Yeah. There was a point on Reta where I stopped drinking coffee altogether. My mugs would sit there only partly drunk, and in the end I just stopped bothering. Still, I enjoy what caffeine does for me, so I picked up some caffeine chews on amazon that actually taste good. I take one in the morning, and sometimes a 2nd at about 2 pm — does the job nicely.
There isn't a specific number on the scale I'm chasing—it's more about what I see in the mirror. Still, dropping under 70kg isn't something I want, so I'll just have to wait and see how things play out.
What's strange is that coffee hasn't really been calling to me. My morning cup is still part of the routine, but the ones I used to reach for later—late morning, after lunch, sometimes late afternoon to keep things going—I just haven't wanted them.
Is your scale giving you pounds or percent? Mine is a Renpho, and it reports percentages, which makes the skeletal muscle gain look better than it really is. Take a 175 lb example: 54% skeletal muscle, 16% body fat, and 30% everything else (bones, organs, water, and so on). That works out to 94.5 lbs of skeletal muscle and 28 lbs of fat. Now drop 5 lbs to 170, and suppose the scale reads 54.4% skeletal muscle and 15.8% body fat. Those figures come to 92.48 lbs of muscle and 26.86 lbs of fat. So the skeletal muscle percentage is higher, but 2 lbs of muscle were actually lost.UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above)on Reta with just a few simple steps.
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
I weighed roughly 94kg and set 85kg as my initial goal, which ought to leave me looking fairly lean.
You've got just 1cm on me, and our muscle mass looks about the same to me. Once you're near 72kg, I'd bet you'll feel really pleased.
Has the mirror shown you anything regarding possible muscle loss? You and I share a few traits, and muscle loss worries me a lot. (6ft1 220, roughly 23%bf when I last checked, which was some time ago) I train 3 times per week, soon moving up to 4x, and I recently increased to 3mg weekly. (this is month 2 of reta for me)UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
These days, even large doses of caffeine are off-limits for me.
That's a fair observation, and both the % and the raw figures are available on my scale (or through the app I use to view the data).jsc1980 said:
Is your scale giving you pounds or percent? Mine is a Renpho, and it reports percentages, which makes the skeletal muscle gain look better than it really is. Take a 175 lb example: 54% skeletal muscle, 16% body fat, and 30% everything else (bones, organs, water, and so on). That works out to 94.5 lbs of skeletal muscle and 28 lbs of fat. Now drop 5 lbs to 170, and suppose the scale reads 54.4% skeletal muscle and 15.8% body fat. Those figures come to 92.48 lbs of muscle and 26.86 lbs of fat. So the skeletal muscle percentage is higher, but 2 lbs of muscle were actually lost.UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
numbers just for illustration
Your scale may not work the same way, but this is something I picked up on with mine.
I wouldn't be shocked by that either. Honestly, we're already at a stage where, if those final few kg disappear from my midsection, the result should look really good!
I can still do it, no problem there — it's just that the urge or pull toward it isn't what it once was. Could part of that be the reta causing my body to burn more fat for fuel, which might leave me feeling less wiped out sometimes?
Okay, this one's a bit odd.Midwestmouse said:
Has the mirror shown you anything regarding possible muscle loss? You and I share a few traits, and muscle loss worries me a lot. (6ft1 220, roughly 23%bf when I last checked, which was some time ago) I train 3 times per week, soon moving up to 4x, and I recently increased to 3mg weekly. (this is month 2 of reta for me)UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
Also, sorry if this has come up before and I missed it, but how are you sleeping? I've been looking into the cjc/ipa that gets mentioned often as a way to support deeper rest, since mine has... well, suffered, ha.
Sleep hasn't shifted at all for me either. The one thing that's genuinely stood out is my vision — tricky to put into words, but things get somewhat blurry and slip out of focus more readily. It's really obvious since I'm on a computer the whole day, yet it doesn't happen when I'm out and about.Midwestmouse said:
Has the mirror shown you anything regarding possible muscle loss? You and I share a few traits, and muscle loss worries me a lot. (6ft1 220, roughly 23%bf when I last checked, which was some time ago) I train 3 times per week, soon moving up to 4x, and I recently increased to 3mg weekly. (this is month 2 of reta for me)UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
Also, sorry if this has come up before and I missed it, but how are you sleeping? I've been looking into the cjc/ipa that gets mentioned often as a way to support deeper rest, since mine has... well, suffered, ha.
jsc1980 said:
Is your scale giving you pounds or percent? Mine is a Renpho, and it reports percentages, which makes the skeletal muscle gain look better than it really is. Take a 175 lb example: 54% skeletal muscle, 16% body fat, and 30% everything else (bones, organs, water, and so on). That works out to 94.5 lbs of skeletal muscle and 28 lbs of fat. Now drop 5 lbs to 170, and suppose the scale reads 54.4% skeletal muscle and 15.8% body fat. Those figures come to 92.48 lbs of muscle and 26.86 lbs of fat. So the skeletal muscle percentage is higher, but 2 lbs of muscle were actually lost.UnusualLLama said:
Another 7 days done and dusted!
The numbers
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
This morning's weight - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (previously 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
7-day rolling average has dropped 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (slightly more than the week before)
Body fat estimate - 0.3% lower (withings scale, aware it's not the most precise, but I track the direction - and since I began, withings reports a total BF drop of 1.4% and a muscle mass gain of 1.3%)
Resting heart rate average - 46-48 (unchanged from last week)
Blood pressure average - 112/69 (previously 113/71)
Dose - was 1mg reta, bumped it to 2mg yesterday
What I'm noticing
The headline here is that basically nothing shifted compared to last week, everything I wrote then still holds. The one change is that I went from 1mg to 2mg.
This isn't because "it's not doing anything" because it obviously is, I can see it, the numbers confirm it, all signs point that way. The only reason is that the last couple of days before my next pin get a bit tougher.
I'm curious how strongly dose and heart-rate will correlate, and I'll report any sides, but I expect it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
I'll probably ramble a bit here, but this has been on my mind a lot this past week or so, particularly after seeing my withings trends consistently show higher lean mass and lower fat numbers.
Taken at face value, that means I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. The fat loss is certain, the muscle gain I'm not sure about, but what I feel more confident in is that I'm not losing muscle. And that was one of my worries with reta. I mentioned it in my first post, I want to get lean while keeping as much muscle as I can, yet everywhere you look reta gets painted as some muscle-devouring compound you could inject into the Hulk to turn him back into Bruce Banner.
I don't believe that's true.
So here are a few things I've been turning over that I want to raise.
1. Every study shows roughly 25-30% lean mass reduction in people on Reta. But that's misleading. The world's reflex seems to be that lean mass = muscle, which isn't correct.
Lean mass covers a lot, and when you're talking about muscle specifically, it isn't even all muscle. A big chunk is water (do a heavy leg session that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all kinds of things that feed into that number. But we see lean mass in the studies and people instantly think muscle.
2. Back to the studies. Most participants have clinical obesity plus a whole range of other chronic conditions, and from what I can tell, there are plenty of much older people in them too.
This matters because you're dealing not only with people whose metabolism is broken, but also people who probably aren't doing everything possible to limit lean mass loss while in a calorie deficit. Which brings me neatly to the next point.
3. Unless you're on a solid TRT dose, loaded up with SARMS (or similar), or you make a swishing noise when you move because you're pinning so many peptides daily, then anyone in a calorie deficit will lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's talking about a normal diet, eating less than you burn.
The human body is great, incredible, it does many things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't nail the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal-accurate protein amounts and expect the body to flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some of it will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak things and do the right stuff, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. Full stop.
4. This is the point that jumps out at me most, and it's kind of wild that I don't see anyone discussing it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to illustrate.
Take someone who's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, say with a GLP. And when they hit their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of a ratio of 0.5 it's probably closer to 0.7. They've gone from half their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but it will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio never gets highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
numbers just for illustration
Your scale may not work the same way, but this is something I picked up on with mine.
