GLP-1 and the breaking the cycle

[cloratheshadow]

From the day I took my first shot I knew this time would be different. I’ve lost significant weight and regained significant weight back. I’ve yo-yo dieted for 15 years, since I was a young girl. I white knuckled diets until I was so hungry and deprived that I binged anything I could find. I’d wake up every morning thinking “this is my day one. We will follow the plan today” just to succumb to my cravings. Following would be crippling self loathing, something that I would use as an excuse to overindulge again. It would always be “if I can lose this weight…if I can get my eating under control…”

Now, every day I wake up feeling satisfied. Never needing more than I’m supposed to have. Choosing healthy foods because I know I will feel better if I do. Step on the scale and down it goes every time. Each time I weigh in is a renewal of my confidence in myself and this medication. I think about the clothes I’ll wear and the things I’ll do that I haven’t been able to do. I think about what my style will be. I think about how people will treat me better. How the first insult they think of or descriptor they use will no longer be “fat girl”

I know now this will happen for me. It’s inevitable. And easier than ever. I feel a renewal of hope that my life will be fulfilling and I can be whoever I want to be, my shackles released.

Especially grateful to the grey market affording me an endless supply of very expensive medication. I get to experience something that some people only dream of.

85 lbs lost today. 60 of it without GLP, 25 lbs of it lost in 2.5 months on peps.

SW: 330 CW: 245 GW: 160

 

[desinr-gal]

Great job!.. My advice if you want any; is don't rush the weight loss. Don't titrate quickly..

Give your body time to adjust. Your organs need to process all that fat breaking down and sometimes it overwhelms them.

drink lots of water and eat healthy foods. walk whenever you can it helps.

You will get there enjoy the ride.

 

[Sasquatch]

Congratulations! It does wonders for one's mental health too, doesn't it?

 

[Grogu]

From the day I took my first shot I knew this time would be different. I’ve lost significant weight and regained significant weight back. I’ve yo-yo dieted for 15 years, since I was a young girl. I white knuckled diets until I was so hungry and deprived that I binged anything I could find. I’d wake up every morning thinking “this is my day one. We will follow the plan today” just to succumb to my cravings. Following would be crippling self loathing, something that I would use as an excuse to overindulge again. It would always be “if I can lose this weight…if I can get my eating under control…”

Now, every day I wake up feeling satisfied. Never needing more than I’m supposed to have. Choosing healthy foods because I know I will feel better if I do. Step on the scale and down it goes every time. Each time I weigh in is a renewal of my confidence in myself and this medication. I think about the clothes I’ll wear and the things I’ll do that I haven’t been able to do. I think about what my style will be. I think about how people will treat me better. How the first insult they think of or descriptor they use will no longer be “fat girl”

I know now this will happen for me. It’s inevitable. And easier than ever. I feel a renewal of hope that my life will be fulfilling and I can be whoever I want to be, my shackles released.

Especially grateful to the grey market affording me an endless supply of very expensive medication. I get to experience something that some people only dream of.

85 lbs lost today. 60 of it without GLP, 25 lbs of it lost in 2.5 months on peps.

SW: 330 CW: 245 GW: 160

Congratulations on your great success. Not only since being on glp-1s, but the 60lbs before that. I’m sure your post will resonate with many people in the forum. I absolutely love this particular line:

I feel a renewal of hope that my life will be fulfilling and I can be whoever I want to be, my shackles released.

YES, these are life altering medications and YES, shackles released.

 

[Smiter]

is don't rush the weight loss. Don't titrate quickly

I reiterate this again. Minimal effective dose. Memorize that phrase. And I concur, this is life-changing medication the likes of which has never been seen. It is literally a bulwark against the malicious actions of the nefarious elites destroying the people. We can't do much against microplastics, but now obesity is a breakable wall.

 

[FartfulCodger]

Well-written and very relatable! Congrats!

 

[axlbul]

 

[lessthanhalf]

Congrats on your success, and the sense of hope these drugs can produce.

After losing lots of weight and fighting to keep it off for a year, GLP drugs made it less difficult, and allowed me to be reasonably confident I could keep it off this time, rather than weight regain being the most likely long term outcome based on so many past experiences. I am trying to keep off almost exactly what you are aiming for , a bit over 50%.

Despite all the comments in here about lowest dose possible, I think given you are trying to lose and keep off 170 lbs, that is not likely to be the best advice. If low doses are working, weight is being lost and not requiring huge mental effort to stick to your diet, then low doses are probably fine. But given you want to lose 170/330 = 51% body weight, it is above the average results of any trial of any glp yet at full doses, so getting to higher doses is almost certainly going to be needed eventually.

And if you stop losing weight before your target on maximum doses , you may need to add in cagri or another GLP or higher than max standard doses or you might be a super responder and get there on just tirz or reta. Depending a bit on age, there are some good arguments to stay on full dose GLP drugs long term, given the degree of overweight, for the health benefits of GLP drugs in reducing diabetes and heart disease and cancers in the long term.

 

[cloratheshadow]

]

Congrats on your success, and the sense of hope these drugs can produce.

After losing lots of weight and fighting to keep it off for a year, GLP drugs made it less difficult, and allowed me to be reasonably confident I could keep it off this time, rather than weight regain being the most likely long term outcome based on so many past experiences. I am trying to keep off almost exactly what you are aiming for , a bit over 50%.

Despite all the comments in here about lowest dose possible, I think given you are trying to lose and keep off 170 lbs, that is not likely to be the best advice. If low doses are working, weight is being lost and not requiring huge mental effort to stick to your diet, then low doses are probably fine. But given you want to lose 170/330 = 51% body weight, it is above the average results of any trial of any glp yet at full doses, so getting to higher doses is almost certainly going to be needed eventually.

And if you stop losing weight before your target on maximum doses , you may need to add in cagri or another GLP or higher than max standard doses or you might be a super responder and get there on just tirz or reta. Depending a bit on age, there are some good arguments to stay on full dose GLP drugs long term, given the degree of overweight, for the health benefits of GLP drugs in reducing diabetes and heart disease and cancers in the long term.

Thank you for all of this! I already did increase to 7.5 tirz already and also take .5 Cagri and it’s been so great. 5mg I didn’t lose for about 3 weeks! So far 7.5 has been so great and I’m hoping to stay here for a while! Thank you for the advice!

 

[Smiter]

]

Thank you for all of this! I already did increase to 7.5 tirz already and also take .5 Cagri and it’s been so great. 5mg I didn’t lose for about 3 weeks! So far 7.5 has been so great and I’m hoping to stay here for a while! Thank you for the advice!

May all your 85lbs of lard be utterly annihilated by 7.5mg of Tirz and 0.5mg of Cagri doublehandedly. Make sure to cherish the demise of every one of those cursed adipocytes. Celebrate the hell out of them. Enjoying their peril is of the utmost necessity.

 

[CJsMom]

Wow! Congratulations on how far you’ve come!

 

[Smiter]

If low doses are working, weight is being lost and not requiring huge mental effort to stick to your diet, then low doses are probably fine. But given you want to lose 170/330 = 51% body weight, it is above the average results of any trial of any glp yet at full doses,

Hey <1/2, how you doing? So, don't you think that premise is problematic? I mean, since she started GLp with around 110lbs to go and now has eighty-five lbs to go, shouldn't the calculation be with this number in mind? As in, 110lbs of 270, that is 40% is what she needs to lose. The reason I ask is, when looking at the amount of weight one needs to use GLp's to erode, does it make sense looking at the maximum weight one has ever been? For example, I used to be 361lbs at my heaviest. I did my sleeve surgery when I was 309lbs. I started GLP on 255lbs. I want to get to 176lbs before getting up to 210-215. Do you think then that past numbers would obfuscate one's perspective and maybe make the task appear more daunting than it needs to be?

 

[lessthanhalf]

I think the maximum weight does matter, depends a bit on when it was. If it was 10 years ago maybe not so much , but if it was within the last few years I think it matters. If you are restarting the process at 270 lbs, it is different if you had previously lost 70 pounds or zero. If you have lost 70 pounds then it has required a fairly long period of calorie restriction to get there and almost certainly there will be a fair bit of metabolic adaptation to that low calorie input as your body tries hard to conserve energy and fat stores, so daily energy expenditure will be lower by an amount that seems to vary a lot between different people. In me it dropped by about half over a year to need a maintenance intake of 1600-1800 kcal at 75kg vs 3200-3600 at 145kg, some of this was due to less fat and non fat cells metabolising, but some was due to adaptation, and in me it did not change, and stayed at 1600-1800 kcal /day for the next few years till now. So mid to late 2023 til 2026.

There was a thread on here recently by someone on 800 kcal/day , and basically no one really believed it was possible to survive on such a low calorie input, but in his context of very long term massive weight loss maintenance and trying to lose more weight it is not impossible that he was only eating that little to lose weight slowly, assuming his energy expenditure had dropped down to under 1500kcal/day, which is not drastically less than I experienced.

I think the degree to which this happens is pretty variable, and probably depends on age and activity level, and how long obesity has been present and how messed up the hormonal and regulating systems that control weight and appetite are. ( the fact that diabetics lose less weight on glps than non diabetics is fairly good evidence that this is actually an issue ) It is not impossible to still lose weight but a calorie deficit has to come from a lower than average calorie budget requiring even lower daily calorie input. Exercise probably helps, but almost certainly in a post weight loss state ( and especially in a post massive weight loss state ) the standard calculations about how many calories a certain exercise will consume are not going to be close to accurate. I had zero difference in weight loss rates on the same calorie input walking 3 hours per day versus doing nothing, when it should be 1-2kg per month weight difference.

The only thing that got me to lose any more weight after that was tirz15mg/reta5mg, that got me to 65kg over about 10 months, presumably by dropping calorie intake by about 100-200 kcal/day - it is very difficult to estimate calories that accurately without actually measuring everything. Though chapgpt did a pretty good job and is much quicker than looking everything up and calculating by hand. But to be accurate requires real exact weights of everything, which I generally am not going to do as my estimates are fairly close , within 10% which is usually good enough.

 

[Smiter]

I think the maximum weight does matter, depends a bit on when it was. If it was 10 years ago maybe not so much , but if it was within the last few years I think it matters. If you are restarting the process at 270 lbs, it is different if you had previously lost 70 pounds or zero. If you have lost 70 pounds then it has required a fairly long period of calorie restriction to get there and almost certainly there will be a fair bit of metabolic adaptation to that low calorie input as your body tries hard to conserve energy and fat stores, so daily energy expenditure will be lower by an amount that seems to vary a lot between different people. In me it dropped by about half over a year to need a maintenance intake of 1600-1800 kcal at 75kg vs 3200-3600 at 145kg, some of this was due to less fat and non fat cells metabolising, but some was due to adaptation, and in me it did not change, and stayed at 1600-1800 kcal /day for the next few years till now. So mid to late 2023 til 2026.

There was a thread on here recently by someone on 800 kcal/day , and basically no one really believed it was possible to survive on such a low calorie input, but in his context of very long term massive weight loss maintenance and trying to lose more weight it is not impossible that he was only eating that little to lose weight slowly, assuming his energy expenditure had dropped down to under 1500kcal/day, which is not drastically less than I experienced.

I think the degree to which this happens is pretty variable, and probably depends on age and activity level, and how long obesity has been present and how messed up the hormonal and regulating systems that control weight and appetite are. ( the fact that diabetics lose less weight on glps than non diabetics is fairly good evidence that this is actually an issue ) It is not impossible to still lose weight but a calorie deficit has to come from a lower than average calorie budget requiring even lower daily calorie input. Exercise probably helps, but almost certainly in a post weight loss state ( and especially in a post massive weight loss state ) the standard calculations about how many calories a certain exercise will consume are not going to be close to accurate. I had zero difference in weight loss rates on the same calorie input walking 3 hours per day versus doing nothing, when it should be 1-2kg per month weight difference.

The only thing that got me to lose any more weight after that was tirz15mg/reta5mg, that got me to 65kg over about 10 months, presumably by dropping calorie intake by about 100-200 kcal/day - it is very difficult to estimate calories that accurately without actually measuring everything. Though chapgpt did a pretty good job and is much quicker than looking everything up and calculating by hand. But to be accurate requires real exact weights of everything, which I generally am not going to do as my estimates are fairly close , within 10% which is usually good enough.

Thanks for that, man. Love picking your brain, though, I am often too damn lazy to respond. Today, however, I have to stay awake for a while longer. In the interest of brevity, not my indolence, I will summarize. IMO, that phrase- metabolic adaptation- this is what it boils down to. As obese people, most of us suffer from some form of metabolic maladaptation. And from your post I understand you were talking about reduced calorific consumption being necessary as one loses more weight, in order to maintain the weight loss.

My take is that yes, it takes time to fix the hormonal/regulatory system. Nevertheless, TDEE, can be manipulated too. If one were to build muscle mass, the resulting energy consumption and the myokine production would absolutely counter the cytokine/interleukin mess that obesity confers. Coincidentally, that YT video @ColdSmoke just posted, shows the guest doctor talking about it, albeit very superficially.

All that to say, if the Op were to stay on minimal effective dose, and build a reasonable amount of muscle, it may not be all that farfetched that she could achieve the desired Body Recomposition goals Without needing an overexaggerated dose. I'm not saying that one can't do it that way, but if we go by your own assertion about keeping the highest dose on AFTER achieving desired weight, I would consider it a credible proposition to position oneself to needing the lowest dose possible.

 

[desinr-gal]

Congrats on your success, and the sense of hope these drugs can produce.

After losing lots of weight and fighting to keep it off for a year, GLP drugs made it less difficult, and allowed me to be reasonably confident I could keep it off this time, rather than weight regain being the most likely long term outcome based on so many past experiences. I am trying to keep off almost exactly what you are aiming for , a bit over 50%.

Despite all the comments in here about lowest dose possible, I think given you are trying to lose and keep off 170 lbs, that is not likely to be the best advice. If low doses are working, weight is being lost and not requiring huge mental effort to stick to your diet, then low doses are probably fine. But given you want to lose 170/330 = 51% body weight, it is above the average results of any trial of any glp yet at full doses, so getting to higher doses is almost certainly going to be needed eventually.

And if you stop losing weight before your target on maximum doses , you may need to add in cagri or another GLP or higher than max standard doses or you might be a super responder and get there on just tirz or reta. Depending a bit on age, there are some good arguments to stay on full dose GLP drugs long term, given the degree of overweight, for the health benefits of GLP drugs in reducing diabetes and heart disease and cancers in the long term.

Every body responds differently.. I agree with the first part, if you are losing at a reasonable rate then stay low as long as you can. Less side effects, less money, and you give your body time to adjust. I know someone who lost their gall bladder.. it was overwhelmed by the GLP effects. There is NO need to rush, this is your life, not a race to the finish. The studies have shown that people can and do continue to lose weight beyond a year out.

Much of that will depend on your habits and dietary choices. Dr Joseph goes over this in a you tube video, about keeping the weight off.. you may want to watch.

 

[Smiter]

Every body responds differently.. I agree with the first part, if you are losing at a reasonable rate then stay low as long as you can. Less side effects, less money, and you give your body time to adjust. I know someone who lost their gall bladder.. it was overwhelmed by the GLP effects. There is NO need to rush, this is your life, not a race to the finish. The studies have shown that people can and do continue to lose weight beyond a year out.

Much of that will depend on your habits and dietary choices. Dr Joseph goes over this in a you tube video, about keeping the weight off.. you may want to watch.

Yeah, we're on the same boat, Lady D. I have to prepare for the worst, even while hoping for the best. Unless folks are hoardmasters with oodles of gold at their disposal, one must be prepared to make sustainable healthy habits the goal, with GLPs being the means to an end, not the end itself.

 

[lessthanhalf]

very body responds differently.. I agree with the first part, if you are losing at a reasonable rate then stay low as long as you can. Less side effects, less money, and you give your body time to adjust. I know someone who lost their gall bladder.. it was overwhelmed by the GLP effects. There is NO need to rush, this is your life, not a race to the finish. The studies have shown that people can and do continue to lose weight beyond a year out.

Much of that will depend on your habits and dietary choices. Dr Joseph goes over this in a you tube video, about keeping the weight off.. you may want to watch.

With respect to gallstones, GLP drugs do increase the chances of getting them, but a fair proportion of this is from weight loss, which causes gallstones with or without GLP drugs.

What I am saying here mostly applies to more severe obesity rather than overweight issues.

The way I see diet and exercise as a treatment for obesity is different, As far as I am concerned very few people actually achieve long term sustainable changes in diet and exercise patterns. Short term, yes most can do it , but the fact that most weight lost on diets is put back on is good evidence that sustaining those changes long term is mostly something that is too difficult for people to achieve. So I view those options as basically advocating a therapy that does not work, except in a small minority.

The reason for this is simply that post weight loss, energy expenditure is reduced and hunger is increased, so that long term maintenance will always require less calories than your body tells you to eat. Maybe after many years this improves a bit.

GLP drugs work to fix obesity in most people, there are a few unlucky ones who do not lose much weight, but for most people they are quite effective. They work regardless of whether you improve eating or exercise patterns. Obviously it is better for health overall if these are improved, and GLP drugs do improve food choices, with no conscious effort. But they still work, even if all they do is make you eat smaller amounts of an unhealthy diet.

Seeing GLP drugs as a small part of the solution is mostly like using them as part of a standard diet, where constant conscious effort is used to control food intake, and the drugs just help to control the excess hunger. The problem I see with that is that the constant conscious effort is what fails eventually as it is not something that most people can sustain in the very long term, whereas the GLP effect on food intake is much more consistent and reliable and does not show any tendency to drop off in the long term, allowing long term weight loss, as opposed to diet based approaches that work short term , but fail long term.

If GLP drugs had adverse long term effects, keeping doses low as much as possible would make sense, but especially in those at increased risk of health problems due to obesity, GLP drugs reduce long term illness, and higher doses are more effective than lower doses at achieving this. In people without severe obesity lower doses do make sense.

 

[Gt3294a]

Seeing GLP drugs as a small part of the solution is mostly like using them as part of a standard diet, where constant conscious effort is used to control food intake, and the drugs just help to control the excess hunger.

This applies no matter what your starting weight is depending on how lean you want to be. So many people now dial in the, eg, Reta dose to precisely how many calories you want to take in for the day. Just met a dude saying he’s starting now he is 8 months out from a competition. It’s like why suffer through the starving feeling all the time? Once these came out, I was wow, this could be something good….

 

[ici_guy19]

From the day I took my first shot I knew this time would be different. I’ve lost significant weight and regained significant weight back. I’ve yo-yo dieted for 15 years, since I was a young girl. I white knuckled diets until I was so hungry and deprived that I binged anything I could find. I’d wake up every morning thinking “this is my day one. We will follow the plan today” just to succumb to my cravings. Following would be crippling self loathing, something that I would use as an excuse to overindulge again. It would always be “if I can lose this weight…if I can get my eating under control…”

Now, every day I wake up feeling satisfied. Never needing more than I’m supposed to have. Choosing healthy foods because I know I will feel better if I do. Step on the scale and down it goes every time. Each time I weigh in is a renewal of my confidence in myself and this medication. I think about the clothes I’ll wear and the things I’ll do that I haven’t been able to do. I think about what my style will be. I think about how people will treat me better. How the first insult they think of or descriptor they use will no longer be “fat girl”

I know now this will happen for me. It’s inevitable. And easier than ever. I feel a renewal of hope that my life will be fulfilling and I can be whoever I want to be, my shackles released.

Especially grateful to the grey market affording me an endless supply of very expensive medication. I get to experience something that some people only dream of.

85 lbs lost today. 60 of it without GLP, 25 lbs of it lost in 2.5 months on peps.

SW: 330 CW: 245 GW: 160

Wow this is a great success story. Thanks for sharing. The general public is just starting to understand how life changing these meds are.

 

[desinr-gal]

With respect to gallstones, GLP drugs do increase the chances of getting them, but a fair proportion of this is from weight loss, which causes gallstones with or without GLP drugs.

What I am saying here mostly applies to more severe obesity rather than overweight issues.

The way I see diet and exercise as a treatment for obesity is different, As far as I am concerned very few people actually achieve long term sustainable changes in diet and exercise patterns. Short term, yes most can do it , but the fact that most weight lost on diets is put back on is good evidence that sustaining those changes long term is mostly something that is too difficult for people to achieve. So I view those options as basically advocating a therapy that does not work, except in a small minority.

The reason for this is simply that post weight loss, energy expenditure is reduced and hunger is increased, so that long term maintenance will always require less calories than your body tells you to eat. Maybe after many years this improves a bit.

GLP drugs work to fix obesity in most people, there are a few unlucky ones who do not lose much weight, but for most people they are quite effective. They work regardless of whether you improve eating or exercise patterns. Obviously it is better for health overall if these are improved, and GLP drugs do improve food choices, with no conscious effort. But they still work, even if all they do is make you eat smaller amounts of an unhealthy diet.

Seeing GLP drugs as a small part of the solution is mostly like using them as part of a standard diet, where constant conscious effort is used to control food intake, and the drugs just help to control the excess hunger. The problem I see with that is that the constant conscious effort is what fails eventually as it is not something that most people can sustain in the very long term, whereas the GLP effect on food intake is much more consistent and reliable and does not show any tendency to drop off in the long term, allowing long term weight loss, as opposed to diet based approaches that work short term , but fail long term.

If GLP drugs had adverse long term effects, keeping doses low as much as possible would make sense, but especially in those at increased risk of health problems due to obesity, GLP drugs reduce long term illness, and higher doses are more effective than lower doses at achieving this. In people without severe obesity lower doses do make sense.

We are all in agreement about the points you made in favor of glps. The issue is the benefit of pushing to highest dose as quickly as possible as you seem to advocate, versus taking it more slowly. In the first case there are very many people who can't handle the side effects and who quit. So they derive zero benefit. Then there are people who develop physical conditions that require medical interventions.. You act like having to have a gallbladder surgically removed is just par for the course in weight loss. That is untrue. You can lose huge amounts of weight without terrible problems if you proceed more slowly.

I never said you should rely on diet and exercise alone.. But good dietary choices will lessen the side effects, as will exercise like simply walking. These things improve health in general. Yes you can lose weight without them.

No one suggested micro-dosing to lose hundreds of pounds.