The Biochemical Beauty of Retatrutide: How GLP-1s Work

Retatrutide is incredible in a mind altering way. I know 4 people on it, including myself. And all just love the way it makes you feel. You just don’t want to eat as much and you want to eat healthier. As far as I can tell, that is it. While I’m nervous there could be long term side effects, I think the health benefits of being at a healthy weight mean that for probably 50% of the developed world they would benefit from it.

Looking forward to more formal studies though!

The magic trick with these is the way to increase half life. It’s really quite an amazing piece of work. I used retatrutide for a while very effectively but then we’ve been traveling a few months and I’ve gained quite a bit of weight back as expected.

The drug is pretty much ideal: dose-response curve doesn’t flatten too much, adaptation is present but not extreme, it is entirely reversible when you get off it.

The side effects I see are a histamine reaction at the injection site and cold sensitivity. To stop the former I varied duration of injection, temperature of solution, and site. None of these had any effect so I just lived with it in a place it wasn’t too uncomfortable.

I haven’t been lifting very much during the period immediately prior due to injury playing sports and reinjury due to inactivity after a motorcycle accident years prior.

My peak lifts were @155 lbs: squat 265x5, deadlift 375x2, bench 185x1, ohp 135x5. Stating these so you know where to baseline.

Immediately prior to retatrutide schedule: squat non functional (could not squat), deadlift 225x5, bench 125x1, ohp non functional (could not raise arms above head). Weight 199.3 lbs And I was also going to physical therapy.

After schedule: squat 135x5, deadlift 325x5, bench 135x10, ohp 135x2. Weight 173 lbs

1.5 months after cessation: I didn’t increase lifts due to not having standard programming. Weight 182 lbs.

Overall, an excellent drug. I should note that I ramped up slowly from under 1 mg/week up so my nausea and other symptoms were extremely minor. At lower doses I’d walk up to the fridge as I did in the past and then decide against eating a snack. At higher doses I wouldn’t get up. I already knew I should drink but I drink a lot of Coke Zero so that was fine. I never actually hit a routine dose that was within the tested range, I was always lower.

I keep track of GLP1s and write a lot about them (looking for negative side effects, research results, etc) and it is amazing how potent retatrutide is. It’s not simply a matter of “more agonists, more better” but it looks like Eli Lilly has really cracked it.

There is a large enthusiast community of the body building variety (who are usually first) who are already performing a bit of an unscheduled human trial and I have to say the results are amazing. We have both injectable retatrutide and pill form retatrutide to look forward to (pill form is unannounced but I have a hunch!).

These GLP-1 drugs seem to do more than what the article describes. The spontaneous cessation or serious reduction of addictions (chemical, behavioral) and otherwise compulsive behaviors when taking GLP-1s is widely discussed and described.

It seems like it does something else. https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-07-24/brain-science-glp-1s-a... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11202225/

Author spent a ton of time writing this up "for fun"...but glad people are still doing this and old school blogs. The effort required seems substantial...

Not sure about the AI style transfer images... sure it's a valid way to get the illustrations you want but I don't have to like it...

I hope it is more effective that Tirzepatide of which I am a rare nonresponder and have only gained weight.

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