Plateau + Pen + Maintenance Calculator

ishactive18

ishactive18

Explorer
Joined
Jun 13, 2026
Messages
6
Reaction score
7
Location
London
Some details.

Age 25, male, 171cm (5'7)

Right now I weigh 86.6kg

When I began: 103kg

Dose I'm on: 3MG, and this is week 8 of Reta

Each day I take in 1,200KCAL - 1,400 kcal (possibly under that)

My weight loss has been consistent and at a decent speed. Over the last week I've noticed a change both in my head and on the scale. The number on the scale won't budge. I'm hovering between 86.2 - 86.6 kg. I can eat a lot more, yet I'm eating less. Being able to have breakfast this past week tells me the food noise has gone down. Given how a triple antagonist works, I'm not shocked. I'm attempting a refeed to try and get the scale to drop, but it won't.

I'm injecting with a pen, but mentally I feel like the pen has lost potency for me, or that it's past its expiry.

Another thing, how do maintenance calories actually work? The online calculators say I should eat 2000kcal, which seems insane to me.

I run 5km - 10km (3 days a week)

Football for 1.5hrs (2 days a week)

I hit the gym every day for weights.

Any support would help.
 
A single week with no movement on the scale can be annoying, but it isn't out of the ordinary. For me, the point where I'd get concerned and do something about it comes after a few weeks of being stuck — say, no drop of 1% of your body weight across 2 weeks, or 2% across 4 weeks. That's just my own approach, though.

As for pens, I'm not clear on what you're asking — whether it goes into a pen or into a vial with a syringe, the medication itself is identical, as long as you're the person doing the filtering into those containers. Switching is always an option, and if you'd rather use a syringe while a cartridge is still sitting there, you can simply treat the cartridge the way you would a vial. Good luck!
 
HouseCat said:

A single week with no movement on the scale can be annoying, but it isn't out of the ordinary. For me, the point where I'd get concerned and do something about it comes after a few weeks of being stuck — say, no drop of 1% of your body weight across 2 weeks, or 2% across 4 weeks. That's just my own approach, though.

As for pens, I'm not clear on what you're asking — whether it goes into a pen or into a vial with a syringe, the medication itself is identical, as long as you're the person doing the filtering into those containers. Switching is always an option, and if you'd rather use a syringe while a cartridge is still sitting there, you can simply treat the cartridge the way you would a vial. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Over a week has passed. For 2 or 3 weeks now, my weight hasn't budged, unlike earlier on. Also, reta no longer gives me the same feeling. I can put away more food without any problem.

My guess is that much of reta's effect is in the head, and I struggled with that during the first 6 or 7 weeks. At this point, I'm convinced my pen is useless. I'm moving over to vials.
 
ishactive18 said:

HouseCat said:

A single week with no movement on the scale can be annoying, but it isn't out of the ordinary. For me, the point where I'd get concerned and do something about it comes after a few weeks of being stuck — say, no drop of 1% of your body weight across 2 weeks, or 2% across 4 weeks. That's just my own approach, though.

As for pens, I'm not clear on what you're asking — whether it goes into a pen or into a vial with a syringe, the medication itself is identical, as long as you're the person doing the filtering into those containers. Switching is always an option, and if you'd rather use a syringe while a cartridge is still sitting there, you can simply treat the cartridge the way you would a vial. Good luck!
Click to expand...
Over a week has passed. For 2 or 3 weeks now, my weight hasn't budged, unlike earlier on. Also, reta no longer gives me the same feeling. I can put away more food without any problem.

My guess is that much of reta's effect is in the head, and I struggled with that during the first 6 or 7 weeks. At this point, I'm convinced my pen is useless. I'm moving over to vials.
Click to expand...
At a minimum, you should increase to 4mg.
 
ishactive18 said:

Some details.

Age 25, male, 171cm (5'7)

Right now I weigh 86.6kg

When I began: 103kg

Dose I'm on: 3MG, and this is week 8 of Reta

Each day I take in 1,200KCAL - 1,400 kcal (possibly under that)

My weight loss has been consistent and at a decent speed. Over the last week I've noticed a change both in my head and on the scale. The number on the scale won't budge. I'm hovering between 86.2 - 86.6 kg. I can eat a lot more, yet I'm eating less. Being able to have breakfast this past week tells me the food noise has gone down. Given how a triple antagonist works, I'm not shocked. I'm attempting a refeed to try and get the scale to drop, but it won't.

I'm injecting with a pen, but mentally I feel like the pen has lost potency for me, or that it's past its expiry.

Another thing, how do maintenance calories actually work? The online calculators say I should eat 2000kcal, which seems insane to me.

I run 5km - 10km (3 days a week)

Football for 1.5hrs (2 days a week)

I hit the gym every day for weights.

Any support would help.
Click to expand...

Man, from what I can see you're making solid progress. Nice work! I get what it's like when you're aiming for over 2000 calories plus 2.2g of protein for every kilogram you weigh. With glp peptides, getting there is pure misery, but things like protein shakes make it much more manageable.
 
If that same pen gave you the R effects earlier, I doubt it could have broken down enough to stop working — so perhaps the answer is to titrate up!

There's no prize for dropping the most weight or enduring the most misery on the smallest dose, let the GLP do its job for you. 💕
 
As other people have mentioned, it seems like a good moment to bump your weekly dose up to 4mg and stick with that for a month.

On top of that, I believe you need to consume more food. I'm a woman, and I eat 1200 calories/day, yet you weigh roughly 50lb more than I do. For a 25 year old male body that's very active, I'd say adding no less than 400 protein rich calories/day would be genuinely beneficial.

(My own son is your age, so through the transitive property of mothering, I've started worrying about you.)
 
AllCourtTENNIS said:

As other people have mentioned, it seems like a good moment to bump your weekly dose up to 4mg and stick with that for a month.

On top of that, I believe you need to consume more food. I'm a woman, and I eat 1200 calories/day, yet you weigh roughly 50lb more than I do. For a 25 year old male body that's very active, I'd say adding no less than 400 protein rich calories/day would be genuinely beneficial.

(My own son is your age, so through the transitive property of mothering, I've started worrying about you.)
Click to expand...
Replying to each person isn't possible, but this is strange.

Over the last few days I've bumped my calories up. 1800KCAL

Sourdough & Eggs

Sweet Potatoes

Chicken breast

spinach

And 2 kg has come off, without any exercise on my part.

Today is pin day, so 3.5mg is what I'll pin.

Jumping 1mg with each pin makes me nervous.
 
ishactive18 said:

AllCourtTENNIS said:

As other people have mentioned, it seems like a good moment to bump your weekly dose up to 4mg and stick with that for a month.

On top of that, I believe you need to consume more food. I'm a woman, and I eat 1200 calories/day, yet you weigh roughly 50lb more than I do. For a 25 year old male body that's very active, I'd say adding no less than 400 protein rich calories/day would be genuinely beneficial.

(My own son is your age, so through the transitive property of mothering, I've started worrying about you.)
Click to expand...
Replying to each person isn't possible, but this is strange.

Over the last few days I've bumped my calories up. 1800KCAL

Sourdough & Eggs

Sweet Potatoes

Chicken breast

spinach

And 2 kg has come off, without any exercise on my part.

Today is pin day, so 3.5mg is what I'll pin.

Jumping 1mg with each pin makes me nervous.
Click to expand...
What was the timeframe for dropping those 2kg? I kept increasing by 2mg increments until I reached 8mg, and now I'm at 9mg.
 
ishactive18 said:

AllCourtTENNIS said:

As other people have mentioned, it seems like a good moment to bump your weekly dose up to 4mg and stick with that for a month.

On top of that, I believe you need to consume more food. I'm a woman, and I eat 1200 calories/day, yet you weigh roughly 50lb more than I do. For a 25 year old male body that's very active, I'd say adding no less than 400 protein rich calories/day would be genuinely beneficial.

(My own son is your age, so through the transitive property of mothering, I've started worrying about you.)
Click to expand...
Replying to each person isn't possible, but this is strange.

Over the last few days I've bumped my calories up. 1800KCAL

Sourdough & Eggs

Sweet Potatoes

Chicken breast

spinach

And 2 kg has come off, without any exercise on my part.

Today is pin day, so 3.5mg is what I'll pin.

Jumping 1mg with each pin makes me nervous.
Click to expand...
Your plan looks solid to me.

I began with tirz and, after hitting a plateau, gradually moved to a stack that included reta. I handled reta the same way you are—slowly and cautiously. That approach served me well.
 
It takes a while, so don’t get worked up about it — dropping 300g weekly is a solid, consistent pace.

Research runs for 48 weeks, and the overall figure matters once enough time has passed.

Losing nearly 20kg within 2 months is genuinely impressive.

Holding onto water is actually beneficial.
 
ishactive18 said:

AllCourtTENNIS said:

As other people have mentioned, it seems like a good moment to bump your weekly dose up to 4mg and stick with that for a month.

On top of that, I believe you need to consume more food. I'm a woman, and I eat 1200 calories/day, yet you weigh roughly 50lb more than I do. For a 25 year old male body that's very active, I'd say adding no less than 400 protein rich calories/day would be genuinely beneficial.

(My own son is your age, so through the transitive property of mothering, I've started worrying about you.)
Click to expand...
Replying to each person isn't possible, but this is strange.

Over the last few days I've bumped my calories up. 1800KCAL

Sourdough & Eggs

Sweet Potatoes

Chicken breast

spinach

And 2 kg has come off, without any exercise on my part.

Today is pin day, so 3.5mg is what I'll pin.

Jumping 1mg with each pin makes me nervous.
Click to expand...
Cut calories too aggressively and your body pushes back — you have to balance nutrition against the deficit.
 
Back
Top