Run for fat loss
Retatrutide + GH Pulse
advanced16 weeksWeekly 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.
Also sold as Reta + CJC/Ipa, Retatrutide + CJC-1295 no-DAC + Ipamorelin, GLP-1 muscle-sparing stack.
Cautions — 12 on record
Read before running any of this
- The two halves push blood glucose in opposite directions. Incretin agonists improve glycaemia; raising GH raises insulin resistance. Tesamorelin, the only GH-axis compound with an FDA label, showed HbA1c crossing 6.5% in 5% of patients versus 1% on placebo over 26 weeks. Nobody has measured the net effect of running the two together, so check fasting glucose and HbA1c at baseline and during the block rather than assuming they cancel.
- GLP-1 agonists slow gastric emptying markedly. The "inject fasted, at least two hours after food" rule for GH secretagogues assumes a stomach that empties on a normal schedule, and on retatrutide it may not. If a pre-bed pulse dose is not working for you, this is the likely reason.
- Retatrutide is investigational and NOT approved by any regulator. No label, no long-term safety data, no pharmacy-grade product.
- Contraindicated with personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN2, and with a history of pancreatitis.
- Do not run with an active or recent malignancy. Raising GH and IGF-1 in the presence of a tumor is the clearest reason not to touch the secretagogue class.
- Not for use in pregnancy, and not for under-18s while growth plates are open.
- Retatrutide raises heart rate dose-dependently, more than semaglutide or tirzepatide, because of the glucagon arm. Track resting heart rate and blood pressure.
- The lean mass this stack is sold to protect is protected far more reliably by eating 1.6-2.2 g of protein per kg of body weight and lifting. If appetite suppression is driving protein intake down, the injections do not fix that - food does. Anyone running this with protein intake they have not actually counted is treating the wrong variable.
- GH secretagogues cause water retention. During a fat-loss block that makes the scale read wrong for the first few weeks, which is exactly when people panic and change two things at once. Morning puffiness or hand tingling is the signal to reduce the GH dose, not to push through.
- Three compounds started together means no attribution. Get stable on retatrutide alone for several weeks first, then add the GH pair, so a bad reaction has an owner.
- Get a baseline IGF-1 and recheck it. This class is where people quietly push into a range they did not intend.
- All three are banned by WADA.
Components
What is in it, and when
| Compound | Dose | Frequency | Time | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retatrutide | 2 mg1 mg–12 mg | Once a week1×/week | Any time | Phase 2 stepped 1 -> 4 -> 8 -> 12 mg weekly, holding each step 4 weeks. Vendor guides start lower still, at 0.25-0.5 mg, and step every one to two weeks; that is a tolerability choice rather than a different evidence base, and starting low is the safer error. Same injection day each week. Most people never need the top of the range. | Calculator → |
| CJC-1295 without DAC (Mod GRF 1-29) | 100 mcg100 mcg–200 mcg | Once daily7×/week | Pre-bed | The GHRH arm. 100 mcg is a saturating pulse dose - more does not produce a bigger pulse, it just costs more. The no-DAC version is deliberate: the DAC version has a week-long half-life and gives a continuous GH bleed rather than a pulse. Drawn into the same syringe as the ipamorelin. | Calculator → |
| Ipamorelin | 200 mcg100 mcg–300 mcg | Once daily7×/week | Pre-bed | The ghrelin-receptor arm. Chosen over hexarelin or GHRP-6 because it barely moves cortisol, prolactin or hunger - which matters more than usual here, since the other half of this stack is an appetite suppressant. Conventionally dosed on an empty stomach; see the cautions for why that instruction is harder to satisfy on a GLP-1 than it looks. | Calculator → |
Doses are per administration, in the canonical unit. The second line under each dose is the range people run. Each calculator link prefills the reconstitution math for that component.
Delivered dose vs standalone dose
How these doses compare to running each compound alone
Each bar is that compound’s own dose range from its monograph, with a marker where this protocol puts it. A marker outside the band means the protocol is not dosing that compound the way it is dosed on its own — for a fixed-ratio vial that is arithmetic, not a choice.
Retatrutide
Within standalone range- Per dose
- 50% of typical
- Per week
- 2 mg · 50% of standalone
- Cycle total
- 32 mg · 16 doses
Phase 2 stepped 1 -> 4 -> 8 -> 12 mg weekly, holding each step 4 weeks. Vendor guides start lower still, at 0.25-0.5 mg, and step every one to two weeks; that is a tolerability choice rather than a different evidence base, and starting low is the safer error. Same injection day each week. Most people never need the top of the range.
CJC-1295 without DAC (Mod GRF 1-29)
At the floor of the range- Per dose
- 100% of typical
- Per week
- 700 mcg · 100% of standalone
- Cycle total
- 11.2 mg · 112 doses
The GHRH arm. 100 mcg is a saturating pulse dose - more does not produce a bigger pulse, it just costs more. The no-DAC version is deliberate: the DAC version has a week-long half-life and gives a continuous GH bleed rather than a pulse. Drawn into the same syringe as the ipamorelin.
Ipamorelin
Within standalone range- Per dose
- 100% of typical
- Per week
- 1.4 mg · 100% of standalone
- Cycle total
- 22.4 mg · 112 doses
The ghrelin-receptor arm. Chosen over hexarelin or GHRP-6 because it barely moves cortisol, prolactin or hunger - which matters more than usual here, since the other half of this stack is an appetite suppressant. Conventionally dosed on an empty stomach; see the cautions for why that instruction is harder to satisfy on a GLP-1 than it looks.
Schedule — 16 weeks
Week by week
| Compound | 1Week 1 | 2Week 2 | 3Week 3 | 4Week 4 | 5Week 5 | 6Week 6 | 7Week 7 | 8Week 8 | 9Week 9 | 10Week 10 | 11Week 11 | 12Week 12 | 13Week 13 | 14Week 14 | 15Week 15 | 16Week 16 | Cycle total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retatrutide2 mg · 1×/wk | 32 mg16 doses | ||||||||||||||||
| CJC-1295 without DAC (Mod GRF 1-29)100 mcg · 7×/wk | 11.2 mg112 doses | ||||||||||||||||
| Ipamorelin200 mcg · 7×/wk | 22.4 mg112 doses |
This protocol outlasts some of its own components
- CJC-1295 without DAC (Mod GRF 1-29) is typically cycled for 12 weeks; this protocol runs 16 weeks, so weeks 13–16 are past that. In a fixed-ratio vial you cannot drop it early without dropping everything else with it.
- Ipamorelin is typically cycled for 12 weeks; this protocol runs 16 weeks, so weeks 13–16 are past that. In a fixed-ratio vial you cannot drop it early without dropping everything else with it.
Retatrutide — trial titration ladder
| Weeks | Step dose | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | 500 mcg | starting dose |
| 3–4 | 1 mg | — |
| 5–8 | 2 mg | — |
| 9–12 | 4 mg | — |
| 13–16 | 8 mg | — |
This ladder is the escalation schedule recorded on the Retatrutide monograph, laid over this protocol’s 16 weeks. It is what the trials stepped through, not what this protocol prescribes — the schedule above holds the dose flat because that is all the protocol data says.
The dataset records one dose per component, so every dosing week is identical. Where a protocol note describes a loading phase followed by maintenance, that phase change is in the note, not in the schedule — read the component notes before assuming the grid is the whole story.
Evidence
What is actually known
INTERROGATING THE RATIONALE. The premise is sound as far as it goes: lean-mass loss on incretins is real and measured. In the DXA substudies, lean soft tissue was about 26% of the weight lost on tirzepatide in SURMOUNT-1 and about 40% on semaglutide in STEP-1. Some of that is expected with any weight loss, but the absolute numbers are large. WHAT SUPPORTS THE FIX. There is real, if indirect, evidence that a GH secretagogue can blunt catabolism during caloric restriction: Murphy and colleagues (JCEM 1998) put eight healthy volunteers on 18 kcal/kg/day and gave oral MK-677 25 mg for the second week of each 14-day period; nitrogen balance was +0.31 g/day on drug versus -1.48 g/day on placebo. Recombinant GH has similar older nitrogen-sparing data under hypocaloric conditions. That is the strongest thing anyone can point to. WHAT IT DOES NOT SHOW. It is a different drug (oral MK-677, not injected ipamorelin or CJC-1295), a seven-day endpoint, nitrogen balance rather than DXA lean mass, eight subjects, and no GLP-1 anywhere in the design. Short-term nitrogen retention on GH also reflects fluid and non-muscle protein, not just myofibrillar tissue. No randomized trial has tested any GH secretagogue alongside any GLP-1 for lean-mass preservation. WHAT ACTUALLY HAS THE EVIDENCE. The one combination with a real trial behind it uses a different class entirely: in the phase 2b BELIEVE trial, bimagrumab (an activin receptor antagonist) plus semaglutide over 72 weeks lost 2.9% lean mass versus 7.4% on semaglutide alone, with about 93% of the weight lost coming from fat. Bimagrumab is not a peptide you can buy and is not in this dataset - but it is what the honest comparison looks like. VERDICT: mechanistically plausible, weakly supported by analogy to a different secretagogue in a different setting, and untested as run here. Treat the GH half as an unproven addition, not as insurance.
Educational information only, not medical advice. Talk to a licensed clinician before starting, changing, or stopping anything.