Does high-dose reta actually stop muscles from growing when combined with test?

Looking into whether anyone's had negative effects from pulling back retatrutide doses.

Currently running 15mg RT alongside 700mg weekly test propionate, and while it helped break through a plateau around 240lbs, there's a real question of whether the high RT amount is dampening muscle synthesis. The mechanism seems to cut both ways: chronic GCG receptor activation suppresses mTOR and muscle synthesis, but retatrutide also favors burning lipids over amino acids, so it may not be as muscle-wasting as it sounds, while the anabolics on board should be countering some of that.

So the real question is whether staying at 15mg RT is even necessary. Started at 2mg back in March, worked up gradually through 4, 6, 8, 12, and 14mg. Haven't managed a DEXA scan yet, but pushing the RT amount higher hasn't clearly sped up the weight loss.

Some people say stacking reta with anabolics makes cutting easier, just with less muscle growth. Would dialing the RT amount back down make sense here?

I'm only running 4mg RT and even at that dose my recovery from lifting felt sluggish for the first few weeks. 15mg is a lot higher than what most people here run just for weight loss, so I'd believe the mTOR suppression is doing more at that level. The test should be fighting it but I don't know if 700mg a week is enough to fully cancel it out.

Following this one. I had a batch of RT that basically did nothing to me at 2mg, so potency varies a lot between sources and that alone could throw off any comparison between people running the same stated mg. Before assuming it's the mechanism killing your gains, I'd want to know your RT is actually testing where you think it is.

No answers on the muscle question but that's a serious stack to be running blind on. I switched sources after mine started burning like crazy on injection and it turned out the concentration was off from the label. Worth getting yours tested if you haven't, since a mismatched dose would mess with any conclusion about what 15mg 'should' be doing.

Honestly if the goal is cutting without losing muscle I'd look at dropping to tirzepatide instead of pushing RT that high. From what people say here tirz doesn't hit the GCG receptor the same way, so it may not fight the anabolics as hard. Not saying switch mid-cycle, just something to think about for next time.

Circling back on this since it's been a couple weeks. The way I understand it, mTOR suppression from GCG activation is dose dependent same as everything else with these compounds, so cutting from 15mg to something like 8-10mg might get you most of the fat loss benefit without leaning as hard on the pathway that's fighting your test. You said pushing the RT amount higher hasn't clearly sped up the loss anyway, which to me reads as you're past the point of it doing much extra for the cut and it's only costing you on the muscle side now. Might be worth a DEXA before and after a dose drop so you actually have numbers instead of guessing.