This one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. A defensible baseline is short: HbA1c and fasting glucose, a lipid panel with ApoB if you can get it, ALT and AST, creatinine with eGFR, TSH, ferritin and B12, and a full blood count. That set catches the things that change, the things that explain symptoms, and the things that alter the prescribing decision. Almost everything else on the long circulating lists is either invariant, uninterpretable without a specific question, or an incidental finding waiting to cause an unnecessary workup.

Dr.SurgeonPGH said:

A defensible baseline is short: HbA1c and fasting glucose, a lipid panel with ApoB if you can get it, ALT and AST, creatinine with eGFR, TSH, ferritin…

Agreed, and reference ranges are laboratory-specific. Comparing your number to somebody else's range, or to a screenshot from another country, is how people convince themselves something is wrong.

SaraMom3 said:

My prescriber ordered three tests and this board recommends about twenty, and I would like to know which of those two lists is right.

Can confirm the pattern SaraMom3 describes. The single most useful discipline is bringing the whole panel to a clinician rather than one flagged value. One out-of-range result in isolation generates anxiety and unnecessary tests; the same result next to the trend and the rest of the panel usually generates a shrug.

That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice.

Shot day Thursday report relevant to baseline bloodwork:

Week 28. Currently on 1.0mg. Down 54 lbs from starting weight of 266 lbs.

This week's observations: Energy levels excellent, zero nausea.

Labs due next week — looking forward to seeing the metabolic panel. I'll post results in the Lab Results section when they come in.