Lovedog100
GLP-1 Apprentice
After a month on Reta I started Tesamorlin. For me it was a huge enhancement. I hate the five day a week injections, and it messes with my sleep some. However the benefits of the two together have done wonders for me.
Reta Begins - Blog
- Thread starter UnusualLLama
- Start date
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
Another week down!
Basic stats
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
Weight as of this morning - 76.5.9kg/168.6536lbs (Down from 77.9kg/171.7401lbs)
Rolling 7-day average is down 0.7kg/1.54324lbs (same average as last week)
Estimated body fat - Down 0.6% (I'm using a withings scale, I know it's not super accurate, but I'm watching trends)
Average resting heart rate - 46-48 (was 44-47)
Average blood pressure - 113/71 (was 110/72)
Current dose - 1mg reta
Thoughts and observations
Not a whole lot has changed from last week in regards to my thoughts and observations other than seeing consistency in the patterns.
Weight is coming down nicely, and I know most of it is fat. My lifts in the gym have all either held steady of seen marginal improvement, although improvement could also be the result of me dropping to 3x strength sessions p/w instead of 5x, thus giving me more recovery between (which was the main goal of dropping to 3x for a while).
And the other reason I know most of it is fat is because I can visibly see the difference in certain areas of the body as well as noting vascularity more easily.
When it comes to the heart-rate stuff that's largely the same as the first week, though now I really see the pattern.
Typically, 24ish hours after pinning, I'll see the small 2-3bpm jump in my RHR which holds steadily for 3-4 days and then starts to lower back to base, same with my working-heart rate (easier to get into working zones, peaks/max zones still the same levels).
And this ties into food noise/hunger quite noticeably as well. Typically speaking, a day or two before pinning is when I'll start to become more aware of hunger and the chatter. It's not so much that it's an issue, but I feel the difference.
And with that in mind, I'm actually considering upping my dose to 1.5 or even 2mg. I recall reading somewhere that if you start to feel food noise and hunger before pinning day, it's probably an indication of needing to up your dose a little bit more.
Other than that everything is going great. No sides to speak of (no nausea, no sleep troubles, only a very slight increase in HR). I think I mentioned this in my last update but possibly the only side I can really point out would be the occasional headache induced by a lack of fluids.
I'm normally on top of my fluids and hydration, but there'll always be a day where for whatever reason you might be lacking a bit and that's something I've always been a little bit sensitive to.
But solid progress overall, we keep grinding on!
Basic stats
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
Weight as of this morning - 76.5.9kg/168.6536lbs (Down from 77.9kg/171.7401lbs)
Rolling 7-day average is down 0.7kg/1.54324lbs (same average as last week)
Estimated body fat - Down 0.6% (I'm using a withings scale, I know it's not super accurate, but I'm watching trends)
Average resting heart rate - 46-48 (was 44-47)
Average blood pressure - 113/71 (was 110/72)
Current dose - 1mg reta
Thoughts and observations
Not a whole lot has changed from last week in regards to my thoughts and observations other than seeing consistency in the patterns.
Weight is coming down nicely, and I know most of it is fat. My lifts in the gym have all either held steady of seen marginal improvement, although improvement could also be the result of me dropping to 3x strength sessions p/w instead of 5x, thus giving me more recovery between (which was the main goal of dropping to 3x for a while).
And the other reason I know most of it is fat is because I can visibly see the difference in certain areas of the body as well as noting vascularity more easily.
When it comes to the heart-rate stuff that's largely the same as the first week, though now I really see the pattern.
Typically, 24ish hours after pinning, I'll see the small 2-3bpm jump in my RHR which holds steadily for 3-4 days and then starts to lower back to base, same with my working-heart rate (easier to get into working zones, peaks/max zones still the same levels).
And this ties into food noise/hunger quite noticeably as well. Typically speaking, a day or two before pinning is when I'll start to become more aware of hunger and the chatter. It's not so much that it's an issue, but I feel the difference.
And with that in mind, I'm actually considering upping my dose to 1.5 or even 2mg. I recall reading somewhere that if you start to feel food noise and hunger before pinning day, it's probably an indication of needing to up your dose a little bit more.
Other than that everything is going great. No sides to speak of (no nausea, no sleep troubles, only a very slight increase in HR). I think I mentioned this in my last update but possibly the only side I can really point out would be the occasional headache induced by a lack of fluids.
I'm normally on top of my fluids and hydration, but there'll always be a day where for whatever reason you might be lacking a bit and that's something I've always been a little bit sensitive to.
But solid progress overall, we keep grinding on!
Might be worth splitting them up if its the noise, this week i did same but Sun & Thur and kept noise at bay.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
I've been considering that as well, though to be honest, on such a small dose, I don't think upping to 1.5/2 once weekly is an issue.
In addition to that, I'm also curious to see if that would have more of an impact on my heart rate as well or if it would be the same, small increase, but more consistently over the course of the week.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
And that's another week in the bag!
Basic stats
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
Weight as of this morning - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (Down from 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
Rolling 7-day average is down 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (tiny bit higher than last week)
Estimated body fat - Down 0.3% (I'm using a withings scale, I know it's not super accurate, but I'm watching trends - fwiw since starting withings thinks I'm down 1.4% BF total and up 1.3% muscle mass)
Average resting heart rate - 46-48 (same as last week)
Average blood pressure - 112/69 (was 113/71)
Current dose - 1mg reta previously, yesterday I upped to 2mg
Thoughts and observations
The main thing of note here is that nothing really changed from last week, everything I reported then is still true this time around. The only difference now is I decided to up my dose to 2mg instead of 1mg.
This isn't a result of "I don't think this is working" because it clearly is, I see it visibly, the numbers show it, everything tells me it is. The only reason is because in the last couple of days before pinning it gets a bit more difficult.
It will be interesting to see how much of a correlation there is between dose and heart-rate and I'll update on any sides but I think it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
Probably going to go on a bit here but this has been playing on my mind quite a bit over the last week or so, especially after I saw the trends from my withings scale showing consistently higher lean mass numbers and smaller fat numbers.
Taking that at face value, it means that I'm burning fat and building muscle. I definitely am burning fat, as for building muscle I'm uncertain, but what I feel more certain about is that I'm not losing muscle. And that's one of the things that I was concerned about with reta. I said it in my initial post, I want to get lean and retain as much muscle as possible, but everywhere you read reta is portrayed as some muscle eating compound that you could shoot into the Hulk to change him back into Bruce Bana.
But I don't think that's the case.
So here's a few points I've been mulling over that I want to bring up.
1. All the studies show something like 25-30% lean mass reduction on people taking Reta. But this is misleading. The knee-jerk reaction of the world seems to be that lean mass = muscle, but that's not true.
Lean mass has a lot of things to it, and when talking about muscle specifically, it's not even all muscle. There's a lot of water in it (do a heavy leg workout that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all sorts of things that add up to that number. But we see lean mass on the studies, and people immediately think muscle.
2. Again, the studies. Most of the people in these studies are suffering from clinical obesity and a whole host of other chronic issues, and from what I gather, there's a lot of much older people in the studies as well.
This is important because you have not only people who are metabolically broken, but also probably not doing all of the things you can do to minimise the loss of lean mass when in a calorie deficit. And that leads me nicely onto the next point.
3. Unless you're on a good dose of TRT, juice to the gills with SARMS (or something similar), or you make a swishing sound when you move because your pinning so many peptides into you on a daily basis, then anyone on a calorie deficit is going to lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's referring to a regular diet, eating less than you're expending.
The human body is great, incredible, it does a lot of things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't figure out the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal correct protein amounts and think the body will flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak and do the right things, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. End of.
4. This is the point that stands out to me the most, and it's kinda wild that I don't see anyone talking about it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to get the idea.
You take someone that's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, let's say with a GLP. And when they reach their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end of the journey, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of having a ratio of 0.5 it's probably more like 0.7. They've gone from half of their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but that will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio is never highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without giving it the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above 😉 )on Reta with just a few simple steps.
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
Basic stats
Male
Mid-40's
5'10/178cm
Weight as of this morning - 75.9.kg/167.3309lbs (Down from 76.5.kg/168.6536lbs)
Rolling 7-day average is down 0.8kg/1.7637lbs (tiny bit higher than last week)
Estimated body fat - Down 0.3% (I'm using a withings scale, I know it's not super accurate, but I'm watching trends - fwiw since starting withings thinks I'm down 1.4% BF total and up 1.3% muscle mass)
Average resting heart rate - 46-48 (same as last week)
Average blood pressure - 112/69 (was 113/71)
Current dose - 1mg reta previously, yesterday I upped to 2mg
Thoughts and observations
The main thing of note here is that nothing really changed from last week, everything I reported then is still true this time around. The only difference now is I decided to up my dose to 2mg instead of 1mg.
This isn't a result of "I don't think this is working" because it clearly is, I see it visibly, the numbers show it, everything tells me it is. The only reason is because in the last couple of days before pinning it gets a bit more difficult.
It will be interesting to see how much of a correlation there is between dose and heart-rate and I'll update on any sides but I think it'll be fine.
Muscle retention rant
Probably going to go on a bit here but this has been playing on my mind quite a bit over the last week or so, especially after I saw the trends from my withings scale showing consistently higher lean mass numbers and smaller fat numbers.
Taking that at face value, it means that I'm burning fat and building muscle. I definitely am burning fat, as for building muscle I'm uncertain, but what I feel more certain about is that I'm not losing muscle. And that's one of the things that I was concerned about with reta. I said it in my initial post, I want to get lean and retain as much muscle as possible, but everywhere you read reta is portrayed as some muscle eating compound that you could shoot into the Hulk to change him back into Bruce Bana.
But I don't think that's the case.
So here's a few points I've been mulling over that I want to bring up.
1. All the studies show something like 25-30% lean mass reduction on people taking Reta. But this is misleading. The knee-jerk reaction of the world seems to be that lean mass = muscle, but that's not true.
Lean mass has a lot of things to it, and when talking about muscle specifically, it's not even all muscle. There's a lot of water in it (do a heavy leg workout that you feel the next day, I can easily weigh 1kg more than I should), intra-muscular fat, all sorts of things that add up to that number. But we see lean mass on the studies, and people immediately think muscle.
2. Again, the studies. Most of the people in these studies are suffering from clinical obesity and a whole host of other chronic issues, and from what I gather, there's a lot of much older people in the studies as well.
This is important because you have not only people who are metabolically broken, but also probably not doing all of the things you can do to minimise the loss of lean mass when in a calorie deficit. And that leads me nicely onto the next point.
3. Unless you're on a good dose of TRT, juice to the gills with SARMS (or something similar), or you make a swishing sound when you move because your pinning so many peptides into you on a daily basis, then anyone on a calorie deficit is going to lose some lean mass.
Anyone. Everyone.
And that's referring to a regular diet, eating less than you're expending.
The human body is great, incredible, it does a lot of things really really well.
But it's not perfect. You can't figure out the golden ratio of calories in vs. calories out with ideal muscle stimulus and decimal correct protein amounts and think the body will flip a switch and say "I'm only going to be burning 100% fat now". It's not THAT good. If you're in a deficit and losing weight, some will be lean mass.
Sure, you can tweak and do the right things, and minimise the ratio, but you will lose lean mass. End of.
4. This is the point that stands out to me the most, and it's kinda wild that I don't see anyone talking about it now that I've thought about it for a while.
Lean mass to total body weight ratio.
Here's a very rough example to get the idea.
You take someone that's overweight, 50% of their total weight is lean mass, the rest fat.
That person loses weight, let's say with a GLP. And when they reach their goal, scans show they lost 30% lean mass.
Shocking, right? Or is it?
That person started with a lean mass to total weight ratio of 0.5 (for every lb of weight, 0.5 of it was lean mass, the rest fat).
But at the end of the journey, because only 30% of the total weight they lost was lean mass, that means the other 70% was fat.
So now, instead of having a ratio of 0.5 it's probably more like 0.7. They've gone from half of their weight being lean mass to 70% of their weight being lean mass. Not only is that healthier, but that will visibly look a ton better, as well as feeling immensely better.
But this ratio is never highlighted, it's only the "30% lean mass/muscle gone" without giving it the proper nuance it actually needs.
So now that I've rambled way too much, my point is this. I think it's very possible to retain a very good amount of muscle (I said muscle not lean mass for a reason, read above 😉 )on Reta with just a few simple steps.
1. Easy calorie deficit, nothing too extreme. (I understand this might not be the case for everyone, some people have a lot more weight to lose, so you do you).
2. Adequate protein amounts. 1 gram of protein per estimated lb of lean mass (important distinction, lean mass, not muscle).
3. Proper stimulus for the muscles. You don't need to smash the gym 20x per week, just a few workouts where you have 1 or 2 sets in most muscle groups getting within 1-2 reps of failure should do it (I always like to push 1 set to absolute failure on most lifts where viable, don't do this for barbell squats and other compounds etc.)
4. Decent rest and recovery. This is when all of the work you put in is turned into something more than just work. Don't neglect sleep and recovery.
And that's it, rant over. I've typed way too much for something non-work related so I'm out.
Onto the next!
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
Side note - anyone find themselves drinking less coffee on reta? Maybe less caffeine in general? Because I'm definitely drinking less than I used to, which, for someone living in Sweden, is almost a hangable offence.
SeaGypsy
GLP-1 Enthusiast
Yes! I used to drink coffee throughout the day, even a cup in the evening. Now I get my morning cup but usually I don't even finish it. I also liked an occasional java monster but I have zero desire for those either.
Feels like it’s most cravings, hardly drinking cups of tea when I was doing 5/6 a day and probs had one in two weeks. Also cravings for alcohol dampened a bit and choc/snacks gone completely.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
Gonna keep this update fairly short because I've been buried in work for way too long now.
Upped to 2mg last week, still no sides, no other notable differences other than a slight increase in weight lost (even though I've had exactly the same number of calories) and no food noise in the last day or two before pinning.
All other metrics are the same, no increase in HR, resting or active, so the difference between 1mg and 2mg (for me) had no impact on that.
Side note; upper abs are starting to peek through in favorable light conditions!
Upped to 2mg last week, still no sides, no other notable differences other than a slight increase in weight lost (even though I've had exactly the same number of calories) and no food noise in the last day or two before pinning.
All other metrics are the same, no increase in HR, resting or active, so the difference between 1mg and 2mg (for me) had no impact on that.
Side note; upper abs are starting to peek through in favorable light conditions!
Whats the target weight?
PineCone99
GLP-1 Apprentice
Yep. I completely ditched my coffee once on Reta. Just kept leaving the cups half filled and eventually gave up. But I do like the boost from caffeine so I found some tasty caffeine chews on amazon that I like. Pop one of those in the am and maybe a 2nd one around 2 pm, works a treat.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
I'm not really targeting a set weight, more going off how I look. That being said, I'm really not wanting to go below 70kg so we'll see how it goes.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
The weird thing is, I haven't really been feeling the need to drink coffee. I still have a morning cup, but after that I'd usually have one late morning, post-lunch. Maybe late afternoon, just to keep the fire burning. But I haven't really felt like I needed that.
jsc1980
GLP-1 Novice
🚫No Source Discussion🚫
Does your scale show lbs or percentages? I have a Renpho scale that uses percentages so the skeletal muscle increase is kinda misleading. Let's say I'm 175 with 54% skeletal muscle, 16% bf and 30% other (bones, organs, water, etc.), that is 94.5lbs skeletal muscle and 28lbs fat. If I loose 5 lbs (now 170) and my scale says I'm 54.4% skeletal muscle and 15.8% body fat, those new numbers are 92.48lbs muscle and 26.86lbs fat. So, yes I'm a higher percentage skeletal muscle. but I actually lost 2lbs of muscle.
numbers just for illustration
Not that your scale is necessarily the same, just something I noticed on mine.
I was around 94kg targeting 85kg as the first marker which should see me looking pretty lean.
Im trying to keep to a decent calorie amount each day but i am interested in how body would react to being at a calorie surplus whilst lifting hard or what would naturally be bulking season. Do you then see more muscle gains with less fat gained?
I have only a CM on you and I think very similar muscle mass. I think you'll be very happy around 72kg.
Midwestmouse
Recently Joined
🚫No Source Discussion🚫
so what does your mirror tell you about any potential muscle loss - b/c you and i have some similarities and i'm very concerned about losing muscle. (6ft1 220, around 23%bf last i checked which was a while) I'm working out 3 times a week, which is about to go to 4x, and i just raised to 3mg per week. (starting my 2nd month of reta)
also - forgive me if you've already answered this, but i didn't see it, how is your sleep? i've been considering the cjc/ipa a lot of people talk about as something to help with deeper rest, b/c mine's....well, taken a hit, ha.
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quicksilver80
GLP-1 Apprentice
I cant even touch big ammounts of caffeine anymore.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
You're right to point that out, and my scale (or the app where I read the data) can show both % and raw numbers.
There's actually a small amount of muscle loss in the raw numbers now that I check, but this ties in with what I said about any sort of cut, with/without a GLP, is going to see some muscle loss.
So I guess the better way of looking at it would be;
Raw numbers = small muscle loss
Percentages = increased lean mass / weight ratio
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
Interesting point, something I've been thinking about as well as I near closer to the lower end of weight I'd want to be at. Because when I do hit that point, it'll be time for a bulking phase - is it possible on reta? I guess we might find out.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
That wouldn't surprise me. It's already getting to the point where it really does feel like if that last few kg come away from the middle of me it'll end up looking great!
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
I still can, that's not an issue - I just don't feel drawn/driven to it like I used to. I wonder if some of it is the reta making me utilize more fat for energy thus making me feel less tired at times.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
You know, this is a strange one.
Not sure if you've ever watched any content by a fitness youtuber called Will Tenyson (spelling?) but he did a video last year I think where he went all-in on competing at his first ever natural bodybuilding competition.
And the specific part that comes to mind with your question is when he's talking about how, even though he knows he's lost a ton of weight, because most of it was fat and thus caused his muscles to show more, it actually made him look bigger (which I agree with).
Inevitably, we'll lose some muscle on a cut, but by uncovering that muscle beneath the fat, we probably look a bit bigger (even though we're not). Kinda how the brain messes with us I guess.
As for sleep, honestly, no issues. I mentioned in a few of the earlier updates, and worth noting I'm only currently on 2mg so I assume higher doses will be more prone to issues, but it's fine.
Or, well, when I say fine what I mean to say is no changes from the usual, which is always wanting more but never being able to get it due to life 😀
I've also not had any change in sleep patterns, the only real noticeable difference for me is around eyesight, hard to describe but a bit blurry and easier to fall out of focus. Very noticeable as i work at a computer all day but not if im out and about.
BPC has actually started to help it as I've just starting researching that, but keeping up with electrolytes as well.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
So, I wanted to get back to this again because it's been playing on my mind a bit, enough so that I actually exported all of my withings data into a bunch of .csv's and started digging into the numbers and I think I know exactly what is going on with the "muscle loss".
| Period | Weight | Fat Mass | Muscle Mass | Hydration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ~May 8–14 avg | 78.6 kg | 14.5 kg | 60.9 kg | 44.2 kg |
| ~Jun 1–7 avg | 74.7 kg | 12.6 kg | 59.0 kg | 42.7 kg |
I actually misread the numbers when I first responded to you, because on paper that's almost 2kg of muscle loss in a month. And that'd be absolutely startling.
The key here, though, is hydration. Just the raw numbers alone is 1.5kg.
That's classic BIA behavior during a successful cut.
A scale cannot directly measure muscle tissue. It estimates it from electrical impedance and a model.
When glycogen and water drop, the model gets fooled.
The reason I ended up going back to this and digging further is because when I saw that 2kg muscle difference, I was like.. there's no way in hell I've lost 2kg in muscle without noticing a drastic decrease in strength across the board, which I haven't. (I've actually notched up a few lifts here and there a small amount).
That being said, this rate of weight loss is really at the limit of what I'm comfortable with, probably even a little bit over, and like I mentioned in my muscle-loss rant it's inevitable that there will be some muscle loss, so I'm going to up my calories a tad. Maybe 200-300.
UnusualLLama
GLP-1 Apprentice
Sooo.. I increased my average calories by about 300 after last-weeks update, because the rate of loss was too close to the limit of what I deem acceptable. And nothing changed.
I'm wondering if maybe there's a little lag and the body is catching up, or maybe it's just the reta is too good at doing what it does and I'd need to substantially increase calories. I'll give it another week as it is for now and if it's still the same rate of loss I'll add another 300 or so.
But other than that everything else is in line. There's potentially, possibly, maybe a 1bmp average increase in RHR but that's honestly too small to reliably count just now, although if it is an actual increase, maybe the increase to 2mg a couple of weeks back just means I've got more reta building in the system now and it took a little while.
But everything else is good across the board, no significant changes at all.
Only other thing worth mentioning is I drank alcohol this week. I really don't drink often at all, maybe half a dozen times throughout the year, but I definitely noticed the impact of reta when I did this week (first time I've had alcohol on reta). Drank less, drank slower, still felt like crap the day after however. Can't win them all though.
We march on!
