AIBU not to lend my sister money for weight loss injections?

[ListenToHer]

My sister has been overweight on and off for about 15 years. She has had times where she eats healthily, exercises and loses weight but then gives up and puts it all back on and more.

She would like to try weight loss injections which I was supportive of when she mentioned, but she has asked if I can lend her some money for them. Looking online this seems to be about £100-£300 per month. She says she could afford about £50 per month but no more.

My husband and I have always said we wouldn’t lend money to anyone again after it causing problems previously and we’d rather not lend her this. My husband thinks she should either save up for a while so she can pay for it or go back to healthy eating and exercise. I also worry that if she has to stay on it for life that we’ll be stuck paying.

AIBU not to help her?

eta, to anyone who has used it, are you staying on it for life? If so, is that a lowere dose so therefore would cost on the lower side?

I hope it's successful for her, and you are very kind to help make it happen.

Thank you.

Could you gift her a couple/ few months and she can save the £50’s each month for the next ones she has to buy and see if it helps her?

No is also a very okay response here too as it might open the flood gates

Yes i'm helping out my son as I'm so worried for his health. But if he doesn't make an effort to change his lifestyle I may have to think again. I think WLI are a wonderful thing to get you to the point where you actually have the motivation to eat better/exercise more but they shouldn't be relied upon forever. We don't know enough yet about the long term effects

The biggest problem here is that you can afford it. If you didn't have the money this would be much simpler.

Aside from the obvious traps with lending money, I'd be very concerned here with the dynamics of your relationship. You would be literally investing in her body. If she isn't losing weight you'll be judging her, also she might be slower to pay back money if it isn't successful. If I was the borrower I'd be afraid to eat anything indulgent or order a drink in front of you for fear of comment or judgment. If I was the lender I'll admit I wouldn't be able to stop myself from judging, maybe not food but finances in general. If she was going on a nice holiday while owing me money I'd be very annoyed. You would inevitably be involved in her lifestyle choices, that's a recipe for disaster.

I would also have a concern about why she is in such a poor state financially. She obviously got herself into debt. If she had cleared her debt and was saving then maybe you could consider a one off loan to do with as she wishes, or a one off gift of a few Ks. But no way would I lend to someone who is already in debt.

Oops hadn't read the update. Well done OP that's an ideal solution. You are very generous. What a lucky sister she is!

Lovely update and perfect solution.

There’s no buy in from her if you pay for them - she can’t be arsed can she? That’s not your problem! If she really wants to loose weight she can get a part time job to fund the injections. Or go see the GP for help.

Next it’ll be she needs new clothes due to weight loss and you need to buy them. Where does it end? You’ll help her more by refusing to enable her behaviour.

That would be nice if you were able to come back occasionally for an update

Really? If you carry on with the higher dose forever, don't you carry on losing weight? I'm genuinely clueless about this.

Since going on the jabs I save around £1000 a month on food, takeaway, and alcohol (family of 3 - often 4 for takeaways), the savings she is making on food should be comparative to the amount she is spending on the medication. It’s expensive to stay obese (or at least it was for me)

I dont claim to be an expert, just in my experience

Exactly this is a luxury not a need and she can start saving up for it herself. She cannot afford to repay you so do not even go there.

I've only reached 7.5mg after nearly 6 months on it. I've never paid £270/month for Mounjaro but it's not hugely out (I think I pay approx £200 a month). It does save me money elsewhere on food (mainly chocolate!) although we never spent loads on takeaways so no real saving there. I eat less when I eat out so that's a bit of a saving, but I'm not eating out every meal and if your sister can't afford more than £50 she probably isn't eating out super regularly either. I also spend more money on clothes - I've had to buy new trousers and jeans as the old ones are too big

Personally I expect to stay on some kind of dosage for life, as I can afford it and it's the easiest way to maintain. I don't trust myself to stay disciplined - I don't need many calories due to being short with a slow metabolism, and unless I avoid all snacks all the time and massively limit portion sizes every time (which is very difficult without drugs) and/or exercise a lot (difficult due to a busy job) I will put on weight.

I wouldn't lend the money to someone else, unless it was really critical (e.g. dangerously overweight but somehow not qualifying for NHS treatment) - once you start you need to stay committed otherwise what's the point.

This sounds like a great outcome, I hope it works for your sister.

There's no way of knowing who needs a high dose to lose weight or even what dose if any they will need to maintain after reaching goal.

Some people find 2.5 mg of Mounjaro is too much. Others find 15 mg isn't enough to help them lose weight.

Some people can titrate down off a high dose and maintain on a much lower dose. Others can come off them altogether and maintain.

Have a look at Dr Anna Jastreboff a leading endocrinologist on YouTube who has explained that obesity is a biological disease rather than a failure of willpower.

Dr Jastreboff has a book "Enough" which focuses on how modern treatments target the brain's "set point" to quiet down persistent thoughts about food.

As your sister has lost and regained weight she will have a higher set point and her body will fight every step of the way to make sure she regains any weight she loses if she stops taking the medication.

Personally I've been taking Mounjaro for 14 months. My highest dose was 5 mg and I'm currently on 3.75 mg. I'm happy staying on the medication as it's helped enormously with inflammation and my osteoarthritis arthritis has significantly reduced along with the weight.

I still wouldn't lend my sister money for weightloss treatment. There are trials she could apply to go on if she does a bit of research. Alternatively she could try one of the older and much cheaper weightloss treatments such as Mysimba or Saxenda, although they're not as good as the more expensive ones.

I was a PT before I had my first child, I've always been a bit sceptical of these drugs although working in a gym environment, it is obvious that they do work in the sense that they help fat loss, but at what cost? I wonder about the consequences down the line. How you manage a calorie deficit is as important as the deficit itself, otherwise you can lose muscle, bone density etc and end up with a much lower base metabolic rate than what you started with. You don't want to end up slim and having to stick to 1,500kcals a day forever to maintain, or taking pills/injections forever. I would always coach my clients that most weight loss happens in the kitchen, but what you build in the gym (muscle & discipline) is what enables you to maintain the weight loss for the long term without being permanently hungry. Losing weight when you're overweight is the easy bit. The hard bit is maintaining a lean physique, and it's even harder if you are ex-overweight because your body will want to spring back.

A typical training/weight loss program would be

• Up early, glass of water, go for a walk. Start each day positively.
• Whole foods diet, prioritise protein, utilise fibre to bulk up meals
• Strength training 3 or 4 times a week, approx 45m sessions. Lifting heavy, training for strength. Don't worry about getting "too muscular", it isn't going to happen.
• Follow the programme, no cheats. If you want treats, build them into the programme. No programme works if you don't follow it.
• Keto and/or fasting works well for some, not so much for others.
• Sleep/recovery is vital.

All this is as much about building good habits and discipline for the long term as it is about getting the weight off in the short term.

I would also have the discussion with clients before any money changed hands that this is one of the few areas in life where you can't just buy the thing you want. It doesn't matter how much you spend on gym membership, supplements, drugs, a PT. You still need to put the work in. A billionaire cannot buy a good physique, they need to put the work in the same as everyone else. I think these drugs appeal to people because in almost all other areas of life, if you have enough money you can pay to have your problems fixed. But you can't here.

Best of luck to your sister by the way. Getting lean and strong and looking good feels incredible. Nothing made me happier than seeing my clients happy achieving their goals.

The tablet version of wegovy is £70 starting dose

@JT1999 the appeal of these drugs, prescription medications, is that they work where nothing else has. Sure, I’m paying to have my problem fixed - if that’s a possibility, why would I not? I have gone from 22st to 10st 12lbs in 2 yrs 3 months and I am the fittest and healthiest I’ve ever been. I have been obese since childhood and that’s a long time ago now. I have worked out with PTs, on my own, dieted, and I’ve always lost a bit and the eventually put a bit more weight back on than I’d lost. That’s for my whole adult life. These medications are a total game changer for people like me.

Respect to you and I'm glad it has worked out for you, which one did you have and are you still using it? Out of interest, where do you think it went wrong with your previous diets? And what exactly do you think the meds have helped you the most with, I know they don't all work in exactly the same way. Some seem to make you less hungry, others change the way fats are handled by the body etc. I am asking out of interest as I know when I return to training, I will no doubt have more clients asking what I think to them.

FWIW I am not against these in principle. In most cases the benefits will outweigh the downsides. I will be the first to admit that building/maintaining your desired physique is a seriously big commitment and sometimes other things in life get in the way of that, or make progress slower than desired. Where I am right now, almost 5 months after giving birth is not where I want to be, I was in the shape of my life before pregnancy, but I knew I should not train that intensely during pregnancy gradually dialled it back and I have lost a lot of hard-earned muscle which is going to take a lot of effort to re-gain.

Totally agree. I tried to explain this earlier in the thread, but that poster doesn't know the difference between sharing her experience and stating a fact.

Dr Ania Jastreboff, a leading endocrinologist has been on the forefront of GLP-1 medication research for the past 20 years. She teaches that severe weight struggles stem from underlying biological regulation of fat mass (the body's natural weight "set point") rather than personal choice or a lack of willpower.

It's not as simple as a diet fails, it's having to constantly fight your biology beyond what the majority have to do day in day out forever.

Humans aren't unique to other animals though, our only uniqueness is that food is constantly plentiful and many of the things we eat aren't species-appropriate foods. I'm sure there are many people whose metabolism is so badly damaged that the body cannot easily use stored fat for energy, so conventional diets don't seem to work, at least in the short term. But I don't agree that it is a natural state for some people due to genes apart from in very rare cases, I suspect it is primarily a diseased state caused by environmental factors, most likely diet - food types as well as quantity. We do naturally hold different amounts of bodyfat but I think the natural variance between people is probably far lower than what we see on the street, I doubt anybody's natural weight set point is in the dangerously obese category.

I have seen first hand training people where initial weight loss does not happen easily and progress is painfully slow until persistence pays off and something changes, I get why people in that situation give up. Some people shed weight insanely fast in the beginning too. I imagine there are many people who haven't burned bodyfat for many years and I think the body sometimes needs a drastic change over a significant period of time to get it to make that switch and during that time, you generally feel terrible, weak, low in energy. It is almost as if the body is fighting you. My experiences training people has made me take the opinion that food quality and appropriateness is often more important than overall calories. I've had success with women who have lost large amounts of weight on a diet which is not in anyway calorie restricted, only food types and timing are restricted and quantity is not in any way controlled. Different approaches work for different people, its all about finding what works for the individual.

On a personal level, I found I had all the discipline I needed when I didn't have the pressure of a baby and a really busy life, it is harder now. That has opened my eyes a bit, I can see why people want to turn to quick fixes. There's no shame in that, but there are potential downsides which should be considered. Obviously there are also major downsides to remaining overweight.

@JT1999 GLP1 medications are not a quick fix though. The weight doesn’t drop off you in a couple of weeks. Although some people see a large drop in the first week or two, the rate of loss is like any other calorie controlled diet. The major difference is that you are able to sustain that weight loss week in week out for months. Hence it taking me 2 years and 3 months to lose 11 stone or so, and I am still losing albeit at a very slow rate now.