Reta and short breaks

[rpadevman]

My girlfriend and I have been on Reta for almost 3 months. We recently bumped it up to 4mg (last pinned 5 days ago). Now we have a 7 night cruise starting in 1 week, and we were thinking about not pinning again until after the cruise. After all, the free all you can eat is quite a main benefit of cruising! 😂

Anyway, has anyone taken a similar break? Do you think 12 days is enough to get our appetite back, and when we get back is it probably fine to just pick up at the same dose we were at before?

 

[woundcarping]

There’s no way I would skip two weeks just so I could eat more on a cruise.

I went to Orlando and Vegas in March, dosed regularly and came back lighter than when I left. Next weekend I’m headed east for a week, I’ll dose regularly then as well.

 

[HRH_IceQueen]

I'm in a similar predicament, I was on Reta at 4mg/wk, but split pinning to 2mg every 3.5 days. I have a procedure coming up that I have to stop all peps for 8 to 14 days prior. After that I'm traveling out of the country for about 2 weeks, so I'm planning to take a break for a month and start my Reta at 1mg for a week and titrate up every 2 weeks or depending on how my body respond to it until I'm where I was before.

 

[rpadevman]

There’s no way I would skip two weeks just so I could eat more on a cruise.

I went to Orlando and Vegas in March, dosed regularly and came back lighter than when I left. Next weekend I’m headed east for a week, I’ll dose regularly then as well.

Is there a particular reason or personal preference? Primarily I’m mostly concerned about health concerns and how to restart the dose. We have the drink package, so although I’m not planning on getting plastered, this is new territory for me.

 

[Mochizuki0124]

My personal opinion is that if you're taking reta more often than not you are trying to fix a eating habit that caused you to gain weight. Stopping it for the purpose of eating a lot kinda defeats the purpose.

Imo just lower your dose during the cruise and don't let yourself ruin months of work in 12 days.

 

[woundcarping]

Is there a particular reason or personal preference? Primarily I’m mostly concerned about health concerns and how to restart the dose. We have the drink package, so although I’m not planning on getting plastered, this is new territory for me.

Stopping and Restarting Certain GLP-1s to Lose Weight May Make the Drug Less Effective

Not that I'm looking at start another thread about the pros and cons of lifetime glp-1 use, since I think we've recently beaten that horse dead. But this article is a somewhat different twist and talks about cycling glp-1s and the potential for reduced effectiveness when cycling over staying on...

glp1forum.com

Penn Researchers: GLP-1 Medications and the Stop-Start Problem: New Research on Therapeutic Resistance

New research suggests that cycling on and off GLP-1 medications like semaglutide may cause therapeutic resistance — leaving patients potentially more obese than those who stayed on the drug continuously.

weightcontrol.com

Repeated Withdrawal of a GLPR Agonist Induces Hyperleptinemia and Deteriorates Metabolic Health in Obese Aging UM‐HET3 Mice - PMC

GLP‐1‐based therapy is highly effective in combating aging‐associated metabolic diseases. However, the metabolic effects of frequent withdrawal from this therapy in aged, obese mice have not been previously studied. In this study, aged obese UM‐HET3 ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Cycling resulting in reduced efficacy/potential is something I'd expressly like to avoid.

My personal opinion is that if you're taking reta more often than not you are trying to fix an eating habit that caused you to gain weight. Stopping it for the purpose of eating a lot kinda defeats the purpose.

This, but more strongly worded, was my initial thought for a response.

 

[Grrrem]

I went on a cruise last year and I wish I had reta back then! It would of certainly help stop the pointless indulgence in cheese, crackers and deserts at the end of the evening.

I can pretty much only have 2 alcoholic drinks within a 3 hour window while I'm on reta now so a drinks package would have been wasted on me, I can understand that would be frustrating if you've paid out the money for one. Has reta affected you and your gf's ability to drink much?

Personally I'd continue your weekly pins up until you are on the cruise. Enjoy yourselves a little whilst you're there. Do you not find your appetite increases a little a couple of days leading up to pinning anyways?

 

[Flash-BCR]

I'm in camp, 'Stay with your Reta/health lifestyle choice'. I'm to the point that I wouldn't want to miss a pin day and I would take it with me. I am on Tirz right now, and I still have some prescription pill containers that a compounder shipped some vials in to me. My plans for any near term travel is to just put a reconned vial in one of those (the containers have a script label on them), and put that with with a few syringes and alcohol wipes in a small insulin travel case...

I don't know about the OP, but my whole food world has changed. I can still enjoy food and would look forward to sampling many of the stuff the cruise would offer...but "all-you-can-eat" has a really, really diminished appeal to me. I mean, there's plenty of buffet, all-you-can-eat places around town I could go to without even having to go on a cruise...and that would be the last kind of place I would choose these days...I'm GLP for life. I have the fully stocked mini-freezer now to prove it... 😎

 

[5byfive]

I'm going on vacation next month and I'm thinking I may boost my dose just a bit that week. Too many good (bad) food options and the trip would be more enjoyable not fighting temptation the whole time. It sucks to lose a month of progress in a week. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again.

 

[woundcarping]

…I can understand that would be frustrating if you've paid out the money for one...

Sunk Cost Fallacy

I'm going on vacation next month and I'm thinking I may boost my dose just a bit that week. Too many good (bad) food options and the trip would be more enjoyable not fighting temptation the whole time. It sucks to lose a month of progress in a week. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again.

I’ve done/considered prophylactic dose increases, but at this stage in my journey I lean more towards status quo. I took a prophylactic Tirz bump on top of my Reta before my travels in March. I was much less trusting of my process then than I am now. I was dealing with TRT water retention going into the trip so I was a bit more “fragile.” I was down 30lb from my starting weight then and now I’m 40lb lighter than that trip and more “mature” and/or less anxious about the process.


For me, there’s practically no way I can eat enough in a week to offset a month of progress. I’ve lost more than 2lb of fat a week on average for more than 6 months. I’m physically incapable of eating 30k extra calories in a week. For me to gain 2lb of fat (offset my normal loss plus gain 2lb) I’d have to eat an extra 2k calories every day… unlikely.


My general take, is to not sweat the pretty stuff and don’t pet the sweaty stuff. Life is for living, not losing fat. Decision fatigue is real, a week break is unlikely to affect my long term outcome in a negative way.

 

[randompersonrandom]

I mean, I GOT fat by accepting "eat lots of high calorie food!" as an acceptable source of joy. Be damned if I'd go "Oh, I'm gonna quit taking the med that lets me exclude eating lots of high calorie food as a source of joy for a week so that I can eat lots of high calorie food for the joy of it." I'd do other fun things on the cruise.