Forum › Food & Appetite

Maintenance - How are you maintaining?

15 replies12 peopleOct 4, 2026☆ Follow
Summary

How do people transition from weight loss to maintenance dosing on drugs like retatrutide and tirzepatide?

Users report a range of approaches once at goal weight. Some keep the same weekly dose that got them there while increasing calories, others lower the dose gradually or space injections further apart. A few plan to switch compounds or add fasting. Most monitor weight trends with moving averages and adjust only when needed rather than following a fixed taper schedule.

What this discussion establishesWhere people disagree

Whether to reduce the dose right away or hold steady for months to confirm stability

Still open

How long any given maintenance regimen will remain effective or accessible

Nothing here is advice.

15 replies · 12 people
WryFenwick45archiveopening post9h

Feels like the end might finally be in sight, with maybe fifteen more pounds left. After that comes lifelong maintenance, and the new year could be the right moment to shift into that phase. Right now the weekly amounts are 4 mg RETA plus 0.5 to 1 mg Cagri, and those levels have never been exceeded. The open questions are how to start the maintenance stage: begin lowering the amounts, make an abrupt cut, or move from weekly to monthly shots? Roughly three months remain to sort it out. Once the target is reached, is the dose locked in permanently, tweaked over time, or stopped and restarted later?

RustLantern55archive9h

Just getting into maintenance by moving from 10 mg down to 7.5 mg of tirz and stretching it to every other week. Appetite has returned, which helps because intake was too low earlier.

LevelWillow41archive9h

If the dose that reached the goal is still tolerable, it may be worth holding there for a while to observe what happens next. Adjustments can be made later if weight trends start to shift slowly.

↳ replying to @WryFenwick45 (opening post)

Match the dose to results while staying under the side-effect limit. The amount needed just to hold weight steady will usually be lower than the amount that produced the loss. On maintenance the relevant sides are things like daily quality of life or how much effort is still required to manage hunger and food thoughts. The practical method is to weigh regularly, track a simple moving average, and allow some buffer so small daily swings do not trigger constant changes. A fourteen-day average from daily weigh-ins cuts down the noise. After enough time a dose and schedule that simply works should appear and can be kept until something alters the equation. Current cut is 20 mg Reta plus 2.5 mg Tirz plus 1 mg Elora each week. An August trial suggests dropping Reta to 8 mg per week at the start of maintenance. Depending on how sides feel, Reta may be reduced or removed while Tirz or Elora is adjusted. Mid-November is the rough target for reaching maintenance, subject to how the last abdominal fat responds.

Already in maintenance and keeping the same amounts: 7.5 mg tirz every six days, then 2 mg reta three days after that. This routine has held for a couple of months with no further loss and no urge to change yet. The aim now is to add muscle and reduce the remaining loose skin on the inner arms and thighs, which has been slow to tighten.

↳ replying to @WryFenwick45 (opening post)

Six months into maintenance on the same dose used for the final stretch of loss. One shot per week works fine and keeps the schedule simple. Scale weight has been fairly steady, and the small additional drop has been almost all fat, so body composition has improved. The current dose probably will not stay fixed forever, but any reduction will be gradual and only when it becomes necessary.

At goal weight and planning to hold 5 mg tirz on Mondays plus 5 mg reta on Thursdays. Instead of lowering the GLP doses, the plan is to raise daily food intake. More calories were already possible during the loss phase but not desired. The GLPs act as a firm floor and there is reluctance to let that protection slip and allow food noise to return.

Admires the confidence that an inexpensive unofficial supply of Reta will stay reliable for maintenance across the next twenty years until a generic version appears.

WrySignal35archive7h
↳ replying to @WryFenwick45 (opening post)

Close to goal and still working out the right maintenance level. The highest dose reached was 3 mg Reta; currently 2 mg once a week looks like it may be the right amount. One milligram was hoped for, but realism is needed because returning food noise would be hard to ignore.

IronLantern24archive7h

Maintenance has kept the reta dose unchanged so far, with daily calories increased instead. A small reduction in reta has just begun so tirz can be added, with the longer-term goal of using more tirz than reta each week.

IronLantern24archive7h
↳ replying to @CopperPebble16

Cannot picture the main overseas source ever walking away from such a large revenue stream, so some route to the consumer will probably remain open.

WryFenwick45archive7h
↳ replying to @IronLantern24

Just wondering why the shift toward more tirz, no criticism intended.

↳ replying to @CopperPebble16

Asking whether that means pharmacy prices will drop or grey-market access will change in some way.

IronLantern24archive7h
↳ replying to @WryFenwick45

Tirz gives stronger appetite control while reta has been causing noticeable anhedonia.

AmberBeacon57archive7h

Down forty pounds but still ninety short of goal, so maintenance is still months away. Past losses have always led to strong rebounds, which is the main worry. Weight loss stops if calories fall below 1200, so an alternate-day fasting pattern was adopted: maintenance calories one day, fast the next. Some form of fasting once or twice a week will probably stay necessary along with whatever GLP ends up being most effective.

AmberMeadow80archive6h
↳ replying to @LevelWillow41

Same idea here. At 4 mg per week a kind of balance has appeared around 140 pounds. Appetite has returned yet extra eating has not produced weight gain. Only a couple of weeks into this approach so far and it seems to be holding. Would be interested in updates on any switch to a different schedule.

Related discussions

Add your experience

If you have tried it, this topic is still open. Sign in to reply — it takes a minute.