My goal was modest: drop < 10% of my body weight, from 220 to 200.
After 6 months on Tirzepatide at a cost of $1500 in rx and membership fees I can report:
Down 10 lbs, mostly muscle.
I could’ve done that by dropping cream from my coffee. Screw this.
Which one is Tirzepatide? Is that a shot or pills?
Is it a GLP-1?
I’m looking to go on something to reduce my appetite, I need to help.
By losing mostly muscle, you’re slightly more likely to regain the fat due to a reduced metabolic rate.
It’s sold as Mounjaro or Zepbound.
It’s Mounjaro (diabetes) or Zepbound (weight loss). It’s a GLP-1 injection.
I’m taking it for diabetes which means my insurance covers it so it costs me $60 for 90 days. I would never have paid for it myself which would be around $1000/month.
I’m getting a compounded version, which (apparently) means that by adding a vitamin to the mix they can sell it as a generic. We were told that Tirzepatide was more effective and had fewer side effects
I had trepidation about giving myself a shot but that turned out to be no big deal. It’s virtually painless.
It did reduce my appetite but I guess not enough.
I find particularly unnerving people do this for a simple “10% loss”.
And to pay that amount $$ when you can just step away from the coffee creamer or that dessert for a couple weeks?
Yeah, nah.
Dangerous to play with blood sugar. IMHO.
(Not talking about those who medically need these medications)
I’m with mostly you. These are powerful medications that are part of an approach to treat a chronic disease (obesity) that has serious morbidities. Now 10% weight loss, accompanied with healthy nutrition and exercise, can be of major medical impact … but the idea of using them instead of the rest of the plan, or casually, seems off to me.
As a rough rule of thumb, when it comes to injectable meds that have dual use for both type 2 diabetes and obesity, they have 4 different mechanisms of action. Generally, the more agonists you use, the better the weight loss.
The more receptors they hit, the more weight loss they cause.
People on ozempic may lose 10% of bodyweight. People on tirzepatide lose ~16%, people on retatrutide lose ~25% of bodyweight, which is on par with weight loss with bariatric surgery.
cagrisema is what happens when you combine ozempic + cagrilintide (GLP-1 agonist & DACRA agonist). That causes a ~22% bodyweight loss.
If you’re worried about losing muscle, the best thing you can do is try to make sure your weight loss is not too rapid (<2 lbs of fat a week) and you eat a high protein diet (1g protein per day per lb of lean body mass) and engage in resistance training. That will hopefully reduce the amount of muscle you lose.