Trying to put the brakes on my weight drop!!

FarmgirlRebel

FarmgirlRebel

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The weight keeps coming off me and I can't seem to slow it.

I know, that sounds like a problem worth having. But at my age "skinny" is unflattering, and I'm heading there....fast

I'm 5'6 and 134lbs, though roughly 8-10lbs of that is loose skin hanging around my abdomen...so in my doc's words my real weight sits in the 120s.

Once a size 24, I got down to a 4 and now I'm eyeing and squeezing into some 2s. Racks don't carry many 4s and even fewer 2s...at this rate I'll soon look like a wraith unless I can put the brakes on. Another 10 pounds and my BMI drops below healthy.

The idea of quitting GLPs entirely frightens me. I've stepped down to 2.5mg of Tirz....and I'm still shedding. Tirz simply flattens my appetite.

What's really working against me is the biliopancreatic duodenal switch (extreme bariatric surgery) I had back in 2021. It left me permanently malabsorbing, and while it did help me drop the weight, it's now part of why I can't slow this train down.

For scale: eat 1500 calories of mostly protein and I'll only take in somewhere between 950-1200 of them. Getting 1200 calories into me is a struggle in itself, which leaves my absorption far below where it ought to be.

Down about 200lbs in total, regain genuinely frightens me, so I'm tinkering with dosing to find a sweet spot that lets me eat more. Switching to Reta for maintenance appeals to me — I'd hope for a bigger appetite on it than Tirz while keeping some suppression.

I do have an endo appointment, though not until September. In the meantime any tips or tricks are welcome. My lifestyle is very active too, which burns even more calories.
 
That calorie figure is interesting, because most people here would say holding a steady weight on an intake that low isn't really possible — yet after very large losses spread over years, maintenance calories genuinely do seem to drop very low. What will fix your situation depends on whether eating more actually helps. If extra food won't change how much you absorb, the answer has to be different, and probably comes down to shifting what you eat toward things that are absorbed more easily.

Should eating more help, the simplest route is to keep reducing the tirz dose until you either feel hungrier or your weight levels off — even if that ends up at 1mg a week. In some ways it's a nicer problem to have than stalling at high doses while still far above your target, and the earlier surgery is plainly a big part of it. If you were once 200 lbs heavier there has to be a dose that works (assuming that was after the surgery and before the tirz).

If it comes to it, you can simply pause the tirz until your weight levels out or starts to climb, and only then restart it at very low doses.

I know little about the surgery you had or exactly how it affects digestion, but presumably some foods are absorbed more easily or quickly than others — if the limit really is absorption rather than intake? For the short term there are food replacement systems (simplified or elemental diets) aimed at people with short gut or malabsorption problems. I don't know much about them and they may be expensive, but they should offer a way to steady things if stopping the tirz by itself doesn't work. Beyond that I suspect you need an expert — your endocrinologist, or the surgeon who did the weight loss operation.
 
FarmgirlRebel said:

The weight keeps coming off me and I can't seem to slow it.

I know, that sounds like a problem worth having. But at my age "skinny" is unflattering, and I'm heading there....fast

I'm 5'6 and 134lbs, though roughly 8-10lbs of that is loose skin hanging around my abdomen...so in my doc's words my real weight sits in the 120s.

Once a size 24, I got down to a 4 and now I'm eyeing and squeezing into some 2s. Racks don't carry many 4s and even fewer 2s...at this rate I'll soon look like a wraith unless I can put the brakes on. Another 10 pounds and my BMI drops below healthy.

The idea of quitting GLPs entirely frightens me. I've stepped down to 2.5mg of Tirz....and I'm still shedding. Tirz simply flattens my appetite.

What's really working against me is the biliopancreatic duodenal switch (extreme bariatric surgery) I had back in 2021. It left me permanently malabsorbing, and while it did help me drop the weight, it's now part of why I can't slow this train down.

For scale: eat 1500 calories of mostly protein and I'll only take in somewhere between 950-1200 of them. Getting 1200 calories into me is a struggle in itself, which leaves my absorption far below where it ought to be.

Down about 200lbs in total, regain genuinely frightens me, so I'm tinkering with dosing to find a sweet spot that lets me eat more. Switching to Reta for maintenance appeals to me — I'd hope for a bigger appetite on it than Tirz while keeping some suppression.

I do have an endo appointment, though not until September. In the meantime any tips or tricks are welcome. My lifestyle is very active too, which burns even more calories.
Click to expand...

How about spreading the dose out instead of quitting? The thought of ever stopping tirz frightens me too. Titrating down further is another option worth considering. Nothing says 2.5mg has to be the floor.
 
On a factory lilly 2.5mg pen? Grab a sterilized 10ml vial and empty the pen into it. Half of the 2.5mg is then your week's amount — see how that treats you. I tried the same trick with some Semaglutide pens, dosing them that way, and it didn't suit me; Sema was too strong. Or you could try some Cagrilintide. I only started it a week ago and so far nothing.
 
As everyone else has said: shrink the dose, either by taking less each time and/or by stretching the gap between shots.

Yes, it's still a problem, but at first glance yours looks like the easier direction to fix.
 
lessthanhalf said:

That calorie figure is interesting, because most people here would say holding a steady weight on an intake that low isn't really possible — yet after very large losses spread over years, maintenance calories genuinely do seem to drop very low. What will fix your situation depends on whether eating more actually helps. If extra food won't change how much you absorb, the answer has to be different, and probably comes down to shifting what you eat toward things that are absorbed more easily.

Should eating more help, the simplest route is to keep reducing the tirz dose until you either feel hungrier or your weight levels off — even if that ends up at 1mg a week. In some ways it's a nicer problem to have than stalling at high doses while still far above your target, and the earlier surgery is plainly a big part of it. If you were once 200 lbs heavier there has to be a dose that works (assuming that was after the surgery and before the tirz).

If it comes to it, you can simply pause the tirz until your weight levels out or starts to climb, and only then restart it at very low doses.

I know little about the surgery you had or exactly how it affects digestion, but presumably some foods are absorbed more easily or quickly than others — if the limit really is absorption rather than intake? For the short term there are food replacement systems (simplified or elemental diets) aimed at people with short gut or malabsorption problems. I don't know much about them and they may be expensive, but they should offer a way to steady things if stopping the tirz by itself doesn't work. Beyond that I suspect you need an expert — your endocrinologist, or the surgeon who did the weight loss operation.
Click to expand...
I reckon that's a very sensible approach, and one that could actually do the trick.

Grogu said:

FarmgirlRebel said:

The weight keeps coming off me and I can't seem to slow it.

I know, that sounds like a problem worth having. But at my age "skinny" is unflattering, and I'm heading there....fast

I'm 5'6 and 134lbs, though roughly 8-10lbs of that is loose skin hanging around my abdomen...so in my doc's words my real weight sits in the 120s.

Once a size 24, I got down to a 4 and now I'm eyeing and squeezing into some 2s. Racks don't carry many 4s and even fewer 2s...at this rate I'll soon look like a wraith unless I can put the brakes on. Another 10 pounds and my BMI drops below healthy.

The idea of quitting GLPs entirely frightens me. I've stepped down to 2.5mg of Tirz....and I'm still shedding. Tirz simply flattens my appetite.

What's really working against me is the biliopancreatic duodenal switch (extreme bariatric surgery) I had back in 2021. It left me permanently malabsorbing, and while it did help me drop the weight, it's now part of why I can't slow this train down.

For scale: eat 1500 calories of mostly protein and I'll only take in somewhere between 950-1200 of them. Getting 1200 calories into me is a struggle in itself, which leaves my absorption far below where it ought to be.

Down about 200lbs in total, regain genuinely frightens me, so I'm tinkering with dosing to find a sweet spot that lets me eat more. Switching to Reta for maintenance appeals to me — I'd hope for a bigger appetite on it than Tirz while keeping some suppression.

I do have an endo appointment, though not until September. In the meantime any tips or tricks are welcome. My lifestyle is very active too, which burns even more calories.
Click to expand...

How about spreading the dose out instead of quitting? The thought of ever stopping tirz frightens me too. Titrating down further is another option worth considering. Nothing says 2.5mg has to be the floor.
Click to expand...
Looks like I'll have to do this...my prescription was for those stupid single use pens, so I'll pick up some sterile vials and empty them into those

woundcarping said:

As everyone else has said: shrink the dose, either by taking less each time and/or by stretching the gap between shots.

Yes, it's still a problem, but at first glance yours looks like the easier direction to fix.
Click to expand...
I'd take this over the opposite problem any day (assuming I can stabilize), though it's still a head bender to find myself in this position at all. Wasn't on the bingo card.
 
Same situation here, though less extreme. I passed my second goal and then some. Reta is my drug, and I'd been on 9mg; I dropped to 6mg on Friday and I'm never coming off this stuff. Friday's scale reading will tell me what to do next. I've got the saggy belly skin problem too. My vote goes with everyone above: lower the dose. Surprised I ended up with loose belly skin dropping 2lbs/week.
 
Spacing the injections out is another route worth trying. Some people hold the dose steady and simply stretch the interval out to 10 days, or further to a fortnight.
 
Same boat! I'm on 2.5 Tirz and still dropping. My next shot goes down to 2mg, and if I keep losing after that I'll begin spacing doses out. I can't afford to lose any more! There's some Reta in the house, but it did unpleasant things to my heart rate. Anyway, I have years' worth of Tirz stockpiled, so I'd much rather find my happy place on Tirz. Quitting tirz isn't an option — the food noise would come straight back.
 
Has a Carnivore Diet ever come up for you?

Nothing beats meat, eggs and fat for nutrient density, and they won't spike insulin.

Gaining weight is a good thing when it comes from muscle and bone density.

What you're after is losing "fat", rather than "weight" as such
 
Honestly, if 2.5 mg is crushing your appetite then dropping to 2 and then slowly down to even 1mg to see how your body reacts doesn't strike me as a problem.

If you're too skinny and the triz stops you eating more calories, then lowering the dose purely so you can eat more looks like the answer.

It might even be time to think about switching to reta, which still helps with weight loss and body composition — though more people, myself included, don't get intense hunger suppression from it.

Still, with 2.5mg crushing your appetite I wouldn't personally worry about going even lower than that, just so I could eat a bit more.
 
Dose spacing appeals to me, stretching the gaps out — 10-12-14 days apart. You could do that while you wait for supplies so you can lower the dose?

Another thought: look at the habits you've fallen into at the grocery store. If you tend to reach for nonfat or low fat versions, switch to the full fat ones. IDK whether you've ever had full fat yogurts, but wow, they are delicious. Chicken thighs rather than breasts, rib eyes rather than strips!!!!! Yummm! Butter melted over your veggies, extra cheese through your salads, nuts to snack on...that sort of thing.

Best of luck to you! I'm sure you'll work out what does it, and you won't have to live with that food noise. <3
 
kenadams said:

Has a Carnivore Diet ever come up for you?

Nothing beats meat, eggs and fat for nutrient density, and they won't spike insulin.

Gaining weight is a good thing when it comes from muscle and bone density.

What you're after is losing "fat", rather than "weight" as such
Click to expand...
Carnivore was something I tried a while back and it just isn't a diet I can stick to. Protein has to be forced down — I've never been much of a meat eater...2 weeks of carnivore and I said f-this 😆
 
Stace_wow said:

Dose spacing appeals to me, stretching the gaps out — 10-12-14 days apart. You could do that while you wait for supplies so you can lower the dose?

Another thought: look at the habits you've fallen into at the grocery store. If you tend to reach for nonfat or low fat versions, switch to the full fat ones. IDK whether you've ever had full fat yogurts, but wow, they are delicious. Chicken thighs rather than breasts, rib eyes rather than strips!!!!! Yummm! Butter melted over your veggies, extra cheese through your salads, nuts to snack on...that sort of thing.

Best of luck to you! I'm sure you'll work out what does it, and you won't have to live with that food noise. <3
Click to expand...
Thanks — full fat is what I go for across the board, since hardly any fat makes it through my intestines...keeping that balance is delicate though, because overdoing the fat can produce....uhhhh, interesting outcomes 😆 (you really don't want to know). Still, thighs and drumsticks over white meat is a good call.
 
FarmgirlRebel said:

Stace_wow said:

Dose spacing appeals to me, stretching the gaps out — 10-12-14 days apart. You could do that while you wait for supplies so you can lower the dose?

Another thought: look at the habits you've fallen into at the grocery store. If you tend to reach for nonfat or low fat versions, switch to the full fat ones. IDK whether you've ever had full fat yogurts, but wow, they are delicious. Chicken thighs rather than breasts, rib eyes rather than strips!!!!! Yummm! Butter melted over your veggies, extra cheese through your salads, nuts to snack on...that sort of thing.

Best of luck to you! I'm sure you'll work out what does it, and you won't have to live with that food noise. <3
Click to expand...
Thanks — full fat is what I go for across the board, since hardly any fat makes it through my intestines...keeping that balance is delicate though, because overdoing the fat can produce....uhhhh, interesting outcomes 😆 (you really don't want to know). Still, thighs and drumsticks over white meat is a good call.
Click to expand...
I suspect I know the outcomes you're referring to 🫣 🤣

Hope the brake pedal turns up for you 😌
 
Being on Rey's was lovely, because my body simply felt better on it — the anhedonia aside, and that was a big problem — and my blood sugar symptoms were far fewer. But here's the thing: I overshot my goal too… on 1mg twice a week. I paused it for a while once fat was running out, not wanting to burn more muscle. I tried a microdose, then once a week, and the loss carried on regardless until it was getting out of hand.

These days cagri is what I use to hold my weight, and I'll try Elora the moment it arrives. What I miss are the good effects. There doesn't seem to be a dose small enough for me anywhere in the world. I hope you find yours!
 
Nothing to add beyond what's already been said. I've heard of folks doing itty bitty micro doses of tirz, something like 0.25-0.5mg. My own preference is the spacing out suggestion others made, since you can always cut the dose further from there.

Side note…girl it gives me LIFE & hope that you lost 200lbs and now fit into size 4s! Fitting into a size that small is beyond my imagination. And I don't mean to dismiss your problem at all, but I'm glad you're dealing with this version of it rather than the opposite!
 
Dropping the dose is what I'd say too. Mine is 1mg a week, split as 0.5mg Tues & Fri. Eating normally and the weight stays put.
 
I'd like to have that problem — well, not really, it sounds stressful. Still, I'm with the others: take the dose down to 1.5 mg, or stretch the gaps between shots. And protein, lots and lots and lots of it. Congratulations on such a tremendous loss.. and thank you as well for posting your Orange cap research. It gave me peace of mind 🙂
 
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