i’ve been looking at how people track progress on glps, and it’s mostly anecdotal or based on a single underpowered trial from 10 yrs ago. so i thought i’d compile some resources that actually helped me. first, the tirzepatide study that got everyone excited - the one with n=122 and a 26wk followup. the supplementary tables have some decent data on adherence and device preference, which is what i was actually looking for.
then there’s the longevity the forum thread on progress in the last 10 yrs, which has some good points on what’s changed in the peptide space. someone mentioned a 2020 review on glp-1 and dual agonists that i hadn’t seen before, and it’s got a decent discussion of the borrowed evidence base problem. i also stumbled on a small study from 2022 that looked at strength training outcomes in people on mounjaro - sample size is tiny, but it’s something. lastly, there’s a poll from this sub on preferred pharmacies and companies, which might be useful for people just starting out.
what i’m still missing is something that ties all this together - a thread or a study that looks at how exercise and strength training interact with glp progress, especially for people who are new to peptides. anyone have any leads on that?
that problem of tying it all together, especially exercise and med effects? it’s not just glps.
with lupus, i log everything - joint pain, fatigue levels, my walks - and it’s still hard to pull out a clear cause and effect. you might see a dip in energy on the days you push harder, but is that the med, the disease, or just overdoing it?
my rheumatologist always wants to see the specific days, not just general “i’m tired.” the correlation view in careclinic sometimes flags patterns i miss in a spreadsheet, like how bad my sleep was before a flare. but even then, it’s not a magic bullet.
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strength training: need a comparator
that 2022 study on mounjaro and strength training is definitely ‘something’ as a starting point. but the lean mass preservation claims usually read worse than they are unless you put the right comparator next to it.
the baseline for lean loss on caloric restriction alone, even without resistance training, is often 25-30%, so glp-1s aren’t quite as “muscle-sparing” as the community wants but also not as bad as some verdicts make them sound. the real question is the relative benefit over that baseline.
for my own tracking, the free-text journal in careclinic lets me map specific training days against my post-injection symptom cadence, which pulls out some confounds.
fresh from my own tracking struggles, i’m still looking for something that ties exercise and strength training to glp progress, like you mentioned “a thread or a study that looks at how exercise and strength training interact with glp progress” - i’ve been using a mix of spreadsheets and symptom tracking to log my own patterns, and it’s been helpful to see the visual charts and trend lines to spot when something is off.