Reta isn't curbing my appetite

Appetite suppression varies from person to person. At 2mg, the effect I felt was quite weak — I'd get full more easily and stay that way longer. Once I moved to 4mg, the first 4 days were clearly stronger, then it eased back to mild for the final couple of days. Weight loss was minimal until 4mg, and now it's starting to show a little. My plan is to step up to 5 or 6 before long. Even if 8 weeks pass with little weight change, I believe the medication is still working. For the time being I won't stack, since I believe being able to eat is one of the things that sets retatrutide apart.
 
alphaamigo said:

Appetite suppression varies from person to person. At 2mg, the effect I felt was quite weak — I'd get full more easily and stay that way longer. Once I moved to 4mg, the first 4 days were clearly stronger, then it eased back to mild for the final couple of days. Weight loss was minimal until 4mg, and now it's starting to show a little. My plan is to step up to 5 or 6 before long. Even if 8 weeks pass with little weight change, I believe the medication is still working. For the time being I won't stack, since I believe being able to eat is one of the things that sets retatrutide apart.
I'm leaning toward bumping it to 3mg when next week comes. The morning after, I deal with rough nausea, though it clears up by midday. I've been considering adding 1mg of tirz, just to get a bit of help with appetite suppression.
 
5byfive said:

I already mentioned this in a different thread. When appetite suppression is the main thing you're after, Tirz does that job better than Reta, so Reta isn't the right med for it. Because suppressing appetite isn't one of Reta's primary effects, it shouldn't be the metric you use to decide your dose. Compared with other GLPs, Reta is harder on your system. Simply cranking the dose until it suppresses your appetite is not a good idea and I am alarmed at how many times I see this advice.
I'm with you on that. Simply pushing the Reta dose higher in pursuit of stronger appetite control is a mistake. Believe me, I've learned that the hard way — you can end up with some genuinely nasty side effects. I've never stacked Tirz with Reta myself, but that route might deliver more appetite suppression than just escalating the Reta dose.
 
At 2mg per week, I'm dropping fat at a rapid pace. Honestly, I can't claim complete appetite suppression, though I do reach satiety faster than before. The constant thoughts about food have lessened, but my desire for sugary treats has actually gone up. Luckily, I have enough willpower to stay on track with my macros.
 
I've worked my way up to 12mg, and I haven't dropped any weight at all. Tirz worked far better for me, even with just a bit of Reta in the mix. I'm thinking I'll stack them occasionally and find out what happens.
 
darkreta120 said:

Looking for input on how Reta affects appetite. I'm in my 4th week of using it. During week 1 I took .5mg, then 1mg in week 2, and 2mg for weeks 3 and 4. Only in that opening week did I notice any hunger reduction; after that, nothing. I'm considering dividing my doses into half-week intervals. Some folks mention tirz is more effective for appetite control, so would introducing a low dose of tirz now be premature? Curious if others have experienced something like this.
That matched my experience too. At the start, when the doses were low, hunger control worked really well. Things stayed that way for me until I reached roughly 2mg per week. Food noise has never been a problem for me at any point, but since moving up to 5mg, the appetite suppression has returned in a big way. These days the only significant side effect I'm dealing with is fatigue coming back. I attempted to fix it by eating more, but that only backfires and leaves me feeling worse. For the time being, I plan to hold at my current dose and observe what happens.
 
Week 7 for me now. I began at 1mg and have worked my way up to 3mg. Honestly, there is zero appetite suppression happening.

Even so, the scale is moving. I've dropped 11 lbs, and the only exercise I'm doing is swinging a kettle bell roughly 15 minutes, 3 days a week. Should the appetite suppression ever kick in, I might finally cut out the beers, and then the weight would really come off. All the same, it's doing its job — I'm shedding between .5-2lbs weekly.

One thing I have picked up on: I fill up much quicker, and after a meal I genuinely feel satisfied. My plan is to remain at 3mg for another 2 weeks, then bump to 4 and hold there for a month. If 4mg still leaves my appetite unchecked, I'll look into stacking Tirz. Before deciding, I'm spending a lot of time reading through the forums.
 
Peotidethrowaway said:

I've worked my way up to 12mg, and I haven't dropped any weight at all. Tirz worked far better for me, even with just a bit of Reta in the mix. I'm thinking I'll stack them occasionally and find out what happens.
Could you tell me what your current weight is and what weight you're aiming for?
 
Troposphere said:

For the initial 4 weeks I took 1mg each week. During that period, I noticed my stomach felt empty and I knew I needed calories. It was a kind of hunger where food itself held no appeal. Eating would make me full fast. These days, at 2.5mg per week, that sensation has weakened. That said, while eating, there are moments when my meal disgusts me and I have zero desire to continue, and that includes pizza!

I'm just sharing this as one more data point.
Same here. Yesterday I actually brought this up in a TG group, since I'd noticed the same thing. That said, I began at a very low dose because I was concerned about side effects. At first, suppression worked well and there was far less food noise. For me that was a huge relief, given that food acts as a stim. Then I moved up to 2mg weekly as scheduled, and the noise returned. I do still get full more quickly, so it isn't completely gone.

As for weight loss, it's fairly consistent at somewhere between 800g and 1kg each week, though I can't tell whether that's just from eating fewer calories or from Reta.
 
PepDino said:

Peotidethrowaway said:

I've worked my way up to 12mg, and I haven't dropped any weight at all. Tirz worked far better for me, even with just a bit of Reta in the mix. I'm thinking I'll stack them occasionally and find out what happens.
Could you tell me what your current weight is and what weight you're aiming for?
180 to 185 now, from 202lb.
 
Troposphere said:

For the initial 4 weeks I took 1mg each week. During that period, I noticed my stomach felt empty and I knew I needed calories. It was a kind of hunger where food itself held no appeal. Eating would make me full fast. These days, at 2.5mg per week, that sensation has weakened. That said, while eating, there are moments when my meal disgusts me and I have zero desire to continue, and that includes pizza!

I'm just sharing this as one more data point.
I began reta 3 weeks back, currently at 1 mg, and things have played out fairly similarly for me as they have for you — my stomach feels empty, yet hunger is completely absent. There might be a touch of tiredness on the day I inject, and I'm constantly chilly since I've dropped a good amount of fat. It's honestly strange: I fill up incredibly quickly, have zero cravings, no hunger, and the food noise is gone. Pretty curious, really. I doubt I'll bump my dose up at all, given that the medication is still accumulating in my system. As for you, at what point did you move up to 2.5 mg? How many weeks in was that?
 
After spending 1 month on 1mg, I moved up to 2.5mg. Hunger was beginning to return. I've now been on 2.5 for close to a month, and I plan to remain at this dose until there's a reason to increase it again.
 
I can relate to those worries, since tirz gave me strong suppression, yet when I moved to Reta hardly anything changed until I reached 6mg.

September was when I began, and I didn’t notice much before 4/5mg, which left me afraid it might never work… but eventually it did.

At present I’m at just 7mg, and the suppression is extremely powerful. My body shape has shifted as well. The suppression is nearly too much (though you’d have to pry it from my cold dead hands), and I’d call it better than tirz. That said, I enjoy this feeling while others don’t. For me it removes some pleasure from eating: food tastes good initially, then suddenly it’s …. Not.

Also, after a meal I can’t be near leftover food because the smell is overwhelming and makes me queasy. I can’t handle large portions, but honestly I love that. A lot. I can choose what to eat, and a salad now makes me as happy as a cheese burger would. That isn’t willpower, it’s Reta assisted suppression.

9 Reta months and 42 Reta lbs down, roughly 28 to go. With 1 month left, I’m at 2 years total on my GLP1 journey, having lost 117lbs overall. So stick with it and be patient titrating up!
 
darkreta120 said:

diplomat said:

Calling all non-responders!!

My starting weight was 218; through 'diet&excercised' I got down to 200, and then hit a hard plateau.

After fifteen weeks on Reta, I titrated all the way to 12mg. I got every side effect imaginable, yet hunger never really went away.

During week one the slowed digestion was noticeable, but I was still ravenously hungry... reflux and indigestion hit me hard. I stacked Cagrilintide on top, and so far that hasn't moved the needle much.

Once heart rate and sleep problems piled up to the point of 'enough'... my total weight loss stood at - 3 lbs.

Now making the switch to Survodutide, alongside the Cag.
My body is reacting, but appetite suppression isn't part of it. Because I'm still on a low dose, I'll wait longer, and if that doesn't work I'll switch to tirz.

alphaamigo said:

The issue stems from not having faith in the protocol. For obese subjects, 2mg over 4 weeks is the introductory dose—intended not only to minimize side-effects but also to establish metabolic stability. Jumping in at a high dose won't give someone extra advantage from reta. It will lead to stronger appetite suppression, which might yield roughly 2-3% additional weight loss in those initial weeks from glycogen depletion and water loss, yet across 12 weeks, it won't truly result in greater overall weight loss, and the pounds shed would represent less total fat than if one had titrated gradually.

Conversely, staying at too low a dose for too long also won't bring about the metabolic changes that someone is seeking from reta.
yeah, I get that. I'm just curious about when the appetite suppression will kick in. From what I saw, by 4 weeks most patients had at least some appetite suppression.
If you're going to begin a GLP medication, my view is that you owe it a fair trial. Assuming you have substantial obesity, this is a long-term commitment, and finding out whether the best drug currently available works for you is worth doing — but you won't truly know until you reach 8mg or beyond. Also, since you began below the usual 2mg, your 4 weeks aren't really 4 weeks; it's closer to 2. Jumping to another drug after a few weeks at doses that aren't enough isn't the right way to go about it.

I don't know whether you've dropped any weight. If weight is coming off, then there's genuinely nothing to worry about.

With no effects and no side effects at all, your odds of getting side effects from higher doses are lower than average. Typically people experience some mild version that worsens as the dose goes up, rather than nothing at all followed by something terrible. That said, side effects can be unpredictable, and the only thing you risk by raising the dose is a sudden worsening of side effects.

Still, moving up to 3mg for a couple of weeks and then to 4mg is unlikely to cause trouble. If nothing is happening yet, once hunger suppression or side effects do appear, you'll need to stop increasing more frequently than every 4 weeks.

Another route, with even less risk of side effects, is splitting the dose twice a week — for example 2mg plus 1mg, and if there are zero issues, then 2mg plus 2mg the following week. Unless you're genuinely insensitive to GLP's, you'll most likely notice something by 4mg. But I'd strongly urge you not to switch to tirz unless you've reached at least 8mg, and ideally 12mg. If those reta doses aren't cutting hunger or producing weight loss, then either your reta is no good, or you're among the unlucky 5% who don't lose much on them — and if that's the case, there's no reason to think tirz would do better. The two aren't identical, but how they work and what they do are very similar. And even though people claim reta gives less hunger suppression, it does suppress hunger — you can't shed 29% of your body weight in a year while eating the same amount of food.
 
darkreta120 said:

Looking for input on how Reta affects appetite. I'm in my 4th week of using it. During week 1 I took .5mg, then 1mg in week 2, and 2mg for weeks 3 and 4. Only in that opening week did I notice any hunger reduction; after that, nothing. I'm considering dividing my doses into half-week intervals. Some folks mention tirz is more effective for appetite control, so would introducing a low dose of tirz now be premature? Curious if others have experienced something like this.
In the studies, by this point you would have completed 1 month at 2mg and would now be moving to 4mg. Starting low is fine, but if it's not working, remaining for a month at a dose below what the clinical trials even begin with isn't doing you any favors, and there's no need to add other peps when you're nowhere near a therapeutic dose.
 
Week 4 at 5mg/wk for me, and the ramp has been extremely gradual — starting at 1mg. During week 1 there was a bit of appetite suppression, but from week 3 onward it's been nearly absent. I do fill up faster, yet the scale has only moved a few lbs since I began. Losing a large amount of weight isn't really my goal here, and I don't view reta as an appetite suppressant. There are maybe another 10lbs I could shed, though I'm not hurrying. My main reason is a personal experiment: attempting a metabolic reset, getting better labs, adding a bit of recomp, and remaining lean into my later years, since sickness or death has hit most of my family. Reta, test, and HGH will stay in my routine for the foreseeable future, but I'm still waiting for that reta miracle everyone raves about.
 
My first week at 2mg of Reta is almost done, and so far the results have made me really happy.

At the start I was anxious because the appetite suppression I'd been hoping for hadn't shown up, yet it actually arrived fast, and these days I can hardly manage half of what I'd usually eat. Hunger is still there, but I need a LOT less food and I end up full. Not being totally turned off food is something I like, since otherwise I'd feel like I was missing out. 7lbs has come off during the week, though I understand the maths, so I know fat isn't all of it. What I've noticed is that I only feel like a small snack at breakfast and lunch, plus a small plate at dinner.

On top of that, because of the half life, levels will carry on rising across the next month even if the dose stays the same, so my hope is that tolerance won't build too fast. Staying at the lowest dose that works is fine by me, and I'm completely ready for the weight loss to slow down fast once the water and glycogen weight is gone.

For reference I'm a 40 year old, 6 foot male, starting weight was 225, 218 at the date of my first reta pin (Friday) and 211 this morning.

Looking to get down to about 185, depending on the amount of muscle loss I encounter.
 
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