Cycling or Life-long Use

[GimmeABreak]

I have no expertise in the matter at all, but one of my best personality traits is believing everything I read. This just popped up in my Reddit feed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Retatrutide/s/BHDSAWuYdI

About to take it as gospel truth, until I read something contradictory.

Nice find and thank you for posting it.

I plan to stabilize weight loss, move into maintain mode and then reduce dose/spread dosing schedule slowly, maybe even over years. Hopefully, to get to the point it is no longer needed but will let my jean size dictate dosage. Jeans are loose, need to reduce dose or spread out dosing. Jeans are tight do the reverse. Hopefully, this works and I don't have to slowly increase dose over time to just maintain. In either case, I have plenty of stock in my freezer.

 

[hotdog!]

What dose are people on that they can lose weight and eat whatever they want? I literally have to incorporate fasting to lose weight on this. I got off my fasting and gained 10 pounds while on 7.5 mg Tz. I kinda don't like you all that just lose weight without trying.

I'm willing to bet it's people who have a LOT more weight to lose, like 80-100lbs or more--the same ones who always lose a lot in the beginning of keto diets. I have been like that so far for these first 45 lbs. Now it's slowing down and I have ~40 more to lose. The last 20-30 lbs I know won't go easily.

So most people who just have a goal of 20-30 lbs to lose probably won't have that "eat whatever and lose a lot" experience.

And if they do, they simply experience much stronger appetite suppression than others.

 

[Sunflower]

Well shit, if that’s the case, I’m gonna go broke from this. Imagine if we have to go through actual medical providers in the future…

Really? I’m spending about $15/mo on GLP1s and saving about $600/mo on junk/ binge food I used to waste.

 

[Sunflower]

I caught a bit of the news the other day where it was reported that a new study showed that GLP-1s can have a positive effect on the gut micro biome for a long period following cessation of GLP-1s. I think a long term improvement in gut bacteria could feasibly have a continued positive effect on energy, appetite, and overall health.

Yep, and gut bacteria have an impact on your cravings. If someone changes their eating habits drastically on GLP1s, over time, their microbiome will shift, and potentially inflict different food preferences. I have been on them for 4.5 months now, and the sweet preference is still declining by the week, while my weight is stable and healthy. Before GLP1s, I could eat 90% sweets all day.

 

[hexagonal]

One thing about all of this is even if food noise and cravings come back, if before you were eating hyper-palatable calorie-dense food, and you just swap to eating high protein, high fiber, etc., you'll almost certainly get full faster than you were eating stuff with tons of refined sugar, carbs, and so on.

It's not perfect, and of course plenty of people struggle with weight even with diets that aren't full of the super calorie dense stuff, but some number of people will be able to keep their weight much closer to in range with that change. Being on tirz and then reta has made it much easier for me to eat that sort of food, and I'm hoping that is a habit I can continue once I reach my goal weight.

 

[ktg123]

I'm willing to bet it's people who have a LOT more weight to lose, like 80-100lbs or more--the same ones who always lose a lot in the beginning of keto diets. I have been like that so far for these first 45 lbs. Now it's slowing down and I have ~40 more to lose. The last 20-30 lbs I know won't go easily.

So most people who just have a goal of 20-30 lbs to lose probably won't have that "eat whatever and lose a lot" experience.

And if they do, they simply experience much stronger appetite suppression than others.

I lost 50 lbs in a year just doing keto and fasting although towards the end I was doing more fasting than I probably should have and even did carnivore for a few months. With 10 more pounds to go, I stalled. Then I started gaining, doing nothing different than I had been doing. I could tell my hormones were all jacked up. I gained back 30 of that 50 and decided I needed to do something different. Started Tirz and the first day I could tell that my hormones were back on track. I still eat healthy keto because that's what I've grown to like, but now I'm losing again and it seems pretty easy.

 

[Hawkeye512]

I think the overwhelming consensus, and the patient data shows, that if you stop you'll gain back. However, I also read something about a weight setpoint (it had a better medical description) that once you maintain a certain weight, your body's natural setpoint will slowly adjust to that. Takes years I think.

I have been on one form of these since 2021 and had to go off several times because I couldn't get Wegovy or ZepBound. It was hard to lose consistently when I was always having to start over. When I got cut off by my company's changing coverage last June, I ate the same but gained 2# a month, and after four months of that, I found and tried reta. Now I'm almost back to where I was last June and am losing very slowly, but still losing on a low dose.

These shots do more for me than help with weight loss; they seem to straighten out my many hormonal problems (Hashimoto's). I'm pretty sure once at goal in about 10 more pounds, I will choose to cycle on/off to give my body a break for a few months but then start back up again. It's so cost prohibitive that it's probably the only way I can keep doing it too, by staying on a lower dose.

I feel like if I just stay on it indefinitely, my body is going to get too used to it so I think of it like carb cycling, except it's peptide cycling. I have a SUPER slow metabolism so it seems to last more than 6 days for me. I just went 9 days between because I had sudden nausea and just could not eat, so I waited.