I’ve had very low energy for over a year. I was put on estrogen and progesterone that made my other peri symptoms much better. Lately my low energy got worse and blamed reta. Then I realized my brainfog was getting worse too. I insisted on having testosterone and ferritin tested and both came back borderline low.

I am mad at my docs for never testing and mad at myself for not advocating more for myself.

I won’t get an appointment for a few weeks so I wanted to see if somebody here had success fixing ferritin and testosterone. Did it have effects on energy and brain fog? (I had IBS before reta, so my gut absorption isn’t great. I eat plenty of meat and poultry and have 8mg ferritin chelate a day for over 6 months now. )

Hi ladies. Some background on my journey.
I’ve been on hrt (estrogen patch/cyclical progesterone) for 8 months and on reta for 4 months. I am losing 5lbs a month and I am super happy with that. Lately my perimenopause symptoms increased and I needed to up my patch from .025 to .0375. Unfortunately my usual brand (Mylan) isn’t available and the brand I am now taking seems less effective.

I started creatine at the same time as the new patch, which seems to be awesome for my workouts and have a mild effect on my brain fog-but: I feel bloated and sluggish and my fat is more squishy. I feel like the Michelin man.

Is anyone experiencing this? What could remedy it? Is it the different brand patch, the creatine?

Also: is anyone in the us still getting Mylan?

I just went through a somewhat crazy workout at my gym and felt so proud that I made the time with deadlines looming and my house needing an urgent cleaning. I even took the time for a steam.
I looked around at all those humans that took the time out of their day to honor their bodies and I was so excited for every single one of them.

Because walking up to other gym goers and congratulating them on being stellar human being is kinda frowned upon- I am saying it here:

Taking the time to move your body is a great achievement! Every single time. You rock! End of PSA

My journey:
I am in perimenopause and have fought my weight my entire life. I have lost and gained weight repeatedly and it led to my metabolism being severely depressed.
I would stay in healthy deficits, workout regularly and eat clean within my macros and barely lose anything.

I went on HRT 6 months prior to starting reta (estrogen patch & cycled progesterone) and gained some extra weight without really noticing because I felt so much better. Then I stepped on a scale and almost tipped over in shock. I was at 212 lbs at 5‘4 and couldn’t believe it. A person I trust introduced me to reta and I researched the heck out of it before starting. I was so against glp‘s and it was really hard for me to see the light.

I have been on reta for 3 months now. It has been life changing. I feel more calm, less inflamed and have new found confidence. I no longer take my adhd medication. My ibs is in remission. I look younger and somehow „fresher“.

I lost 15lbs (but look like I lost 30lbs), 2 dress sizes and gained 1.9 lbs of lean muscle.
My belly, that wouldn’t budge with anything I did before, is almost gone. My lipedema in my legs is 70%down. My muscles are finally showing.

My skin is holding up well. Even my deflated belly that happened early on in my reta journey has lost the wrinkly look. I think that is the collagen and healthy food coming through for me.

My side effects:
Initially I had GI problems as my body adjusted to reta. I get tired when I am eating more processed foods or the dose is too high (not enough food).
I no longer care for chocolate, fast food or Diet Coke (shocking!). I care less what other people think and I almost lost my duo lingo streak twice (after 1200days of consistency!) Dopamine dependency definitely went down! Yay.

My dose:
I started with 0.5mg/week and slowly titrated up to 1.3mg over 3months.
I just went back to 1mg/week because I had to force myself to eat and drink.

My diet:
I eat mostly whole foods, not a lot of processed stuff. I supplement with an occasional high protein yoghurt, pudding or bar but try to keep within my macros with real foods and clean protein shakes.
I use MyFitnessPal to track everything I eat.
I am aiming for a minimum of 100g of protein a day and 80oz of water.

My workouts:
2-3 Lagree sessions per week
10k steps on all non workout days
\+one alternative workout/week (pickle ball, hike, aquatics)

Btw: A small amount of carbs before workouts was a game changer!

My plan:
I would like to release another 60lbs over the next 9-12 months. I will only titrate up when my food noise is creeping back. I am sticking with low dose/slow pace because 5lbs/month feels great to me and my skin and hair agree.
I am adding more heavy lifting to my workouts.

My supplements:
AM:
collagen+whey+cocoa+cinnamon+chia shake,
multivitamin, ubiquinol
PM:
magnesium glycinate, collagen capsules

Tips:

Do not get fomo from crazy success stories that you see or hear! You don’t know if it is real or if they are being healthy and every body is different. Listen to your body.

**Weight is not the main success indicator** . If you focus on numbers only, you will be disappointed. Hormones and workouts make my body fluctuate by 2-4lbs. I rely heavily on progress pictures and measurements. I also got a dexa scan in the beginning of my journey and will get another one in 2months.

**Use this time to build healthy habits.** Do not wait to lose the weight and then build muscle. You will see a bigger number on the scale but you will likely not like the way you look because you are losing muscle. And the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns. So do the smart thing.

**Check yourself!** You might think you are doing great by adding calories and macros in your head as you go through your day, but nothing beats writing down what you really eat and being able to check back when progress is slowing down. It’s normal to become somewhat complacent. I had crazy weeks where I had to substitute a lot with bars and other more processed foods and didn’t realize that I didn’t have a single vegetable or fruit all week. My app pointed it out for me and I made changes.

Reta is a tool. The more work you put in, the better it works. Not eating or working out will catch up with you- be proactive. You might not see the big numbers right away. But I promise the body recomposition you will experience when you eat well and work out on reta will blow your mind. Good luck on your journey

My journey:
I am in perimenopause and have fought my weight my entire life. I have lost and gained weight repeatedly and it led to my metabolism being severely depressed.
I would stay in healthy deficits, workout regularly and eat clean within my macros and barely lose anything.

I went on HRT 6 months prior to starting reta (estrogen patch & cycled progesterone) and gained some extra weight without really noticing because I felt so much better. Then I stepped on a scale and almost tipped over in shock. I was at 212 lbs at 5‘4 and couldn’t believe it. A person I trust introduced me to reta and I researched the heck out of it before starting. I was so against glp‘s and it was really hard for me to see the light.

I have been on reta for 3 months now. It has been life changing. I feel more calm, less inflamed and have new found confidence. I no longer take my adhd medication. My ibs is in remission. I look younger and somehow „fresher“.

I lost 15lbs (but look like I lost 30lbs), 2 dress sizes and gained 1.9 lbs of lean muscle.
My belly, that wouldn’t budge with anything I did before, is almost gone. My lipedema in my legs is 70%down. My muscles are finally showing.

My skin is holding up well. Even my deflated belly that happened early on in my reta journey has lost the wrinkly look. I think that is the collagen and healthy food coming through for me.

My side effects:
Initially I had GI problems as my body adjusted to reta. I get tired when I am eating more processed foods or the dose is too high (not enough food).
I no longer care for chocolate, fast food or Diet Coke (shocking!). I care less what other people think and I almost lost my duo lingo streak twice (after 1200days of consistency!) Dopamine dependency definitely went down! Yay.

My dose:
I started with 0.5mg/week and slowly titrated up to 1.3mg over 3months.
I just went back to 1mg/week because I had to force myself to eat and drink.

My diet:
I eat mostly whole foods, not a lot of processed stuff. I supplement with an occasional high protein yoghurt, pudding or bar but try to keep within my macros with real foods and clean protein shakes.
I use MyFitnessPal to track everything I eat.
I am aiming for a minimum of 100g of protein a day and 80oz of water.

My workouts:
2-3 Lagree sessions per week
10k steps on all non workout days
+one alternative workout/week (pickle ball, hike, aquatics)

Btw: A small amount of carbs before workouts was a game changer!

My plan:
I would like to release another 60lbs over the next 9-12 months. I will only titrate up when my food noise is creeping back. I am sticking with low dose/slow pace because 5lbs/month feels great to me and my skin and hair agree.
I am adding more heavy lifting to my workouts.

My supplements:
AM:
collagen+whey+cocoa+cinnamon+chia shake,
multivitamin, ubiquinol
PM:
magnesium glycinate, collagen capsules

Tips:

Do not get fomo from crazy success stories that you see or hear! You don’t know if it is real or if they are being healthy and every body is different. Listen to your body.

Weight is not the main success indicator . If you focus on numbers only, you will be disappointed. Hormones and workouts make my body fluctuate by 2-4lbs. I rely heavily on progress pictures and measurements. I also got a dexa scan in the beginning of my journey and will get another one in 2months.

Use this time to build healthy habits. Do not wait to lose the weight and then build muscle. You will see a bigger number on the scale but you will likely not like the way you look because you are losing muscle. And the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns. So do the smart thing.

Check yourself! You might think you are doing great by adding calories and macros in your head as you go through your day, but nothing beats writing down what you really eat and being able to check back when progress is slowing down. It’s normal to become somewhat complacent. I had crazy weeks where I had to substitute a lot with bars and other more processed foods and didn’t realize that I didn’t have a single vegetable or fruit all week. My app pointed it out for me and I made changes.

Reta is a tool. The more work you put in, the better it works. Not eating or working out will catch up with you- be proactive. You might not see the big numbers right away. But I promise the body recomposition you will experience when you eat well and work out on reta will blow your mind. Good luck on your journey

Hi all, I have plans to come off my GLP-1 medication, and instead of just winging it and hoping for the best, I went back through a load of the detailed success story posts on this sub (the AMAs, the 1-year and 2-year updates, the "what's your secret" threads) and pulled together everything that kept coming up.

I'm not a grad yet, so I don't want to follow this guide as gospel. I'd rather get feedback on it by people who've actually done this successfully. If you're a graduate (or deep into maintenance), I'd really appreciate it if you'd read through and tell me:

• What's missing that mattered for you in your graduation journey?
• What's just wrong or too "one-size-fits-all"?
• Anything here that worked for others but backfired for you?
• Anything else you think someone coming off a GLP-1 medication should know.

Trying to make this something that people who plan on coming off this medication (like me) can actually use. Thanks in advance to anyone who weighs in (pun intended!), and thank you to everyone whose posts this is built from, even though I'm paraphrasing rather than quoting you directly!

I'll also disclose some AI use when formatting this guide. I'm not the best writer, so it was a helpful way to organise everything I read from this brilliant sub.

Coming Off GLP-1s: A Maintenance Guide Built From This Sub

Most of the clinical data says regain is common after stopping. But the people here who've kept it off all seem to agree on one thing. The medication was never the plan, it was the runway. The habits you build while on it are what carry you after.

The core idea: build the habits now, not later

This is the most repeated point in every long term success post here. The people who did well used their time on the medication to lock in behaviors, cooking at home, hitting a protein target, walking daily, lifting weights, until those things stopped feeling like effort and just became what they do. Your default behavior is what runs the show on the days you're tired or stressed. If it isn't already solid, willpower alone probably won't save you post taper.

Part 1: How people actually tapered

There's no single right way. A few different approaches have worked for people here.

Gradual dose reduction plus a calorie increase in step. Step down a dose level roughly every month, while deliberately adding 100 to 200 calories a week, weighted toward protein. Several people said this blunted the rebound hunger spike almost entirely.

Spacing out the shots. Same dose, longer intervals. Every 2 weeks, then every 3, before dropping a dose level and repeating. Feels like a slow off ramp instead of a hard stop.

Cold turkey. Plenty of long term successful grads just stopped outright, often from a low dose already. It worked fine for them, but expect the rebound hunger phase to hit harder than with a slow taper.

A few other things people mentioned: some built in a 5 lb buffer below goal weight before stopping, since some regain in week one (often water) is pretty close to universal. And more than one person credited having a doctor actually involved in building the taper schedule with them.

Part 2: What to expect, the "Hunger Games" phase

This has an unofficial name here for a reason.

Timing: usually kicks in 3 to 6 weeks after your last dose, roughly when the drug fully clears your system. A few people felt it as early as week 2.

Duration: most described 4 to 6 weeks before it eased up.

Why it happens: when the drug clears, leptin (satiety) drops and ghrelin (appetite) rises. That's a real hormonal shift, not a willpower failure, and it does seem to level out for most people who pushed through it.

What helped: having low calorie, high volume food ready before it hits (celery, cucumber, popcorn, watermelon, jell-o), distraction, walking, and not panicking at a few lbs gained since that's usually glycogen and water, not fat.

Part 3: The nutrition pattern that kept people's weight off

Different exact diets show up here (whole foods, higher protein/lower carb, calorie counted "eat anything in budget," intermittent fasting), but four things kept repeating no matter the approach.

Protein, non negotiable. Numbers ranged from about 100g a day up to 180 to 230g depending on size and activity. The logic is that it's what keeps you from white knuckling hunger once the drug's suppression is gone.

Fiber and volume eating. Probably the single most cited technique on this sub. Build meals that are physically large, high in water and fiber, instead of calorie dense. Big salads, bulked up recipes (baked cottage cheese, whipped or aerated stuff), raw veggie snacks.

Don't skip fat. Several people went too low fat and stayed hungry despite hitting protein and fiber. Adding a spoon of nut butter or some avocado was what actually satisfied them. Satiety triggers are individual, so if you're still hungry after protein and fiber, try fat before just adding more food generally.

Whole foods as the default, not a rule. Most successful grads still eat treats and takeout. The pattern is home cooked as the default and processed or restaurant food as the occasional exception, not the norm.

Part 4: Tracking, pick a level you'll actually stick with

Full calorie tracking, indefinitely. Several 2 to 3 year grads still do this daily and say it becomes fast and almost automatic once your meals rotate through a familiar set. MacroFactor gets mentioned a lot specifically because it recalculates your target weekly based on your actual weight trend.

Loose tracking. Protein and fiber only, no full count. Works once you've internalized what a maintenance day looks like for you.

No tracking, firm food rules instead. Tends to work best for people who never really struggled with overeating even at goal weight.

Weigh in often and set a trigger. This one's close to universal. Weigh a few times a week or daily, and have a personal rule, commonly something like "plus 2 lbs for a couple days straight," for when to tighten back up right away instead of waiting for it to become a bigger problem.

Part 5: Reverse dieting

This is borrowed from bodybuilding and comes up a lot here. Instead of jumping straight to normal eating once you stop, raise your calories back to maintenance gradually, commonly around 50 to 100 calories a week, weighted toward protein, rather than all at once. The idea is it helps your hunger hormones re-stabilize gradually instead of shocking the system right as your appetite is also swinging up on its own.

Part 6: Exercise

Strength training is the most consistently cited factor, and not just for how it looks. Muscle is a major site of glucose disposal, so more muscle means better blood sugar control and less metabolic pressure to regain. A few people credited it with letting them come off blood pressure or insulin meds too. Start small and build over months. Free apps and YouTube for form is enough for most people to get going.

Walking and daily steps might be the sleeper factor here. One long term grad made a strong case that a high daily step count (10 to 20k) matters more for weight specifically than structured workouts, since it doesn't spike hunger the way high intensity training can and it adds up across the whole day.

Cardio matters most for long term heart and general health, even if it's not the biggest lever for the scale specifically.

Part 7: The part the medication doesn't solve

This might be the most repeated hard lesson here. The drug suppresses the urge, but it doesn't rewire your relationship with food or stress. More than one long term grad described a quiet stress eating drift months into maintenance, not a dramatic binge, just weeks of choices driven by emotion instead of intention, and noted that without the drug's chemical brake, catching that is entirely on your own coping skills.

What seemed to help:

• Naming what your actual pattern is (stress coping, grazing vs real bingeing, restriction anxiety) since the fix is different depending on which one it is
• Professional support where possible. More than one person specifically credited a therapist as instrumental, not optional
• "Don't let a bad moment become a bad day, don't let a bad day become a bad week." This exact framing came up independently from multiple people
• Keeping planned treats in the plan rather than going for total restriction

A serious caution, in this sub's own words: one detailed post here described developing a real eating disorder after stopping. Not because the med caused it directly, but because rapid loss, appetite suppression normalizing restriction, and fear of regain all came together, in someone with zero prior ED history. If you notice constant body checking, compulsive exercise with no rest days, intentional restriction for the first time, or any binge/purge pattern as you taper, that's worth bringing to a doctor or therapist, not white knuckling alone. Anxiety about regain is normal. It's when that anxiety starts driving those specific behaviors that it's worth addressing head on.

Rough timeline

• On meds, pre taper: your habit building window. Lock in protein, meal structure, exercise, and a tracking method now while it's easier to do
• Tapering: step down dose or space out shots, keep habits steady, increase calories in step if you're reverse tapering
• 0 to 3 weeks post last dose: often deceptively easy
• 3 to 6 weeks post last dose: rebound hunger typically hits. Expect it, lean on volume eating and distraction
• 6 to 11 weeks post last dose: for most people, hunger settles to a normal, predictable level
• Months 3 to 12+: ongoing maintenance. Weigh ins, a trigger threshold, strength training, staying alert to stress eating drift
• 1+ years off: long term grads describe this as a fully embedded lifestyle at this point. Still needs attention, but it doesn't feel like a fight anymore

Quick reference checklist

• Protein target hit daily, before the taper even starts
• Volume eating as your default strategy
• A tracking method chosen on purpose, not defaulted into nothing
• Strength training 2 to 3x a week, building over months
• Daily walking, high step count
• Frequent weigh ins with a small, clear trigger point
• A taper plan discussed with your prescriber, not an unplanned stop
• A support system, whether that's a therapist, doctor, partner, friends, or this sub
• Room for planned treats, not total restriction
• Patience with the hunger phase as something temporary and hormonal, not a verdict on whether this will work

Again, if you're further along than me, please tell me what I got wrong or left out. Trying to make this actually useful and not just optimistic.

Two months ago I laughed so hard about someone posting that their pants suddenly dropped in public and low key envied them. Last week I was wearing a dress. I felt awesome-strutting my stuff, when I suddenly felt a sliding motion across my booty. I was quick enough to realize what was happening and took a super wide (super awkward) step to keep my panties from sliding down past my knees! Pulled them back up and then awkwardly made my way back to my car holding the errant panties up through my dress. To an onlooker I must have looked like I am escorting myself out. Needless to say- I went shopping the next day.

What are fun stories that Reta contributed to your life?

I started reta very skeptical after thoroughly researching. I now think it’s the best thing ever. I was never on any glp before.

I started with .5mg and went up to .7mg over 4 weeks. Realized I didn’t feel great (anhedonia, not able to eat properly and GI issues all week). Went back to .5 and feel great. Yes, I am very sensitive.

I keep a deficit of minimum 500cal/day, eat clean, hydrate do lagree 2-3/week and walk on other days. A healthy person would lose weight this way too, but not me. My metabolism was in the bin. Reta was the tool I needed to fix it.

In 6 weeks I lost 9lbs, 2 inches off my waist, 1.5 off my hips, back fat is melting off. My face looks years younger and my ibs seems to be under control if I don’t titrate up. I feel motivated to eat healthy and workout and I feel calm. (Not on .7mg, but on .5mg).

I am writing this as an example. Every body is different, but please don’t get sucked into the you-must-start-at-2mg-because-of-clinical-trial-crap. Pharma companies have different goals than an individual who wants to lose weight. Start slow, listen to your body (not your scale) carefully and adjust your doses down if needed. It’s not a competition, it’s your personal journey.

I’d like some advice on how to optimize reta from those of you who have insight and experience.

I keep eating small snack sized portions throughout the day, instead having bigger meals. It just feels more natural on reta.

I am very strict on my macros (40%C30%P30%F), hit my protein goal, hydrate, supplements… I eat mostly whole foods with the occasional protein shake/bar.

Now I am wondering if it would be more beneficial to have fixed meal times instead?

Any relevant input appreciated. Thanks!

Edit included percentage sign for clarification.