Amlexanox for a stalled GLP-1 run, anyone tried layering it in?

Question

I've been on tirz for about 7 months now and the scale has basically given up on me for the last 6 weeks. Weight's been sitting within a 2 lb window, calories are reasonable, training is consistent, sleep is dialed in as best as I can get it. My HRV has actually crept up a little so I'm recovering fine, just not dropping. Started reading about amlexanox and the mechanism actually makes sense to me. Inhibiting TBK1 and IKKε to restore thermogenesis sounds like it targets a different lever than the GLP-1 appetite suppression I've been relying on. I'm interested in it specifically because my weight loss has stalled, not because I'm looking for a quick fix. Before I even think about adding anything, I'm curious if anyone here has actually layered amlexanox onto a GLP-1 run and what moved first for them. Was it actual scale weight, waist measurement, body comp, or something more subjective like body temperature or energy? And how did you titrate the 3x daily dosing without it wrecking your schedule? Also worth asking, did anyone track fasting glucose or lipids while on it? I like seeing the numbers move, not just the mirror.

elle_z · Accepted Answer

Interesting thread. I haven't run amlexanox myself but I read a decent amount about it after the U-Mich thermogenesis papers got hyped a couple years back. The TBK1/IKKε angle genuinely is different from what tirz does, so layering them makes sense on paper at least. A few things I'd want to know before pulling the trigger tho. Was your calories actually stable the whole stall, or did they quietly drift up as tirz appetite suppression normalised? Six weeks at the same weight with rising HRV is usually adaptive thermogenesis or just intake creep rather than a pharmacology ceiling, imo. The 3x daily thing would wreck me ngl, that's basically a meal timer 😅 did anyone actually keep compliance up long enough to see anything move? And did anyone get the expected bump in resting temp or was that theory only?

coastal_student · Answer

Honestly that intake creep point is a good one, i have seen it in my own logs before. Weigh and log everything for a week before adding anything new, you'll be surprised what slips in. Amlexanox itself I have no experience with so I cant add much there, but the mechanism does sound interesting on paper.

weekendnate · Answer

Good call on the food log, I usually track but I've been eyeballing lunch portions at work and that's almost certainly where the slack is. I'll weigh everything for a week before I even think about adding anything new. If amlexanox does pan out as something I'd want to try, I'd be curious whether anyone noticed the scale move first or if it was more of a waist or body comp thing. Different signal would tell me a lot about whether thermogenesis is actually doing what the paper says.

weekendnate · Answer

Fair point on the intake drift. I log everything in grams with a food scale so I'm pretty confident in the numbers, but you're right that appetite suppression normalizing over 7 months is a real thing. My daily intake has been sitting around 2,100-2,200 calories pretty consistently based on what I'm logging, and that's actually a bit lower than when I started since the food noise is genuinely quieter now. If anything I'd expect that to help, not stall me out. The adaptive thermogenesis angle is what I keep circling back to. HRV going up suggests I'm not in a stressed state, which makes pure metabolic adaptation less obvious. But I also know you can be recovering fine and still have your body just be sitting at its new equilibrium. I'm curious whether amlexanox actually moves the needle on resting metabolic rate in humans at reasonable doses or if the thermogenesis data is mostly mouse-model stuff. That's what I need to dig into before anything else.

Amlexanox for a stalled GLP-1 run, anyone tried layering it in?

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