given person. Perhaps if you raise the dose slowly enough across a year, you could develop tolerance to GI side effects at the same pace as the increase, but that seems fairly unlikely. More plausibly, tolerance only begins once side effects are present for the body to become tolerant to.

If your goal is to lose close to 20% of body weight, you will probably need substantial doses. You might be a super responder, and a few people who are not very overweight do appear to get quite good results from low doses in the 2-4mg range, but in the studies 1mg of reta produced 9% weight loss while 12mg produced 29%. So most likely you will eventually need somewhere between 4 and 10mg, though response varies a great deal from person to person. That means you have to keep raising the dose until you reach the rate of weight loss or level of hunger suppression you want. Also keep in mind that most people regain most of the weight after stopping, so you either need to remain on it or somehow magically fix the long-term weight loss problem by some other means.
 
Vriende said:

idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
A number of us also lean toward the cautious approach.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on that. My own approach was .25 taken two times per week, and the side effects stuck around for 3 weeks. These days I'm on .750 two times per week and I actually overlook meals. Reactions vary from person to person.
 
idontlikeneedles said:

Bucky said:

Currently in week 2 at .5 mg. My preference is to stay at the lowest dose that works. Might move up to 1mg when week 4 comes around.
Click to expand...
Most likely I'll take the same approach — since it appears the medication needs a while to accumulate in the body (I've got the shotsy app, which people here recommended!). I'll just see how it goes. No need to hurry.

WLBLD said:

idontlikeneedles said:

Appreciate all the responses, folks. My plan is to kick off at 0.5mg because I figured it made sense to first find out how my body handles the medication - sure, the end goal is results, but I want those results from the smallest dose with the least amount of side effects. Up until today I have never used any peptides, so right now I am just playing it safe.

A few threads on here have suggested doing it this way - is that not the right approach?
Click to expand...
When it comes to medication, I believe beginning at a lower dose is the safer route. Certain people see effects from smaller amounts, and that way the increase happens more gradually. That describes my husband: he began shedding pounds at .5 and remained at 1 for quite a while with solid outcomes. Only now is he beginning to bump it up slightly.

PS-I like your user name. I should have used it, haha. If you don't like needles as much as me, try a pen (you can use the small 32g 4mm size with those)
Click to expand...
Honestly, they're not something I enjoy. Until yesterday, I'd never injected myself, nor had an injection outside a medical setting! For this I'm using a convipen, along with those 4mm needles!
Click to expand...
Should it continue to bother you, applying ice beforehand makes a big difference!!
 
I came across a different discussion where someone dealt with nausea and vomiting that wouldn't let up for several days, even though their tirz dose was fairly low. They were considering the ER for IV fluids and weighing whether to mention using unidentified Chinese powder (ideally, testing happens whenever it can). Given that, the only real downside I can see to a slow start is the waiting.
 
JCO79 said:

I came across a different discussion where someone dealt with nausea and vomiting that wouldn't let up for several days, even though their tirz dose was fairly low. They were considering the ER for IV fluids and weighing whether to mention using unidentified Chinese powder (ideally, testing happens whenever it can). Given that, the only real downside I can see to a slow start is the waiting.
Click to expand...

This is precisely it.
 
Here's how the opening week went:

Starting weight for the week: 104.90KG. This morning's weigh-in: 103.60KG. That works out to 1.30KG (2.8lbs) lost across 7 days.

Alongside that, I've been gradually getting back into training. Roughly 6km of running so far, plus a couple of gym visits adding up to about 2hrs. I know the scale movement is probably water and glycogen rather than actual fat, but everyone has to start somewhere.

The shot itself didn't do much that I could notice. I've been prioritizing protein and cutting back on junk, though I suspect that's me being motivated by the whole endeavor rather than anything retatrutide is doing. Zero side effects so far - no meaningful appetite suppression, no food turning me off, no sleep problems, nothing like that - so as of today I've moved up to 1MG.

One thing I want to ask about: my mixed vial (sitting in the fridge inside a convipen) is 20MG. At the dose I'm on, that's going to stretch quite a while. What's the safe window for continuing to use the same vial? I figured 5 weeks max - does that sound too long, or too short?

Appreciate any input!
 
The "official" guidance says to keep it in the fridge, mix it with bac, and use it within 4 weeks at most. Leaving it longer raises the odds that a few microbes will start growing in there. That holds true even when you wipe the top with alcohol before a syringe goes in. Because the bacterostatic component in the bac prevents replication, the count of bacteria or fungi is probably low when it is not zero, and a small number of organisms usually cannot get an infection going.

As for me, a 2 or 3 month window does not bother me much. These shots go subcutaneous, my immune system is there, and the risk would be slight: a subcutaneous abscess could form if enough bugs entered and your immune system failed to clear them, or through awful luck with a particularly virulent bug capable of spreading an infection. My thinking is that if this were common, forum members would be posting complaints about it, and I have not actually seen any one say this.
 
lessthanhalf said:

The "official" guidance says to keep it in the fridge, mix it with bac, and use it within 4 weeks at most. Leaving it longer raises the odds that a few microbes will start growing in there. That holds true even when you wipe the top with alcohol before a syringe goes in. Because the bacterostatic component in the bac prevents replication, the count of bacteria or fungi is probably low when it is not zero, and a small number of organisms usually cannot get an infection going.

As for me, a 2 or 3 month window does not bother me much. These shots go subcutaneous, my immune system is there, and the risk would be slight: a subcutaneous abscess could form if enough bugs entered and your immune system failed to clear them, or through awful luck with a particularly virulent bug capable of spreading an infection. My thinking is that if this were common, forum members would be posting complaints about it, and I have not actually seen any one say this.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing that!
 
Week 2 numbers, here they are:

Starting the week at 103.60KG, now sitting at 103.40KG, so that's 0.2KG gone. Clearly not what I was hoping for! A couple of days of that week had me working away from home, which meant plenty of time behind the wheel, some 'service station' meals, and I skipped workouts on 1 or 2 days. Whether that truly explains the stall, I can't say for sure, but honestly since that first injection I haven't noticed much of anything changing - barely any side effects, just some tiredness on the day I dose.

I did manage to get some exercise in since I wasn't gone the whole week: about 8km of running and roughly 2hrs of resistance training at the gym, so it wasn't all sitting around.

Like I said before, side effects and even the 'effects' themselves have been pretty minimal so far, so hoping it gets things moving, I pinned 2mg. We'll see what happens.

Have a great week, thanks all!
 
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