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How To Use Tesofensine For Maximum Focus And Fat Loss

2026-03-29 · 23:58 · 4 min read

Tesofensine has become one of the most talked-about peptides in the biohacking space, and I've probably coached more people on it than just about anyone outside of Jay Campbell. I've used it on and off for the last three years. Here's what I've learned about how it actually works, who should avoid it, and how to dose it for the best results.

Where Tesofensine Came From

Tesofensine was developed by a Danish pharmaceutical company called NeuroSearch. It was originally researched as a treatment for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

During those trials, researchers noticed patients were losing significant weight as a side effect. That pivoted the research toward obesity and metabolic disorders.

It became known as an SNDRI, a serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine reuptake inhibitor. It influences the central nervous system by raising those three neurotransmitters.

How It Actually Works

Tesofensine inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. That means more of those neurotransmitters stay active in the brain.

The result is reduced appetite and enhanced satiety. In my opinion, this comes primarily from upregulating dopamine. You feel motivated, you feel good, and food stops being the focus.

Most of us overeat because we're bored. Late-night snacking is rarely about real hunger. When you're dialed in and feel good, you eat less without trying.

Fat Loss vs Cognitive Use

Here's my honest take. Tesofensine works for fat loss, but there are better tools for that. Tirzepatide is one. Calocurb is another.

Where tesofensine really shines is as a cognitive enhancer. I use it to be more verbally fluid, more focused, and more creative when I'm writing or making content.

It doesn't feel stimulatory. It doesn't feel like an amphetamine. It just makes the day feel better and the work feel easier.

The Benefits

Appetite suppression and satiety. You feel full faster and you stop craving food between meals.

Cognitive lift. Better focus, better verbal fluency, more motivation to actually do the work in front of you.

Metabolic improvements. Lower blood pressure, better blood glucose control, reduced inflammatory markers. Most of this is downstream of eating less and improving body composition.

Possible sleep improvements at lower doses. At higher doses, sleep can suffer.

Side Effects

Common ones are dry mouth, nausea, headache, insomnia, and increased heart rate.

Tesofensine has been studied since 2007, so we have decent long-term safety data. But it hasn't been around for 30 or 40 years of human use, so weigh the risk-benefit for what you're actually trying to get out of it.

Individual response varies wildly. Some people love it. Some can't sleep on it and feel wired. Start low and go slow.

Dosing

Always start at 250 micrograms (0.25 mg) per day.

Studies have used up to 1 mg per day with no issues. The sweet spot for most people is 500 mcg, but I get just as much benefit at 250 mcg as I do at 500 mcg.

Lower dose is more cost-effective and reduces the risk of tolerance buildup. I've never seen anyone need more than 500 mcg.

The half-life is around nine days, so you don't have to dose every day. Every other day works fine. I just take 250 mcg daily because it's simple.

At 500 mcg, sleep is more likely to suffer. At 250 mcg, you might actually see sleep improve.

Tesofensine vs SSRIs

This is the question I get all the time. If SSRIs are bad, why is tesofensine fine?

SSRIs only raise serotonin. Tesofensine raises serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. That's a very different experience.

SSRIs can make people feel hollow and emotionally flat. On tesofensine, I feel more like myself. Passionate, motivated, emotionally connected.

Serotonin alone can take the edge off, but dopamine is what makes you actually want to get things done. Lifting all three together does much more than lifting serotonin alone.

One important point. Do not use tesofensine to treat depression. Depression is multifaceted. Always check your hormones first. Hormonal optimization should come before any neurotransmitter intervention.

Is Tesofensine Addictive?

In my experience, tesofensine is one one-thousandth as addictive as coffee.

If you drink coffee, you know that morning pull. Tesofensine has nothing like that. I can look at a bottle and decide I don't need it. I've gone off it for two or three months at a time and forgotten about it within a few days.

That doesn't mean there are zero long-term effects we don't know about. But the habit-forming pull just isn't there for me or my clients.

Who Should Avoid Tesofensine

This is important. People with extended SSRI use seem to have bad reactions to tesofensine.

This is correlation, not causation, but I've seen it nine out of ten times. The people who get jittery, can't sleep, and feel weird on tesofensine almost always have a history of long-term SSRI use.

If you're currently on an SSRI, recently came off one, or were on one for years at some point, just skip tesofensine. I don't know the mechanism, but they don't mix.

What to Stack With It

Tirzepatide. The combo of tirzepatide, testosterone, and tesofensine is the holy grail of fat loss for men. Tirzepatide handles glucose and appetite, tesofensine handles the mental side. Fasting becomes effortless.

Ipamorelin. Helps with visceral fat loss and preserves muscle in a caloric deficit. Tirzepatide is the physical side, tesofensine is the mental side, ipamorelin protects your muscle.

BPC-157. Anytime I'm doing something demanding to my brain, BPC-157 is the catch-all for inflammation. If you're using any reuptake inhibitor, including SSRIs, BPC-157 alongside it can help offset side effects.

The full stack of tesofensine, tirzepatide, ipamorelin, and BPC-157 will shred fat and have you feeling great.

My Take

Tesofensine is one of my favorite tools, but I use it as a nootropic, not a fat loss drug. If you're already lean and want a productivity and creativity boost without the jitter of stimulants, this is what I'd reach for.

Start at 250 mcg. See how you feel for a week. Most people don't need more than that.

If you've been on SSRIs, skip it. Otherwise, it's one of the safer and more useful peptides I've worked with.

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Full transcript click any paragraph to jump video

Hey everybody, this is Hunter Williams. I hope you are doing amazing wherever you're at in the world. Today's video is gonna be all about Tesso fencing. So this should be everything you ever need to know about tesso-fencing. And I can't guarantee whether this video will get traction in algorithms or not, but what I guarantee is this will be the best and most informative video on tisso-fencing, and I am probably a little overconfident and arrogant about that, But it's because I have been one of the original users of Tisso Fencing at least as it comes is talking about it. in the biohacking space and online and I myself and Jay Campbell have most likely I don't know of anyone else on the internet that have coached as many

people as we have around Tesla fencing so I do believe I have the largest sample size of not only personal experience but experience with directly working with clients who have taken tesofensine and giving me their feedback on it. So today is going to be a comprehensive overview of teso-fensin, how it works, if there are any concerns you should have around it, especially as it relates to it being a triple reuptake inhibitor. and especially as it relates to possibly forming any sort of addiction qualities or anything like that. So today we're going to be talking about test of fencing, everything about it.

If you would like to sign up for my email list, check out the peptide cheat sheet down below. You can get that and download it, and it's very informative, teach you everything you need to know about peptides on one sheet. A lot of people enjoy being on the email lists because it sends informative videos and information out like this all the time. People will look forward to getting that email. Without further ado, all of the other links will be down in the description. one last thing youtube is doing something to me right now where they are throttling all the comments so apparently they don't want people commenting on my videos so if the Comments are off on this video just know that i'm doing my best to get them turned back on youtube consistently it seems like every

day we'll switch off all The comments on all if not most of my Videos on My channel so just Know if The Coments are Off i will do my Best to turn them back On but i do want the Commments on i'M not trying to prevent Anyone from you know, providing counter viewpoints to what I'm talking about. I want discussion and open discussion on my channel for everything I talk about it. So without further ado, I am going to share my screen and let's talk Tesso Fencing. All right, so this is going be a comprehensive overview of Teso Fensing. And so I just going talk the origins of it, the mechanisms behind how it works, and the benefits that we're going get from it if there are any side effects

and always as favorite your dosage and if you stick around to the end or you can just skip by hitting the chapter titles down in the description. I'm going to talk about some other peptides that we can stack with tesofencing. So let's get into it. Where did teso-fencing come from? It was initially brought to, not market, but brought into research and discovered in the journey to help find a cure for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It initially was developed for those, and it was created by a Danish pharmaceutical company called NeuroSearch. Not to be confused with Neuralink, the people that love us so much that want to implant, implant chips in our brain, but anyway,

not to rabbit hole. It was looked at for weight loss as well. So when they were researching it, they noticed that a lot of the the were giving to for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's had significant weight-loss. They said, okay, maybe we can get some weight lost out of this. The research focused towards obesity and metabolic disorders. It became known as an SNDRI, which is a serotonin noradrillin or norepinephrine dopamine reuptake inhibitor.

It aims to influence the central nervous system through neurotransmitter levels. you know it kind of has like this double-sided use thing as it relates to pharmacology because it was really developed to have like a cognitive benefit and now it is more of a weight loss drug and people use it for weight-loss but in my opinion I actually think of it's more a cognizant cognitive enhancing drug. And as I'm going to talk about with my personal experience and the experience of my clients I think that's where this will really shine.

So in terms of fat loss, it can work for fat-loss. In my experience, there's things that are way better than test of fencing for that loss. But it does work really, really well in term of a cognitive enhancing molecule. How does it work? So the first, like I said, works through reuptake inhibition. It inhibits the re-upture of serotonin, noradrillin and dopamine. And then it increases neurotransmitter activity in the brain by helping with the reuptake of those three neurotrasmitters. At least reduced appetite and enhanced satiety.

And this is really where the quote unquote fat loss is going to come from, is this ability to reduce our appetite, and enhance the feeling of fullness. It targets multiple pathways involved in hunger regulation. My opinion is primarily through up-regulating dopamine. it makes you feel good, it make you motivated, And in doing so, you're not so much focused on food. Again, we talked about the triple inhibition, so it distinguishes itself from other weight loss drugs by its triple reuptake inhibitions as compared to some other peptides. It may indirectly improve metabolic health through weight-loss, though if we can suppress the appetite, this is going to lead to weight lost,

which is gonna help improve a lot of other markers that we're gonna look at. Aside from that, I would say by increasing not only dopamine but serotonin and noradrenalin, it gives you this really good feel-good effect that's not overwhelming, is not stimulatory, but that what it's known for is kind of just making your days feel like, man, today is a really day. So what are some of the benefits? Obviously like we talked about, there's the weight reduction. There's this satiety enhancement. So it kind of is like a chicken or an egg problem.

It is going to help with not having cravings and feeling fuller faster when you're eating, but it's because you feel excited to work on the things that you work. So most of us really eat too much because I think a lot of times we're bored, and especially when it comes to snacking or late night snack and those things, it is because we are bored. It's not because necessarily have this overwhelming craving, although sometimes that may be the case. This will lead into the third benefit that I have, which is the cognitive potential. So it has the potential to enhance our cognition due to neurotransmitter modulation.

Again, through suppressing appetite, we're going to have metabolic improvement, So that's one of the other things when we look at cardiovascular inflammatory markers or things like that in evaluating studies on tesofensine, they notice that people have reduction in these inflammatory marketers as it relates to cardio health. And in my opinion, that is because it's suppressing their appetite, it is changing their eating patterns and all those things, which is overall going to be healthier in the long run. It also has neuroprotective properties. So I'm going to get to this in a second, but there's this worry because it does work as a reuptake inhibitor that there is potentially damaging and dangerous

things as it relates to the brain. I am going kind of talk about that in the second. But we see it helps with blood pressure. Again, I think this is just from helping with our overall metabolic health. That's a downstream side effect. of that. We've got anti-inflammatory effects, so it works on inflammation in the whole body. we've Got better blood glucose control. So as you know, insulin signaling and suppressing insulin signalling will be one of the healthiest things we can do from an anti aging perspective, a longevity perspective and especially a fat loss perspective. And then it also can improve sleep sleep quality.

I think if there is any improvement in sleep, quality that's been noted in studies, it comes from people having better metabolic health. However, I notice on tessofensine and lots of other my clients that they complain about not being able to sleep. And I get to that when we talk about the dosing, but I think it's very dose dependent on Tess of Fencing. So the dose that I take, which I'll talk a lot in a second, I don't have any problem sleeping. If anything, I may sleep like 30 minutes less and I'll get up before my alarm, but I do sleep well on Tessa Fenty.

Now I haven't necessarily measured any sort of like deep sleep or REM sleep, or anything like that on it. But if there is any improvement in sleep it is because of that. What are side effects? Common side effects people will report are dry mouth, nausea, headache, insomnia, increased heart rate. As far as long-term safety, this is one of those ones. It's been studied, I think, since 2007. So we have very good evidence to show that testofensine is not addictive or anything like that. But there's also just one those things that hasn't been around for a long time, you know, in people that have used it for 30 or 40 years.

And again, it's just crucial to weigh the risk-benefit. What are you trying to get out of tesofencing? Because I think if it is fat loss, there's things that you could arguably go after that are going to work way better, terzapotide being one of them, calicurb being another GLP-1 activator or supplement. So there is just other stuff out there that I would use, but I use tesoffencing as more of a nootropic. And this one, in terms of individual tolerance, is one those things is all over the place. I have seen vastly different responses as related to other agents that I coach clients on and how they respond to test of fencing.

Some people love it, they say it's amazing, some people hate it. They can't sleep at night. It drives them crazy or they feel really good on it but they just can sleep. So they're just kind of wired all the time. I'm going to talk about why I think that is in a second. But it is just important to start low and go slow as it relates to trying to gauge the side effects of where you're at. So let's look at the dosage show. Again, this varies widely. Typically, I am always going to recommend people start with 250 micrograms or 0.25 milligrams. Now in studies, they have had people take up to one milligrams a day with no problems whatsoever and only benefits.

However, to me, i like 250 micrograms. The sweet spot for most people is going be 500 micro grams, but to be honest, get as good a benefit at 250 grams as I do 500 grams. So it's one of those things, one is more cost effective for me to take 250 micrograms per day than I would be taking 500 micro grams per. But it is also two, I just feel like in the long run it better. You always want to be able to have the lowest dosage of anything that you're using just to avoid any potential tolerance buildup, cellular attenuation, anything like that.

So you always wanna be to use the low dose. And, you know, again, it's one of those things I would say start low and go slow. I have never seen anyone that needs more than 500 micrograms. If you take one milligram a day and you feel great, by all means do it. But I've never one that gets any more benefit at taking more that 500 micrograms and I, I talked to someone actually that's taken a whole bottle in one day. Now I don't know why you would do that. And I believe this person was also using Adderall at the time.

So again. Never do that, but he didn't have anything like he can go to the hospital or didn. He's like, I didn' really feel that much different. Now I don't know if that was just his particular case. I would never recommend doing that. So started 250 micrograms. See how you feel. And I think within a week's time you will notice a lot of benefits of 250. Microgram. But again, as it relates to especially sleep quality, you're running the risk of potentially damaging sleep more at 500 micrograms, whereas 250 micro grams you might get those sleep benefits that I was talking about.

Now, let's talk about SSRIs because this is always a question for the people that take things to the nth degree. They say, how come people hate on SSR, SSI so much, but tessophenzene is completely fine for all the biohackers to take. Isn't it kind of like an SSRI? And the answer is no. So let's look at the difference here. And again, I said this is going to be the best video. I don't know anyone else has talked about this or at least examined this and tried to come up with some sort or formulate some conclusion.

SSRIS focus on serotonin reuptake inhibition, which affects mood. Now, SSRIs are often used for depression with side effects like sexual dysfunction. Let me make this very clear. You're using tesofensine to try to cure depression or alleviate depression. Do not do that. Okay. Depression is very multifaceted. It's very complex. In my opinion, you can check out other videos on my channel. I think depression often results from a hormonal imbalance, among many other things, but hormonodeficiency and hormono imbalance will oftentimes lead to

depression as a side effect. So if you are not using hormone therapy or you're not checking your blood work and you aren't looking at that as potentially something that could be causing depression or causing low energy or anxiety, do not use testofensine to do this. You should always always default to hormonal optimization, whatever that looks like for you. to try to help alleviate depression or mood symptoms or something like that before you would ever look to something, like an SSRI or tesofensine. So here is where it kind of gets weird.

Tesofenicine inhibits reuptake of serotonin, norgilin and dopamine, which offers broader benefits, including weight loss and cognitive enhancement. So when we look at an SSRI, we are just raising serotonin, which in the short term can make you feel better. And I'm not even saying SSRIS are evil. I would never use them myself. i would ever want anyone in my family to use some, but I am saying that there may be use cases for SSR eyes. However, if we at something like tesofensine, it increases seratonin dopamine and noradrenaline which is going to help with a lot of the things that people

will say make them feel depressed. So serotony can kind of make But dopamine will make you feel really good and it will Make you want to get things done where serotonin doesn't necessarily have that effect and so when we look at You know affecting neurotransmitter balance within the body I would be much much more open and I haven't because I've used test of fencing on and off for the last three years to examining or to experimenting with tesofencing because of how it makes me feel versus

an SSRI. SSR is because the way they work tend to make you feel kind of hollow and shelled out. Whereas on teso-fencing, I feel like more of myself. I'm very passionate, motivated, but I don't have a lack of emotion or a black of emotional connectivity with myself or the people around me. So that's going to be the difference. And we also too, You can talk about SSRIs, you can about SNDRI's. You have to look at the medication itself, because typically the SSRIs that are prescribed, in my experience, knowing people that have been on those,

they can be very strong to people. Whereas tesofensine, I can use it and I get a little bit of a boost, but I don't have it. And this is where it comes into the habit-forming nature of teso-fensin. In my experiences, tesophencine is like one one-thousandth as addictive as coffee. So if you drink coffee, you know that feeling when you get up in the morning, and you're like, man, it'd be nice to have some coffee? I think everybody that drinks caffeine can attest to that. As it relates to tesofensine, I can look at a bottle of teso-fensin And be like, eh, I don't really need that today.

And the next day. So it's nice to have, but to me I've gone on and off of it for two months, three months six months at a time and taken off and within two to three days of not taking it I just completely forget about it. If I run out I'm like oh yeah I haven't had it in three weeks. Where as like coffee, you can run a coffee in your house and be Where's the coffee? I need a coffee. I just want to make the distinction that just because something works as a reuptake inhibitor, I'm not telling you there's no long-term side effects just cause we don't know, but in terms of habit forming and neurochemical changes and wiring, Coffee, in my experience, is a thousand times more powerful than

something like Tesso Fencing. Now, then you would say like, well, why would you use Tessa Fensing instead of coffee? Well, for me, it makes me more creative and it helps me write better. So to be honest, as someone that creates content and works with people in the information world, Tess Fency works really well for to me be verbally fluid. Sometimes I do hiccups in videos. As you guys will see, I'm like blah, blah. But it helped with verbal fluidity. it helps with focus, it help with cognition, but it doesn't make you feel overloaded and it's not like taking an amphetamine,

not that I really have experiences with amfetamines. See, there's the verbal fluidity. Can you tell I haven't taken, actually I've been taking tesofensine as of the time of this video and at least over a month. And again, one of those things you just run out and you don't need it. So it can be good, But I do want to make that distinction. They are not SSRIs. If you were looking at taking an SSRI, I would say absolutely use something like tesofensine first and see if it helps the symptoms that you're trying to solve with an ssri.

But I do get that question a lot from people because they're like, well, if an S SRI is so bad, what makes teso fencing any better? And I think it will always go back to those three neurotransmitters that it affects. And when we look at, you know, serotonin, i'm not going to get into the agenda behind this because I'd like for this video to stay up because i think this will be very helpful to people. When we lift dopamine in conjunction with serotonin and norepinephrine, it's going to do a lot more than just lifting seratonin alone. So I'll just kind of leave it at that and take for that what you will.

Anyway, so as promised, I talked about some of the peptides that you can stack with tesofencing. My first one would be terzapatite. So as I think Dr. Rudy Eberwein has coined it, terzaapatide, testosterone, and teso-fencing together is like the holy grail of fat loss. If you get those three things as a man in your body, you will shred fat guaranteed. Terzapatide is going to enhance the glucose metabolism and reduce appetite. And in my experience, the least amount of appetite I have had has come when I've used turzapotide with tesofensine.

So I really like it. It makes fasting so easy, and especially if you're going to fast overnight, you know, like a 36 or 48 hour fast, one to two times per week. Turzapatite with Tesofenicine is like the holy grail. Now, I haven't used those with calicurb, which I'm currently using to suppress appetite because calcurb works really well. But if I was like in a fat loss phase, man, those two things together, there's nothing like that. And I put Ipamerelin up here. I really like, you know, if you are in a fat loss phase, I think of turzapetide is basically like the physical aspect.

Tesofencing is going to be more of the mental aspect of making you feel good while you're fasting to kind of keep your mood elevated. And then Ippamerelin is gonna help with the actual, you know, visceral fat loss and then also helping us maintain muscle while we're in a caloric deficit. And then here's what no one else will talk about. I think Nick Andrews said this way back in the day when we were first kind of working on, flushing out the dosaging and stuff with testofensine for people, is using BPC 157 alongside of it. So anytime I may be doing something to my brain as far as like Supplements go, or even if I'm just doing something that's like very demanding or I would

say like draining to my brain, BPC-157 is like the catch-all in terms of helping reduce inflammation. So if you're ever doing anything, so say you were using an SSRI, I think you could use BTC- 157 to help offset some of the side effects that could come from using a SSri. Same thing with tesofensine as a triple reuptake inhibitor, If there are deleterious consequences, which in my experience for the last few years, having used tessafensine, I don't believe there. But some people may experience them. BPC 157 works as a very, very good adjunct to minimize inflammation and help regulate any sort of imbalances that would come from that.

So again, if you are looking for tessa-fensin, not for fat loss or not, for cognitive pick-me-up, and you're using it more as like It's the way that someone using SSRI, I think you should always use BPC-157 alongside of it. So that would be an amazing stack right there. Tesofensine, terzapetide, ipamrel, and Bpc- 157. You would shred fat, you're gonna feel really, really good. Your mood's gonna be amazing. I would use all of those things in conjunction and I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with it, so.

One thing I did want to mention before I close out the video, that's a last slide that I had. Let me closeout of that real quick. So one thing I did want to mention and talk about with tesofencing is basically who should not use teso-fencing. This is very important. because I have seen lots of people have very bad reactions to tesofencing. And when I dig down, this always seems to come up. Not always, but I would say nine out of 10 times when have had people that have just had a negative reaction to tesofensing,

which is usually insomnia. It's usually like a very wired feeling, like they're on an amphetamine, Which to me is not anything like being on tessofensine. But in my experience, people who have extended use of SSRIs throughout their life tend to not do as well with tesofencing. Now, that is complete speculation. I am saying that as a correlation thing that I have noticed, it's not causation.

In my experience, the people that don't like testofensine and just feel weird on it, I've heard really weird stories about like people getting jittery and like not being able to sleep and having like really negative reactions to it. In My experience all of those people had been on SSRIs for an extended period of time at some point in their life. So I don' know what's going on there. But I will say, if you have been on an SSRI recently, currently, or for an extended period of time at some point in your history, probably just go ahead and avoid tesofencing altogether.

I don't know what's going on there, I dont know why that would be, but in my experience they just do not mix for those type of people. So, you know, that's kind of just like who should not use tesofencing. But everyone else, I think you'd be good. If you're already healthy, like me, i'm already pretty lean. I'm not like necessarily trying to lose a bunch of fat or lose weight or anything like that. Tesofensing works really well for me because I just feel like I am a little bit more productive and creative on it, especially if i am trying focus on something pretty intense like writing or content creation or having to do stuff on the computer, which I would much rather be out in nature.

and splitting firewood or something then sitting in a computer sending emails but hey that's the world we live in so I would just say like you know start low start with 250 micrograms see how you respond to it as far as dosing goes I forgot to mention this as well you do not have to use it every other day So it has a very long half-life, I think the half life is like nine days. So you could use it every other day and still get really good benefits from it. Now, if I'm using it, i'm just going to use 250 micrograms every day. But I would say like you do not necessarily have to, use every single day to reap the benefits of it so Hopefully that was helpful.

That's all I got for this video. Hopefully I cover everything I just for my own personal experience with myself and clients I've coached I think I have got probably the biggest sample size along with Jay of people that we know have used Tesla fencing and kind of like crack the code on how to use it with dosage and everything. So if you do have comments or questions know that if the comments are off I am working my best to get them back on. It just seems like every day now YouTube goes in just looks like they select all and turn my comments off but For some reason they let me turn back on, but then they'll turn off.

So maybe it's like a game they're playing with me. They're like, oh, we're going to get you. You know, I don't know. It probably just keeps the videos suppressed and they probably want me to make videos so that like I want something else completely. But then, they don' want the video to like rank well. Anyway, who knows? But I appreciate you guys much a lot. Thank you, guys, so much. Don't forget to check out the email list and that's the best way to stay in touch with. And I will talk to you in the next one. Peace.