Retatrutide Before and After: Real Results by Month

A real retatrutide before and after, measured in a trial, looks like this: people on the 12 mg dose lost an average of 17.5% of their body weight by week 24 (about 5.5 months) in Lilly's Phase 2 trial, and 28.3% by week 80 in the Phase 3 TRIUMPH-1 trial. From TRIUMPH-1's average starting weight of 248.5 lb, that's 70.3 lb gone and 9.5 inches off the waist. The photos you'll find online often show more, sooner, and there are reasons for that.

Lilly hasn't published before and after photos from its trials, as far as we could find, so the closest thing to a verified before and after is a table of weights and waist sizes. As of September 2026, retatrutide is still in Phase 3 trials and no approved version exists yet. Lilly plans to file for US approval (a Biologics License Application) in the first quarter of 2027, according to its second-quarter 2026 results.

Retatrutide before and after in trial numbers

Every figure here is for the 12 mg dose, the highest any trial has reported, in people who kept taking it. The Phase 2 pounds and waist sizes come from the trial's results on ClinicalTrials.gov; the rest are from Lilly's Phase 3 releases.

For scale, people on placebo lost 1.6% by week 24 in the Phase 2 trial. In TRIUMPH-1, the 4 mg and 9 mg groups landed between placebo and 12 mg at 80 weeks.

BMI is where a before and after shows up on paper. The Phase 2 group on 12 mg started at an average BMI of 37.42 and was down 9.14 points by week 48, which takes a typical person from well inside the obesity range (30 or more, by the CDC's cutoffs) to about 28, in the overweight range. In TRIUMPH-1, 65.3% of people on 12 mg finished 80 weeks with a BMI under 30 and 33.3% under 25, per Lilly's June 2026 release.

Those headline averages count only people who stayed on the drug. Lilly also reports a figure that counts everyone who started, including people who quit, and for 12 mg in TRIUMPH-1 it drops from 28.3% to 25.0%.

Reta before and after at 1 month and 3 months

Nobody has published it. We couldn't find a retatrutide obesity trial that reports weight at week 4 or week 12, and the Phase 2 registry lists body weight only at weeks 24 and 48.

The dose schedule explains why early photos are underwhelming. In TRIUMPH-1, everyone started at 2 mg a week and stepped up every 4 weeks, and the 12 mg group went through 2, 4, 6 and 9 mg first. So a 1-month photo was taken entirely on the starting dose, and a 3-month photo was taken before the top dose had even begun (it starts at week 17).

Early scale numbers are also noisy. Less food in your gut and shifts in water move the number from day to day, so a big drop in week 2 can partly bounce back. The weight loss timeline walks through the dose steps week by week.

Our read: a 1-month before and after mostly shows the starting dose. Week 24, the first point any obesity trial measured, is the fair time to hold your photos up against the table above.

What the most upvoted Reddit transformations report

These titles come from the 100 most upvoted posts of all time on r/Retatrutide, as we collected them in September 2026. They're self-reports: nobody checked the scale, the dose or the vial, and we didn't either. We worked out each percentage from the numbers in the title and put it next to the trial result closest in size, with how long the trial took to get there.

Each of those posts reports losing weight roughly 2 to 3 times as fast per week as the 12 mg trial groups did. Other top titles report 127 lb in under 6 months and 200 lb in 12 months, without a starting weight to turn into a percentage.

Some of those results may be accurate. The list, though, is sorted by applause: a 100 lb loss with photos collects votes, while a stall gets a short question thread and quitting gets nothing. Our page on retatrutide Reddit sorts the rest of what people post there.

Why online before and after pics look better than the average

Several things push the photos you see above the trial numbers, and most of them have nothing to do with the drug.

• Selection. The people who post are the ones with something to show. A trial counts everyone it enrolled.
• Starting weight. Pounds scale with where you start. Losing 20% is 60 lb from 300 lb and 36 lb from 180 lb, so a heavy starter's photo looks more dramatic at the same percentage.
• Dose and extras. One top title mentions 15 mg, above the 12 mg top dose in every trial Lilly has reported, and another describes a "peptide stack". Neither was tested in a trial.
• The camera. Light from above, a slight lean, a flexed stomach, evening versus morning, or a different phone distance can make the same body look noticeably different.
• The product. The trials used Lilly's retatrutide at known doses. People posting transformations outside a trial are using vials from peptide sellers, since no approved product exists.

That last point cuts both ways. Lilly's own FAQ, updated July 2026, says illicit retatrutide products "may also have too much or too little active ingredient, or the wrong ingredient entirely". A stranger's before and after tells you nothing about what was in their vial or what will be in yours, which is why anyone weighing retatrutide for sale online ends up leaning on batch-specific lab reports rather than photos.

Fat, muscle and the face in reta before and after photos

The closest thing to a measured before and after of the body itself is a body scan (DXA) study. In a substudy of the Phase 2 diabetes trial, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, total fat mass fell 23.2% on 12 mg over 36 weeks, against 4.5% on placebo. The authors found that the share of lost weight coming from lean tissue was similar to other obesity treatments. Only 103 people finished with both scans, so treat the numbers as rough.

How much muscle shows in a photo also depends on training and protein, and no retatrutide trial has tested an exercise or protein plan.

The face is the part people notice first in their own photos and least expect. Users call the hollow, older look after fast loss "reta face". No trial has measured facial fat or skin, and none has measured loose skin anywhere on the body. Our page on reta face covers what's known about rapid weight loss and the face in general.

How to take before and after photos that tell the truth

Photos and a tape measure together beat either one alone. A simple setup takes 5 minutes a month.

1. Pick one spot with the same light every time, ideally facing a window, and prop your phone at chest height on a timer.
2. Take a front, side and back photo standing relaxed, in the same fitted clothes, without sucking in.
3. Shoot at the same time of day, such as first thing in the morning before eating.
4. Measure your waist the CDC way: stand, place the tape just above your hip bones, breathe in, and measure just after you breathe out.
5. Weigh yourself several times a week and compare weekly averages, not single mornings.
6. Write the date and your dose next to each set.
7. Repeat every 4 weeks, which lines up with the 4-week dose steps the trials used.

To compare yourself with the trial table, turn your loss into a percentage: (starting weight minus current weight) divided by starting weight, times 100. From 250 lb to 215 lb is 35 ÷ 250, or 14%. The weight loss calculator does the trial math for your own starting weight.

The CDC links a waist over 35 inches in women and over 40 inches in men to higher health risk, so the tape can show progress that matters even in months when the photos barely change.

When a before and after is a reason to slow down

Losing more than planned is a real reason people stop. In TRIUMPH-4, 18.2% of people on 12 mg quit because of side effects, against 4.0% on placebo. Lilly said those rates were "highly correlated with baseline BMI" and "included discontinuations for perceived excessive weight loss". Among people who started with a BMI of 35 or more, the 12 mg figure was 12.1%.

Our read: the leaner you start, the more a trial-sized loss can overshoot what you wanted, so decide your goal weight with a doctor before the photos start looking dramatic.

Speed matters too. The Phase 2 12 mg group's 17.5% over 24 weeks works out to about 0.7% of body weight a week. If you're losing well beyond that, eating very little or feeling faint, tell your doctor. Nausea and vomiting climb with the dose (42.4% and 25.3% on 12 mg in TRIUMPH-1, against 14.8% and 4.8% on placebo), and our side effects guide covers each one.

If you keep a photo log, bring it and your weekly weights to that appointment. A doctor can do far more with 12 dated data points than with one before and one after.