Retatrutide: Transitioning from Cut to Reverse & Bulk

[Necessary Evil]

Hey Fellas,

I’m currently in the home stretch (last 3-4 weeks) of a 6-month cut. This has been a long road back after a traumatic shoulder injury sidelined me for 1.5 years.

I’ve been utilizing Retatrutide during the tail end of this phase. I started at 2mg/week and have titrated up to the current dose of 6mg/week. For the final push, I’m considering bumping the dose to 9mg/week.

Once the cut is wrapped up, I plan to transition into a reverse diet. The goal is to taper the Reta as calories move up and hunger becomes more manageable. Post-reverse, I’m considering keeping a low "maintenance" dose of Reta on board to help with insulin sensitivity during the blast/bulk.

Current Stack:

• Test E: 350mg/week
• Primo E: 350mg/week
• NPP: 150mg/week
• HGH: 6 IU/day

My Questions:

1. Late-Stage Titration: Do you think bumping to 9mg for the final 3-4 weeks is worth the diminishing returns, or should I hold steady at 6mg to avoid unnecessary side effects right before the transition?
2. The Taper: During the reverse diet, what’s a logical reduction protocol per week? I want to avoid a massive hunger rebound while my metabolism stabilizes.
3. Off-Season Utility: For those using GLP-1/GIP/GCG agonists during a growth phase, what dose have you found optimal for maintaining insulin sensitivity without nuking the appetite needed to grow?

Looking forward to your insights.

 

[Billbo98]

I get that Layne creates a lot of drama and it's easy to write off everything he says as marketing, but if we strip away the guru branding and just look at the actual physiology, dismissing the concept entirely ignores how the body handles energy homeostasis after a famine response. For me what's quite important is the possible GI distress someone might experience after going from a deficit to maintenance; good luck finding the exact calories for maintenance in one go by the way, I will try to explain that as well.

When you have been restricting calories for a long haul, your digestive system undergoes genuine physiological downregulation where your gastric emptying rates slow significantly and your production of specific digestive enzymes drops to match the lower load. If you immediately jump to what you think is your maintenance by slamming a sudden 40% increase in food volume overnight, you are overwhelming that downregulated digestive capacity which causes severe distention, water retention, and malabsorption because your gut literally isn't primed to handle that throughput yet.

There is also the issue that your calculated maintenance on paper and your metabolic reality at the end of a cut are two completely different numbers due to adaptive thermogenesis. Your NEAT is subconsciously crushed and your mitochondrial efficiency has changed so if you jump straight to a calculator number, you are almost guaranteed to be in a surplus because your output is currently lagging behind your intake. Reverse dieting is just a way to match your intake to your metabolic recovery rate so you don't spill over into fat storage while your TDEE is still suppressed.

We also have plenty of data going back to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment showing that when the body is depleted it prioritizes restoring adipose tissue over lean tissue if calories are reintroduced too quickly, which is a phenomenon called collateral fattening. By slowly walking the calories up you are trying to mitigate that preferential partitioning of energy into fat cells and give your lean mass and glycogen stores a chance to top off first. It just seems logical to control variables coming out of a cut rather than guessing and hoping you don't rebound.

On top of the physiological stuff there is the simple reality of adherence and keeping your blood sugar stable. When you come off a hard diet your hunger hormones like ghrelin are still sky high and your satiety signals are lagging so if you just rip the band aid off and jump to maintenance it is incredibly easy to lose control and binge because your brain is still in starvation mode. Keeping a structured reverse diet acts as a psychological guardrail so you don't just open the floodgates. It also helps manage glucose load because slamming a depleted body with a sudden massive influx of carbs can lead to crazy insulin spikes and reactive hypoglycemia whereas slowly titrating up lets your insulin sensitivity actually work for you instead of getting overwhelmed.

And now you are going to tell me, that's why we have Reta, I agree and hence my original question as to how much to add on reverse.

It’s clinically proven that going straight to maintenance calories after any deficit including a very steep one doesn't result in fat regain. Look up Lyle McDonald’s sight and read his articles with his sources

 

[Necessary Evil]

It’s clinically proven that going straight to maintenance calories after any deficit including a very steep one doesn't result in fat regain. Look up Lyle McDonald’s sight and read his articles with his sources

I have read them.

The other reasons I explained as to why it might be beneficial still stand though.

 

[Billbo98]

I have read them.

The other reasons I explained as to why it might be beneficial still stand though.

Yeah I don’t see it bud

 

[lilhawk]

Coming out of a cut your body is primed for growth. Reverse dieting is garbage. Up your calories and take full advantage of the rebound. You are not going to get fat with Reta, it's virtually impossible to get fat with Reta and GH anyway let alone coming off a hard cutting phase.

 

[Billbo98]

Coming out of a cut your body is primed for growth. Reverse dieting is garbage. Up your calories and take full advantage of the rebound. You are not going to get fat with Reta, it's virtually impossible to get fat with Reta and GH anyway let alone coming off a hard cutting phase.

Ayyy! Someone with some knowledge is here! Smart guy doing big brain things!