Hi everyone, I need your advice. I've been using Sema for a year now and have had very good results – I lost 30 kg. Later, I switched to MJ, taking breaks along the way. I don't remember my maximum dose of Sema , but it wasn't very high, at least not the maximum. (I had some really strong side effects, so I didn't increase it any further.) I did go up to 5.0 mg of MJ once, but never again. At 2.5 mg, I didn't have strong effects, but enough that I could still control myself reasonably well. Now I'm taking Reta 1 mg. Almost no effect at all (week 2). I only feel a strong pulse after consuming caffeine, like energy drinks or coffee (is that normal?). Now I've read that you can combine several medications like Cagri to reduce your appetite. What would you do? I'm going shopping soon and I don't know how to proceed.
Switch MJ to Reta Dosage and advice
- Thread starter RetaMax
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1mg of Reta is a pretty low dose. I didn’t feel much until I hit 1.5mg. What’s your goal? Are you trying to lose a lot of weight or is it mostly body recomp at this point? Before anything else, I would try titrating up and see how you feel. Maybe try one week at 1.25 and then the next at 1.5. If you’re trying to lose a lot more weight then adding Cag isn’t a bad idea. But Reta does a pretty good job on its own once you find the right dose. If you’re trying to hit your protein goal every day and it’s high, I don’t think I would add cag. Currently at 2mg with Reta and that makes me feel full most of the day already.
Since you've already been on other GLP-1's upping your reta a little at a time would make sense, the starting clinical dose is 2mg. First timers may find satisfactory responses at lower levels but obviously you aren't . Using a concentration tracker like GLP-1 Tracker can help you find the sweet spot as you escalate your dosage. It takes 4 weeks for your concentration level to reach it's peak.
Are you on a 7 day cycle? I've found split dosing to be more effective to keep my appetite suppressed as well as lowering my side effects. You might want to consider a 3.5 day cycle.
I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now up to 1.5mg a week split into 2, .75mg doses. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat) averaging 2lbs of weight loss a week.
You may want to try 2mg a week on a split dosage (1mg every 3.5 days) and see how you respond for a couple of weeks.
Are you on a 7 day cycle? I've found split dosing to be more effective to keep my appetite suppressed as well as lowering my side effects. You might want to consider a 3.5 day cycle.
I'm 9 weeks in (first timer and very responsive) and now up to 1.5mg a week split into 2, .75mg doses. Appetite suppression is good (I have to remind myself to eat) averaging 2lbs of weight loss a week.
You may want to try 2mg a week on a split dosage (1mg every 3.5 days) and see how you respond for a couple of weeks.
Thank you so much for your reply! How would you divide a 2mg dose, for example? Yes, I'm on a 7-day cycle. Should I increase to 2mg now in week 3, or wait the full 4 weeks? Would you generally say I should stay on Reta or increase the dose with Mounjaro, since my maximum there was already 5.0mg?
RetCurious said:
I've done 4 week cycles. 2, 4 and just started 5mg. I was going to do 6mg, but I'm losing 2.5lbs/week average. I'll see what's up on the scale after 4 weeks on 5mg. I don't mess with anything else but Reta.
RetaMax said:
You might as well increase it now as your not getting what you need out of it, just ease into it so you don't over do it. You're at 1 mg every 7 days now, you could pin ,75mg on your next pin day and follow it up 3.5 days later with another .75 mg. That would in effect be increasing your current dosage by .5 mg (from 1mg to 1.5mg) per week. Run that for a couple of weeks and reassess. So far as mixing the different drugs I'm not a fan personally, it complicates the experiment and muddies the water. I can see it when someone maxes out on their med and has a long term stall but that's over my head and others could advise on that if you ever get there.
As you can see on the concentration graph, at 2 weeks you're not at peak concentration yet.
Note the peaks and valleys have a rising level of reta due to the half life.
If you move up to .75mg twice a week (every 3.5 days) your 3rd week in at that dose your valley will be higher than your current peak. Also note your split dosing also has the benefit of smaller swings between peaks and valleys resulting in less stress on your system adapting to the new metabolism. .75mg twice a week is pretty conservative so far as increases go, you may want to go to 1mg twice a week . The worst that can happen is a little nausea and constipation for a few days.
The advice in the above post seems sensible enough , if increasing doses more often than every 4 weeks , smaller more frequent doses do make prolonged unpleasant side effects less likely.
It would probably help to know what side effects you got from semaglutide, and you say 2.5 mg of tirzepatide did not do much but 5mg was never again which is a bit confusing, what were the problems with 5mg tirzepatide?
It makes a difference as if 5mg of tirz was a problem , then you are probably fairly sensitive to side effects and it would mean being more careful increasing doses and increasing doses a bit at a time and generally slower rather than faster. Going straight to 2 mg of reta is very unlikely to be a problem, but I would not increase from 2mg to 4mg but to 3mg afterwards in that case, and probably only go up one mg at a time after that. The most common side effects by far are gut symptoms , mainly nausea, but these usually do very slowly improve over months so it might be possible to increase doses a bit later even if it causes issues at first. If you do get side effects that are a problem just go back to the previous dose and leave it there for a few months.
It would probably help to know what side effects you got from semaglutide, and you say 2.5 mg of tirzepatide did not do much but 5mg was never again which is a bit confusing, what were the problems with 5mg tirzepatide?
It makes a difference as if 5mg of tirz was a problem , then you are probably fairly sensitive to side effects and it would mean being more careful increasing doses and increasing doses a bit at a time and generally slower rather than faster. Going straight to 2 mg of reta is very unlikely to be a problem, but I would not increase from 2mg to 4mg but to 3mg afterwards in that case, and probably only go up one mg at a time after that. The most common side effects by far are gut symptoms , mainly nausea, but these usually do very slowly improve over months so it might be possible to increase doses a bit later even if it causes issues at first. If you do get side effects that are a problem just go back to the previous dose and leave it there for a few months.
Thank you so much, I'll try it.
Would you recommend I stay on Reta or start with Mounjaro and increase the dose? My appetite is very good so far. Yesterday I had my third Reta injection (1 mg).
Would you recommend I stay on Reta or start with Mounjaro and increase the dose? My appetite is very good so far. Yesterday I had my third Reta injection (1 mg).
RetCurious said:
lessthanhalf said:
I have to guess a lot given I do not know the basics like start BMI ,weight, age sema dose etc.
Given you have already lost 30kg , and you want to lose 10 more I assume that is something like a 40% weight loss, which would be fantastic and better than the average for full dose reta, but there is a lot of variation in responses and it sounds like you respond well to them.
Reta is the most effective for weight loss, about 5% better than tirz.
Tirz probably has the least amount of side effects for all the GLP drugs.
I don't think it matters a lot which one you use, given the response so far to an unknown dose of semaglutide and 5mg of tirz, you are fairly likely to get to your goal weight with either of them, the dose of reta so far is too small to tell if side effects are going to be a problem or not. So either keep going with reta now you have already started switching over, or go back to tirz. Without knowing your age and other medical history, it is harder to be sure about this but you might be better off long term on maximum doses or either reta 12mg or tirz 15mg, assuming side effects are not a problem and obviously increasing doses slowly.
Being 40% overweight, is enough on its own to carry very high risks of long term health problems, and much more so or at least sooner if older, have high blood pressure or cholesterol or blood sugars. Taking these at full doses long term is more likely to prevent serious long term health issues like diabetes, heart disease, stroke and several cancers independently of any effects on reducing weight. Taking them at smaller doses will definitely help, but maybe not quite as much. Just to be complete these effects are proven for tirz, but not yet for reta, but it is very likely it applies to reta, but the research on this is not yet done.
Given you have already lost 30kg , and you want to lose 10 more I assume that is something like a 40% weight loss, which would be fantastic and better than the average for full dose reta, but there is a lot of variation in responses and it sounds like you respond well to them.
Reta is the most effective for weight loss, about 5% better than tirz.
Tirz probably has the least amount of side effects for all the GLP drugs.
I don't think it matters a lot which one you use, given the response so far to an unknown dose of semaglutide and 5mg of tirz, you are fairly likely to get to your goal weight with either of them, the dose of reta so far is too small to tell if side effects are going to be a problem or not. So either keep going with reta now you have already started switching over, or go back to tirz. Without knowing your age and other medical history, it is harder to be sure about this but you might be better off long term on maximum doses or either reta 12mg or tirz 15mg, assuming side effects are not a problem and obviously increasing doses slowly.
Being 40% overweight, is enough on its own to carry very high risks of long term health problems, and much more so or at least sooner if older, have high blood pressure or cholesterol or blood sugars. Taking these at full doses long term is more likely to prevent serious long term health issues like diabetes, heart disease, stroke and several cancers independently of any effects on reducing weight. Taking them at smaller doses will definitely help, but maybe not quite as much. Just to be complete these effects are proven for tirz, but not yet for reta, but it is very likely it applies to reta, but the research on this is not yet done.
My first week on Reta 2.5 mg was awful. Sleep disorders and zero appetite suppression. For the first time after 6 "clean" months I binge ate and then vomited like crazy 
. WTF!!! Needed to pin 2.5 TR to stop this nightmare. Helped a bit. My highest dose was TR 5 mg (MJ) and actually I am on maintenance with 55kg (121.25 lbs) with 30kg lost. Eating 100g+ proteins and around 1400 kcal daily, 17'000 + steps every day. My weight is stable for almost one month.
. WTF!!! Needed to pin 2.5 TR to stop this nightmare. Helped a bit. My highest dose was TR 5 mg (MJ) and actually I am on maintenance with 55kg (121.25 lbs) with 30kg lost. Eating 100g+ proteins and around 1400 kcal daily, 17'000 + steps every day. My weight is stable for almost one month.So, because of the side effects, you're suggesting Mounjaro instead of Reta?dailychemicals said:My first week on Reta 2.5 mg was awful. Sleep disorders and zero appetite suppression. For the first time after 6 "clean" months I binge ate and then vomited like crazy
I'd start all over with Reta. Assuming your goal is to lose/maintain weight start with small dose like 1mg or even smaller and slowly titrate up.RetaMax said:
If your goal is to feel like you're starving then add all the other stuff to make you feel that way. Personally, I wouldn't chase the food noise feeling like a drug high. When I switched to reta, I ate a little more but I lost more weight and I was fine with that.
Be patient and titrate slowly.
I 've been using Reta just for a couple of weeks, maybe it's a too short term to notice any changes but maybe my grey stuff is not of the best qualityRetaMax said:
)) For now even on 5 mg /week I don't see any effect in the terms of appetite suppression. Tirz 5 mg even starting from day 1 worked perfectly fine, but it wasn't grey stuff.
You're at 5mg at just a couple of weeks? How many is a couple of weeks?dailychemicals said:I 've been using Reta just for a couple of weeks, maybe it's a too short term to notice any changes but maybe my grey stuff is not of the best quality
Started with 2.5 mg for the first week and and due to return of hunger titrated up to 5 mg for the second week. So a couple of weeks it's literally two weeks. What about you? Are you planning to start pinning Reta /Tirz?BNLFL said:
I have been on Reta since early January. 2mg/4wks, 4mg/5wks and now 5mg second pin tomorrow.dailychemicals said:
SW 296 on Tirz 2.5mg Oct 2024
Dropped to 216 after titrating up to 15mg Triz over a year until Nov 2025 when I stalled for 2 months.
Switch to Reta in Jan. 2mg for 4 weeks. Then 4mg for 4 weeks. Dropped 3 lbs to 213 but stalled.
Was about to go up to 6mg Reta and then I read Jay Campbell advice on micro dosing. So I stated 3Mg every other day 2 weeks ago and have dropped a quick 4 lbs.
I also take Cargi .5mg 1x a week mid-week.
So...started 296lb, currently 209lbs. GW is 190lbs which I think I can hit by summertime.
Dropped to 216 after titrating up to 15mg Triz over a year until Nov 2025 when I stalled for 2 months.
Switch to Reta in Jan. 2mg for 4 weeks. Then 4mg for 4 weeks. Dropped 3 lbs to 213 but stalled.
Was about to go up to 6mg Reta and then I read Jay Campbell advice on micro dosing. So I stated 3Mg every other day 2 weeks ago and have dropped a quick 4 lbs.
I also take Cargi .5mg 1x a week mid-week.
So...started 296lb, currently 209lbs. GW is 190lbs which I think I can hit by summertime.
That is interesting , you went straight from 4mg a week to 3mg every 2nd day which is 10.5mg/week. I also have used 2nd day dosing to reduce side effects, but 4mg to 10.5/w is a big jump in dose in one go, even if split into smaller doses at once. You are not saying it had horrible side effects so it is obviously working for you.Celestar62 said:
No, really, I haven't had any side effects. I was prepared to drop back to 2mg every other day, but so far so good. But then I really only had some small side effects when I started Tirz. I seem to tolerate this stuff pretty well.lessthanhalf said:
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