Week 3 and the scale won't move

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londoner

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Began at 152lbs, still sitting at 152lbs. Aiming for 134lbs. (F46)

2 weeks on 1 mg, then 1 week on 2 mg. Just injected 2 mg again.

Lifting 4x weekly, not overly intense, just trying to preserve muscle. Cardio 2x weekly. 10k steps daily. Calories logged between 1000 and 1200 each day.

So I'm in a deficit, my old hunger isn't there anymore, but I eat enough to avoid being under nourished (protein lands around 100g most days).

So reta is doing its job on food noise and appetite suppression. But why the hell is my weight unchanged?

Could this be body recomp? Fat dropping while muscle climbs? No machine here to confirm.

I can definitely feel it working though (very dry lips and mouth, good energy at the gym too)
 
I got to wondering how Reta stacks up against other ways of losing weight. In my case the early drop was unbelievable, 40 pounds over the first 9 weeks. A lot of that was inflammation from autoimmune disease, prednisone moon face and so on. Then Reta calmed down into a consistent 1.5 pounds a week, up until recently, when I've been sitting 1-3 pounds above my goal weight (not stressed about it, I'm content here)

So my takeaway is that at higher doses Reta genuinely works better over the long haul than plain starvation. Strange but accurate. The various studies include over 9000 people, and in Phase 3, 100% of them begin at a 2 mg dose. That's for tolerance and effectiveness reasons. 1 mg was clearly less effective yet produced the same side effect burden as 2mg. Nausea hit about 17%. With a 4 mg starting dose, a striking 60% got nausea.

Put another way, 2mg for a month, then step up monthly to a dose that works. For the truly obese it does look like getting to goal weight takes half a year at meaningful doses for most people. But getting close happens sooner.
 
londoner said:

Began at 152lbs, still sitting at 152lbs. Aiming for 134lbs. (F46)

2 weeks on 1 mg, then 1 week on 2 mg. Just injected 2 mg again.

Lifting 4x weekly, not overly intense, just trying to preserve muscle. Cardio 2x weekly. 10k steps daily. Calories logged between 1000 and 1200 each day.

So I'm in a deficit, my old hunger isn't there anymore, but I eat enough to avoid being under nourished (protein lands around 100g most days).

So reta is doing its job on food noise and appetite suppression. But why the hell is my weight unchanged?

Could this be body recomp? Fat dropping while muscle climbs? No machine here to confirm.

I can definitely feel it working though (very dry lips and mouth, good energy at the gym too)
Click to expand...

putting on 5lbs of lean muscle mass takes roughly a year

when you're on reta, the acceleration phase kicks in around the 1 month mark
 
The first thing I'd ask is whether your actual intake is higher than you believe. Tools such as MyFitnessPal can be way off when you simply tap whatever the app suggests, and that has been documented.

If your logging is accurate, then my second thought is that you're likely undereating. A deficit that steep is something the body resists. It won't hold out indefinitely, but it will put up a fight. With how much you're training, something closer to a 500 calorie deficit might work better for you, and my guess is that's roughly another 500 calories.

Third, recomp might account for a little of it, though that's a stretch. At a deficit like that, gaining muscle is going to be hard unless your intensity is high. Someone who has never lifted could pick up some muscle, but not a large amount that quickly.

Overall, it sounds like you're on the right track. It may be worth reviewing how you log and thinking about eating a bit more. Your body can only resist fat loss for so long. Thermodynamics always comes out on top.
 
For me, the Reta needed 3-4 weeks to accumulate enough in my body before any weight loss showed up! If your calorie tracking is on point (at 5'3, I still find it simple to go under or over- there isn't much caloric wiggle room) then simply give it time…my scale stayed completely still until week 4- even with a calorie deficit and exercise. At this point I've lost 12 lbs over 8 weeks!
 
What does your reflection show you? Grab a tape measure and/or snap some progress photos. The number on the scale doesn't tell the whole story. Give me a recomp over starvation to chase a lower number on the scale, any day of the week.
 
I'm aware plenty of people push back on CICO, but it's still the first thing to check and typically the explanation behind every thread like this one. (And these threads show up constantly.) More often than not it comes down to "I don't actually track/I know what I eat without tracking/I've tracked in the past/A website said my maintenance was X"

Does your app/tracker show net calories? If so, turn that setting off.

Once you're tracking, calculators can pretty much be set aside — average your intake across roughly 2 weeks alongside your weight for that same stretch. From that you'll learn whether you were at maintenance, a deficit or a surplus during that window (and only that window, since these things shift over time)
 
At 3 weeks, it's still very early. Be patient and follow the suggested titration plan. A 'therapeutic' dose hasn't been reached by you yet.

Trial data make it clear that low responders exist, though they are certainly not the majority. For most people, retatrutide is plainly the most effective obesity medication to date.

Moreover, I suspect the trial findings understate what treatment actually does at higher doses. On Reddit, multiple trial participants have said that after hitting their goal weight, they started skipping doses and stockpiling pens instead of quitting or telling the provider. That's unethical, but easy to understand when they'd be cut off once the trial ended and could face rebound weight gain.

Compliance in these trials would be better if every participant were guaranteed some minimal period of continued maintenance treatment after the study finished.
 
londoner said:

Began at 152lbs, still sitting at 152lbs. Aiming for 134lbs. (F46)

2 weeks on 1 mg, then 1 week on 2 mg. Just injected 2 mg again.

Lifting 4x weekly, not overly intense, just trying to preserve muscle. Cardio 2x weekly. 10k steps daily. Calories logged between 1000 and 1200 each day.

So I'm in a deficit, my old hunger isn't there anymore, but I eat enough to avoid being under nourished (protein lands around 100g most days).

So reta is doing its job on food noise and appetite suppression. But why the hell is my weight unchanged?

Could this be body recomp? Fat dropping while muscle climbs? No machine here to confirm.

I can definitely feel it working though (very dry lips and mouth, good energy at the gym too)
Click to expand...
Have you checked whether the Reta is real?

And if you're in the UK, almost every Puregym has body composition machines in the changing rooms, so you can get a day pass and use one
 
You have to remain at 2mg for a full 4 weeks before moving up to 4mg. Give it time to accumulate and kick in. I notice plenty of people here constantly switching doses and expecting immediate outcomes.
 
px1984 said:

londoner said:

Began at 152lbs, still sitting at 152lbs. Aiming for 134lbs. (F46)

2 weeks on 1 mg, then 1 week on 2 mg. Just injected 2 mg again.

Lifting 4x weekly, not overly intense, just trying to preserve muscle. Cardio 2x weekly. 10k steps daily. Calories logged between 1000 and 1200 each day.

So I'm in a deficit, my old hunger isn't there anymore, but I eat enough to avoid being under nourished (protein lands around 100g most days).

So reta is doing its job on food noise and appetite suppression. But why the hell is my weight unchanged?

Could this be body recomp? Fat dropping while muscle climbs? No machine here to confirm.

I can definitely feel it working though (very dry lips and mouth, good energy at the gym too)
Click to expand...
Have you checked whether the Reta is real?

And if you're in the UK, almost every Puregym has body composition machines in the changing rooms, so you can get a day pass and use one
Click to expand...
I agree with this ^^

The Reta you have could be low quality, or it might be entirely fake
 
Johnny D said:

px1984 said:

londoner said:

Began at 152lbs, still sitting at 152lbs. Aiming for 134lbs. (F46)

2 weeks on 1 mg, then 1 week on 2 mg. Just injected 2 mg again.

Lifting 4x weekly, not overly intense, just trying to preserve muscle. Cardio 2x weekly. 10k steps daily. Calories logged between 1000 and 1200 each day.

So I'm in a deficit, my old hunger isn't there anymore, but I eat enough to avoid being under nourished (protein lands around 100g most days).

So reta is doing its job on food noise and appetite suppression. But why the hell is my weight unchanged?

Could this be body recomp? Fat dropping while muscle climbs? No machine here to confirm.

I can definitely feel it working though (very dry lips and mouth, good energy at the gym too)
Click to expand...
Have you checked whether the Reta is real?

And if you're in the UK, almost every Puregym has body composition machines in the changing rooms, so you can get a day pass and use one
Click to expand...
I agree with this ^^

The Reta you have could be low quality, or it might be entirely fake
Click to expand...
That can happen, though in my experience it was a single instance.
 
One option is to add cagri on top, giving you a kind of CagriReta rather than CagriSema.

At last I reached 4.5 mg of reta, and so far I'm not impressed. My view is skewed, though, because per mg I expect stronger suppression from tirz. That's why I plan to raise my reta dose before long and/or combine it with another agent, such as cagri or tirz.
 
Ours is such an on-demand world, isn't it. We want the result immediately. Overnight. Instant. Give the stuff time to work. 4 weeks at a given dose, then if nothing has shifted, raise it and watch for 2 weeks....
 
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