Insomnia & Non Existent Energy

[SlamSumTest]

I have been on Reta for 8-10 weeks and have lost significant weight (roughly 14% of my bodyweight.

That said, the last couple of weeks, I have started getting quite a large uptick in serious insomnia. I wake up with a couple hours, then can’t sleep from 3am-6am and have to start work. Zero libido, always cold, brain fog. It’s compounding because I can’t be active and exercise due to lack of sleep and the cycle continues

Today was really the final straw where I only slept 2 hours and notice I’m freezing cold — my skin looks very dull & sickly. I also notice at night I’m having to piss a lot and it’s always clear

What I don’t understand is, this is consistent with me pushing the Reta dose from 2mg to 4mg. I’m eating roughly 2000-2100kcal of clean food daily.

Tbh this isn’t worth the quality of life decrease. I’ve went from about high teens bodyfat to low teens, is this my body essentially saying it doesn’t want to be at this weight/bodyfat? Or is this simply from the glucagon effects of Reta?

I am not even stage lean, so I’m confused why my body is fighting so hard

 

[Ghoul]

3am wake is classic hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) sympathetic nervous response.

Cortisol surge as your body sets off alarm that brain doesn’t have sufficient fuel.

A carb (but low sugar) snack just before bed will help stabilize blood sugar overnight.

30g slow-digesting carbs (oats, banana, whole-grain toast). A little protein with it is fine.

If you want to attack it as fully as possible, adding magnesium glycinate before bed will suppress the hypoglycemia sympathetic response. The two combined should restore normal sleep.

Probably out of liver fat to fuel easy glucose production the Reta is stimulating.

 

[SlamSumTest]

3am wake is classic hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) sympathetic nervous response.

Cortisol surge as your body sets off alarm that brain doesn’t have sufficient fuel.

A carb (but low sugar) snack just before bed will help stabilize blood sugar overnight.

30g slow-digesting carbs (oats, banana, whole-grain toast). A little protein with it is fine.

If you want to attack it as fully as possible, adding magnesium glycinate before bed will suppress the hypoglycemia sympathetic response. The two combined should restore normal sleep.

Probably out of liver fat to fuel easy glucose production the Reta is stimulating.

Appreciate ya always,I’ll make a grocery run tomorrow.

Curious, would it beneficial to eat most of my meals in the back half of the day ?

 

[Ghoul]

Appreciate ya always,I’ll make a grocery run tomorrow.

Curious, would it beneficial to eat most of my meals in the back half of the day ?

It did for me.

I started having this issue after I was on Tesamorelin for a while. Whatever liver fat Tirz hadn’t eliminated Tesa almost certainly did.

I didn’t realize overnight hypoglycemia was making me wake up at 3:30am until I got a CGM.

The snack and magnesium helped a lot, but once I started doing fasted cardio on rHGH, pushing my first meal to 11-12, and the rest shifted later in the day (last meal around 8-9), did my sleep completely return to normal.

This “problem” is actually a positive sign for liver health, and common with endurance athletes and others with extremely lean / minimal visceral fat levels.

Extremely low liver fat reduces the liver’s ability to respond rapidly to hypoglycemia, because liver glycogen stores are lower and the organ has less immediate fuel flexibility. It’s not dangerous in healthy people, but it makes overnight glucose dips more likely.

My tendency toward slow response to hypoglycemia, and excellent insulin sensitivity (because of long term GLP) has ironically forced me to be very careful to avoid high glycemic foods. Even my daily bowl of thick rolled oats became intolerable because the mild glucose spike got knocked down so fast and hard via excellent insulin sensitivity, it would overshoot into low glucose that takes a while to recover from thanks to a sluggish hypoglycemia liver response. I’d have to lay down for a 20 minute coma / half-conscious nap lol.

Not even steel cut oats resolved it. Switching to whole groats finally allowed me to eat oatmeal again without knocking myself out lol.

 

[Country Club Hero]

Could be that. Or something else. Regardless, you can probably push through. Just address the sleep issues if you’re happy with the results of the Reta which I’m assuming you are.

What about indica weed? A vape pen, gummies, the real stuff, whatever. It works so if you really want sleep you’ll find a way to implement it.

Or there’s Unisom, Ambien, Trazadone, etc… There’s several ways to approach sleep issues and if you are happy with the results of your body recomp then you will find a way to address the sleep issues so you can maintain the glp1 use.

 

[Manualtrt]

How can you reconcile taking rHGH fasted at night with needing to take some carbs pre bed?

Or is it a case of if you are going hypo/ waking at 2-3 that you need to an AM bolus instead?

I previously had this issue on Reta, I’m now on tirz and titrating up so will be interesting to see if I have the same issue

 

[lilhawk]

How can you reconcile taking rHGH fasted at night with needing to take some carbs pre bed?

Or is it a case of if you are going hypo/ waking at 2-3 that you need to an AM bolus instead?

I previously had this issue on Reta, I’m now on tirz and titrating up so will be interesting to see if I have the same issue

You don’t need to take HGH fasted. The timing of HGH and food is way overblown. I take 8iu before bed and eat my last meal at the same time and my fasting BG is in the 70s with 2mg of Reta per week.

 

[SlamSumTest]

Last couple nights finally got some decent sleep, difference was intentionally eating more calories which was hard (swapped lower fat meat & yogurt for full fat which makes it easy).

Def pushing past my hunger signals, stomach is super full and even some fast food sounds gross to me. That said I had a cheat meal on sunday when i felt like garbage after getting 1-2 hours of sleep.

Going to give this a few more days but definitely think this was a matter of too little calories as opposed to it being the Reta. Tbh I am gonna drop my dose back to 2mg but overall i don't think this is condusive to my lifestyle/goals, i do like being a lower set weight/bodyfat for the aesthetics so hopefully i dont gain it back but we will see.

 

[SlamSumTest]

Thought I’d give a final update— but can confirm that it was 100% a dietary deficiency.

Slowly included some more fattier red meat & salmon, used a bit more olive oil here & there and added a full fat Greek yogurt bowl w/ oats, honey, & berries. Stopped adding so much veggies in my meals so I could make room for denser foods.

My dietary fat was extremely low now that I was thinking of it, so the fattier meat & full fat yogurt covers that.

Sleeping way better now this whole week with no interruptions w/ vivid dreams. Skin & eyes look way healthier now too now that I’m rested….bonus points I am still not gaining any weight after upping the calories.

I think since I am already on the leaner side at about low teens bodyfat, my body is extremely sensitive to any shifts in caloric intake/deficiencies.

 

[Liter O' Test]

Thought I’d give a final update— but can confirm that it was 100% a dietary deficiency.

Slowly included some more fattier red meat & salmon, used a bit more olive oil here & there and added a full fat Greek yogurt bowl w/ oats, honey, & berries. Stopped adding so much veggies in my meals so I could make room for denser foods.

My dietary fat was extremely low now that I was thinking of it, so the fattier meat & full fat yogurt covers that.

Sleeping way better now this whole week with no interruptions w/ vivid dreams. Skin & eyes look way healthier now too now that I’m rested….bonus points I am still not gaining any weight after upping the calories.

I think since I am already on the leaner side at about low teens bodyfat, my body is extremely sensitive to any shifts in caloric intake/deficiencies.

I was going to say... probably not the reta, really easy to dig a deep hole dieting too hard and being too "in it" and miss a key vitamin or something

when i made that mistake I kept craving arbys roast beef sandwhiches and ice cream, and when i listened to my body and ate it, i felt way better and i thought it was crazy, but i thought i looked better too. I was just missing fat, added that back in cleanly and the cravings went away.

also is your estrogen OK? some of your symptoms fit low estrogen (sensitive)

keep your fats up and calories up and do more steps to make up for it instead of pushing food lower, that way your body and muscles and skin get what it needs, and pulls energy from fat and glycogen during the LISS/steps

 

[SlamSumTest]

I was going to say... probably not the reta, really easy to dig a deep hole dieting too hard and being too "in it" and miss a key vitamin or something

when i made that mistake I kept craving arbys roast beef sandwhiches and ice cream, and when i listened to my body and ate it, i felt way better and i thought it was crazy, but i thought i looked better too. I was just missing fat, added that back in cleanly and the cravings went away.

also is your estrogen OK? some of your symptoms fit low estrogen (sensitive)

keep your fats up and calories up and do more steps to make up for it instead of pushing food lower, that way your body and muscles and skin get what it needs, and pulls energy from fat and glycogen during the LISS/steps

Well said, I recall when cutting I always asked myself why I felt and looked like ‘shit’ despite eating super clean, home cooked meals but whenever I had a cheat meal I would 180 and look/feel amazing the next day. Def comes down to energy balance & nutrition; hard to get it when your plate is full of fibrous veggies and lean meats.

I started TRT 5 weeks ago, 125mg Test + 500iu HCG a week. Haven’t got bloodwork yet, but my estrogen would prob be on the higher side.

I’ll def slowly keep titrating my calories up, I can feel the energy coming back to be more active besides lifting.

But yeah that week was absolute hell, glad I don’t have to drop the Reta now

 

[anavar_goblin]

Im having a lot of the same issues averaging around 4-4.5 hours of sleep at night. On 6ui split fasted morning and night, test, reta, var.

I was so worried about losing the positive up until very recently I would wake up refreshed. I'll be getting blood work mid December so we will see where everything is at.