What reta dosage and calorie deficit are you currently using?

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lastresort

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Responses to diet and medication vary from person to person, but I'm curious how well reta paired with a calorie deficit works versus either reta or a deficit by itself.

If you're willing, could you share your age, gender, reta dose, and deficit?
 
54m / .5mg w1-4 now .8mg w5.

300-500cal, some days higher. Lifting / cardio / calorie tracking. I suspect I am a super responder. All the same, my hope with reta was more authority over my eating rather than it switching hunger off completely. I can eat at any time, I just am not hungry enough to. Breakfast and lunch are built from lean protein, protein shakes, rice, egg whites. Dinner is whatever the family eats and I steer towards the protein and away from carbs.
 
Reta alone won’t cause weight loss if you aren’t in a deficit…

According to the math, over the past 21 weeks I’ve averaged roughly a 1250 calorie daily deficit. Trying to pin down the deficit amount through calorie counting is nearly meaningless on both sides of the equation.

I’ll be 40 at the end of the month, and I have a beard.
 
In my view, the specific mg amount isn't the key factor—what counts is that you're still experiencing the medication's effects at whatever dose you take. Personally, I take 1 mg of reta, eat 1500 calories per day, and lift weights every day.

Like @woundcarping pointed out, ultimately you need a calorie deficit if you want to shed pounds.
 
Male, 37 years old, 6'4" and 300lbs (this matters for TDEE). Daily intake sits at 1500-1800 calories. Every week I take 2mg Reta plus 2.5mg Tirz, the latter helping a bit more with food noise. I agree with woundcarping about the deficit. A GLP-1 is only a tool that helps you stay in a consistent deficit. Nothing magical about it.

My main reason for logging food is to confirm I hit enough protein. So far, staying in the deficit has been the simple part.
 
msyntakz said:

Male, 37 years old, 6'4" and 300lbs (this matters for TDEE). Daily intake sits at 1500-1800 calories. Every week I take 2mg Reta plus 2.5mg Tirz, the latter helping a bit more with food noise. I agree with woundcarping about the deficit. A GLP-1 is only a tool that helps you stay in a consistent deficit. Nothing magical about it.

My main reason for logging food is to confirm I hit enough protein. So far, staying in the deficit has been the simple part.
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I keep an eye on calories too, so I stay in a deficit. My counting is limited to Monday through Friday. People have plenty of differing views on calorie tracking, yet I’ve dropped 115lbs this way, so it has proven effective in my case. Still, I’m with you and @woundcarping — what matters most is maintaining a steady deficit. There’s no trick to it. To shed weight, your intake has to be lower than what you burn. That said, I find calories and portion sizes can be deceptive.
 
29 years old,

175 lbs (13-15% body fat)

1mg reta every 3 days

400mcg cjc/ipa taken fasted in the morning

Lifting 5 times per week

Tracking calories, targeting 2000 with 180g protein.
 
For one more week or 2, I'm doing .3 2 times a week. My daily intake is under 1000 cal, and most days it lands near 800.

The weight is coming off...at a rate I can't keep up, but I have a lot to lose, and in a week or 2 I intend to raise both calories and protein, plus bump the dose to .4 2 times a week.
 
33 years old

deficit: 500

bockscar said:

For one more week or 2, I'm doing .3 2 times a week. My daily intake is under 1000 cal, and most days it lands near 800.

The weight is coming off...at a rate I can't keep up, but I have a lot to lose, and in a week or 2 I intend to raise both calories and protein, plus bump the dose to .4 2 times a week.
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reta at 2mg, deficit of 500

Down roughly 20kg / 40 lbs to this point
 
bockscar said:

For one more week or 2, I'm doing .3 2 times a week. My daily intake is under 1000 cal, and most days it lands near 800.

The weight is coming off...at a rate I can't keep up, but I have a lot to lose, and in a week or 2 I intend to raise both calories and protein, plus bump the dose to .4 2 times a week.
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That level of self-control is genuinely impressive. Do you allow yourself a weekly day off to eat more and recover, both metabolically and mentally?
 
lastresort said:

Responses to diet and medication vary from person to person, but I'm curious how well reta paired with a calorie deficit works versus either reta or a deficit by itself.

If you're willing, could you share your age, gender, reta dose, and deficit?
Click to expand...
Began reta on 1st April, micro dosing 2mg weekly, meaning 1mg on Mondays and another 1mg on Thursdays (that's the schedule that suits me)

Initial weight: 97kg. Current weight: 92kg

Lifting weights 5 days per week

Macros:

1835calories

160g carbs

175/80g protein

55g fat

37y male
 
woundcarping said:

Reta alone won’t cause weight loss if you aren’t in a deficit…

According to the math, over the past 21 weeks I’ve averaged roughly a 1250 calorie daily deficit. Trying to pin down the deficit amount through calorie counting is nearly meaningless on both sides of the equation.

I’ll be 40 at the end of the month, and I have a beard.
Click to expand...
While taking Reta (5mg during that week), I went over my usual daily deficit on multiple occasions — roughly 300-500 kcal each day — and I still ended up losing weight 😉
 
6'2, began March 15 at 240lbs, roughly 20% body fat.

To be honest, I can't tell whether Reta is doing anything. Tirz definitely helps with food noise and Cag helps with food suppression, but reta.... 🤷‍♂️

The issue is that I ran reta AND tirz together - I ought to have run Reta alone for a few weeks to make sure it was active in my system, THEN add tirz.... Ahh well. Too late.

As of May 19, I'm at 203 with about 13% body fat (margin of error applies).

That said, I've also been on CJC/IPA and IGF-1 LR3 (for the last 3 weeks), so the muscle retention surely helped a tremendous amount.
 
Just began cutting with a 400-500 calorie deficit. I'm 51 years old, weigh 200lbs, and sit at 15% body fat. Aiming to get down to 10 to 12% looks good. Protein intake is 185 to 200 grams daily. Lifting happens 4 days a week, fasted cardio on 5 days a week, and I'm very active.
 
TacoLifter420 said:

Just began cutting with a 400-500 calorie deficit. I'm 51 years old, weigh 200lbs, and sit at 15% body fat. Aiming to get down to 10 to 12% looks good. Protein intake is 185 to 200 grams daily. Lifting happens 4 days a week, fasted cardio on 5 days a week, and I'm very active.
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Also should mention: 2mg per week is what I'm on. Only just began
 
How do you calculate the number of calories you burn each day? My BMR is roughly 2042. I'm 47 years old, 5'11", 255#. Walking 11K-15K steps daily gives me 750-1000 calories. On top of that I lift 4-5 times per week, though I never factor that in. My guess is I'm burning more than 3500 calories/day? My intake is 1350-1800 calories daily, with 180-200g protein. Reta has been part of my routine for 5 weeks. The first 4 weeks were at 2mg, and 1 week at 4mg. My starting weight was 264#. With a deficit like that, I expected the weight loss to be more aggressive...
 
50-year-old guy here, 176 cm. I weigh 70 kg right now with 15% body fat. My aim is to get down to 10-12% body fat. The number on the scale doesn't matter much to me, I just don't want to shed much more.

Two and a half years ago I was 96 kg and began Ozempic, which took me down 20+ kg. I slipped back somewhat, so I made the call to move over to Reta.

Each week I take 4 mg of Retatrutide, and on that same day I also inject 1 mg of Cagrilintide weekly.

Calories are something I never count, yet 5 kg has come off over two months. At this dose the appetite suppression is very effective, and I feel full very quickly too.

For what it's worth, since I raised Reta to 4 mg/week on the very day I began Cagri at 1 mg/week, I can't say whether it's the Reta, the Cagri, or the two together doing the work. That said, it doesn't bother me, because it's working so well and I haven't noticed any side effects.
 
Bastogne22 said:

How do you calculate the number of calories you burn each day? My BMR is roughly 2042. I'm 47 years old, 5'11", 255#. Walking 11K-15K steps daily gives me 750-1000 calories. On top of that I lift 4-5 times per week, though I never factor that in. My guess is I'm burning more than 3500 calories/day? My intake is 1350-1800 calories daily, with 180-200g protein. Reta has been part of my routine for 5 weeks. The first 4 weeks were at 2mg, and 1 week at 4mg. My starting weight was 264#. With a deficit like that, I expected the weight loss to be more aggressive...
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A loss of roughly 2 lbs each week strikes me as a reasonable pace that can be kept up. I get it—when there's a lot of weight to shed, patience wears thin—but steady week-to-week drops mean you're on the right track.
 
Currently I take 9mg, and my daily deficit sits somewhere between 500 and 800cal. As time went on my body adjusted, so the pounds have been coming off more slowly. These days I'm 15lbs away from the weight I'm aiming for.
 
lastresort said:

Responses to diet and medication vary from person to person, but I'm curious how well reta paired with a calorie deficit works versus either reta or a deficit by itself.

If you're willing, could you share your age, gender, reta dose, and deficit?
Click to expand...
I realize this has come up before, but I want to throw in my 2 cents since it's crucial that anyone reading this gets it (and doesn't assume they're the exception):

Weight loss only happens when you take in fewer calories than you burn.​

Medications like reta work so well for losing weight because they naturally cut down how many calories we crave and consume. That said, everyone's dietary needs differ based on their goals, where they're starting from, and so on... so my suggestion is to search for a TDEE calculator to establish a baseline comparing your current intake with what your goal weight would require.

Once you have that, set a moderate deficit (or surplus, depending on your goals) relative to your current caloric intake and watch the weight come off - typically you'll see about 0.5-2lbs lost per week if you're tracking calories accurately (yes, a food scale IS worth it - no, deficits >500 are NOT worth it).

Extra credit if you add strength training and macro tracking (especially protein) to steer clear of any "skinny-fat" situation

I'm petite (5ft) and went from 135lbs to 105lbs on Tirz over the course of 1yr - my weight loss really only took off at month 3 once I began tracking calories.
 
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