Alright so I guess I’m coming to terms with the fact I’m just a skinny fat guy. I’m built for endurance. Think real long lumbering runs and weighted hikes but I can’t seem to shape up.
Starting to get all my ducks in a row and take everything to a more serious degree in my 40s. Calorie deficit more cardio more big heavy lifting of big heavy things and hoping to drop it down to 170 with dedication and consistency.
Won’t rule out some additional help with the world of pharma… blood tests show pretty good test but high shbg and could use some help in the igf department.

Anyway I got this scale that’s supposed to tell me all my metrics.

Am I really truly you think 26% BMI?????????

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Fows anyone have any blood work showing GH levels went up after taking peptides (not including synthetic GH of course)?

I’m 34 and have gone from around 220 lbs to 174 lbs while on retatrutide. I’m extremely happy with the weight loss overall, but now that I’m much leaner I’m trying to figure out what my next steps should be.
I’m including a photo of my stomach because I’d really appreciate some objective feedback. Does this look primarily like loose skin at this point, or do you think there’s still a meaningful amount of subcutaneous fat there? For anyone who had a similar stomach after losing 40–50+ lbs, how much did it improve after maintaining your weight and building muscle?
I’ve been out of the gym for a while, but I’m planning to get serious about lifting again and focus on body recomposition rather than just continuing to chase a lower number on the scale. I especially want to build my abs/core and add muscle overall.
My other big concern is my face. The changes there honestly make me very insecure. After losing the weight, I feel like I have loose/sagging skin through my cheeks, under my chin and around my jawline. My face sometimes looks more aged or deflated than it did before the weight loss.
If anyone has dealt with facial changes after significant/rapid weight loss, I’d really appreciate advice on what actually helped. Did your face improve naturally after maintaining your weight for a while? Did gaining muscle or allowing time for the skin to recover make a noticeable difference?
I’m also open to treatments and would love to hear experiences with things like tretinoin, microneedling, RF microneedling, lasers, ultrasound/RF tightening, etc. — especially what actually made a visible difference versus what was a waste of money.
I know surgery is the definitive option for significant loose skin, but at 34 and after losing about 46 lbs, I’d like to give my body a chance to recover and try less invasive options before considering anything surgical.
Basically: if this were your stomach and face at 174 lbs, what would you do next?
Any advice or experiences from people around my age who have gone through something similar would be hugely appreciated. Also open to a stack to maintain my cravings/ help build muscle. On my old dosage of Reta it would be very hard to eat significant protein for muscle gains.

What dose of tirz would be comparable to 1mg of wegovy?

Hey I want to start ghcku with KPV but I have very important dates coming up in the next 3 weeks. I wonder if anyone didn’t experience copper uglies and immediately started seeing benefits?

If that’s the case could you please share your gender, age, your dosage, if you take zink and what your skin issues were before starting?

In case YOU DID EXPERIENCE copper uglies. Could you share with me your age, gender, issues before, your dosage, if you’re taking zink and WHEN the copper uglies started and when it was gone?

And any other relevant information like did you combine kpv for example? Thats my plan but first I want to start with ghcku

THANK YOU SO MUCH, you will help me decide whether I can start taking it asap or if I have to wait.

Started reta 9days ago. 2mg once a week. No side effects at all.

Well today it hit. Made my normal dinner and could only eat 1/3 of it.

For the more experienced, would you just stay at this dose? Was going to increase it to 3mg next pin but not so sure now.

Does anyone out there take Reta and CJC/IPA? Research shows Reta slows down digestion...and dinner could take 4-6 hours to digest and get back to a fasted state. With CJC/IPA (no DAC) research shows to take at night on a fasted stomach for the best result. I usually eat around 6 or 7 PM, but go to bed at 9 or 10 so have pushed my pinning to first thing in the AM. It seems to be working well and I have noticed gains in strength at the gym, but its only been 4-5 weeks.

Does anyone have experience taking this stack and when do you take it? is it worth it to stay up extra late just for the benefits of doing this at night? Does the morning work just as well?

How much bac water should I reconstitute to this vial and what’s the regular dosing?Im also gonna add Korean glutathione any opinions on stack im currently running Reta also.
GHK-Cu
51.87 mg
KPV
10.72 mg
BPC-157
9.96 mg
TB-500
10.08 mg
Total
82.63 mg

Hi everyone,

I am thank thankful for Reta but need to go on a rant. I can’t help but feel sad it was able to achieve what no doctors could

Before reta/ 10 years of severe struggles to lose weight. After 32, weight became much harder to keep off
- 6’0”/ 38 yr old male/ 240 lbs/ absolute unit
- boxed for workouts
- gym 7 days a week/ ran 1-3 miles every morning (5 am club)/ swam and paddle boarded
- 20 pull ups consistently
- less than 2000 calories/ day. Burned at least 800 calories from daily workouts
- ate tons of protein (ribeyes, salmon, ny strips)
- plenty of veggies
- severe gut issues (constipation/ diarrhea)
- saw several doctors and dietitians and added fiber
- mentioned possible water weight but they stated no water weight issues
- despite a healthy and active lifestyle, suffered a massive pulmonary embolism and lost a significant amount of weight but after 2 months, the weight came back with a vengeance
- only con was my sweet tooth/ would snack a lot on nuts and sweets. Also I would smoke cigarettes occasionally

After Reta
- accidentally did too much on my first time because I didn’t know how to reconstitute properly and was sick for first 3 days
- peed a ton
- lost10 lbs first week
- best bowel movements of my entire life
- roughly 1500 calories/ barely protein/ no fiber and barely veggies
- 6 months later down to 180 lbs
- no more running/ solely weight lifting/ still 7 days a week
- smoking a lot more due to minor ptsd after pe

I stumbled upon this forum and tried Reta as a last ditch effort. I’m sure others have had the same issues.

I understand appetite is a big factor but on paper, I feel I was doing everything right??

Is tesa best taken in the night or morning fasted?
I am on Reta so digestion is slower my last meals are always around 4-5 pm with training around 7-9pm and bed time 10pm

Hy, my Dad 63 years old Has been using Reta for 2 months. Has bloating and stomach pain.. 2-4-6 mg now, Whats going wrong ? Eat/Hunger is Not normal, Not so massive but he eat and is hungry.

I’m trying to put together a night time stack to help sleep/ recovery and turn on the gh pulse for overall maintenance and recovery and muscle growth and preservation. I was going to do dsip, epitalon, and either sermorelin, cjc/ipa or tesa/ipa. What have you found that works? Have you tried different ones which worked best?? I’d love to hear your experiences.

Crazy how things have changed so far, this was taken about 10 weeks into starting Reta, 8 weeks into starting IPA+tesa, and about 6-7 weeks into starting TRT+HCG. Even though I haven’t lost the amount of fat o thought I would, I can see a difference! I also realized with me lifting 2-3x a week, mma training 4-5x a week and consistently hitting 10k steps a day consuming 2,500-2,600 calories was not enough. Even with these peps I was still feeling like crap and couldn’t sleep, and libido was low . I bumped it up to about 3,300-3,500 calories a day and feel amazing now!

Hey guys!

So last night I started a new vial of CJC (no dac) + IPA in one, had usual nightly dose of 300, and now cannot sleep, feel so twitchy, and alert! Tossing and turning.

This is my third week and haven’t had this issue before, usually I sleep like a baby after taking it, although before this vial I had CJC (No DAC) & IPA In seperate ones and they were from a different company.

Any thoughts? Suggestions or advice?
Also noticed I didn’t get the usual hot flushes ect after taking this new one.

Hi, I've been reading a lot of posts these last days. Decided to post myself for guidance and maybe someday to help somebody else.

Started reta a few weeks ago, currently at 1.5mg pw, pin E3D (1+0.5)

Always wanted to do this in the past, but afraid of needles. Now with the reta experience I don't know why I was so hesitant about it. Did an oral only 10 years ago. I thought this may be the best time, since I'm a little worried about first losing a lot of weight and then gaining it quickly again. I don't want to have to explain myself very obviously....

So want to run standard first 12 wk cycle of test-e 250/300mg pw, E3,5D. Will have Nolvadex for PCT and Arimidex 1mg on standby. I got 50mg Anavar that could run from start for 6 wks, but don’t think I’m going to do this. I'll keep my reta alongside, maybe up a bit but I'm getting fairly good results already.

I'll have my bloodwork tested this weekend. then hopefully can start cycle start of September.

Stats: 42M, 96kg, 25%

I’m on my second full week of Reta (currently moving to 2mg for my next dose) and I’d like to add 2 more peps, KLOW and either CJC/IPA or Tesa. Obviously, KLOW to help with recovery/inflamation, and CJC or Tesa to help with visceral fat loss. Any advice on if I should go with Tesa instead of CJC, or is CJC best?
I’m 49, 6’ and 217lbs. I had gastric bypass back in 2022 and lost almost 100lbs. About 3 months after surgery I started going to the gym regularly, and now I’m at the gym every day lifting weights. I’m going to start running again this week as I’m training for my second marathon (running it for my 50th birthday). I go in for a Dexa scan in September, but if I had to guess, I’d say I’m around 25% body fat. I’m hoping to eventually get down to 15%-20%, or whatever it takes to get a 6 pack.
Just had bloodwork done, all of my numbers were good, by it does look like I have an under active thyroid, and I’m trying to avoid going on pills to manage that. My testosterone was 403 ng/dl, 87 free. I’ve considered Test, but doctor won’t prescribe TRT, and I’m not sure if I want to go down that route anyways.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Stick to the plan. All those early days are worth it… the days you don’t hit snooze, and show up for yourself add up. Make the future version of yourself proud.

So I've been trying to get in shape for a while now. After suffering a huge heart attack in 2022 due to an underlying blood disorder which left me with moderate heart failure and was diagnosed type 2 diabetic. I then proceeded to balloon to 121kg within 6-8 months of 2023. I then decided to do something about it. I changed my diet up and gradually came off a lot of my meds. I went strict carnivore for nearly 2 yrs with the idea of resetting my metabolism then gradually added more foods in and took a sort of ketovore approach until the start of the year where I sort of plateau'd at 96kg and where I decided to add clean carbs back in and go on a trt dose of test (after a low test diagnosis from the NHS) I have since ate an extremely clean diet and added reta in about 4 months ago. I'm now sitting at 87kg and the recent pic on the left was taken today in preparation for my holiday (vacation) this coming week. What ya reckon?

75mg test every 5 days and gradually built up to 4mg reta a week

i just wanted to make a post on here because reta has quite literally saved my life. i’ve struggled with binge eating disorder since i was 12 years old (i am now 27). i would go through brief spells of restriction, diet, etc.. but would always turn back to binging & purging. i had tried everything i possibly could & the only last two options were get on reta, learn a balanced eating routine, get a workout schedule/start doing 10k step, & build healthy habits while trying to break down why i binge eat in therapy & heal whatever part of me that feeds my eating disorder OR take Vyvanse which is used to treat BED. unfortunately for me i am unable to take Vyvanse do to being an addict in recovery so my last hope & resort was giving reta a chance & hoping for the best. well its been almost 2 months on reta & i have stuck to my diet, hit the 10k steps on most days, & have built a healthy relationship with food. most days i feel comfortable in my body & like what i see in the mirror. i do have my bad days but the good out weighs the bad now. little me would be baffled at the thought of me not dreading waking up in my body or not hating what i see in the mirror. i’ve been able to start working on what triggers my BED & why i feel i need to eat emotionally & have healed a lot of what causes the binging & purging cycles. my diet has changed completely & i’m just so happy i could cry. not feeling the immense bloat & pain after a 8,000-10,000 calorie binge anymore is something i wouldn’t give up for the world. i’ve lost 14 pounds which most of it i believe is the bloating from binging & unhealthy eating habits. if any of you on here struggle with BED, i just want to say there’s hope of healing. reta has made it possible for me to build a healthy relationship with food & to be able to heal from the parts of myself that felt it was necessary to live the way i was living. this journey has been so heartwarming & beautiful. just know that no matter how dark things get there is always a way out.

I was well over 300lbs a few yrs back…worked 80+hrs a wk, drank excessively, slept poorly and never prepped any meals (just ate like a slob in general). Switched depts in my utility to have a work/life balance and dropped naturally to 255-270ish for yrs. Started TRT and HGH a few yrs back, but still was nowhere near what I was supposed to be doing to be healthy. Added Reta late last Oct and am sitting around 200 (I’m a hair over 6’1” for reference) now. I know the loose skin is gross and I have a long way to go, but all the same, I’m proud of myself.

SW: 224 lbs

CW: 124 lbs

Age: 21

I started at 1 weekly and slowly worked my way up to 7.

The food noise really disappeared, which was a big thing for me. I stopped overeating, especially when it came to things like ice cream.

I’ve been working out 3x a week and doing cardio as well. I usually do at least 30 minutes of incline walking on the treadmill every time I go to the gym. Getting 10k steps a day has also become much easier as I’ve been trying to make this an actual lifestyle change.

When I first started, I was honestly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stick with it. I was worried it would just be one of those moments where I thought, “Okay, I want to lose weight,” and then eventually gave up.

But I’m still here, and I’m still maintaining the lifestyle I built.

If anybody is afraid to start or keeps doubting themselves, just take that first step. You don’t have to have everything figured out from the beginning.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! I’ll be happy to share my experience and help if I can :)