Goal

Fat loss

Compounds16

With human trials7

What actually moves fat mass, what only claims to, and how to tell the two apart.

Fat loss here means reducing fat mass, not the number on the scale. Almost every compound that reliably does it works through appetite: it makes eating less feel manageable rather than burning anything directly. That is worth sitting with before you compare options, because it means the compound does half the job and your diet does the other half — and it explains why so many plausible-sounding "fat burner" peptides fail the moment somebody runs a controlled trial.

The strongest matches are the incretin agonists — semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide — plus tesamorelin, the one growth hormone releasing hormone analogue carrying an FDA label for reducing visceral fat, granted in a narrow HIV lipodystrophy population rather than for general weight loss. Below them sits a second tier of metabolic compounds with genuinely different mechanisms: MOTS-c on mitochondrial signaling, 5-Amino-1MQ on NNMT, SLU-PP-332 on the estrogen-related receptors, cagrilintide on amylin, tesofensine on monoamine reuptake. Their human evidence runs from early to entirely absent. The growth hormone secretagogues at the bottom of the list are weighted 2 for a reason: they shift body composition modestly at best, and MK-677 raises appetite rather than lowering it.

Read the evidence column before the match column. A 5/5 match with animal-only support is a hypothesis; a 5/5 match with phase 3 data is a drug. AOD-9604 is the instructive case at the bottom of this list — its human obesity trials were run, and they failed to beat placebo, which makes it not a gentle option but a tested and negative one. Whatever you pick, protein intake and resistance training decide how much of what you lose is fat rather than muscle, and the incretins carry hard contraindications around medullary thyroid carcinoma, MEN2, pancreatitis and pregnancy.

How to read this

Match — how squarely it aims here

The weight the dataset gives this compound for this goal, 1 to 5. It describes intent and mechanism, not benefit, and not direction: a 5 means the compound acts hard on the system in question.

5/5primary use

Evidence — whether anyone has shown it

Read from the compound’s evidence note and handling grade, for the compound as a whole rather than for this goal alone. A 5/5 match on animal data is a hypothesis, not a result.

Human trialsRandomized or controlled human trials exist, or the compound holds a regulatory approval somewhere. Trials existing is not the same as trials succeeding — some of these were negative.
Some human dataPublished human work exists but is small, early-phase, acute, or from a single group that nobody has replicated.
Animal data onlyThe case rests on rodent and cell work. Doses shown are extrapolated, not established in people.
Anecdotal onlyNo published trial record of any kind. Every number comes from vendor packaging and community practice.

16 compounds, strongest match first

Ranked for fat loss

Match 5/5 · Primary use

Match 4/5 · Strong secondary

Match 2/5 · Marginal

Named stacks

Protocols built around this goal

Retatrutide + KLOWPrimary goal16 weeksAdvancedA fat-loss block that pairs weekly retatrutide with the daily KLOW healing blend. The logic people give is that aggressive weight loss is catabolic and hard on skin, joints and gut, and KLOW is meant to offset that. Retatrutide does the fat loss; KLOW does nothing for it.Retatrutide + GH PulsePrimary goal16 weeksAdvancedWeekly retatrutide for the fat loss, plus the standard nightly GHRH + GHRP pulse (CJC-1295 without DAC and ipamorelin) bolted on. The stated reason is preserving lean mass through an aggressive incretin cut. Read the evidence note before you buy that reason - the lean-mass problem is real and measured, but this specific fix is not.Tirzepatide + TesamorelinPrimary goal26 weeksAdvancedThe same idea as Retatrutide + GH Pulse, built from the two compounds in their classes that actually have FDA labels: weekly tirzepatide for the weight loss, daily tesamorelin for visceral fat and the GH axis. It is the conservative version of the muscle-sparing stack - better documented on both sides, more expensive, and with a clearer glucose problem to watch.GH Pulse (Ipamorelin + CJC-1295 no-DAC)Also targets12 weeksBeginnerThe standard growth hormone secretagogue pairing: a GHRH analogue (CJC-1295 without DAC, also sold as Mod GRF 1-29) plus a ghrelin receptor agonist (ipamorelin), injected together so the two mechanisms produce a larger pulse than either alone. Both are short-acting, which is the point - it mimics a natural pulse instead of flattening it.Advanced Mitochondrial (MOTS-c + SS-31)Also targets8 weeksAdvancedThe two most talked-about mitochondrial peptides run together: MOTS-c, a mitochondrially encoded peptide that activates AMPK, and SS-31 (elamipretide), a tetrapeptide that binds cardiolipin on the inner mitochondrial membrane. Two different points of attack on the same organelle, which is the whole rationale. Graded advanced because both are thin on human data and because nothing you can measure will tell you whether it worked.

Not sure this is your goal

Most people arrive wanting two or three of these at once, and the honest answer is usually to pick one and run it properly. The quiz weighs your goals against your experience, the routes you will tolerate and your contraindications, then shows its reasoning rather than just a name.

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Other goals

Educational information only, not medical advice. Talk to a licensed clinician before starting, changing, or stopping anything.