Switching from MJ to Reta: dose and what to do next

[RetaMax]

Hey all, I could use some input.

Sema was my first year-long run and it worked really well – 30 kg came off. After that I moved over to MJ and took breaks in between. My top Sema dose escapes me now, though I know it wasn't especially high – definitely not the ceiling. (The side effects hit me hard enough that I stopped titrating up.) With MJ, I once reached 5.0 mg and that was a one-time thing. On 2.5 mg the results weren't dramatic, but they were sufficient for me to keep myself in check fairly well.

Reta is what I'm on now, at 1 mg. Week 2, and basically nothing is happening. The one thing I notice: after caffeine – energy drinks, coffee – my pulse really pounds. Does that happen to others?

I came across the idea that stacking things such as Cagri can dial down appetite. How would you handle this? A shopping trip is coming up and I'm unsure what my next move should be.

 

[soapysnake]

At 1mg, Reta is on the low end. Nothing really registered for me until 1.5mg. What are you aiming for here — a big drop in weight, or is this more about body recomp now? My first move would be to titrate upward and watch how you respond. You could do 1.25 for a week, then move to 1.5 the following week. If a lot more weight loss is the goal, then Cag is a reasonable addition. That said, once the dose is dialed in, Reta performs well by itself. If your daily protein target is high and you're managing to hit it, I'd probably skip the cag. I'm on 2mg of Reta right now, and it already keeps me feeling full for most of the day.

 

[RetaMax]

My aim is to drop another 10 KG of weight. To gauge the response, I began at 1mg.

Yet my hunger is enormous.

 

[RetCurious]

Given that other GLP-1's are already part of your history, a gradual bump in reta would be reasonable; the clinical starting dose is 2mg. People new to it might get good results at lower amounts, but that clearly isn't your situation. A concentration tracker such as GLP-1 Tracker can help you locate the sweet spot while you move your dosage upward. Reaching peak concentration takes 4 weeks.

Do you follow a 7 day cycle? For me, split dosing works better at keeping appetite down and reducing side effects. A 3.5 day cycle could be worth considering.

I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now at 1.5mg weekly, split into 2 doses of .75mg. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat), with weight loss averaging 2lbs a week.

You could try 2mg weekly with split dosing (1mg every 3.5 days) and watch your response over a couple of weeks.

 

[RetaMax]

Thanks a lot for getting back to me! If I were to take 2mg, how should that be split up? I do follow a 7-day schedule, yes. At this point—week 3—should I bump it up to 2mg, or hold off until the 4 weeks are done? Given that I'd already reached 5.0mg as my max on Mounjaro, would your overall recommendation be to keep going with Reta or raise the dose there?

RetCurious said:

Given that other GLP-1's are already part of your history, a gradual bump in reta would be reasonable; the clinical starting dose is 2mg. People new to it might get good results at lower amounts, but that clearly isn't your situation. A concentration tracker such as GLP-1 Tracker can help you locate the sweet spot while you move your dosage upward. Reaching peak concentration takes 4 weeks.

Do you follow a 7 day cycle? For me, split dosing works better at keeping appetite down and reducing side effects. A 3.5 day cycle could be worth considering.

I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now at 1.5mg weekly, split into 2 doses of .75mg. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat), with weight loss averaging 2lbs a week.

You could try 2mg weekly with split dosing (1mg every 3.5 days) and watch your response over a couple of weeks.

 

[BNLFL]

I've run 4-week cycles. I did 2mg, then 4mg, and I've just begun 5mg. My plan had been to move up to 6mg, but I'm dropping about 2.5lbs each week on average. Once I've completed 4 weeks at 5mg, I'll check where the scale lands. Reta is the only thing I use — nothing else.

 

[RetCurious]

RetaMax said:

Thanks a lot for getting back to me! If I were to take 2mg, how should that be split up? I do follow a 7-day schedule, yes. At this point—week 3—should I bump it up to 2mg, or hold off until the 4 weeks are done? Given that I'd already reached 5.0mg as my max on Mounjaro, would your overall recommendation be to keep going with Reta or raise the dose there?

RetCurious said:

Given that other GLP-1's are already part of your history, a gradual bump in reta would be reasonable; the clinical starting dose is 2mg. People new to it might get good results at lower amounts, but that clearly isn't your situation. A concentration tracker such as GLP-1 Tracker can help you locate the sweet spot while you move your dosage upward. Reaching peak concentration takes 4 weeks.

Do you follow a 7 day cycle? For me, split dosing works better at keeping appetite down and reducing side effects. A 3.5 day cycle could be worth considering.

I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now at 1.5mg weekly, split into 2 doses of .75mg. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat), with weight loss averaging 2lbs a week.

You could try 2mg weekly with split dosing (1mg every 3.5 days) and watch your response over a couple of weeks.

You might as well raise it now, since it is not giving you what you need; just ease in so you don’t overdo it. You’re on 1 mg every 7 days at the moment, so you could pin ,75mg on your next pin day and follow it up 3.5 days later with another .75 mg. In effect that lifts your weekly total by .5 mg (from 1mg to 1.5mg). Run that for a couple of weeks and reassess. On stacking different drugs, my own view is that it muddies the experiment and makes the results harder to read. It makes sense to me when somebody is already at their ceiling dose and has been flat for ages, but that is beyond me and others here could weigh in if you ever reach that point.

On the concentration graph you can see that peak concentration has not arrived by week 2.

Notice that the peaks and the valleys keep climbing, which is the half life at work.

If you step up to .75mg twice a week (every 3.5 days), then by your 3rd week at that dose your valley sits above your current peak. Splitting also brings smaller swings between the peaks and valleys, which puts less stress on a system adapting to the new metabolism. .75mg twice a week is pretty conservative as increases go, so you may want to go to 1mg twice a week . Expect nothing worse than a couple of days of mild nausea and constipation.

 

[lessthanhalf]

The guidance given in the post above looks reasonable — if you're raising doses more often than once every 4 weeks, using smaller amounts more frequently does reduce the chance of drawn-out unpleasant side effects.

It would likely be useful to hear which side effects semaglutide gave you. You mention that 2.5 mg of tirzepatide didn't do much, yet 5mg was never again, which is somewhat unclear — what exactly went wrong with 5mg tirzepatide?

This matters, because if 5mg of tirz was an issue, you're probably on the sensitive side when it comes to side effects. That would mean being more cautious with dose increases: stepping up a little at a time and generally going slower rather than faster. Jumping straight to 2 mg of reta is very unlikely to cause a problem, but in that situation I wouldn't move from 2mg to 4mg — I'd go to 3mg instead, and after that probably only raise by one mg at a time. By far the most common side effects are gut symptoms, mainly nausea, though these usually do improve very slowly over months, so it may be possible to increase doses a bit later even if issues show up at first. If side effects do become a problem, simply return to the previous dose and stay there for a few months.

 

[RetaMax]

Thanks a lot, I'll give it a go.

Should I keep going with Reta, or should I begin with Mounjaro and then raise the dose? So far my appetite has been really good. My third Reta shot (1 mg) was yesterday.

RetCurious said:

RetaMax said:

Thanks a lot for getting back to me! If I were to take 2mg, how should that be split up? I do follow a 7-day schedule, yes. At this point—week 3—should I bump it up to 2mg, or hold off until the 4 weeks are done? Given that I'd already reached 5.0mg as my max on Mounjaro, would your overall recommendation be to keep going with Reta or raise the dose there?

RetCurious said:

Given that other GLP-1's are already part of your history, a gradual bump in reta would be reasonable; the clinical starting dose is 2mg. People new to it might get good results at lower amounts, but that clearly isn't your situation. A concentration tracker such as GLP-1 Tracker can help you locate the sweet spot while you move your dosage upward. Reaching peak concentration takes 4 weeks.

Do you follow a 7 day cycle? For me, split dosing works better at keeping appetite down and reducing side effects. A 3.5 day cycle could be worth considering.

I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now at 1.5mg weekly, split into 2 doses of .75mg. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat), with weight loss averaging 2lbs a week.

You could try 2mg weekly with split dosing (1mg every 3.5 days) and watch your response over a couple of weeks.

You might as well raise it now, since it is not giving you what you need; just ease in so you don’t overdo it. You’re on 1 mg every 7 days at the moment, so you could pin ,75mg on your next pin day and follow it up 3.5 days later with another .75 mg. In effect that lifts your weekly total by .5 mg (from 1mg to 1.5mg). Run that for a couple of weeks and reassess. On stacking different drugs, my own view is that it muddies the experiment and makes the results harder to read. It makes sense to me when somebody is already at their ceiling dose and has been flat for ages, but that is beyond me and others here could weigh in if you ever reach that point.

On the concentration graph you can see that peak concentration has not arrived by week 2.

Notice that the peaks and the valleys keep climbing, which is the half life at work.

If you step up to .75mg twice a week (every 3.5 days), then by your 3rd week at that dose your valley sits above your current peak. Splitting also brings smaller swings between the peaks and valleys, which puts less stress on a system adapting to the new metabolism. .75mg twice a week is pretty conservative as increases go, so you may want to go to 1mg twice a week . Expect nothing worse than a couple of days of mild nausea and constipation.

lessthanhalf said:

The guidance given in the post above looks reasonable — if you're raising doses more often than once every 4 weeks, using smaller amounts more frequently does reduce the chance of drawn-out unpleasant side effects.

It would likely be useful to hear which side effects semaglutide gave you. You mention that 2.5 mg of tirzepatide didn't do much, yet 5mg was never again, which is somewhat unclear — what exactly went wrong with 5mg tirzepatide?

This matters, because if 5mg of tirz was an issue, you're probably on the sensitive side when it comes to side effects. That would mean being more cautious with dose increases: stepping up a little at a time and generally going slower rather than faster. Jumping straight to 2 mg of reta is very unlikely to cause a problem, but in that situation I wouldn't move from 2mg to 4mg — I'd go to 3mg instead, and after that probably only raise by one mg at a time. By far the most common side effects are gut symptoms, mainly nausea, though these usually do improve very slowly over months, so it may be possible to increase doses a bit later even if issues show up at first. If side effects do become a problem, simply return to the previous dose and stay there for a few months.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Because I don't have the fundamentals—starting BMI, weight, age, sema dose, and so on—I'm left making a lot of assumptions.

You've already dropped 30kg, and you're aiming to shed 10 more. If my math is right, that puts you near a 40% weight reduction overall. That kind of result would be outstanding—above what full-dose reta typically delivers—though individual responses vary widely, and it certainly sounds like these drugs work well in your case.

For weight loss, reta packs the biggest punch, roughly 5% ahead of tirz.

When it comes to side effects across all the GLP medications, tirz is probably the gentlest.

Which one you pick probably doesn't make a huge difference. Based on how you've responded so far to an unspecified semaglutide dose and 5mg of tirz, reaching your target weight seems fairly achievable on either. As for reta, the dose you've used so far is too low to reveal whether side effects will become an issue. So you have two paths: continue with reta since you've already begun the switch, or return to tirz. Without details on your age and medical background, certainty is limited—but over the long haul, you may fare better on the maximum doses: either reta 12mg or tirz 15mg, provided side effects stay manageable and, of course, with gradual dose increases.

Carrying 40% excess weight by itself brings substantial long-term health risks. Those risks grow even greater—or appear sooner—if you're older or have high blood pressure, cholesterol, or blood sugar issues. Staying on full doses long term is more likely to ward off serious conditions like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and several cancers, separate from any weight-loss benefit. Lower doses will certainly help too, though perhaps not to the same degree. For completeness: these protective effects are established for tirz but not yet for reta—though it's highly probable they extend to reta as well; the research simply hasn't been completed yet.

 

[dailychemicals]

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

 

[RetaMax]

dailychemicals said:

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

Given those side effects, are you recommending Mounjaro rather than Reta?

 

[MFGamesta]

RetaMax said:

Hey all, I could use some input.

Sema was my first year-long run and it worked really well – 30 kg came off. After that I moved over to MJ and took breaks in between. My top Sema dose escapes me now, though I know it wasn't especially high – definitely not the ceiling. (The side effects hit me hard enough that I stopped titrating up.) With MJ, I once reached 5.0 mg and that was a one-time thing. On 2.5 mg the results weren't dramatic, but they were sufficient for me to keep myself in check fairly well.

Reta is what I'm on now, at 1 mg. Week 2, and basically nothing is happening. The one thing I notice: after caffeine – energy drinks, coffee – my pulse really pounds. Does that happen to others?

I came across the idea that stacking things such as Cagri can dial down appetite. How would you handle this? A shopping trip is coming up and I'm unsure what my next move should be.

If I were in your position, I'd begin again from scratch with Reta. If losing or keeping weight off is what you're after, begin at a low dose such as 1mg, or perhaps even less, then increase it gradually.

On the other hand, if the goal is to feel hungry all the time, then stack on the other compounds that produce that effect. As for me, chasing food noise as though it were some kind of drug high isn't something I'd do. After my switch to reta, my intake went up slightly, yet the weight came off faster, and that suited me just fine.

Take it slow and raise the dose in small steps.

 

[dailychemicals]

RetaMax said:

dailychemicals said:

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

Given those side effects, are you recommending Mounjaro rather than Reta?

Reta has only been in my routine for a few weeks now, so it could simply be too early to pick up on anything different — or perhaps the quality of my grey product isn't great)) As things stand, 5 mg /week hasn't given me any appetite suppression at all. With Tirz 5 mg, the effect kicked in right from day 1, and that one wasn't grey stuff.

 

[BNLFL]

dailychemicals said:

RetaMax said:

dailychemicals said:

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

Given those side effects, are you recommending Mounjaro rather than Reta?

Reta has only been in my routine for a few weeks now, so it could simply be too early to pick up on anything different — or perhaps the quality of my grey product isn't great)) As things stand, 5 mg /week hasn't given me any appetite suppression at all. With Tirz 5 mg, the effect kicked in right from day 1, and that one wasn't grey stuff.

So you've reached 5mg after only a couple of weeks? Exactly how many weeks does that mean?

 

[dailychemicals]

BNLFL said:

dailychemicals said:

RetaMax said:

dailychemicals said:

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

Given those side effects, are you recommending Mounjaro rather than Reta?

Reta has only been in my routine for a few weeks now, so it could simply be too early to pick up on anything different — or perhaps the quality of my grey product isn't great)) As things stand, 5 mg /week hasn't given me any appetite suppression at all. With Tirz 5 mg, the effect kicked in right from day 1, and that one wasn't grey stuff.

So you've reached 5mg after only a couple of weeks? Exactly how many weeks does that mean?

The first week I was on 2.5 mg, then because my appetite came back I went up to 5 mg in week 2. So when I say a couple of weeks, I mean exactly 2 weeks. How about you? Do you intend to begin pinning Reta /Tirz?

 

[BNLFL]

dailychemicals said:

BNLFL said:

dailychemicals said:

RetaMax said:

dailychemicals said:

Week 1 of Reta at 2.5 mg was terrible for me. I couldn't sleep properly, and my appetite wasn't suppressed at all. After 6 "clean" months, I binged for the first time and then threw up uncontrollably . WTF!!! I had to pin 2.5 TR just to end that nightmare. It gave me some relief. The most I ever took was TR 5 mg (MJ), and right now I'm in maintenance at 55kg (121.25 lbs), having lost 30kg. Each day I get 100g+ of protein and roughly 1400 kcal, plus 17'000 + steps daily. My weight has held steady for close to one month.

Given those side effects, are you recommending Mounjaro rather than Reta?

Reta has only been in my routine for a few weeks now, so it could simply be too early to pick up on anything different — or perhaps the quality of my grey product isn't great)) As things stand, 5 mg /week hasn't given me any appetite suppression at all. With Tirz 5 mg, the effect kicked in right from day 1, and that one wasn't grey stuff.

So you've reached 5mg after only a couple of weeks? Exactly how many weeks does that mean?

The first week I was on 2.5 mg, then because my appetite came back I went up to 5 mg in week 2. So when I say a couple of weeks, I mean exactly 2 weeks. How about you? Do you intend to begin pinning Reta /Tirz?

Reta has been part of my routine since the beginning of January. I did 2mg for 4wks, then 4mg for 5wks, and tomorrow I take my second pin at 5mg.

 

[Celestar62]

SW 296 while on Tirz 2.5mg as of Oct 2024

After spending a year titrating Triz up to 15mg, I got down to 216, but from Nov 2025 I hit a 2-month stall.

In Jan I made the change to Reta. 2mg for 4 weeks, followed by 4mg for 4 weeks. That took off 3 lbs, bringing me to 213, and then progress stopped again.

I was ready to increase Reta to 6mg when I came across Jay Campbell's micro dosing recommendation. Because of that, 2 weeks ago I began 3Mg every other day, and 4 lbs came off fast.

Mid-week I also use Cargi .5mg 1x a week.

So... my starting point was 296lb, and right now I'm 209lbs. My GW is 190lbs, and I believe I can get there by summertime.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Celestar62 said:

SW 296 while on Tirz 2.5mg as of Oct 2024

After spending a year titrating Triz up to 15mg, I got down to 216, but from Nov 2025 I hit a 2-month stall.

In Jan I made the change to Reta. 2mg for 4 weeks, followed by 4mg for 4 weeks. That took off 3 lbs, bringing me to 213, and then progress stopped again.

I was ready to increase Reta to 6mg when I came across Jay Campbell's micro dosing recommendation. Because of that, 2 weeks ago I began 3Mg every other day, and 4 lbs came off fast.

Mid-week I also use Cargi .5mg 1x a week.

So... my starting point was 296lb, and right now I'm 209lbs. My GW is 190lbs, and I believe I can get there by summertime.

That's quite a jump you made — from 4mg per week all the way to 3mg every 2nd day, which works out to 10.5mg/week. I've done 2nd day dosing myself as a way to cut down on side effects, but going from 4mg to 10.5/w in a single step is a substantial increase, even when it's divided into smaller amounts at one time. Since you're not describing terrible side effects, it's clear this approach is agreeing with you.

 

[Celestar62]

lessthanhalf said:

Celestar62 said:

SW 296 while on Tirz 2.5mg as of Oct 2024

After spending a year titrating Triz up to 15mg, I got down to 216, but from Nov 2025 I hit a 2-month stall.

In Jan I made the change to Reta. 2mg for 4 weeks, followed by 4mg for 4 weeks. That took off 3 lbs, bringing me to 213, and then progress stopped again.

I was ready to increase Reta to 6mg when I came across Jay Campbell's micro dosing recommendation. Because of that, 2 weeks ago I began 3Mg every other day, and 4 lbs came off fast.

Mid-week I also use Cargi .5mg 1x a week.

So... my starting point was 296lb, and right now I'm 209lbs. My GW is 190lbs, and I believe I can get there by summertime.

That's quite a jump you made — from 4mg per week all the way to 3mg every 2nd day, which works out to 10.5mg/week. I've done 2nd day dosing myself as a way to cut down on side effects, but going from 4mg to 10.5/w in a single step is a substantial increase, even when it's divided into smaller amounts at one time. Since you're not describing terrible side effects, it's clear this approach is agreeing with you.

Honestly, no — I haven't run into any side effects at all. I had planned to step down to 2mg every other day if needed, but things are still going fine. That said, when I first began Tirz, I did notice a few minor side effects. It looks like I handle this medication quite well.