I just got back some lab work and my fasting insulin was 1.8 (2.6-24.9). I’ve never seen it that low. A1C was 5.2 and glucose was 82
2.5mg retatrude per week, 150mg Acarbose daily and 10mg empagliflozin daily
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Great numbers, congrats! What’s your weight, and how much did you lose?
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210lbs and I didn’t really lose weight on the scale because I was already at a low body fat level and I am not on a fat loss diet. It was really more about seeing it improving health markers, which it has (except for increased heart rate).
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29% average weight loss for retatrutide
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/health/eli-lilly-retatrutide-weight-loss-drug.html
So a 400 lb hacker would become 280 lb?
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Even better: there seemed to be no plateau to weight loss after 68 weeks. Discussed here:
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12 mg is the highest recommended dose for Reta. There will be a “plateau” for any dose. I really don’t like the word plateau used for describing GLP1’s performance as it’s misleading in my opinion.
Any particular dose has a limit to it’s effect and people call that limit a “plateau” and ask “I’ve plateaued, what do I do now” - the clinical answer is “are you at the maximum dose if not, increase your dose”. It’s pretty simple.
If they are at the max dose and have stopped losing weight, then other steps need to be taken. Lifestyle is the number one step as we cannot do much about the other aspects, sex, genetics, age, hormones, other health conditions, etc. all have an effect on individual response to GLP1’s
I’ve posted an info sheet several times on how this works 
I lowered my dose to 0.5 mg and I keep losing weight, dropping from 138 to 128. This is nuts. I don’t know where I’m losing it from, and I don’t want to be emaciated. Oddly, my appetite is pretty good. I think I’ll either quit entirely or try a microdose of 0.1 mg.
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That is one of the aspects of Reta compared to others. It seems to have a weaker influence on appetite, at low doses. But the effect of feeling full sooner still seems to be there.
Your idea of going for a super-micro dose seems pretty reasonable for your response.
Another avenue would be to extend time between doses, instead of weekly, maybe every 10 days to 2 weeks since you are not trying to lose weight.
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Yes, a low maintenance dose seems to be in order. And maybe I should eat more ice cream.
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Wow that is a big loss given the dose and your weight. I’m not a doctor but if it were me, I’d stop it all together for a while and see how it goes. At 138lbs any loss of weight is probably muscle loss and that is a big no no for health and longevity. You can always start at a later date. I don’t think it is normal to lose that much in such low dose. I wonder if you got Semaglutide instead by mistake. Never heard anyone losing any weight at 0.5mg Reta. Even the maintenance dose is supposed to be about 2mg.
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This is more common than you think, a reminder that every body is different. On the other hand of the spectrum, many have gone up to max dose and beyond with only 5-10% weight loss to show for it.
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wow, and I will be 25mg jardiance, 600mg acarbose, and working my way to 4mg reta or higher, my vials are in the mail - we’ll see how close this gets to too low or how I need to adjust if it is
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Yes, a lot of people seem to have the plateau issue, and what some people do (after they have reached max dose) they stop taking GLP1’s for a while (4-6 weeks) and then start again somewhere mid range, i.e. 4mg as opposed to starting 2mg and they seem to start losing again.
I am curious to know what do you think of this, and have you encountered it from your experience with your clients?
I also have heard people having success in breaking the stall by introducing small doses of Cagri in addition to GLP1 (which you rightly pointed it out on an earlier post).
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Used Gemini to graph the results of the Phase 1 and 2 plus top line results of Phase 3 studies:
I’d guess loss continues until about 32% average loss at about 100 weeks at the 12mg dose for those whose initial BMI (likely <35 BMI) allows for that degree of loss.
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I’m skeptical of the “receptor reset” theory. My review of the research along with a personal n=1 experience is that going off Reta for 6 weeks then returning to same dose (slowly treating up) results in same weight for same given dose. While there is an intuitive sense for receptors adapting to medication, that is not the case for all or even most receptors or medications.
Some add Cagri though its side effects are significant for many. Plus its pending approval with smaller study data available compared with Reta for example. Fortunately my case only requires Reta to reach health weight.
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Thanks for the info @zebit0 very informative. Interesting jump in percentage (from the graph) from 8mg to 9mg and then a smaller % weight loss difference from the bigger jump 9-12mg. At 68 weeks the weight loss percentages are 22%, 26,2%, 28% respectively which makes me think the best or more economical dose is 9mg.
My experience has been that on Tirze I do stall/plateau at about 12mg and then I don’t seem to lose anymore??? I only tried RETA about a year ago and don’t have enough n=1 data on it as I swithched early on to Tirze (for the fact that Tirze was FDA approved, and RETA not yet). I do have a good supply of RETA and intend to try it again once I finish the current Vial of Tirze (still trying to lose about 10-15lbs which have proven hard to do on Tirze).
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You make valid points, but I’m not too concerned. I was born skinny, and at 128, I am approaching the weight I had in high school. It’s easy to put on superfluous pounds, but too much is as bad as too little. Besides, my GFR went up six points in the last two months, a result I was looking for.
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I have been experimenting with retatrutide for roughly a year now.
The weight loss does seem to plateau after a while — I’ve lost some body fat but am still in the 10-15% range.
It seems to act as a cholesterol drug for me. Shattered my LDL and Apo-B from 120/80 to 50/50 respectively.
However, the side effect of higher RHR continues. I run at 75 bpm instead of 60 now. That’s the only part that concerns me.
So far I continue to use it. I use fairly high doses (around 10mg once weekly).
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Wow, that is certainly a huge drop considering it is not even supposed to have much of an effect on lipids (maybe a small one). Are you on any other lipid lowering drugs? (i.e. statins, and/or ezetimibe)
Reta did that by itself, no other cholesterol drugs.
It’s really quite remarkable.
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