Plateau at month 5 on tirz, is my deficit the problem or just habituation?

Posted by tiredmira in Weight Loss & Metabolic - 5 points, 4 comments.

Stuck somewhere around month 5 on tirz and the scale basically stopped moving for like 3 weeks now. Down about 14% from where I started, which honestly I am not mad about, but the trend line on my spreadsheet basically went flat and it is bugging me 😅.

I track food pretty closely and my calories are still in a solid deficit. Protein is around 130g a day. Sleep is fine, HRV is actually trending up. So from a numbers standpoint nothing obvious is breaking.

I am wondering if this is just receptor habituation kicking in, since the early drops felt almost effortless and now my appetite suppression feels noticeably weaker on the same dose. Or maybe I am just at the point where my TDEE recalculated downward and my deficit is not as deep as I think it is.

For anyone who has been on this longer, did a dose step fix it for you, or did you have to actually tighten the diet side? Not looking for a magic answer, just curious what other people saw at this stage.

Comments

• grinder265: Ngl month 3-5 is exactly where people seem to hit the wall most often. The appetite thing fading a bit could be GLP-1 receptor desensitization, or it could just be that the honeymoon phase of early satiety wears off and you kinda unconsciously let portions creep back up. 3 weeks flat at 14% down isn't really a plateau imo, your body is just being a body. Curious what your deficit actually looks like in calories though. 130g protein is solid but if you dropped weight your TDEE shifted and your "
• tiredmira: Yeah this tracks with what I was thinking. My deficit started around 600 cal based on my initial TDEE, but if it recalculated down then I am probably running closer to 300 now which still should be something on the scale. Portions have not crept up intentionally but honestly I have not been weighing as religiously the last 2 weeks, so could be a bit of both. Might do a strict 2 week weigh-everything reset and see if the trend wakes back up before I touch the dose 🥗
• sasha_b: Yeah the TDEE shifting thing is real and gets missed a lot. When you drop a chunk of weight your maintenance drops with it, so a deficit that felt generous at the start can basically vanish without you changing a thing. Worth recalculating from your current weight, not your start weight. As for the appetite creeping back, I'm with you, for me it felt more like habit than the drug stopping working, portions just quietly got bigger.
• tiredmira: Yeah that tracks with what I was suspecting. I did the math again using my current weight and the deficit basically halved from what I thought it was 😅. Going to tighten up portions for a couple weeks before I touch the dose, since honestly the food side feels more in my control than another titration.

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.