Tirzepatide - CONSULT WITH A DOCTOR WHEN PURSUING TREATMENT

Nutrition
84

FWIW I may share some of my journey with retatrutide here. I’ve looked here and in other forums and reddit, and I don’t see a lot of chatter about reta specifically in endurance circles.

For context, I have a decent training history, have done 10+ olympic triathlons and quite a bit of cycling. Was pretty fit in May 2025, then experienced a layoff and had my first baby in July.

Now, with a career change to a much more demanding position and with a 7 month old, I find myself wanting to get back into shape. I’m about 230 lbs, 6 foot even. In a perfect world I’d like to be at 170, but my first step goal is to get back to 200.

At the same time I’m working on implementing cycling again into my routine. With work and the kid, I can no longer work out in the evening. I am not typically a morning person, so this is a big change. I’m starting with 2 30 min rides on Tuesday and thursday before work and an hour session scheduled for saturday.

By the summer, I hope to be a bit lighter and more fit, such that I can take the then 12 month old out in a bike trailer and not be completely dead at pulling 50 plus extra pounds.

I”ve sourced Retatrutide from a vendor that has very high purity ratings from 3rd party testing. I’m going to start slow at .5 mg a week, and slowly titrate up to keep side effects manageable.

The biggest gap in what I’ve read online is endurance training intersecting with the increased heart rate from the added Glucagon agonist. I”m not sure how much my heart rate will be impacted. This will be something I watch closely on my Garmin watch and during workouts.

I’m choosing to augment my weight loss with a GLP1-RA because when I’ve lost weight in the past, it has required a near-neurotic focus all day on food. I simply don’t have that capacity right now. I also realize there is a risk in choosing something not yet FDA approved. I accept that. I am closely following the clinical trials and have noted the cardiac safety signal, hence my focus on it. I chose retatrutide because of its increased effectiveness and improved side effect profile.

I know with weightloss in general and on GLP1-RAs I won’t have the same top end. This seems like an appropriate sacrifice as a high top end won’t matter if I stay this heavy, and I don’t have any races or anything scheduled. Long term, it might be nice to work towards a race or something low-key this fall or next year.

I’ll try to keep this thread updated.

85

I haven’t found this to be the case as long as you nail your fueling before and during your workouts. I’m down 18 lbs on Tirzepatide, FTP up to 20w and have been able to hit all my v02 in Base and into Build 1. However, I’ve been micro dosing and titrate by baby steps. I’ve been aiming for 1-2 week weight loss.

IMG_2895
IMG_2895960×1458 95.6 KB

87

MOTS-c is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and is prohibited in sport at all times (both in- and out-of-competition). It is classified under the “Metabolic Modulators” category (S4.4) as an AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activator.

89

Congratulations on your two months without bingeing. ! Wishing you continued success.

90

It’s not even legal to cycle on/off PEDs in the off season. If you are a cat 1, you know that.

92

And there’s talk I think at the WADA level of banning GLP1 agonists as well. Not sure how you test for that, but then I don’t know how they are able to test for a lot of things. GLP-1 agonists hang around, so they are probably testable.

Didn’t a master’s racer in the US get popped for PEDs and MOTS-C was one of the ones he was using along with growth hormone and testosterone?

93

Thank you for sharing jacpurch

Your comment on the mental shift in relation to biscuits is exactly my experience from ‘I must eat the whole pack’ to disinterest. It is fabulous and all I’ve needed to break from binge eating. I wish I’d had access to this years ago it expect this is how a ‘normal’ food relationship feels.
Four weeks in and 4kg down from 104kg heading to (my plan) 92kg, 6ft tall. I’ve found the started dose at 2.5 mg stops the food noise and so I haven’t increased the dose.

On endurance riding - I started a 600k ride and ended up OTL at 400K. After 10 hours riding I just couldn’t take on any more calories. I’m hypothesising that the delayed stomach emptying means a lower carb per hour absorbsion and an upper limit on how much you can take on in 24 hours. It’s a challenge for that kind of riding for sure and I’ll try again in 6 weeks with liquid fuel.

94

Thanks for sharing this. I’ve also been on MJ for 3 months. First of all carried on smashing workouts, then after having a cold that I couldn’t shift for 3 to 4 weeks, noticed a drop in my performance. I thought maybe it was the fitness lost from being ill, but not been able to get my mojo back with it. Looking at what people have posted here, this is only just going to be a blip whilst on MJ. I figured maybe it was just down to the weight loss and once at my goal I can then focus on strength. For now I am just going to treat every ride as fun ready, ready for when the training starts in November. I am wanting to do the Dragon Ride next year …I am really hoping I will love hills by then :slight_smile:

95

Update after about 10 months of Tirzepatide. Highest FTP last year was spring 2025 at 313. Ended the season and began tirzepatide in November with FTP 301. I’m down 22 pounds from my highest weigh in 2025 at 195. I stagnated at 175ish for a few months and recently increased my dose a bit and now about 173. Current FTP at 312, so about the same. However, I’m now on creatine and beta Adaline , which I wasn’t last year. For me, it’s been a great journey.

IMG_3591
IMG_3591960×1448 109 KB

IMG_3590
IMG_3590960×1440 98.8 KB

IMG_3592
IMG_3592960×1439 87.6 KB

96

GLP1s are yet another example of failing to regard an ocean of unknowns and the inherent danger in that failure. Anyone remember the cancer and blood clots from taking estrogens? Anyone remember lobotomies? Anyone remember thalidomide? Anyone remember (insert any number of thousands of treatments declared miraculous and safe)? An honest clinician who has been around the block more than once will tell you “Yeah we really don’t know everything these drugs are doing. Unless you have evidence these will prevent some direct harm, you should stay away for now.” If you have diabetes with complications, go ahead, but all else is vanity.

97

Are people with normal BMI and body fat, say less than 20% BF, micro-dosing this with good success?

I’m all for this technology and how it can help many people, but personally I’m a little apprehensive to use it for small optimizations, seems too ‘blunt’ of an instrument. But I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years most people are on some refined version GLP drug.

98

You sound like a skinny guy talking from no personal experience. GLP1s have been around for decades.

What are the health consequences of being 50 pounds over weight? I’d say it’s a lot worse than GLP1 side effects.

How do you define success if someone is already relatively thin? People are certainly microdosing glp1s for various reasons.

99

The excessive fearmongering is really not necessary. Medicine is quite a bit more advanced than it was >100 years ago believe it or not! We do know quite a bit about how GLP1 drugs work. They also undergo safety trials. Yes there are potential side effects. That’s why it is up to the physician and the patient to decide the benefits and potential risks for taking any medicine. Obesity is not just a vanity issue. There are a lot of long term negative consequences. Just don’t take the chinese bathtub peptide! :slight_smile:

100

I guess using it to lose 5 lbs type of goal

101

Honestly, I think it would be too much trouble for just 5 pounds. You have to get the stuff and find a doc who would prescribe it in a micro dose for just 5 pounds plus there is the expense.

Of course, you can buy untested stuff from China and all that but that is too sketchy for me.

102

I guess I see that as the easy part and are more concerned with h the side effects and the inhability to eat enough to fuel properly and keep progressing.

103

GLP-1 have been around for 40 years and have been widely available for Rx for 21 years. The only thing that’s new is the duration of effect, and the number of people taking them. It’s the latter that’s showing all kinds of impacts, most positive, but not all. Spoiler, not all treatments/drugs work the same on every single person. So one can point to gall bladder or ocular issues all they want, but that doesn’t make those issues uniform.

Like any treatment this isn’t something that should be done without medical supervision. Labs, check-ins, etc. Roll your own with reddit as your doctor probably not a good plan.

Maybe rethink the HRT call out because that science has been revised and HRT is now an available treatment plan again.

104

There was no issue with eating enough and to fuel properly for workouts for me. That’s training with 90-100g of carbs per hour averaging about 15 hours a week. However, I titrated up slowly and had to very much take charge of my care. There will be side affects that come and go and will take some experimenting as you body adjusts. Something to start in the off season for sure. Every individual is different and what worked for me may not work for you.

105

Agree, especially on the HRT. Also, GLP-1s are showing to be successful adjunct therapies for IBD/Colitis/Crohns.

106

And PMOS (formerly PCOS) and a boat load of other conditions that either cause or feed off of inflammation. While the initial research was around the hunger side of the GLP-1 receptor, the wider range use has opened up so many other seemingly unrelated or at least unplanned (“we didn’t know that the GLP-1 receptor was even related to XYZ..” )

Will there be more negatives found? Very likely. Do we know all of the positives? Not even close. I just hope research doesn’t over focus on the related of receptors and end up ignoring something else equally as ground breaking.

At least they’re figuring out mRNA and cancer. Early research on that front did highlight that waking up the immune system to a person’s cancer was VERY effective, but also pretty intensive.