Eight weeks on reta. Here is what actually mattered and what turned out to be noise. ✅ 1. Feeling nothing in week one made me doubt the whole thing Expected something obvious. Got absolutely nothing for the first several days. 👉 Reta has a long half life so it takes weeks to reach full working levels in your system 👉 Appetite started shifting around day four and built slowly from there 👉 Judging it in week one is like judging a cycle after one session ✅ 2. Los1ng w3ight and looking wors3 happened at the same time The scale was dropping consistently and I somehow looked flatter and softer than before. 👉 Protein was nowhere near where it needed to be and my body took the muscle first 👉 Weight loss and fat loss are completely different outcomes on reta 👉 200-300g daily from the start or the transformation will not look like one ✅ 3. Not tracking anything was costing me more than I realised No records no pattern recognition no idea what was actually driving results. 👉 Logged everything in Dosely free on the App Store and the gaps became obvious immediately 👉 Found I was consistently missing protein on the same two days every single week 👉 You cannot fix problems you cannot see and tracking makes them impossible to ignore ✅ 4. Dehydration was hiding behind every side effect I had Headaches low energy and flat training all traced back to one thing. 👉 Reta shuts off thirst just as hard as hunger and you never feel it happening 👉 Was drinking maybe a litre a day and thought that was normal 👉 4-6L with electrolytes and most of my sides disappeared within a week ✅ 5. Alcohol on reta is not the same substance Went out at week three assuming it would feel like it always had. 👉 Slowed digestion means it absorbs completely differently and hits with no warning 👉 Three days of feeling wrecked over a night that used to mean nothing 👉 Cut it entirely after that and never questioned the decision again ✅ 6. Daily weighing almost ended the cycl3 Was checking every morning and reading nothing but noise. 👉 Water fluctuations on reta are wild enough to hide weeks of genuine fat loss 👉 Nearly stopped at week three because the number would not move 👉 Weekly weigh ins same time same conditions and the trend was there the whole time ✅ 7. Training harder mattered more than eating less Instinct said to cut food further. That was the wrong move entirely. 👉 Reta already creates the deficit so cutting more just accelerates muscle loss 👉 Moderate deficit plus heavy lifting produced dramatically better results than a bigger deficit ever did 👉 Let the compound handle the f4t and let the gym handle everything else ✅ 8. The change showed up in the face first Body composition felt slow for weeks then the face changed almost overnight. 👉 Jaw sharper less puffiness around the eyes and a completely different structure 👉 This is when people started commenting without me saying anything 👉 The face always reveals reta before the body catches up Save this if you are starting or currently mid cycl3 because most of this took me weeks to work out on my own. What is the one thing you got wrong in your first cycl3? 👇 - @jsondosely