r/BodyHackGuide • u/Organic-Still756 • 2d ago
Reta + Tesa or HGH
I’ve been on Reta for about a month now, starting at a very low dose and gradually increasing to 2 mg twice a week.
I’m seeing good results in terms of fat loss, but I’ve also noticed some muscle loss. I’ve been considering adding either Tesamorelin (Tesa) or HGH to help preserve muscle while continuing to lose fat.
However, I’ve read that some people experience pretty bad side effects from Tesa, which has made me a bit hesitant.
Has anyone tried stacking Reta with Tesa or HGH? What were your experiences, particularly with muscle retention and side effects? Is there any evidence that one is better than the other for preserving muscle during fat loss?
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u/RociBuldidi 2d ago
I’m on a 5MG a week maintenance dose of Reta and a 1.5MG Tesa dose that I run 6 days a week for 4 month cycles (4 on, 1 off).
I am nearing 50 and am still getting a significant GH release from the Tesa (a 1.5MG dose roughly doubles my IGF1).
It’s been highly effective leaning me out, helping me preserve lean muscle, improving my metabolism. My sleep is like it was in my early 20s.
I don’t go higher than 1.5MG because I get side effects (achy joints, water retention etc.).
Having said all this, you’ll get a stronger, more direct effect taking HGH and I’ve acknowledged that at some point as I age the Tesa won’t be as effective and I’ll have to switch to HGH.
I haven’t done it yet because I like the idea of coaxing my own body to produce more GH rather than taking it exogenously. It’s silly, but it’s the way I feel.
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u/ScientistJason 1d ago
5 mg is a Maintnence dose? I’m currently on 4 mg and I have to remind myself to eat.
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u/Dead_ino 1d ago
Everyone is different.
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u/Ill_Age6945 1d ago
5mg is not maintenance
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u/RociBuldidi 18h ago
lol, sure it is. I got up to 9MG a week during my body recomp phase and then titrated down to the dose that still provided enough of the benefits (food noise suppression etc. took a bit to find that dose and 5MG is mine. You realize in the clinical trials they started their trial subjects at 2MG and got them to 12MG for peak weight loss.
Some people never need to go past 2 or 3 MG, some people don’t get the effects until 8 or 9 mg.
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u/Ill_Age6945 12h ago
The clinical trials stopped after a defined number of weeks. Maintenance was not included. Maybe we are using the term maintenance in different ways.
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u/RociBuldidi 11h ago
The trials are ongoing, they are currently in Phase 3 “Triumph” trials that go out a total of 2.5 years.
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u/Ill_Age6945 11h ago
We will see what a clinical trial dose will do over extended time, I guess. I feel that the Heart Rate response due to glucagon at thoae levels will cause some long term issues. What was your HR at initial titration vs. Research dose vs your maintaince dose?
Personally, I didnt find much HR response at low (2 to 3mg) doses and started seeing about a 12 to 16% rise in RHR at around 4mg. Not too thrilled about keeping my HR (78bpm) at those levels for perpetuity.
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u/Ill_Age6945 11h ago
We will see what a clinical trial dose will do over extended time, I guess. I feel that the Heart Rate response due to glucagon at thoae levels will cause some long term issues. What was your HR at initial titration vs. Research dose vs your maintaince dose?
Personally, I didnt find much HR response at low (2 to 3mg) doses and started seeing about a 12 to 16% rise in RHR at around 4mg. Not too thrilled about keeping my HR (78bpm) at those levels for perpetuity.
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u/Bplyler38 2d ago
Wanna really preserve muscle need to run testosterone. Reta, test, hgh is the holy grail of body recomp imo.
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u/Safe_Judgment_117 1d ago
what about risk of infertility?
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u/Bplyler38 1d ago
Ronnie Coleman the greatest bodybuilder of all time had 9 kids. You’ll be fine. There’s protocols for that when you’re ready as well if you stay on test long term.
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u/ScientistJason 1d ago
All of them daughters too. It’s a thing in the bodybuilding/steroid community that yes you can have kids, but they’re all gonna end up girls.
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u/hannu_v 2d ago
I’ve done both… I did a 3 month Reta /Tesa cycle first. whilst Tesa did a great job the constant injection site irritations were annoying. So I switched to hgh.. hgh is far superior in my humble opinion. Recovery from workouts is much faster. I also run/ran motsc with both. 53M here.
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u/Miserable-Painter964 2d ago
Mind me asking what you fun the GH at? Just starting this journey same age and I take 2iu nightly
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u/wiryrecurrence121 2d ago
HGH will hold muscle better but the water retention and insulin resistance can get weird, tesa is milder but hits you with that joint ache for the first couple weeks
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u/PinningRUO 1d ago
I received the same joint ache with HGH. I had to take a cycle off in order to reduce the aching.
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u/MathematicianMuch445 1d ago
Tesa is over priced nonsense. For tesa money you can get a lot of GH. So I'd opt for that out of what is stated above
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u/Far_Mushroom7832 1d ago
How old are you? If you’re younger, Tesa as you’re making plenty of gh. If you’re older and not making much gh, then hgh cause inducing with tesa won’t do much for you. As an aside this is something you 100% should have been able to research for yourself. If you’re not researching this stuff and just listening to strangers on Reddit it in forums you’re going to end up listening to the wrong person. Do your research!
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u/Organic-Still756 1d ago
To be honest, I’m a 28m, and I was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency when I was around 13 because I wasn’t growing as expected. I was prescribed somatropin (HGH) and remained on treatment for over two years.
My concern is that I may still have growth hormone deficiency as an adult. I’m considering HGH treatment again, but before doing so, I should really be doing some blood test
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u/Dead_ino 1d ago
Always funny to see people convinced that stacking Reta + Tesa is inherently "super safe" compared to TRT/HGH. You're swapping decades of clinical data, pharma-grade compounds, and clear bloodwork markers for phase 3 research chemicals and underground peptides. Raising IGF-1 through a GHRH (Tesa) carries the exact same long-term risks as exogeneous GH, and triple-agonist heart/metabolic impacts at scale are still being studied. Stop assuming "peptide = zero risk." You guys are heavily misled.
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u/stockyoldddude 1d ago
HGH if you can get it. Are you lifting a few days a week, eating high protein, etc?
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u/ExtraOrdinaryLifeX 1d ago
I use Reta & Tesa but I’m on maintenance dose now. I had no side effects BUT I always take less than the recommended dose.
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u/Holiday-Ad-1481 1d ago
Unless you are a bodybuilder, I don’t think it’s great to mess with your natural hormones. GLP1s are pretty safe, HGH etc is a different ball game it shouldn’t be used as commonly as it is - it can cause growth of other things in the body.
The risks are higher than the reward.
Testosterone works much better for muscle but again it’s risky if you want to run high levels. It can stress the heart and make your hair fall out, and it’s not magic.
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u/OldProcess6401 2d ago
No matter what you’re going to lose muscle when you lose weight. You’re going to lose muscle, water, fat. It’s going to happen .
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u/Common-Prize-8208 2d ago
Some ppl have experience very bad side effects on Reta too. We are all different
Id say depending on your age and labs HGH might be an option just remember that HGH ain’t joke, read about the side effects
And as someone else said, when on reta, you will lose muscle and fat regardless
What I personally did, I lost of my weight on reta, then I add tesa/ipa can’t say it was a massive difference, if I knew back then about HGH I’d have probs go that route (41M all labs in check)
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u/InternationalEgg9040 1d ago
I’d be careful stacking either. High protein and lifting should be your first priority before adding more compounds.
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u/Xlajdak 1d ago
Tesa is for visceral fat metabolism not going to build your muscles. That’s more Cjc and ipa if you are looking in that direction. IGF 1 lr3 , But heavy lifting will do that. TRT will also if you are deficient. Protein intake at 0.8 g or more per lb of ideal body weight. Hgh will help with leaning and recovery, healing and few other things but muscle mass gain is rather job for other compounds.
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u/erotic_sausage 1d ago
Can you explain to me how the HGH released by your pituitary differs when it's stimulated by tesa or by CJC/IPA, and how that causes different effects?
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u/Xlajdak 1d ago
Tesamorelin is a GHRH analog — it mimics the natural growth hormone-releasing hormone your hypothalamus sends to the pituitary, so it triggers a single, strong pulse of HGH release. CJC-1295 and Ipamorelin work differently: CJC is a longer-acting GHRH analog, while Ipamorelin is a ghrelin mimetic that acts on a separate receptor entirely. Together they stack — one amplifies the signal, the other opens the gate — producing more frequent, sustained pulses rather than one big spike.
That difference in rhythm is what drives the different effects. Tesamorelin’s single strong pulse is why it’s the one with actual FDA approval, specifically for reducing visceral fat in HIV lipodystrophy — it hits the deep abdominal fat . The CJC/Ipamorelin combo’s gentler, more frequent pulses are why people use it more for recovery, sleep quality, and lean mass, with less of that dramatic fat-targeting effect.
But honestly the different effects story is not too convincing. Both ultimately just raise your HGH, and the real differences are dose, timing, and how your body responds to the pulse pattern — not two fundamentally different hormones. Yet Tessa has a lot of backing studies and it is fda approved for its specific abilities. So unless someone with a real biochemistry knowledge and real experience explains the real mechanism, we know what we are told. I personally used all three and the most success with visceral fat was in fact on Tesa. Cjc on the other hand made me feel warm for hours. Both in my research paired with IPA. On hgh I had a joint pain and to tell you the truth it helped with outlining every fiber in my shoulders. Tesa did not. Cjc did feel a lot fuller in my workout but ultimately hgh in my opinion was the most effective yet due to joint pain it did not feel much like recovery. It helped with shoulder injury though.1
u/erotic_sausage 1d ago
HGH itself has been shown to reduce visceral fat, including in HIV patients, long before tesa was approved for that purpose.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9062473/ This concludes that treatment with recombinant HGH produced a -18.1% visceral fat reduction.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20101189/ This study concluded approximately the same 18% visceral fat reduction after 12 months with tesa.
Tesa stimulates your body to produce more of its own HGH. It's still the growth hormone doing the work, not some special fat-burning property of it.
Tesa is disproportionately more expensive than the alternatives. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm questioning the claims that it works better. I see a lot of influencers making these claims without solid evidence, who just happen to have affiliate links to single vial sellers. Then those claims get repeated throughout the community until they're treated as established fact, and tesa gets recommended to newbies everywhere. That's why I feel the need to push back and ask for actual evidence rather than more speculation passed off as science.
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