Reta stalls at 2 months: raise the dose or wait it out?

koevet

koevet

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Male, 53 years old.

Almost 2 months into reta, and the scale is down 7 kg (roughly 15.4 lbs). Peptides are new to me — this is my first run with them.

Right now I'm pinning 4 mg/week. My starting dose was 0.5 mg, and looking back I moved up the ladder faster than I probably should have. Alongside that, I'm aiming to keep a calorie deficit, hitting the weights 2–3 times weekly, plus a bit of cardio.

Food noise has quieted down a lot thanks to reta, and it's made consistency much easier — the overall loss has been great. But for the past week and a half, things have really slowed, and it feels like I'm sitting right at the edge of a plateau, despite still trying to hold the calorie deficit.

To those who've been at this longer: how do you usually handle this? Nudge the dose up, say to 6 mg/week, or hold steady and give it more time?

Side effects at 4 mg/week are basically nothing — just some mild constipation. Appetite suppression and fullness are still doing their job well.

Also, I got a DEXA scan for the first time a few days ago. Yes, I know it should have been done before I started reta, but that ship has sailed. The numbers came back a bit disappointing, so there's clearly plenty left to work on.

What struck me: my current weight (73 kg / about 160 lbs) is essentially what the scan "recommends," except it comes with the note that my body composition needs work — less fat, more lean mass. The scan also flagged bone density below target for my age, so I'm going to look into that as well.

Thanks!
 
Hit my first plateau recently. Took the second shot at 6mg on Friday. Between 3/20 and 3/27, the scale didn't move, and when I stepped on it this morning just to check, still nothing. Before this, I was dropping roughly 2.5lbs each week. Guess it just happens sometimes.
 
I recently went from 2mg up to 4mg to tackle the remaining 7-10lbs.

For 11 weeks I stayed at 2mg and it worked really well, but then the weight loss tapered off. At the same time I found myself putting away big meals and couldn't turn down a slice of pizza. Being in a deficit meant the carbs themselves weren't a problem, yet since they were empty calories I thought, what the hell. I'd much rather have beans, sweet potato, and whole proteins.
 
What number are you aiming for on the scale? If your priority is changing your body composition rather than dropping pounds, going up on the dose could be the wrong move for you?
 
If a week or 2 goes by without movement and I'm not getting any side effects, that's when I raise my dose. The catch is making sure water weight isn't skewing things. For me, CJC-1295/Ipamorelin has been in the mix, and that leads to fluid retention plus scale swings.
 
Waterheater said:

What number are you aiming for on the scale? If your priority is changing your body composition rather than dropping pounds, going up on the dose could be the wrong move for you?
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Good question. Initially I aimed to get down to a weight that was 4/5 Kilos lighter than where I am now. However, the Dexa scan shows I've already reached a healthy weight, and what's needed is a shift in body composition: drop fat, add lean mass. In other words, a re-comp.

I've already begun going to the gym and doing lifts, but since I only started a few months back, I don't have much of a background with "muscles"—I was pretty thin for most of my life, up until I wasn't.
 
The decision is yours, honestly. Dropping pounds at a quicker pace isn't really required for your wellbeing, and it may not do much for the look you're after right now. Should reta keep doing its job—making it simpler to stick with your eating plan, freeing up energy to put into training—then there's no obligation to go up. With just 5 kg left to shed, rushing makes little sense; adding that muscle is going to take more time than trimming the fat.

On the other hand, one perk of grey is being able to tweak your dosing however you want. From what I've seen, overshooting a dose increase is simple to fix by lowering the amount the next week. You could try pinning 5-6 mg and just check what the side effects are like?
 
Last week I hit a plateau. On Friday 3/28 my weight matched what it was on Friday 3/21. Friday I took my second 6mg injection. Body fat dropped .2%. Tomorrow I'll step on the scale to check for any further loss.
 
ronin365 said:

If a week or 2 goes by without movement and I'm not getting any side effects, that's when I raise my dose. The catch is making sure water weight isn't skewing things. For me, CJC-1295/Ipamorelin has been in the mix, and that leads to fluid retention plus scale swings.
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I didn't know CJC could lead to water retention. Lately I was puzzled why my weight stopped dropping, so I looked at my spreadsheet. And it turns out the plateau lines up exactly with when I started my CJC cycle!

Appreciate the info! Fingers crossed this doesn't drag on too long, since watching that number on the scale drop is something I really like haha.
 
BNLFL said:

Last week I hit a plateau. On Friday 3/28 my weight matched what it was on Friday 3/21. Friday I took my second 6mg injection. Body fat dropped .2%. Tomorrow I'll step on the scale to check for any further loss.
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Quick update: between Friday and when I stepped on yesterday, I was down 2.4lbs. I'd say 95% of that was water weight, since I had taken some high salt stuff for something.
 
dirtyharry said:

ronin365 said:

If a week or 2 goes by without movement and I'm not getting any side effects, that's when I raise my dose. The catch is making sure water weight isn't skewing things. For me, CJC-1295/Ipamorelin has been in the mix, and that leads to fluid retention plus scale swings.
Click to expand...
I didn't know CJC could lead to water retention. Lately I was puzzled why my weight stopped dropping, so I looked at my spreadsheet. And it turns out the plateau lines up exactly with when I started my CJC cycle!

Appreciate the info! Fingers crossed this doesn't drag on too long, since watching that number on the scale drop is something I really like haha.
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My cycle isn't done, so this is secondhand, but I've been told the water weight sheds fairly fast once you come off. I'm expecting roughly a 4-5 pound drop by the time I'm through. Looking forward to that 🙂.
 
At 53, with 73 kilos already reached as your target, my advice is to keep the dose where it is. What's needed now is better eating. The glucagon agonist can continue its fat-burning action, but shedding additional pounds isn't what you want. From this point, most of the responsibility falls on you.

As for me: 61 years old, 170 lbs, 12 % body fat. When I got to my 170 lbs target (in fact slightly before), I added an evening fasted CJC-1295/Ipamorelin protocol to give a small boost to muscle gain. Protein intake needs to be huge...
 
One more thing to mention. Based on what I've come across, tapering gradually down to Reta's smallest dose (for example 0.5–0.75) matters, since it gives your metabolism room to adapt and settle into its new set point. My take is that the rebound cases after stopping GLP-1s are those who never addressed what caused the weight gain in the first place, and who quit abruptly or dropped too quickly.

There may even be a case for running something like a PCT after Reta, with peptides that suppress appetite and keep supporting fat oxidation.
 
Strange as it may seem, once a stall hits, the smart move is to bump food up to a "maintenance" amount for around 2 weeks, then bring calories back down. Your metabolism rules your body, and it just needs a solid jolt to restart.
 
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