Mounjaro / Wegovy with > 5st / 30kg to lose: Thread 2

[VelociraptorsVelociRapping]

Thread 2 of our lovely, welcoming community of MNers using weight-loss injections to lose more than 5 stone / 30 kg.

Hi, I’m in Australia and just awaiting my first delivery, probably early next week. I feel excited and a bit scared. Hoping to lose at least 25kg to get me close to a healthy BMI 🤞😬 Loving reading all your amazing success stories.

So sorry hear about your marriage. I went through a divorce two years ago and although it was difficult, ultimately I am much happier. I hope it’s as painless as possible for you 🙏

Thank you @Alicewondersalot. It's comforting to hear from people who have come out of the other side! We have young children, one with SEND, so I fear it isn't going to be straightforward but I am hopeful that it won't become too acrimonious.

Welcome! I started my MJ journey at 131kg and have hit a 28lbs loss this week (wk 14) and official weigh in is not til Friday. I started off by counting calories and I still occasionally do to make sure I am in the parameters I set for myself.

My target calories just after jab day when suppression is usually high is 1400/1500 and then later on in the week when I can eat more I go up to 1800 to ‘re-feed’, which helps to keep your metabolism guessing and charged up. This works for me and I’m losing on average 2lbs a week. It’s important to eat enough calories so that you don’t get too fatigued and you get all the nutrients you need. At the beginning when suppression was really high I still found I could eat a small portion of something even when I didn’t fancy anything.

Congrats on all the fabulous losses this week!! 💪 just catching up with the thread.

Realised the thread I'm on went quiet, didn't realise another one had started lol anyway this is me right now! I'm really struggling on a second 5mg pen, I'm a lot more hungry and not feeling as full after a meal. I definitely should have gone to 7.5mg. I'm going to do one more week of 5mg then for my last two jabs I'll do 7.5mg. Using up the extra "5th dose" to do this rather than getting a 5th week out of it.

That's what I did with my second 5mg pen, @Lanesdown it worked nicely. I didn't really mind losing the bonus dose as I just wasn't ready to go up to 7.5 initially.

I'm still getting quite a lot of nausea. It really does remind me of pregnancy sickness, just suddenly comes from nowhere and makes me retch sometimes. I've ordered some cyclizine from MedExpress which they suggest for people experiencing this. And is actually what I took when I was pregnant and couldn't keep anything down. I'm therefore hopeful it might sort me out a bit.

@Lanesdown I'm glad it wasn't just me! I read so much about how if it's working, don't go up but it just didn't work out for me. I ended up using the second 5mg to do a 5mg and then two 7.5mg, so I'll have to start my next pen early. The 7.5mg definitely started hitting the spot again!

Oh I'm really pleased to hear going to 7.5 is doing its thing for you!!! I'm hoping for the same as I've responded well to 2.5 and 5, I just stayed on 5 when I should have gone up so I do have hope all will be right with the world once I'm taking 7.5!!

@KeepingUndercover, great to hear it worked for you doing that, so I feel positive I might get on ok doing the same!!

Thanks to the posters who answered my query re Mounjaro in Ireland. I have come across Webdoctor.ie and they require my height, weight and blood pressure verified by a Medical Professional such as a Pharmacist so I might follow this up.

Smaller loss week of 0.4 kg. I’m slightly disappointed because I had lost more in previous weeks. (I know it’s irrational and that a loss is a loss etc etc). I think it’s probably an indication of just how much my weight is subconsciously bothering me. Ah well, onward and downward.

Week 3 on MJ and not lost a llb! Feel lighter but no actual loss. Feel really irritable though, will see how I feel when I go up a dose. Find the MJ pen odd to use, the clicks round to 1 seem a lot.

So I had my first binge on MJ last night - getting to the end of week 11 without one yet! But I had minor op (only local anaesthetic, but a bit more electrocauterisation than I was mentally ready for - a weirdly traumatic experience, smelling my own burning flesh?!) and then my small DS had his vaccines and my bigger DS had a horrible day at school that had him in tears afterwards. We were all a bit shaken up bummed out and DH suggested McDonalds (which is a special-occasion treat in our house) and they kids were clearly up for it so I thought "why not?"...

While he went to the drive-through I washed a lettuce and cut some cucumber and tomatoes and red pepper, so we could all have picky bits of veg alongside. But then when he came back with it, I just ate a whole sharing pack of nuggets, wrapping each one in lettuce with mayo and salad veg... If I'd have stopped after a few it would have been fine! But I kept going through the whole box of 20... 🙄

THEN after the kids were asleep I raided the fridge for 8 more chicken dippers to stick in the airfryer, and THEN I ate 2 mint choc chip ice lollies that I found under the dippers packet!!!

Then I lay on the sofa and felt that pure dopamine hit of incredible relaxation - pleasure - wellbeing. Which is what bingeing has always given me. 😞 I felt so good but also SO guilty! And I lay there and reflected that this is what bingeing is for me, this is why I do it - it makes me kind of 'high', like drugs do for some people. So I need to make space in the future for some acknowledgement of this, and maybe try to improve my understanding of it, and maybe have some strategies for coping with it when it rears its head...

But today I feel ok and "back on it". Like, ok, binge done. It was a shitty day and I binged, that's the facts. Now let's roll up our sleeves and keep on trucking! 😅

And next time the kids or I have a terrible day, what could be a "treat dinner" that's not UPF McDs? What would be a non-food related comfort strategy for our family? How can I access that sweet spot of relaxation and pleasure after a tough day without a binge...? I feel like if I can use my time on MJ to really look at this and find some strategies that work, then that might be thing that REALLY means I could maintain a healthy weight for ever... Maybe. Ooof.

Anyway, thanks for listening ladies Xx

@WoolyMammoth55
I agree you need to rethink the idea of a treat dinner. You are using the food as a comfort /relaxation tool.
I wonder if finding a different source of relaxation eg sticking on a film and watching it as a family, family karaoke or dance off?

I am working on an alternative to my you’ve had a tough week Friday chocolate. Currently, it’s watching daft YouTube videos.

Hi @ChazsBrilliantAttitude thanks for the reply 💖It's such a weird one isn't it? "Treat dinner"... The thing was though that the kids had had a water fight to cool off while DH drove for the food, so my big one just had shorts on and my little was nudey-rudey... And I wiped down the garden table and bought the salad bits and water jug out and we all sat and ate together and laughed and it was "nourishing" in a way that had nothing to do with the fake-food burgers...

We usually eat different food to the kids who only like bland pasta, and won't touch my rabbit-food MJ dinners, so a whole-family-together dinner is a rarity, and it was lovely - I feel like eating together in a social way to mark a special occasion is really human, across a lot of cultures, right? Wedding meals and funeral meals, and birthday meals and Xmas dinner...?

I don't necessarily think I can live 40 (maybe 50!) healthy years more on this planet without ever eating a treat dinner again. I think it's more realistic to want to manage it better.

If I'd made the salad on the side of some home made burgers on the BBQ? That would have been ok right? It was just the spontaneous low-exertion version.

And the fact that I had no "off-switch" afterwards... 🙄 But trying not to beat myself up too hard as I don't think that will help me. More trying to be curious and strategic!! 🤔

@WoolyMammoth55 opting for a different family dinner sounds like it might work? In our house we often do some sort of fajita/taco based meal if we want to all eat together as everyone will eat a variation of it. So there might be fish tacos for most of us, with the option of cooked or uncooked veg to add in. And the one who has a very small list of safe foods will happily eat a tortilla wrap with cheese and sour cream in.

Anything like that where you are eating communally but picking bits of dishes is good and can be as "healthy" as you want it to be.

Thanks @KeepingUndercover yes, tacos is a great one. We have done that before when planning ahead. I'm really grateful for the thought and your support. 🙏

@WoolyMammoth55
I wonder if what makes a treat dinner a treat dinner isn’t really the food it’s the experience and the people. It might just be a mindset shift that’s needed rather than a change of behaviour. Was the treat having a fun meal with the kids that you didn’t have to cook? Perhaps, the nature of the food might be less important?

I think this is a challenge many of us face so i am partly thinking aloud here. I think it’s amazing that you are able to get back on track and develop strategies for the future.

@WoolyMammoth55 - We used to love a McD's visit when we had a lousy day - thankfully they weren't too often, but there was nothing like a warm cheeseburger and salty fries to make one feel better. We haven't been able to do that for a long time because we now need to follow a gluten-free diet, and McD's isn't the best for that. Most fast food places aren't. Nowadays, we will go outside for a nice walk when we have had a rough day. Funny though...we were both super slim in the McD's days!

I had a weird sort of experience this week' as I head towards my third 2.5 injection. I love to watch cooking/food shows and then try dishes out myself in my own kitchen. I was watching episode 1 of the new Jamie Oliver series and actually felt kind of numb and almost queasy. Some things looked really nice (veggie slaw, in particular) but I really had no usual reaction of "wow' or "yum". Episode 2 is next week - I'll have to see if my viewing experience is different.

@WoolyMammoth55 I don't think you have to give up treat dinners or that it's a problem that you use food as a treat sometimes. It's ridiculously extreme to say you need to rethink the idea of having treat dinners in the future. I literally don't know a single person (of any size or mindset) who doesn't “use food as a comfort or relaxation tool” sometimes. Mounjaro is meant to help us reset our views on food in daily life and make us work on not bingeing or overeating regularly, not mean we can never indulge ever again.

The thing that needs working on is not being able to stop. For me, that means not having the bad food in the house at all. If that's not possible (eg because other people want it), putting it somewhere you can't access it could be the answer. I don't keep any chocolate etc in the house, so if I do want a treat I have to go and get it from the corner shop. Which means I don't do it when I'm super busy, the weather is bad, I'm feeling lazy etc.

I started MJ about 6 weeks ago and was beginning to think that it wouldn't work for me, but finally, 2 weeks in to 5mg pen, I can feel the appetite suppression! I'm struggling to finish meals and leaving food on my plate - completely unheard of for me! Down 5.5kg - but a long way yo go still.

I’m coming to the end of week 1 and am showing as 1.6kg down. Appetite suppression has been ok but nothing like some describe. Could that be because there’s more of me for the meds to work through? In any case I’m happy with that loss and the better mental clarity for sure!

@dogdaydisaster it'll be because you start on a low dose to get used to the drug which isn't a therapeutic dose. Some people are lucky and respond very well to a low dose, but most people will need to get up to a higher dose before it really starts working. 1.6kg is great though!

4th jab for me tonight so official weigh in in the morning but I'm looking at 14.2lbs down in 3 weeks at the moment. Very happy with that! I can't deal in kgs when it comes to weight loss

I'm going to order my 5mg pen today. I only have one discount code to use so I think it will work out very slightly cheaper to order the 5 and 7.5 at the same time.