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.NutriCornell 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…

Dr.NutriCornell has the substance of this right. The condition it depends on is worth stating. One addition: if the lab changes analytical platform between your draws, the comparison breaks and nobody tells you. It is worth asking when a value moves inexplicably.

JenMemphis 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 JenMemphis 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.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads.

Shot day Wednesday report relevant to baseline bloodwork:

Week 33. Currently on 1.7mg. Down 69 lbs from starting weight of 281 lbs.

This week's observations: Mild fatigue day 1-2 post-injection, then fine.

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