Retatrutide, or "reta," is all over the news, and two deaths have been reported to the FDA in people who used products sold as reta online. So is reta safe?

Bariatric surgeon Dr. Matthew Weiner and registered dietitian Zoë Schroeder walk through what reta is, what the trials actually show, what the side effects look like even with a doctor watching, and why reta sold online isn't compounded. It's black market: reta isn't FDA approved, so nobody can know what's in that vial.

Then we answer the reta questions people are searching for: what happens when you stop, whether you can switch from tirzepatide, whether it burns fat or muscle (and how to protect your muscle on any GLP-1), and what's more powerful than tirzepatide.

This is the first episode of our new format: each week is a deep dive on one topic, picked from what you're watching, asking about and seeing in the news. Tell us what you want us to cover next.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• What we know about the two reported reta deaths, and the three possibilities behind them
• Single, double and triple agonists: what glucagon adds, and why it raises heart rate
• Is about 4% more weight loss than tirzepatide worth the risk?
• The skin-burning side effect people report on reta
• Would Dr. Weiner prescribe reta? His honest answer
• What happens when you stop a GLP-1
• Can you switch from tirzepatide to reta?
• Does reta burn fat or muscle, and Zoë's two fixes for protecting muscle
• Why "more powerful" isn't the goal: the right medication is

IS YOUR GLP-1 WORKING?

Our free GLP-1 check compares your weight loss with the clinical trials for your medication, dose and time on treatment: https://poundofcureweightloss.com/r/episode-89-is-reta-safe-a73au/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Is Reta Safe? (article): https://poundofcureweightloss.com/is-reta-safe/
• Dr. Weiner's earlier prediction about reta's glucagon component, Episode 61: https://poundofcureweightloss.com/podcast/episode-61-2024-weight-loss-predictions-recap/
• The Pound of Cure App: https://poundofcureweightloss.com/get-the-app/
• Book an appointment with Deidre, our nurse practitioner (Arizona patients): https://poundofcureweightloss.com/book-an-appointment/

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Talk with your own physician before starting or changing any treatment.

At her heaviest, Ali weighed 410 pounds. That's the last number she saw, because that's when she stopped getting on the scale.

WHAT WE GET INTO

How a spinal surgery and the treatment that followed led to 230 pounds of weight gain

The appointment that nearly ended her search for help, and why she still remembers the room

Why she chose a sleeve over a gastric bypass, and why Dr. Weiner pushed back at the time

What changed when GLP-1s arrived, and why a sleeve plus a GLP-1 now competes with a bypass

Why semaglutide did almost nothing for her and tirzepatide worked, and why nobody can predict which

Paying cash, stretching doses, and Dr. Weiner on why financial harm is harm too

What she actually eats, and why she got rid of her microwave

ONE-derland, loose skin, and why Dr. Weiner says she's already past her goal weight

Learn more about Pound of Cure Weight Loss: https://poundofcureweightloss.com

Weight loss therapist Lora Grabow, LMSW has spent 23 years working with medical and surgical weight loss patients, and she says the same piece is still missing from almost every treatment plan. She calls it headwork.

Mindset is about what you think. Headwork is about what to do with what you think, and that difference is the whole episode.

Lora joins Dr. Weiner and Zoe for a conversation that goes from the practical to the personal. She walks through her three-step "power of the pause" framework using a real scenario (it's 11pm, you're anxious about work tomorrow, and you're standing in the kitchen), explains why shame is the single biggest barrier to behavior change, and gets honest about her own decision to start a GLP-1 this past June after a hysterectomy and perimenopause left her doing everything right and getting nowhere.

That last part is the moment of the episode. Lora caught herself in the exact thinking she coaches patients out of every day, believing she had to earn help.

What we get into

• Headwork vs. mindset, and why "information only turns into transformation when you know what to do with it"
• The power of the pause, Lora's three tips for food noise: catch the thought, name the feeling, then choose how you respond
• Why we say "I'm feeling anxious," not "I'm anxious", because we are not our feelings
• Shame vs. guilt, through Brené Brown's framing: shame says I am a mistake, guilt says I made a mistake. One drives binge eating and isolation. The other drives change.
• Obesity is a disease, not a decision, and why Lora describes her role as a "shame lifter"
• Lora's GLP-1 story, from the menopause middle to the friend at breakfast who asked the question that stopped her in her tracks
• What actually got quiet for her, and it wasn't food noise, it was how hard she was being on herself
• Dr. Weiner's bell curve: roughly 15% of people do great on GLP-1s no matter what, roughly 15% won't respond at all, and the 70% in the middle almost never show up on your feed. That's where headwork, nutrition, and exercise decide the outcome.
• Numbing vs. coping through, and the lidocaine shot analogy that explains why food, phones, and doom scrolling all make the next round harder
• "Dead people goals", Dr. Susan David's line about the only people not feeling uncomfortable emotions
• Community is treatment, and the mic drop question Lora asks at the end of every support group

Free workshop from Lora:

What Happens After the Food Noise Gets Quiet? Tuesday, September 16 at 7:00pm Eastern. Completely free, no limit on attendance, and a replay goes out to everyone who registers.

Lora is walking through her brand new headwork framework and taking attendees through a live exercise on root cause work and patterns. If this conversation resonated, this is the deeper version of it.

👉 Register at loragrabow.com

Find Lora

• Website and Headwork Matters newsletter: loragrabow.com
• Instagram: @lora.grabow
• Facebook: Lora Grabow, LMSW
• Substack: https://substack.com/@lora809857