To expect more than 0.5 pound weight loss?

[Epicentre]

On 25th October I weighed 11 stone 7 pounds.
I stayed that same weight for weeks. Wouldn't budge.
Then eventually a month later I went down to 11 stone 6 pounds.
Then magically last week I dropped to 11 stone 3 pounds.
Hooray! I thought. The looooong plateau has gone. I'd dropped 4 pounds.
Got back on scales today and I weigh 11stone 6.5 pounds.
So in 6 bloody weeks I've lost a grand total of 0.5 pounds.
This is on 15mg mounjaro and 1,200 cals a day.
I weigh myself once a week, no more.
I track my calories carefully.
No I'm not an idiot who vastly overeats more calories than I think I'm eating. (This seems to get trotted out a lot on MN).
I am SO SO SO pissed off.
0.5 pounds on 15mg MJ in SIX WEEKS!!!!!
Humph.😡

I don't see 'not gaining' as a positive.
On 12.5mg for 3 months you should be losing.

I stated I'm on the top dose of MJ in my opening post.
No my weight isn't fine now.
I am in the overweight category.
That isn't 'fine'.

Ok so I have taken on board posters advising to weigh myself daily.
i just weighed myself upon getting up, before having any fluid or food, and after I'd been to toilet.
Today I weigh 11 stone 8.5 pound.
That's 2 pounds heavier than yesterday.
Yesterday I ate 1 tuna sandwich for the whole day. Nothing more. And I'm 2 pounds heavier.
This is using good quality medical grade scales, the same we use on patients at work. So it's not down to cheap innacurate scales.

Do honestly think weight loss drugs are a miracle cure where you sit back and do nothing and it magically dissapears?

Oh no, I don't think that at all.
You must be misunderstanding me, or perhaps you are jumping to wild and ignorant conclusions about me. It seems that way.
Have a lovely day.xx

Did you honestly miss the entire post where OP said she was on 1200 calories a day?

You ate 1 tuna sandwich.
the entire day.

how the heck did you have the energy to do a thing? You must be very very sedentary on this kind of food intake, and I can’t imagine how awful your bowel situation must be

Sorry, but it would help if you 'lose' the bad attitude. Most of the posters on here are just trying to help.

As you approach your target weight, this sort of thing happens. It does help if you track calories more closely, reduce your carbs, move a bit more etc. Also, maybe look at your body fat % and measurements rather than just the number on the scales.

Best of luck

Probably hangry

Agreed.

Absolutely no idea wtf the OP wants from the thread.

Seems like they are very frustrated but this is coming across as combative and people will stop bothering to try and get to the bottom of this if they are getting snapped at.

It’s baffling OP. The only thing that makes sense is that your scales are deceiving you somehow!

Do you take measurements?

Thank you for brightening my day by making me laugh!
You think one day on a VLC intake means I must be very very sedentary, that I can't have had the energy to do a thing, and that you can't imagine how awful my bowel situation must be? After one day?
I'm still chuckling at what you've said, even as I type this!😂

This is VERY disappointing OP.

over Xmas 2006 I was actually on a strict diet exercise program and stuck to 1200 cals!

but I plateau quickly on 1200 and often have to drop down to 1000 to get a quicker result.

What happens on 1200 is I lose loads of weight the first week then it slows down to around 1 -2 pounds a week then flattens out

to continue losing weight at 1200 cals a week I have to do proper structured gym exercise !

I know what you mean, but they are medical grade scales, bought from the company we buy all our medical equipment from at work. They are not cheap off the shelf weighing scales from the high street.
I do take waist measurements but dont measure any other areas. My waist measurement remains above the threshold for very high risk health complications as per NHS guidelines.

I’m not sure why you’re being rude to people. But can I ask then, why do you think you’re not losing/gaining weight, whilst eating in such a defecit?

I am unsure people on mumsnet are qualified to help you. When someone defies biology, and this isn’t just a minor blip, this is close to two months of signficant defecit and weight going up, then it needs medical intervention.

the only explanation sadly is you have something very wrong and have now gained 11lbs of fluid completely offsetting your fat loss, and increasing your body weight.

so I think when the surgery opens, call your gp, or go to a walk in centre for urgent care and explain to them how you eat in a deficit and mysteriously gain weight.

Hardly surprising you gained weight when you ate more for a month!

A whole month of eating more is vastly different to the suggestion to eat 100-200 calories more, on a single day. For whatever reason, it worked for me. I lost 105lb/ 7.5 stone in a year, and so far have maintained at BMI 20 for 5 months.

OP I understand your disappointment, I would be disappointed too.

I also am taking MJ and have essentially plateaued at just over 25 BMI for the past 3 months, but the difference is I'm okay with that and also i'm only taking 2.5mg every second week to just take the edge off the food noise so I'm not actively working towards further losses just at the moment.

Given you seem to be on top of your calorie intake, eating non processed foods, not drinking alcohol and you're a GP (thus having a decent grasp of the medical side of things) I imagine this thread is purely to have a whinge......so whinge away and I can offer my sympathy as it must be extremely frustrating for you!!

What about stress? And sleep?
If you are a GP I imagine that these could be factors

You say you’re a GP. So what would you say if you had a patient come to you with the same issue?

I do think there is some truth to your body going into starvation mode and resisting losing weight. Clearly if you eat in a deficit for long enough you will lose weight, but I don’t think cico works over shorter time periods. I stalled on 1200 calories and started losing again when I ate more. This coincided with increasing my weight training. I highly recommend getting some dumbbells, if you haven’t already. I do Caroline Girvan, but for my sanity I skip her leg day (I battle through glutes). There’s no point doing something you hate if it means you won’t do it at all. I do Pilates for leg day instead with Jessica Valant. I love my new physique, feel fantastic and can now maintain on about 1700 calories, which feels like pigging out after months on 1200. More muscles = more calories burned doing exactly eff all, which is brilliant.

I know a sandwich wasn't a lot that day, but if you regularly eat bread, maybe you should consider cutting it out in favour of other foods. Even a different carb that's been cooked and cooled for greater resistant starch could help, like having the tuna with potato/ grain salad instead.

As you track all of your foods anyway and might now be weighing daily, hopefully you'll see a pattern emerging for which foods are preventing you losing weight. Then it could just be a tweak of the foods rather than a further reduction of calories required.

I've also seen on Reddit when people are plateauing on 15mg, some have reduced to 10mg for a while, before working back up to 15mg. It's not something I've tried, but might be worth looking into.

Good luck, you'll get there. You have all the right tools, but probably just need a small change.

How’s your bowel movements OP?

Since hitting perimenopause mine have been inconsistent at best and it seems to align with my cycle. At those times where I’m not going as often as I should I retain water. When it finally clears out I spend the next day peeing like a racehorse and my weight drops. I am a daily weighed because it helps me to know where in my cycle I’m at, I do know ovulation time I can put on a few pounds and again at period, this is usually just water weight though.

Also how is your water intake?

I do agree with posters that this seems more like a water retention issue than a fat issue. And I also had success with having a fortnightly “cheat” day. Only one day mind and I’d up to about 1600 calories on that day so not gorging on everything in sight. I don’t know why it worked, if there’s any science surrounding it-but is it worth a try?

There is no truth in it, you can google and read the study, it was based on people who were starved for the trial , ie nil food, and the findings were metabolism slowed to conserve energy but there was no change to weight loss, which continued at the expected pace.

the simple fact is, if you eat in a deficit, then your body burns either fat or muscle to make up that deficit. This in turn makes us lighter. There is no way round this, the only way it can be offset, is if there is fluid gain. In the ops case it would need to be very very signficant.

if she’s a doctor, she will know this.