Yet Another Extended Plateau

[SapphireGlitch60]

ladyj779 said:

SapphireGlitch60 said:

TriDiddy said:

DidntMakeBrownies said:

Ugh, this could be my own story. I began tirz last November, and from then until now I dropped 60 lbs at a fairly consistent pace. Then for the past month I've been STUCK at 187. Nothing is moving. Simply STUCK.

There's some nexaph reta sitting in my cart, and I'm leaning toward giving it a shot. I'm taking in about 1300 calories daily and my appetite hasn't really shifted-- it's only the weight loss that has.

The emotional side of a stall hits me really hard. For so long I felt sad and disgusted about my weight, and then tirz showed up and the relief and optimism I experienced when my work finally started paying off-- wow. It changed my life. Now the stall has me panicking that it was never real and that three months from now I'll be right back where I was a year ago. Even just the THOUGHT of that fills me with a despair that takes my breath away.

So-- I'll add some reta. Okay. I also suspect I ought to work in more fiber. I'm really hoping I can finish off this last 40. Even another 25 would feel like a miracle.

My spouse found herself in the exact same situation as you. She had been using Tirz since October, reached the maximum dosage, and then hit a plateau that lasted a while. About 3 months back, at the start of June, we introduced Reta. Her Tirz stayed at 15mg, and we gradually increased her Reta to the current 4mg, divided into 2 doses each week, while keeping her Tirz at 15mg once weekly. Since then, she has been consistently dropping weight again.

Just to note, her appetite is now utterly wiped out for roughly 2 days following her Tirz injection, so we're going to reduce her Tirz dose beginning this week.

appreciate it! I’ve been dosing my Tirz & Reta on the same day, though I’m leaning toward separating them. I may also cut out the Cagri - it doesn’t seem to have any effect on me.

Yeah, absolutely divide those up! Sundays are when I take reta, and Thursdays for tirz. My guess is that will really assist in keeping calorie intake steadily lower.

Appreciate it!!

 

[SapphireGlitch60]

lessthanhalf said:

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

Knowing your starting weight, goal weight, age, and height would help frame this more precisely. Also, when did the GLP or the weight reduction begin? Diabetes?

It is certainly possible that the calorie tally is wrong, since most folks are quite poor at estimating calories, but energy use does differ quite a bit from person to person, and particularly following substantial weight reduction. My own fell by half, from 145kg down to 75kg, landing at roughly 1600-1800 kcal/day, and then held steady for 3.5 years up to now. Ultimately, my view is that trying to intentionally limit and manage calories over the long haul is quite likely to be a losing effort, if it demands ongoing exertion. Usually, cutting out certain foods is more sustainable than cutting down amounts. And a very high protein intake, at 40-50% of calories, is what worked in my case, (and my kidney function got better)

Rotating GLPs around probably will not do much; it sounds like GLP's do work for you, but how well is difficult to judge without knowing your weight before the 78 lbs came off, though it sounds like you have simply reached the ceiling of what your present doses can achieve. Reta rather than tirz should in theory yield a few additional percent of weight reduction. What I did was simply add reta on top of 15mg of tirz, and right now I am on T15mg / R7mg/cagri 0.5mg, but to get more from them the combined dose of tirz plus reta will have to be greater, and which one is higher likely makes little difference, assuming side effects are not a problem, and it does produce extra weight reduction, there is no reason to remain on extra high doses long term unless it genuinely helps, and where the point of diminishing returns falls for any given person cannot be known without experimenting, because there is no research at all so far on higher doses apart from sema. It is unfortunate that research on this matter trails the real experiences people have here.

My guess, if you doubt cagri is doing much, is to try raising the reta/tirz dose to where it works somewhat better if you can. If the dose cannot go any higher or it fails to produce more weight reduction, the only remaining option is elora. or perhaps even try adding semaglutide, since there do appear to be some individuals who do well on it. Even if the remaining weight cannot be shed, it really matters to try to be content with what you have already accomplished; in terms of health risks, what you have lost will count for more than losing more, so keeping it off is the most important part.

I’m 47 years old and stand at 5’8”. Diabetes isn’t part of my picture. My journey began in 6/2024 at 272 lbs. using sema. After 10mos, having dropped 50lbs and hit the ceiling on sema, I made the switch to tirz. Without a doubt, I’m a slow responder. Zero side effects for me. Over the past year and a half, I’ve gone back and forth between 15mg and 12.5mg of tirz, and the difference between them isn’t very noticeable. Still, the weight comes off at a crawl. A healthy BMI at 160 is what I’m aiming for, meaning 34 more lbs to go.

My smaller body brings me a lot more happiness, yet a piece of me feels let down—after all the effort I’ve put in (and it truly has been effort; this was never easy for me), I still can’t reach my goal.

I’d considered stopping tirz completely, but there are so many success stories on here from people who do both, so I think I’ll try that route. Cagri leaves me really tired for 2 days and that’s about it. And the ISRs I get from it are pretty crazy. I bought a kit that I am only 3 months into, so I can always have that option, too.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[lessthanhalf]

Dropping 78 lbs from a starting point of 272 works out to almost 29%, so even though the pace hasn't been especially fast, that's actually a solid result for tirz or any GLP.

Since you're not dealing with any side effects at all, I figure it's at least worth considering bumping up the tirz dose and layering in reta. There isn't solid proof that this combo is safe, but the wildly high-dose sema trial didn't turn up any fresh unexpected issues, even at 16mg, which is 6.6x the standard dose and roughly on par with 100mg of tirz. That said, it did come with frequent GI problems and skin sensitivity, plus only a letdown-level amount of additional weight loss. Still, sema is the weakest of the newer GLPs, and based on one study I came across, reta may well have more room to push higher before the returns flatten out. If cagri doesn't appear to be doing anything, then it would make sense to give this a shot before moving on to elora. Eventually the data from the high-dose tirz trial will be published, though I have no clue when.

Personally, I only raised my doses to keep hunger in check after weight I'd already lost, so I never really used dose changes as a way to drop pounds. That said, when I added 6mg of reta on top of 15mg of tirz, my appetite went down more than with tirz alone, and over the following year I shed another 14kg or so. The catch is I can't go higher on doses, because even the smallest bump of either one gives me a really strange skin sensation.

 

[Flash-BCR]

ladyj779 said:

Seasonal1 said:

ladyj779 said:

Fwiw, I'm 46, in perimenopause, 5'6, and weigh 171lbs right now. My tdee comes out to roughly 1600. That means if 1500 calories is what I take in daily, I'm basically at maintenance, or losing at an extremely slow pace.

For weight loss, my daily calorie budget is about 1200. Most days I stay at or under that; roughly 1 time a week I'll land near 1300.

Week to week my loss is pretty steady, but not long ago I sat at 176lbs for about 11 days straight. After that, 3 or 4lbs came off in roughly 3 days.

Really do recalculate your tdee, and be very very self-aware every day of your calorie count, and don't factor in your exercise.

Every day, several times over, I come across these threads about stalling and wonder — where has ladyj779 gone? Any discussion involving tdee, cisco, a steady deficit, stalls, logging food, weighing food, or a plateau could really use her practical wisdom.

Naturally, plenty of folks both here and on YouTube are convinced the medication should carry 100% of the burden. When progress halts, the answer is to increase the dose or stack on something else. Just keep piling on and combining until goal weight is reached. According to that view, diet and exercise are never necessary as long as the drugs are handling everything. It's medication — you're supposed to let it do its job.

​#-

There's also this: people spend basically their entire lives being told by "the experts" that 2000 calories per day is the average they should eat. So when they're told they need to eat less than that just to "be healthy" or simply to avoid being fat, it comes across as both unfair and unreasonable.

Yet much of what passed for nutrition and food science across the past hundred years or so is largely nonsense, and it was shaped in no small part by economic forces — agriculture, fuel, war, and so on.

On top of that, plenty of that guidance assumed a population that, on average, did far, far, far more physical labor than most people do now. And today's food differs enormously from anything before it in human history, in what it's made of and in how easily we can get it.

Setting aside all these modern shifts, there's another plain fact: with age, even the strongest among us lose muscle, metabolism gets slower, and all of that adds up to needing fewer calories. Be it at 45 or at 70, time eventually catches everyone.

I know I'm rambling, but lately I've also been turning over this thought: watching most civilizations worldwide grow heavier and heavier across three or four decades, I genuinely believe that those of us — the majority — are probably the metabolically normal humans. We're driven to eat constantly, and our bodies store fat efficiently. That would have made us the ones who flourished when food was briefly abundant, and therefore survived the scarce stretches — which, across year after year and age after age, was most of human history. Meanwhile, the people who "forget to eat" are the ones who, most of the time, fared worst — which also explains why there are fewer of them.

In the west, food is so wildly abundant that we subsidized much of the developing world for fifty years, and the result is lots and lots of fat people, even in very poor areas. I think that's how humans evolved — keep hunting for food, eat it the moment you find it, since you never know when famine will strike.

Blah blah blah, sorry for the essay

There's plenty of insight in that, Ms J...nicely put...Roughly 15 years back, on my first trip to Europe, it hit me right away how noticeably thinner almost everyone around me looked. Then the moment I stepped off the plane back home, the same shock hit me in reverse — how heavy people were here in the states...These days I don't get around as much as I used to, yet I'm convinced that this 'stretching' of eating past the point of health has spread just about everywhere...

Nowadays the chances and the reasons to overindulge get shoved at people from all sides. What's great about the GLPs is that they don't just dull the inner cravings to eat too much — they also dull the outer pushes to overindulge coming from media, advertisers...or the sheer pile of food sitting right in front of you wherever you look...

Speaking as someone who has eaten their whole life with no fear...and no brakes, GLPs pull me out of that 'arena of excess food' and make it normal that having some, rather than 'having all of it', is simply a preference...

 

[Stace_wow]

BBA1969 said:

For plenty of us, hitting a stall is just something that happens along the way. The more weight we drop, the lower our basal metabolic rate gets, which means calorie intake has to be dialed back to match.

Since tirzepatide brought you this far, dropping it makes no sense—layering in retatrutide at ≥ 4 mg (for the glucagon benefits) could pair really well with what you're already running.

Right now I'm on 10mg Tirz, 5mg Reta & 1m Elora, and I plan to raise the Elora to 3mg. Truth is, those final 35lbs are the stubborn ones.

Something to consider: based on the weekly activities you mentioned, the only reasonable explanation is that your calorie count is off.

How do you space out your injections? Are Elo and Reta both pinned on a single day?

 

[JoonyO]

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

I realize this may not come across as rational, but loosening the reins and increasing my intake for roughly a week ended up kickstarting things again for me. My theory is that when calories stay low for a long stretch, the body adjusts and clings tightly to whatever fat remains... holding onto it as a kind of emergency stash. I had gotten far too lean. I was eating 1500 per day, then raised that to about 2500. These days I land somewhere between that and 3200 daily. If I feel like eating, I eat. I'm lifting weights to add muscle. That's my current situation.

Then again, what do I really know?

 

[TooBigtoFail]

I dropped 110# across 2+ years, and plenty of stalls came with it. My own observation was that stacking triz/cag/reta delivered less benefit than either Tirz/cagri alone or Reta/cagri alone. On Tirz I pushed past 20+mg per week, yet it made no difference. What did seem to move things was Cagri, cycled on and off (as much as 1.1mg/week). These days I run only Reta 9.5mg@6 days, and even after all this time the scale still moves down 0.5lbs per week. The trick that worked for me when a stall set in was reintroducing Cagri for several months, right up to the point where food made me deeply queasy. Every smell turned my stomach, so appetite was simply gone. Thanks to Cagri I had no hunger at all. Protein shakes and supplements carried me. A 24hr fast felt effortless. My BMI sits at 25 now, and I plan to taper off reta gradually across the next 6-12 months. I never let a stall run past 4 weeks. 40% of my body weight is gone, and I have not exercised in 2+ years. Do not let yourself get discouraged.

 

[Slaine]

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

There are a lot of factors at play here:

1) Are you using the correct compounds?

2) Is your nutrition on point? A clean diet, avoiding ultra-processed foods, and keeping inflammation, glucose, and insulin in check, etc.

3) Are there other medical issues involved, such as thyroid or hormonal problems, etc.

4) Perhaps you could stick with just reta out of your current stack and introduce aod and/or motsc and/or a growth hormone peptide such as cjc/ipa or tesa

5) Are you getting proper sleep?

6) Are you exercising too much or too little?

Adding some H.I.I.T. would certainly be beneficial if you aren't already incorporating it.

 

[BBA1969]

Stace_wow said:

BBA1969 said:

For plenty of us, hitting a stall is just something that happens along the way. The more weight we drop, the lower our basal metabolic rate gets, which means calorie intake has to be dialed back to match.

Since tirzepatide brought you this far, dropping it makes no sense—layering in retatrutide at ≥ 4 mg (for the glucagon benefits) could pair really well with what you're already running.

Right now I'm on 10mg Tirz, 5mg Reta & 1m Elora, and I plan to raise the Elora to 3mg. Truth is, those final 35lbs are the stubborn ones.

Something to consider: based on the weekly activities you mentioned, the only reasonable explanation is that your calorie count is off.

How do you space out your injections? Are Elo and Reta both pinned on a single day?

Tirz gets taken Monday night, Elora lands on Wednesday with no set time, then Tirz once more Friday morning, and Reta on Sunday morning.

How I arrived at this schedule (ADD):

The weekend is when I want Tirz at its strongest, which is why Friday morning works, but I divide the Tirz dose so the effect stays level, meaning the shots sit 3.5 days apart.

From what I can feel, Reta needs some time before it really starts working, so having it back at full strength by Monday suits me.

Putting Elora on Wednesday slots neatly between the 2 Tirz injections, and there is no deeper reason for that choice.

Suggestions are welcome

 

[endlrls]

ladyj779 said:

Fwiw, I'm 46, in perimenopause, 5'6, and weigh 171lbs right now. My tdee comes out to roughly 1600. That means if 1500 calories is what I take in daily, I'm basically at maintenance, or losing at an extremely slow pace.

For weight loss, my daily calorie budget is about 1200. Most days I stay at or under that; roughly 1 time a week I'll land near 1300.

Week to week my loss is pretty steady, but not long ago I sat at 176lbs for about 11 days straight. After that, 3 or 4lbs came off in roughly 3 days.

Really do recalculate your tdee, and be very very self-aware every day of your calorie count, and don't factor in your exercise.

MyFitnessPal and I have a love-hate thing going on

 

[ladyj779]

endlrls said:

ladyj779 said:

Fwiw, I'm 46, in perimenopause, 5'6, and weigh 171lbs right now. My tdee comes out to roughly 1600. That means if 1500 calories is what I take in daily, I'm basically at maintenance, or losing at an extremely slow pace.

For weight loss, my daily calorie budget is about 1200. Most days I stay at or under that; roughly 1 time a week I'll land near 1300.

Week to week my loss is pretty steady, but not long ago I sat at 176lbs for about 11 days straight. After that, 3 or 4lbs came off in roughly 3 days.

Really do recalculate your tdee, and be very very self-aware every day of your calorie count, and don't factor in your exercise.

MyFitnessPal and I have a love-hate thing going on

My feelings for the loseit app are purely positive. Paired with walking, that combo took 110lbs off me in 18 months, all before I realized glps were within my budget loseit and walking still have my heart, but wow, these glps have my heart too!

 

[endlrls]

ladyj779 said:

endlrls said:

ladyj779 said:

Fwiw, I'm 46, in perimenopause, 5'6, and weigh 171lbs right now. My tdee comes out to roughly 1600. That means if 1500 calories is what I take in daily, I'm basically at maintenance, or losing at an extremely slow pace.

For weight loss, my daily calorie budget is about 1200. Most days I stay at or under that; roughly 1 time a week I'll land near 1300.

Week to week my loss is pretty steady, but not long ago I sat at 176lbs for about 11 days straight. After that, 3 or 4lbs came off in roughly 3 days.

Really do recalculate your tdee, and be very very self-aware every day of your calorie count, and don't factor in your exercise.

MyFitnessPal and I have a love-hate thing going on

My feelings for the loseit app are purely positive. Paired with walking, that combo took 110lbs off me in 18 months, all before I realized glps were within my budget loseit and walking still have my heart, but wow, these glps have my heart too!

Same here.

Dropping 40 lbs came from CICO plus quitting alcohol, though honestly GLP's turn it into something closer to a cheat code.

The effort is still on you, but I think you catch my drift.

I shot you a DM about CICO in case you'd enjoy a solid chat on the subject. (not trolling, promise!)

Take care!

 

[Flash-BCR]

BBA1969 said:

Stace_wow said:

BBA1969 said:

For plenty of us, hitting a stall is just something that happens along the way. The more weight we drop, the lower our basal metabolic rate gets, which means calorie intake has to be dialed back to match.

Since tirzepatide brought you this far, dropping it makes no sense—layering in retatrutide at ≥ 4 mg (for the glucagon benefits) could pair really well with what you're already running.

Right now I'm on 10mg Tirz, 5mg Reta & 1m Elora, and I plan to raise the Elora to 3mg. Truth is, those final 35lbs are the stubborn ones.

Something to consider: based on the weekly activities you mentioned, the only reasonable explanation is that your calorie count is off.

How do you space out your injections? Are Elo and Reta both pinned on a single day?

Tirz gets taken Monday night, Elora lands on Wednesday with no set time, then Tirz once more Friday morning, and Reta on Sunday morning.

How I arrived at this schedule (ADD):

The weekend is when I want Tirz at its strongest, which is why Friday morning works, but I divide the Tirz dose so the effect stays level, meaning the shots sit 3.5 days apart.

From what I can feel, Reta needs some time before it really starts working, so having it back at full strength by Monday suits me.

Putting Elora on Wednesday slots neatly between the 2 Tirz injections, and there is no deeper reason for that choice.

Suggestions are welcome

I follow a similar approach, and for the same reason... I only began reta roughly 7 weeks back. My tirz was split between Monday AM and Friday AM, and I swapped reta in on the Friday slot since it looked like fun... The way I saw it, that Friday morning shot would cover me over the weekend. With reta/tirz, the peak tends to land 2-3 days after injecting... in fact I've gone with Thursday night shots aiming to catch the highest point on Saturday and Sunday.... that locks in my weekend.... then the Monday morning shot keeps me going until the week wraps up and my next 'weekend' shot....

 

[Super Trips]

start 5mg ss-31 every day, then raise the dose once more

 

[SapphireGlitch60]

Slaine said:

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

There are a lot of factors at play here:

1) Are you using the correct compounds?

2) Is your nutrition on point? A clean diet, avoiding ultra-processed foods, and keeping inflammation, glucose, and insulin in check, etc.

3) Are there other medical issues involved, such as thyroid or hormonal problems, etc.

4) Perhaps you could stick with just reta out of your current stack and introduce aod and/or motsc and/or a growth hormone peptide such as cjc/ipa or tesa

5) Are you getting proper sleep?

6) Are you exercising too much or too little?

Adding some H.I.I.T. would certainly be beneficial if you aren't already incorporating it.

I keep my diet quite clean. Alcohol isn’t something I drink, I prepare the majority of my own meals, and processed foods seldom make it onto my plate. One of the biggest issues, I believe, is how little I move on the days when the gym isn’t on the schedule. I faithfully show up 3 days per week, while the remaining 4 days are only average in terms of activity. I’m trying to improve that, though it isn’t easy.

On the sleep front: I’m a 47 y/o perimenopausal woman raising a 5 & 6 year old. Sleep? What even is that?

 

[SapphireGlitch60]

JoonyO said:

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

I realize this may not come across as rational, but loosening the reins and increasing my intake for roughly a week ended up kickstarting things again for me. My theory is that when calories stay low for a long stretch, the body adjusts and clings tightly to whatever fat remains... holding onto it as a kind of emergency stash. I had gotten far too lean. I was eating 1500 per day, then raised that to about 2500. These days I land somewhere between that and 3200 daily. If I feel like eating, I eat. I'm lifting weights to add muscle. That's my current situation.

Then again, what do I really know?

People tell me this all the time, but my body just doesn't work that way. If I eat too much for 1 day, I put on 5lbs. Not once in my life has anyone called me skinny

In the gym I'm clearly getting stronger and I like building my body up. Once the flab is gone, I'm eager to see more muscle!

 

[Slaine]

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Slaine said:

SapphireGlitch60 said:

Hi all,

I've dropped 78 lbs across 2 years, but now I'm stuck in yet another lengthy plateau. Since mid-July there's been zero movement, and even before that my average was only 1lb per month. A 4 month stall happened last fall, and I really don't want to repeat that! For the past year I've been taking 12-15 of tirz. In June I added 1.5 of Cagri, which changed nothing. 3 weeks ago I brought in reta while lowering tirz, and right now I'm at 10mg tirz, 2.5mg Reta, and 1.5 Cagri. My intention was to move off tirz and over to Reta, since it feels like tirz has taken me as far as it can. But should I stay on it instead? I'm unsure. This is incredibly frustrating—I still have 30-35lbs to lose and nothing I try makes a difference.

I exercise 3-4 days each week, do heavy lifting, and track calories (1300-1500 per day). Protein ranges from 100-150g, varying by day. I'm out of ideas.

I'd really appreciate tips from other slow losers who ultimately reached the finish line.

There are a lot of factors at play here:

1) Are you using the correct compounds?

2) Is your nutrition on point? A clean diet, avoiding ultra-processed foods, and keeping inflammation, glucose, and insulin in check, etc.

3) Are there other medical issues involved, such as thyroid or hormonal problems, etc.

4) Perhaps you could stick with just reta out of your current stack and introduce aod and/or motsc and/or a growth hormone peptide such as cjc/ipa or tesa

5) Are you getting proper sleep?

6) Are you exercising too much or too little?

Adding some H.I.I.T. would certainly be beneficial if you aren't already incorporating it.

I keep my diet quite clean. Alcohol isn’t something I drink, I prepare the majority of my own meals, and processed foods seldom make it onto my plate. One of the biggest issues, I believe, is how little I move on the days when the gym isn’t on the schedule. I faithfully show up 3 days per week, while the remaining 4 days are only average in terms of activity. I’m trying to improve that, though it isn’t easy.

On the sleep front: I’m a 47 y/o perimenopausal woman raising a 5 & 6 year old. Sleep? What even is that?

I get it — with 3 kids (ages 2, 4 and 6, plus a fourth on the way soon), sleep is.... . If getting to the gym isn't possible, could you maybe use a treadmill, stepper or stationary bike?

 

[kakiebean]

Whenever my progress halts, I check that I'm in nutritional ketosis, tightening my diet if necessary. I rely on keto-mojo to measure. Should that fail, I fast for a few days. It appears to be effective.

 

[rch02474]

kakiebean said:

Whenever my progress halts, I check that I'm in nutritional ketosis, tightening my diet if necessary. I rely on keto-mojo to measure. Should that fail, I fast for a few days. It appears to be effective.

Right now I'm in the middle of a 3 day fast. It's been a few years since my last one, despite regularly doing OMAD and staying in nutritional ketosis. Water weight really is strange. After my Wednesday evening workout, I had a "snack" at about 9pm. Thursday morning the scale showed 277. All day yesterday I only had black coffee, water, and 0 cal electrolytes, then this morning it read 278.2 lol. I get that water weight goes up and down and that weighing every day has its downsides—I just figured it might lift my spirits. Instead, it did the exact opposite!

 

[kakiebean]

rch02474 said:

kakiebean said:

Whenever my progress halts, I check that I'm in nutritional ketosis, tightening my diet if necessary. I rely on keto-mojo to measure. Should that fail, I fast for a few days. It appears to be effective.

Right now I'm in the middle of a 3 day fast. It's been a few years since my last one, despite regularly doing OMAD and staying in nutritional ketosis. Water weight really is strange. After my Wednesday evening workout, I had a "snack" at about 9pm. Thursday morning the scale showed 277. All day yesterday I only had black coffee, water, and 0 cal electrolytes, then this morning it read 278.2 lol. I get that water weight goes up and down and that weighing every day has its downsides—I just figured it might lift my spirits. Instead, it did the exact opposite!

Water retention really can happen without an obvious cause! Be sure your water and electrolyte intake is sufficient. Odd as it sounds, when you're dehydrated, your body holds onto water instead. Dandelion tea is a gentle option if you want a mild diuretic. For me, eating after 7 pm leads to a higher number on the scale the following morning. Daily weighing seems okay in my view, since it makes trends easy to see. The trick is not to read too much into day-to-day ups and downs. Best of luck!