Man, 50, taking ‘world’s most powerful weight loss drug’ shares unexpected side effect
A 50-year-old man who is taking retatrutide, a weight loss drug which is still going through clinical trials, has shared an unexpected effect he's been experiencing from it.
YouTuber Matt has been chronicling his weight loss journey as he goes through the weeks on retatrutide as he attempts to lose some weight and take his body through a transformation
Explaining how he looks slimmer in the first 12 weeks of that time he says he's lost 'approximately 21lbs' over 16 weeks and slimmed down, though in the most recent four weeks Matt said he'd actually put some weight on but had continued to physically slim down.
"The scale went up, the tape measure went down," he told fans of his fitness journey, as he did only gain one pound of weight in that time.
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Totting up his totals, he explained he was eating around 2,100 calories a day, including a target of 165g of protein, 225g of carbs and 60g of fat.
He's keeping in shape as he does three lots of resistance training a week, two hours of walking on non-lifting days and one hour on lifting days, and he also finds time to explain this in YouTube videos.
Matt said the side effects he was experiencing were 'very limited and manageable', but going from losing quite a lot of weight in the first 12 weeks of his weight loss journey to actually putting some on in the next four weeks might have come as some surprise.
However, while putting on a bit of weight in those four weeks might have got some people down it hasn't blunted Matt's spirits.
He said: "My weight is up by one lb, but my measurements are are down.
"And especially the navel and hip measurement, that tells me that something very important is still happening. The scale gave me a disappointing headline, but the rest of the data tells a better story.
"And when you put these photos next to each other, I think the tape measure data holds true."
He says when he puts it all together 'the last month looks less like a complete stall and more like a body composition phase'.
"Now, I cannot definitively prove from a home scale, two sets of measurements, and progress photos that I added muscle while losing the same amount of fat," he explained.
"But, when I combine the smaller navel and hip measurements, the modest strength increases, stable lean mass estimates, and the subtle differences in the photos, I think the overall pattern looks more like a recomp than regression."
He did point out that as he loses weight the drop in his scales would slow down and 'progress can become more subtle', while he also had some celebrations which had an impact on his diet as he was eating richer food as well.
Matt's also noticing that a combo of richer food and alcohol was affecting him more than usual when he woke up the next day so it's something he's 'paying attention to'.
Retatrutide is a one-weekly triple hormone receptor agonist, meaning it's activating the body's receptors for GIP, GLP-1 (which most weight loss drugs do) and glucagon.
It's not available for public use yet but its effectiveness for obesity is currently being tested, and manufacturer Eli Lilly warns that anyone taking it who is doing so outside their clinical trials is on a fake version that could be harmful.
LADbible Group have contacted Eli Lilly for comment.
Joe Harker