Christmas on Mounjaro

[Papergirl1968]

Has anyone any thoughts or advice about managing Christmas on mounjaro?
I currently inject on a Monday and suffer the worst side effects 1-3 days later. Last week I vomited one day and had diarrhoea the following day. I can also get terrible heartburn if I eat too much or too late. This is pretty normal for me.
I guess the answer is to eat small-ish meals, have a good break before desert, and lay off the chocolates, biscuits and snacks.
I’ll be spending a lot of the festive season helping out DD who is due to give birth a week or so before Xmas. She’s a single parent to a toddler already so I can’t afford to feel poorly!

I'd normally take the dose mid-week i.e. 25th, but I'm considering pushing it back a couple of days to 27th. Reason 1: I want to enjoy time with friends and family without worrying about side effects.
Reason 2: I would like to be able to eat a small amount of foods I don't regularly eat without worrying about how my digestive system will cope with them.
Reason 3: cheese!

@Papergirl1968 if you are getting vomiting, diarrhoea and severe heartburn, is your dose too high?

My injection day is Tuesday evening so that’s Christmas Eve. I’m going to go with the same as I usually do even over Christmas - but that’s because I’ve FINALLY stopped side effects! I’d feel differently if I was still feeling like you do each week. It was exhausting.

I don’t typically suffer with awful side effects so I guess I need to consider this less.

I am going to jab as normal, on a Sunday - although I may move it from the evening to the morning. By Christmas day, I should have enough room for food, but not lose the effects so much it doesn’t feel like its doing its job. I also won’t be changing my dose, even though I might feel its time to titrate up (new pen due that week!).

I don’t want to give in to bad behaviour by skipping a dose - but I guess that easy to say for me, not suffering generally. I won’t calorie count for some days over Christmas, mostly over family events, so there maybe 4-5 days over two weeks. I will eat some treats within my deficit too!

I am on 15mg now and do not have many side effects, although I have very little appetite on days 2, 3 and 4. I am currenty doing 8 days between injections and will be due on Christmas Eve. I now only eat one main small meal a day and maybe a light snack, Christmas is a week of events for us, and I will be doing more of the same.
I still have a sweet tooth but have asked for a small amount of my favourite treats, not endless cheap chocolate, and I will not be buying tubs of sweets, crisps, etc. There will be some extra treats in the house, but nowhere near what there have been before, so no Christmas Cake or mince pies (as it is usually me who eats them). Desserts will be served; although it is likely, I will just be having a small taste of 1, not three large helpings. I have also cut out alcohol, with the rare exception of a single glass of wine if we go out and will be drinking loads of water, sparkling water, tea and coffee

I’m just about to go up to 7.5. I’ve been on it since about May and have sometimes had to stick on the same dose for a couple of months due to side effects, plus I had to miss a couple of doses out in the summer when I had viral gastroenteritis for three weeks.
I’ve lost about a stone but that’s been hard going for me so I’m keen not to put any back on, but neither am I wanting to feel ill!

Honestly, if I were having the reactions you're having to MJ, I'm not even sure I would have stuck with it this long, much less considering going up a dose!

If you are vomiting at the dose you're at, and you are worried about side effects for the next month (because let's face it, Christmas is a month away now), maybe consider not increasing the dose and try to get your body used to what it's on now?

As for your question: first of all, I do have the odd side effect but I generally am fine on MJ, so I'm planning on injecting as normal. I might delay my jab by a day because I believe Christmas falls on jab day, and I tend to inject in the evenings, so I will probably wait until the next morning instead.

I'm just going to suck it up this year and not have all the Christmas food. I'm almost at target but have chosen to stay on it until January so I don't get any 'christmas weight' that I need to get off again in the new year.

I will be cracking on with MJ. Just going to eat smaller portions and drink less. Will aim not to have the Christmas pounds to lose this year ( which I never really achieve explaining my current size)

I am due to take my bonus dose exactly a week before Christmas. It's a 5mg pen and I'm currently taking 3.75, I'm a bit nervous that it will be a higher dose and I'll get side effects though.

I've decided I don't want to start a new pen straight away so depending on NYE plans I may push the new pen out to January.

I am already focussing on not treating December as a reason to stuff my face with mince pies, crisp and booze. I'm trying to keep any over slight indulgence to Christmas Eve and day,

I’m going to take a lower dose on Christmas week. That said I have little or no side effects. Think it’s miracle drug and found myself defending it recently to a crowd of people.

Personally I’m not going to do anything differently. I think I can still enjoy Christmas by eating less. Learning how to eat a reasonable amount at Christmas is good for practicing willpower and maintenance habits going forward. There will always be an occasion where we want to push limits in terms of diet in the future…may as well learn how to adapt now. Especially cause for many of us, Christmas comes with being off work, winter, bank holidays etc which makes it that much easier to eat all day and not exercise much!

Though if you literally feel sick after taking your medication, that isn’t normal and it’s worth raising that with your pharmacy ASAP. I have never had side effects like that on MJ, so I don’t factor in being super poorly after an injection in my decision making.

I think part of my problem is I’m a very fussy eater and only eat a very limited range of very plain foods. I don’t eat any veg or salad and barely any fruit so while I’ve been able to reduce meal sizes and cut down massively on deserts and snacks, I’m still eating unhealthy meals. I also have no interest in cooking so it’s all ready meals.
Last week for example it was very obviously a steak pie which I’d had with a jacket potato which set me off, so no more steak pies for me now. Cottage pies I will probably continue to have as they’re not as filling.
I just took my 7.5 dose so will see what happens this week.

I have another Christmas issue- my food noise is so low I can’t get into planning our Christmas meals, which is usually a really big deal for me. We usually have a fondue night, grazing table, Christmas market at home etc, all with friends and family and I just look through my recipe books and feel uninterested, when normally I’m a huge foodie ( hence my weight!).

I really enjoy these things and don’t want to give them up but emotionally it’s so different when you aren’t food obsessed!

@Papergirl1968 that’s okay, there’s no point overhauling your diet if you realistically won’t be able to maintain that in the future. Eating what you usually eat, but less, is a good way to go. Hope 7.5mg goes well!

@Avoidingthetwitch I feel the same! I’m going away in a couple of weeks and my friends have been sending lots of food recommendations and tbh, it didn’t really cross my mind to build that into the itinerary! I’d be fine with sandwiches. For Christmas I’d be fine with some roast potatoes and cheese lol - the special food isn’t as tempting!

I will be due to start my next pen on 21st Dec and have a boozy shopping and lunch day planned on 22nd Dec so I am planning to stay on 2.5 even if I feel I should go up a dose. I will be drinking less than usual but likely quite a bit more than I have these past 5 weeks! Currently food noise has gone and I am not experiencing bad side effects (i am avoiding high fat foods and not over eating). I am able to eat 3 meals a day just smaller ones than before. I am eating around 1300 calories although went over a bit this weekend with being away overnight and eating out/eating what was available.

I am not planning to calorie count from 22nd - 26th December. However I will be watching portion sizes and not eating crisps, peanuts or cheese and crackers unless part of a meal (xmas eve buffet) and keeping chocolates to just a few. I am only going to buy one box of mince pies rather than the multiple boxes I usually get through. There is only me who likes them so no excuse really.

I'm not sure! I'm considering skipping a dose that week. I'm doing 3.75 at the minute. Going up next week maybe. Side effects are ok.

Good to see people's thoughts as I'm pondering my strategy here. Jabwise it's good, as I usually jab Thursday night, so I should have it in me to muster a bit of enthusiasm for Christmas day/Boxing day.

It's just going to be me and my daughter, and usually she really enjoys a spot of food largesse and plans all sorts of nice desserts for us to eat, we get treats in etc that we wouldn't normally have. However, every year it inevitably turns into me eating much more of them, fuelled by greed plus the idea that I can't bear the waste of having over spent and then thrown stuff out. So I'm going to try to really rein it back this year and try to make more out of us planning one or two special things to share plus some specific treats for her. I want to find a way for us to both enjoy it without me sitting around picking piously at a green bean - a bit of a downer - or me overeating and hating myself and feeling rotten, especially as Friday is weigh in day!

I jab on a Friday evening so that's quite useful for Xmas which will fall on days 4, 5 and 6 for me. I am going to stay on my current dose for another pen (5mg) so that I am not moving up around Xmas time. I'm buying less food but higher quality food, e.g. a really nice box of chocs, because I intend to eat nice things but just less of them.

I calorie track but will not do so for the two weeks over Xmas and the NY. Just try and keep everything moderate. I won't lose weight, I don't expect, but I'm hoping to not really gain either - except a bit of temporary water weight.

For me, the most important thing is that I then start back up in the New Year. I'll also be due to start a pen a week into Jan, so I'll go up a dose then to hopefully support that kick start.

I gained ten pound last Christmas and triggered a three month binge so I will be carrying on as normal this year.

I did something very similar @Doggymummar, after having dieted really well since September, so I’m keen not to end up doing the same again this year

It's not worth it, is it @weaseleyes we work so hard then screw it up

I had awful diarrhoea this morning after moving up to 7.5 on Monday, and as Christmas Day is a Wednesday, that’s helped me decide to delay it till later in the week. I think I’ll push it back a day a week in the run up, starting from next week.

@Papergirl1968 that's exactly my plan too! I jab on Sunday night and tend to find that Tuesdays and Wednesdays have the most suppression. I'm also away for a long weekend next week and don't get back to Monday night. So going 8 days between jabs from now will end up with me jabbing on Boxing Day. I'm not too far from maintenance now so it will be interesting to see the effect.