Why I started this sub: there's a lack of peptide info for the Philippines and I got tired of waiting

Sup. Quick intro on me before anything else.

I'm James, 26, Filipino-American. Born in PH, raised in the US, moved back to Manila a few years ago. Been living in BGC, Makati and Pasig over the past 3 years. Fully self-employed, work in online businesses and the creator / influencer management space, so my schedule is pretty flexible which is part of why I have time to go this deep into the peptide rabbit hole. Played American football and ran track through high school and college. Been lifting since I was 14.. like I was the kid on the bodybuilding.com forums taking creatine and whey at 14. My biggest accomplishment from that era was completing my first real bulk freshman to sophomore year, went from 140 to 165 lbs while still being super athletic, benching 225 (100kg) by the end of it. I'm still kinda proud of that one lol.

College I got casual with it. Lifted 4x a week, nothing crazy. Then my first year out of college was my first time experimenting with peptides and TRT. I was really out of shape at that point, weighed about 100kg, just felt off. Went to a wellness clinic and got on testosterone replacement therapy for about a year. Also ran MK-677 and BPC-157 during that stretch because I had a torn labrum, and between the peptides and physical therapy I was able to recover from it without surgery. That was the first time peptides clicked for me as actually useful, not just a bro-science thing.

Fast forward to the past 2 years living in the Philippines. Outside of training my other big passion is food, like genuinely love eating and trying every new restaurant around me. Manila, BGC, Makati, Poblacion, all of it. Which is exactly how I ended up gaining a bunch of weight again and eventually hopping on retatrutide lol.. the food scene here is dangerous if you let it be.

My FYP was still US-based since my accounts are old, and I was seeing American fitness influencers pushing peptides constantly. About a year later I started seeing the trend hit the Philippines too, mostly retatrutide. At that point I was sitting around 185 lbs, just finished running a marathon, way more cardio than lifting at that stage. Decided to hop on reta.

Here's the part that surprised me though. I've been deep in fitness for over a decade. I'm used to absorbing this kind of info pretty fast. And it was still hard for me to find good information on GLP-1s and peptides for someone based in the Philippines.

Most of the peptide content out there is built for people who aren't physically fit to begin with.. like the whole conversation assumes you're starting from sedentary, big weight to lose, no training base. That doesn't apply to a lot of us. Cold chain shipping advice from US-based subs doesn't apply here. The clinics in Manila are charging straight name-brand pharma prices for tirzepatide and semaglutide because there's no generic available locally yet, just the branded Mounjaro and Ozempic. And if I'm finding this hard living in Metro Manila with all the access we have, I can only imagine how rough sourcing is for anyone in Cebu, Davao or anywhere provincial.

Took some digging but I eventually found a reliable source here in the Philippines. Tested a bunch along the way, got overcharged by some, ran into a few that were straight up sus with no COAs or third party testing. But eventually got dialed.

Where I'm at right now: cutting phase, not really running. On retatrutide, GHK-Cu, BPC-157, TB-500 and CJC-1295. Thinking about adding tesamorelin and a few others over the next few months once I'm closer to my body comp goal.

Want to use this sub to document the journey for real. Logs, what's working, what isn't, what I'd do differently. And I want it to be a space for people in the PH specifically to figure this stuff out without having to dig through five different US-focused subs that don't apply to us.

What do you want covered?

Drop a comment. Could be sourcing, specific compounds (reta, tirz, sema, BPC-157, TB-500, GHK-Cu, CJC-1295, whatever), beginner stuff like reconstitution math, city-specific questions for Manila, BGC, Makati, Cebu, Davao, protocol comparisons, side effect management, whatever's been blocking you. I'll work through the list and put up posts that actually answer what people here need.

Also gonna be using this sub to throw out my own open questions as I keep going. Stuff I'm trying to figure out, stuff I'm seeing in my own logs that I don't have an answer for yet. I'll catch myself doing the research and replying to my own threads with what I found, but the whole point is to get other people's takes too. Way more useful when there's actual back and forth instead of just me talking at a wall.

Questions? Drop them below.