So if your friend lost 5 stone in 6 months .. would you wonder how ?

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Just inquisitive.. my best friend has always been obese. About 22 stone. I have worried about her health silently for a very long time.. she started Mountjaro in April and is now 14 st. I am completely thrilled for her . Her blood pressure is now 'upper' but not ' see your healthcare provider' .. her heart 'murmurs' have ceased.. I am worried that when she come to the end of her treatment she's will just gain it all again. It is without a miraculous drug.. she has struggled to afford...she is incredibly good with money and financially planned every inch of her journey so that her treatment equalled less than her cost of food consumption.. but only in the short term ( she planned 8 months but goal in 6)

My AIBU is ..I see the amazing difference , she is so happy for the first time in a long time after years of weight watchers, slimming world, Cambridge diet.. low carb, NHS gastric band..(15 years ago which helped but only ever got her to 16 stone before piling it back on) .. she has found one of the Mountjaro providers who will prescribe a maintenance dose...

But she can't afford it long term. It will be £189 per month without a discount.. AIBU to say I can pay this for her. She is my very best friend . I love her new found sense of self confidence.. and don't want it to go.. the money is not an issue for me . I am extremely comfortable and struggle to spend. However would love to help someone I love very much.

Just for complete transparency I had crept over into 'unhealthy' zone as also had osteoporosis in knees. Also took Mountjaro for 2 months and know how incredible it is. I have kept it off for 5 months without a maintenance dose .. it just reinforced healthy eating recipes for me . . But I haven't been morbidly obese

Can't imagine a doc talking about her/his colleagues like this.
This should be a kick start fpr her, as you say, she's started going to the gym so is motivated enough.

It would be as if you don't trust her to stay healthy without the jab.

Its clearly an ad - don't be (lipo)sucked in by it.

Ask if it was available would she continue using it, it she answers yes, tell her if she wants it, she can have it no strings attached.

Can you buy the drug for me OP 😆

Im not that poster you were responding to and I totally understand that some people suffer from insulin resistance and other genetic factors but anyone working in healthcare knows that the obesity issue in the uk has drastically worsened since the 90’s so it’s quite clearly a lifestyle issue on top of genetic propensities. You simply didn’t see the amount of severely obese people in the 60’s/ 70’/80’s that we do now and that’s because of huge changes in eating behaviours and sedentary lifestyles and people are kidding themselves when they blame everything on their genetics.

More sedentary certainly plays a part but the increased availability of food and the amount of highly processed is immense. Work life has changed.
Just look at the massive range of bread at Tescos. You have the choice of heavily processed or sourdough that’s hard after a day. I make GF sourdough.
The local Tescos by my mum only sells processed everything. Eggs and sweet peppers, even a banana rarely available but great if you want a pasty. The other alternative is a lovely but v expensive farm shop.
Even the Mediterranean diet so often mentioned is aspirational -these countries have similar problems.
Do not criticise people unless you have researched it. Obesity is complex. And when a certain weight is reached it genuinely is difficult. Exercise isn’t equal, the body resets, metabolic changes, pre menopause starts way earlier than we imagine, culture, self esteem, family challenges, disability, high cortisol, changed gut, hormonal shifts.

All excuses.

@FlappingMadly I agree completely, it is not possible to eat the same 'healthy' diet in the way it was in the past, because even most of the basic ingredients like meat, wheat, vegetables are grown to be less healthy and more superficially attractive, and this affects the nutrients in them.

In my childhood, our home-grown carrots or those from the grocer were small, hard and not that sweet- now carrots are huge and very sweet (and more carby sugar as a result).

Chickens are now fattier even the breast meat, as they are not running around, even the free-range ones are not for the most part (research shows this).

Eggs have a weird texture that I haven't got to the bottom of, more glutenous whites, not the same although I still eat loads of them as I think they are nutritious.

Vine grown tomatoes are pretty similar, but the watery large ones aren't, same with apples.

Ultimately unless you are shopping in a very very expensive farm shop for everything, and hand making your stock, pasta, from scratch, your diet won't be what it was all those years ago. There's lots of research on it.

Those who smugly say- well don't eat processed food, I agree that UPC is the work of the devil, but it's about 50% of what babies and toddlers eat now, and the other 50% is not as nutritious as it would have been in the past.

I feel very angry that we are overweight through horrible overprocessed food industry food that is not good for us, and it's become the norm for 99% of households. Men aged 55-65 80% are overweight or obese. Once you start to get to those type of figures, it's clearly not about willpower, it's about a very unhealthy obesogenic lifestyle that we now live that is almost impossible to counter.

Reasons, not excuses. Show me the research that says otherwise. But if you’re just a naturally thin person or metabolically healthy and found losing weight no problem
bully for you. The anecdote of one is hardly science.

Lots of normal or underweight people are still consuming very processed food, though, there's no miracle of being slimmer that means you are consuming great food, unless you consciously do so. That affects cancer rates, for example, see the rise in bowel and colon cancer in younger age groups. Sausages and bacon and cured meats with nitrates are not good for you, whatever your weight, although weight is related to cancer risk, so bear that in mind.

I've made my peace with it, I try not to eat nitrates, I don't drink, and I try not to become hugely overweight or do something if I do, but it is hard given the options for food in the UK supermarkets.

@FlappingMadly im certainly not criticising, being from a family of obese individuals and having worked with many severely obese people in my day job, I’m well aware of the complexities around obesity but I follow the weight loss injections threads with avid interest. Apart from those on those threads who make comments that indicate they have an eating disorder, there are many who make no efforts to change their relationship with food and have no strategies to boost their metabolic rate. When people are are on very low calorie diets over long periods of time they are driving themselves into starvation mode so ,without changing other factors, will have no hope of maintaining weight loss when they come off the jab and will, like many ,need to stay on it for life. People buying the jabs privately are using what appears to be a “simple “ solution for a complex issue but I think they need better support to improve outcomes around that use of the jab. What will hopefully eventually result from these drugs will be synthesising a medication with fewer side effects that can turn off the brain drive that causes over eating and other addictions….at the moment though pharmaceutical companies are rubbing their hands with glee as they realise they will have large numbers of people hooked taking these injections for many years.

@Faldodiddledee yes and you need four tomatoes to get the nutrients one used to provide. We are so lucky to be able to afford the farm shop, but this is so wrong. It should be available to everyone. Supermarkets have been selling at artificially low prices for so long, it will take a lot to change. Uk I think is particularly bad at packaged everything.

@Oleanolean I agree with you too- these injections are not miracle workers either, because they don't tackle the problems of poor food quality and an obesogenic environment. At best, they can help you reset your weight a bit lower, and go from there. I've used them for this purpose quite effectively, having become very overweight due to an accident, and now I'm back on maintaining quite happily.

I do also feel cross that having messed up our bodies with this crappy filler food (designed to be extra-delicious, hyperpalatable), we are then being presented with a solution from the pharmaceutical companies.

It does suck completely, and both are the products of rampant capitalism and making money out of people's bodies and their in-built desires for sweet/fatty food and their desire to be slim all at the same time.

I don't have the answers, I think weight loss jabs are now a necessary evil, I wish it wasn't so.

@Oleanolean i agree a little but raise metabolic rate? Really? It’s not a quick fix. And as I said exercise isn’t equal. A 16 stone person is not burning as much as a 9 stone person.

@FlappingMadly my husband is from a much poorer country than the UK but the food quality is much better. Everything here is in packages and full of crap. I had no idea breakfast cereal wasn't a good start to the day, really, and it's what most people eat. It's taken me so long to adjust my diet and I still struggle.

Weight-loss drugs have worked for me as I was prepared to lose weight much slower than most, and have eaten a lot of protein and veggies along the way, as high quality as I can afford and manage. One good thing about the cheap Lidl/Aldi is that sometimes their products are a bit less processed like their tomato and courgettes are nice, greek cheese cheap, so it is possible.

I agree that if you just have periods of near starvation on these drugs and then immediately go back to eating quantities of the same UPF it is going to be very like yo-yo dieting of old.

I think weight loss jabs are now a necessary evil I don't mean necessary evil because they are not necessary and people shouldn't use them that don't want to, I mean an inevitable evil, I think, which is that whilst obesity remains a huge health problem around the world, it's inevitable that companies who can promise weight loss are going to become obscenely and long-term rich from that.

I don't like it, but I don't like going into older age very overweight either.

This is like many things in society and not a new concept with weightloss meds.

Cigarettes are being sold everywhere, then nicotine patches, etc are sold as a cure or help to wean off them when they could simply stop advertising and selling cigarettes.

Alcohol and cure to alcoholism when they could simply stop making and selling them if they're that bad and they care about people. No one needs alcohol to live.

Beauty standards, makeup,cosmetic surgeries, then being advised to love yourself as you are or told to go on therapy to love yourself when they could simply stop doing the first few things. That would help massively.

Rubbish diet being sold for cheap; healthier versions expensive, then another more expensive "organic" versions of the already-tampered-with healthier versions. Then the lecture of solving the outcome of this issue when the root cause should be tackled, which is the availability of rubbish diet in the first place and the healthier ones being tampered with or made more expensive.

All the things and food they say cause cancer or other illnesses, yet are still available. The many medications with their horrible side effects yet are still available and other medications to treat those side effects are available too.

It's all about the supply for artificially created demands. It's all about money for the govt either way so I'd let people do what they can to fix their individual situations seeing as the govt will never do this. They'd lose money if they do.

Op, is this some kind of advert for the method or program you mentioned in your post?

5 stone in 6 months looks like too fast. Does your friend exercise and control diet carefully?

Exactly it’s not a quick fix! As you said, if you have done it slowly and in a more thoughtful ,managed manner that’s far better. That tends to be the problem with many people who struggle with their weight, it’s not about doing something in the short term ,it’s making changes that then have to happen for life. Weight training is incredibly important for people in general especially as you get older, and the problem with drastic weight loss is that many people lose their muscle mass along that journey. It’s irrelevant what weight you are ,you still have to try and convince your body not to go into starvation mode as otherwise people just end up sitting at a certain weight regardless . Those on the weight loss jabs are sometimes being kicked off by their provider as they reach a particular bmi which I can imagine must be horrendous to get that crutch taken away so at least some companies are becoming more thoughtful about how to support their clients going forward.

Thanks but I know my own situation from the inside out. I’m now watching my daughter go through the same issues. Just stop with the blaming of people when for many it’s far more complicated. Not that it’s your business but in my own situation I had surgery after years of struggling to maintain weight loss and the moment I woke up I was no longer craving food or even particularly interested in eating. That’s not will power. That’s a physical cause.

We are not talking about any 1 individuals reasons for gaining weight …yes you have identified a physical cause but there always have been people with those genetic causes so it’s quite clearly not solely those genetic causes that are causing the obesity epidemic! Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1990 and adolescent obesity has quadrupled in that time…that is an astounding increase. It’s really common and understandable for obese people to be touchy when the causes of weight gain are discussed but it’s incredibly annoying when people fail to understand this isn’t about blame, it’s about understanding the reasons otherwise people feel they have nothing they can change. If there are things like changes in dietary sources such as upf’s that are “ switching on “ those genes then that is incredibly important to know that from an individual’s and a societies perspective. Again, if you look at the weight loss threads you can very clearly see how some people are compromising their weight management through choices they are making. People of normal “healthy” weight also need to know if they are making choices that compromise their health, it’s not only about weight, as people can get away with those choices when they are young then as circumstances change (age, pregnancy, accidents) etc) then they start to struggle.

It's hard work losing weight because it takes a complete lifestyle change. It isn't about being slim it's about living a healthy lifestyle, low on salt, no upfs, lots of exercise. Yes that's an oversimplified version but . . . there are no quick fixes, no magic pill, it all comes back to lifestyle choices.

For some yes. But that is so over simplified I can’t be bothered to educate you.

Does anyone else think that there must be tons of oestrogen and progesterone in the water as well as other medications that didn't exist 50 years ago? Surely there must be. Or am I just talking bollocks? Anyhow, if there is all this stuff in our water, I'm willing to get that it's playing a significant part in current obesity levels.

😂