Coming up on 12 weeks 100mcg Ipa / 2mg Tesa 5x a week
I'm also on Reta, so to the degree it contributed to this result maybe we call it 50/50 at best. But I took Tesa specifically for visceral fat reduction. Dexa scan last week shows reduction from ~1.5 lbs of VAT to .75 lbs. I'll take a 50% VAT reduction as a win. Curious based on the FDA studies if discontinuing Tesa will bring VAT mass back to baseline, or if those findings had something to do with the limited lifestyle habits of HIV patients, vs my lifestyle of daily fasted cardio & weight training 6x a week.
Either way I think the risks of combining secretagogues is dose-dependent, and it seems the fitness community is sold on overdosing Ipamorelin to a concerning degree. This is perpetuated by the retailers who combine the two peptides so the Ipa dose is orders of magnitude larger than it should be.
The Huberman episode with Craig Koniver discusses proper Ipamorelin dosing to be in the range of 100mcg daily. People taking multiple milligrams to "feel" it are not doing themselves any favors. As pointed out in the above discussion, looking to side effects as a sign that a compound is working is not a valid or healthy pursuit when administering drugs. I mean, you all can do what you like, but I don't think doses in MG are serving the purpose you hope they are.
Unfortunately the predisposition to accumulate visceral fat, “central adiposity” is mostly regulated by growth hormone.
Keeping weight off will delay any reaccumulation, but unless you stay in perpetual perfect caloric balance or a deficit, in the normal cycle of your endogenous GH pulses triggering free fatty acids release from fat cells, any that go unused, regardless of where they come from (ie subQ if you already got rid of most visceral), they’ll preferentially redeposit in visceral fat.
Age, a lifetime of insulin and cortisol exposure has essentially broken the “in door” on visceral fat cells, so it’s stuck open, allowing free fatty acids to easily enter and accumulate, while the out door is rusted shut. It’s only elevated, youthful levels of GH that “force open” the ‘out door’ of visceral fat cells.
Raising GH by exogenous compounds doesn’t fix the doors. It just temporarily opens the out door wider than the in door, so FFAs are more likely to exit the visceral fat cells than enter and accumulate. Once GH levels return to what they were previously, it all goes back to the previous state.
The evolutionary reason for this is probably that as an animal, with age, physical decline meant the ability to acquire calories declined, and accumulating fat when excess food is available, storing it in the stubborn visceral deposit which only releases under conditions of absolute starvation, enhanced survival. Younger humans preferentially store fat in easier to release deposits, to meet the energy needs of high physical activity.
