Reta weight gain concern after gym session

Gantz236

Explorer
Joined
May 6, 2026
Messages
9
Reaction score
1
Location
Cedar City, UT USA
I started Reta in June, titrating slowly upward from a 1mg starting dose. My starting weight was 325, and I dropped to 270. I've also been using KLOW, CJC and Ipa. Early on the weight came off fast, then it stalled completely, even as I raised the dose. The miserable sides I used to get no longer happen, even after increasing the dose. Right now I'm at 3mg twice per week. I did get down to 260, but it took months. I'm wondering whether storing my vials in the fridge door has shaken them up and damaged them, or whether one vial from the kit wasn't the same as the others.

A few days ago I went to the gym for the first time in a long while and overdid it. I'm so sore I can barely bend over, my back aches badly, and my arms and legs are extremely sore. Today I weighed myself and saw I've gained 12 lbs since the last time I weighed, maybe 4 days ago. Could the gym session combined with the CJC/Ipa be building muscle faster than expected, along with some water retention, or is it just plain water retention? I'm hoping it's only water retention from overdoing it, but I'm worried something else is going on. It's been so hard to get below 270, and after finally reaching 260 I suddenly gained 12 lbs.

I might throw out my vial and try a new one to see if opening and closing the fridge door shook it until it was damaged.
 
When did you begin CJC/IPA? Did the weight loss slow after you added them? After I started secretagogues, my weight stalled for a month. I believe that's fairly common and mostly from water retention.

Just track appetite and calorie intake. You should be able to tell whether the reta is working. If you're frequently hungry and eating bigger portions, raise your dose. After 4 months, you could easily be at 8mg/week.

Keeping the reconstituted vial on your fridge door isn't the issue. Honestly, I don't see a real problem. Dropping 55 lbs in 4 months is quite an achievement. Congratulations and just keep it up. And definitely don't stop going to the gym. The DOMS usually improves quickly once your body adjusts to the new routine.
 
Trust me, simply opening and closing the fridge door won't do anything to the food inside. Pick one day each week and weigh yourself on the same scale. I doubt the gym gave you 12lbs of gain. Has anything changed with your diet or otherwise? Are you male or female?
 
It's definitely not muscle gain. A single session of resistance training wouldn't give you immediate muscle gains.

How steady was your diet in the period leading up to your last weigh-in? Did you take in more sodium or carbs than you usually do?

You mentioned being extremely sore — do your legs and hands look puffy, or at least larger than usual? That can point to extra water retention. Your body is under a lot of stress at the moment and may simply be overreacting to the recent training. Building muscle needs water and various nutrients, which could also contribute to the added weight.

I wouldn't be too worried that your reta isn't working. Provided you didn't make any drastic changes to your diet, the weight should come off within a week or two.
 
Gantz236 said:

I started Reta in June, titrating slowly upward from a 1mg starting dose. My starting weight was 325, and I dropped to 270. I've also been using KLOW, CJC and Ipa. Early on the weight came off fast, then it stalled completely, even as I raised the dose. The miserable sides I used to get no longer happen, even after increasing the dose. Right now I'm at 3mg twice per week. I did get down to 260, but it took months. I'm wondering whether storing my vials in the fridge door has shaken them up and damaged them, or whether one vial from the kit wasn't the same as the others.

A few days ago I went to the gym for the first time in a long while and overdid it. I'm so sore I can barely bend over, my back aches badly, and my arms and legs are extremely sore. Today I weighed myself and saw I've gained 12 lbs since the last time I weighed, maybe 4 days ago. Could the gym session combined with the CJC/Ipa be building muscle faster than expected, along with some water retention, or is it just plain water retention? I'm hoping it's only water retention from overdoing it, but I'm worried something else is going on. It's been so hard to get below 270, and after finally reaching 260 I suddenly gained 12 lbs.

I might throw out my vial and try a new one to see if opening and closing the fridge door shook it until it was damaged.
To be blunt, the real issue is what happens when you open the fridge door — and it isn't about shaking the vials. It reads like you expect the medication to do the work for you, rather than having it assist you in doing the work yourself. Diet is the one thing your post never mentions. As you're finding out, you can get some results that way, but that approach only takes you so far.

GLPs work best when you use them as a tool to repair your relationship with food. Counting calories isn't mandatory, though it would likely be beneficial. What you genuinely need to do for long-term success is build a healthy diet containing sufficient protein and shift toward foods that are less calorie dense. In the end, the reason you aren't losing weight is that you aren't in a calorie deficit — not the drugs, and not because your dose is too low.
 
The morelins can lead to water retention. With that in mind, get the loseit app, choose sedentary as your setting, and avoid eating back your exercise calories. Log every meal and step on the scale daily (I weigh both morning and night), and you'll gain a much clearer picture of how diet, exercise and different protocols can produce varying amounts of loss, gain and water retention.

I began sermorelin around 6 weeks ago, and my weight loss slowed to basically nothing. Since I log everything, I simply kept going. Last week, after a month hovering around the same weight, I dropped two lbs. This week, same. Down 2lbs. That isn't weight I just lost — it's water retention AND the weight lost over six weeks.

Track everything
 
Gantz236 said:

I started Reta in June, titrating slowly upward from a 1mg starting dose. My starting weight was 325, and I dropped to 270. I've also been using KLOW, CJC and Ipa. Early on the weight came off fast, then it stalled completely, even as I raised the dose. The miserable sides I used to get no longer happen, even after increasing the dose. Right now I'm at 3mg twice per week. I did get down to 260, but it took months. I'm wondering whether storing my vials in the fridge door has shaken them up and damaged them, or whether one vial from the kit wasn't the same as the others.

A few days ago I went to the gym for the first time in a long while and overdid it. I'm so sore I can barely bend over, my back aches badly, and my arms and legs are extremely sore. Today I weighed myself and saw I've gained 12 lbs since the last time I weighed, maybe 4 days ago. Could the gym session combined with the CJC/Ipa be building muscle faster than expected, along with some water retention, or is it just plain water retention? I'm hoping it's only water retention from overdoing it, but I'm worried something else is going on. It's been so hard to get below 270, and after finally reaching 260 I suddenly gained 12 lbs.

I might throw out my vial and try a new one to see if opening and closing the fridge door shook it until it was damaged.
My experience mirrors this, and the easy early phase with reta has come to an end for me. Still, R100 and T100 exist for a reason, haha.



For certain people, 8 mg of reta weekly hits the sweet spot. Others choose EOD dosing so they can move up faster.

But I'm switching back to tirz once I finish a vial of R50. After that I'll stack with survo, and use reta later on instead. Lately the stackers appear happier, elora/cagri included.
 
Gantz236 said:

I started Reta in June, titrating slowly upward from a 1mg starting dose. My starting weight was 325, and I dropped to 270. I've also been using KLOW, CJC and Ipa. Early on the weight came off fast, then it stalled completely, even as I raised the dose. The miserable sides I used to get no longer happen, even after increasing the dose. Right now I'm at 3mg twice per week. I did get down to 260, but it took months. I'm wondering whether storing my vials in the fridge door has shaken them up and damaged them, or whether one vial from the kit wasn't the same as the others.

A few days ago I went to the gym for the first time in a long while and overdid it. I'm so sore I can barely bend over, my back aches badly, and my arms and legs are extremely sore. Today I weighed myself and saw I've gained 12 lbs since the last time I weighed, maybe 4 days ago. Could the gym session combined with the CJC/Ipa be building muscle faster than expected, along with some water retention, or is it just plain water retention? I'm hoping it's only water retention from overdoing it, but I'm worried something else is going on. It's been so hard to get below 270, and after finally reaching 260 I suddenly gained 12 lbs.

I might throw out my vial and try a new one to see if opening and closing the fridge door shook it until it was damaged.
If it were me, I'd drop the CJC/ipa at this point, assuming you haven't done so already. The weight it adds is purely water, and it "fucks with the scale."

Beyond that, every so often someone reports somewhere that they suddenly had a severe allergic reaction to CJC/ipa with no prior warning.
 
Calm Logic said:

If it were me, I'd drop the CJC/ipa at this point, assuming you haven't done so already. The weight it adds is purely water, and it "fucks with the scale."

Beyond that, every so often someone reports somewhere that they suddenly had a severe allergic reaction to CJC/ipa with no prior warning.
Ten months ago tomorrow, as soon as I got into this space, I began researching peptides extensively (genuinely researching, not pinning). Sermorelin stood out to me especially — low risk, modest rewards for modest problems — but I waited to start it until I had passed goal 1 and was roughly ten pounds from my ultimate goal, since water retention is one of its common effects and I knew it would push the scale in the wrong direction for someone whose first goal was substantial weight loss.

Now that I'm deliberately and actively slowing my rate of loss and paying more attention to other health metrics, that water weight doesn't bother me. I also expected it.
 
Gantz236 said:


I have been on Reta since June, slowly titrated up from starting dose of 1mg. Starting weight was 325 Then dropped to 270. I have also been taking KLOW, CJC and Ipa. At first the weight was dropping quickly then it just stopped, even when upping the dose. I no longer am getting sides that were miserable before even when I've upped the dose. Currently I am at 3mg twice per week. I managed to get to 260 but over months. I am wondering if keeping my vials in the fridge door has shaken it up and damaged it or something, or maybe a vial from the kit wasn't the same as the other vials.

A few days ago I hit the gym for the first time in a long time and over did it, been so sore I can barely bend over, back is aching bad, and arms and legs are sore as hell. Today I weighed and noticed I've gained 12 lbs since the last time I weighed maybe 4 days ago. Is it possible that hitting the gym combined with the CJC/Ipa increases muscle gain faster than expected, combined with some water retention, or just plain water retention? I am hoping it is just water retention from over doing it, but I am concerned that something else is up. Seeing as how it has been so hard to get below 270, finally getting to 260 just to gain 12lbs suddenly.

I might toss my vial and try a new one to see if it was maybe that opening and closing the fridge door shook it till it was damaged.

Click to expand...
It's probably water retention. I've been using reta for 6 months, and in month 2 I began a tesa cycle — that first month I barely lost anything. Once I stopped tesa after 3 months, I dropped a lot more weight that month than I had anticipated.

Now I restarted the tesa cycle at the start of Oct and I'm actually heavier than I was at the beginning of the month, even though my diet hasn't changed, so yes, it's likely the water
 
Calm Logic said:

My experience mirrors this, and the easy early phase with reta has come to an end for me. Still, R100 and T100 exist for a reason, haha.



For certain people, 8 mg of reta weekly hits the sweet spot. Others choose EOD dosing so they can move up faster.

But I'm switching back to tirz once I finish a vial of R50. After that I'll stack with survo, and use reta later on instead. Lately the stackers appear happier, elora/cagri included.
Honestly man, adding 2.5mg of Tirz on top of my wife's 10mg Reta appears to have restarted her progress. I lowered her dose from 12mg. She began on 10/13, and I gave her the second one on Tuesday. According to her, she's down 2lbs and has felt some mild nausea since the switch.
 
BNLFL said:

Honestly man, adding 2.5mg of Tirz on top of my wife's 10mg Reta appears to have restarted her progress. I lowered her dose from 12mg. She began on 10/13, and I gave her the second one on Tuesday. According to her, she's down 2lbs and has felt some mild nausea since the switch.
So you're telling me you're now checking vitals on your patient? She's sharing her weight!

Great work!
 
Water retention could be playing a part, but the main factor behind at least this stall is probably what you are eating and how much of it.
 
The scale only matters until it doesn’t. At 233lbs I’m getting close to that point. For more than a week I’ve been hovering between 233-235, yet more definition keeps showing up. I’m nearing the stage where I’ll begin going up, since there’s so little fat left to use. Gh and Gh peptides definitely will make weight go up when you start them too.
 
Back
Top