Sobering (depressing?!) studies on life after MJ and worth consideration?

[RoastedPickleAndChips]

I'm at my target weight more or less after 8 months on MJ. Lost 5 stone and am now 9 stone 12 so quite happy with all that

As most of us are aware, there's not huge amounts of information surrounding maintenance, mainly because people are only just getting there on the whole due to MJ being relatively new to the UK for weight loss

So I've been doing some reading and digging and it makes for pretty depressing discoveries

I always knew that I didn't need to 'educate myself about heathy eating and portion control etc etc.' I could practically qualify as a dietician tbh and I always felt that the MJ does far far more than just suppress appetite

Have a look at this study .... https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2812936 .... it shows that for a fact pretty much everyone will regain the weight they have lost once coming off MJ

I also read this comment from someone well informed ....

MJ is not for suppression. That’s not ever been a planned target effect.

It’s a physical, mechanical, method of action. What the drug DOES do is increase insulin sensitivity, suppresses glucagon secretion, and slows gastric emptying. These are known as the target effects.

Once you stop taking the drug, the body reverts back to higher insulin resistance, high glucagon secretion, and faster gastric emptying.

And the studies show this. There’s lots and lots of information if people spend half an hour reading the studies and trials.

SURMOUNT-4 proves that “changing behaviour” alone doesn’t work. And SURMOUNT-3 applied the drug AFTER people tried to change behaviour - and we see clear massive difference in subjects there too. So the clinical effect is clear. It’s not a tool to help you get over a hill or learn how to be healthy. No more than wearing body armour makes your skin thicker.

Anyway, thoughts? Of course I want to believe that I'll be the exception, that this time I'll keep the weight off, that of course just 'eating less and moving more' is the key

But it's not is it? MJ seems to be more than just a tool - it looks like the effects on the body are far more than I'd realised and understood

So is the answer a dose for life? (Currently not available to my knowledge?)

Thoughts? I'd love to be told the above is a load of shit Thought it might be interesting to discuss anyway

The drugs were in testing for about 15 years before approval and now been in use for about 20, so yes they know and yes mounjaro is approved for life, wegovy and ozempic are not, if there was signficant health implications, it wouldn’t be approved for life. And the risks of regain is a much bigger risk to all our health

I intend to stay on a maintenance dose for life.

Part of the reason I know I can't maintain without Mounjaro is that restriction triggers binging for me. It doesn't when I'm taking the drug. Which makes me think the binging is a physical response and it's not (just) a mental health issue. I really think it's a warped survival response that the drug suppresses or regulates. I've dieted so many times, I think - I know - my body won't let me do it again without MJ. My last round of low-carbing and intermittent fasting in 2020 was particularly ruinous for me. The weight regain was completely uncontrollable and just thinking about cutting carbs again would trigger binges that nothing I could do would prevent. It was as powerful an instinct as it is to gasp for breath when you surface from underwater. I do know now that low-carb and fasting regimes are associated with disordered binges. There is simply no way that I could solve it by daily weighing - I'd weigh, decide I needed to lose that small amount of regained weight by cutting the carbs again or doing fasts and I would immediately binge. It was a relentless vicious cycle.

Weight loss and maintenance are so simple in theory, but in reality I can't hold my breath past a certain point and it's the same for restricting. I used to be able to do it but I honestly think I traumatised myself in the long term with diets and now it's not possible for me - until I started Mounjaro, which has changed my life beyond imagining. It's like I was trying to survive underwater and kept blaming myself for needing to come up for air - and now I have an oxygen tank. But it hasn't taught me to breathe underwater. I haven't grown gills. If I take the tank off, I'll be in the same place again.

@AHundredBars what an incredible description. This is so much how I feel.

I feel like for the first time in my life I can eat whatever I want.... I am not having to feel deprived, restrict or gasp for air by eating. MJ has simply changed what my body is telling me I need. It has radically altered my understanding of what was/is wrong with me. Quite simply, I'm not a fish! That is far less shameful than thinking I'm a crap fish with mental disorders!

.....what a perfect metaphor!

I couldn't agree more. I had actually give up dieting for four years before starting MJ. Bot as a deliberate decision, i just couldn't go through the cycle again. It truly is a miracle drug.

Because it’s interesting. I’m slim but only because I constantly watch what I eat. I probably do have an eating disorder of some sort. I’m not constantly craving food so it’s been interesting to hear about food noise. I have some of course but not to the extent people on these threads talk about The noise I’d have if I put weight on for me must outweigh the noise telling me to eat the thing.

and also because the threads come up in trending so you don’t need to be on a board.

@AHundredBars your description of what I feel is so eloquent and so true that I've read it 3 times. That's exactly how I feel and why I plan to stay on this forever if I can. The freedom and the headspace is priceless.

This thread never come up on trending and for that matter I don’t think I’ve ever seen a weight-loss thread on trending. You have to actively look for them.

Yes, I was wondering this too - these threads never come up on trending. You’d need to be looking to find the threads. Of course anyone is entitled to post where they like but I’d hardly be on Baby Names as a menopausal woman.

On the contrary, I've seen loads of these threads on trending. I'm certainly not looking for them and I even tried to hide the subject but they still come up. This is the only one I've read (or commented on) because the title piqued my interest.

On the contrary I don't remember having seen a thread from weightloss forum trending, at least as far as I can remember. It’s nearly always chat, relationships, aibu or feminism on trending, so it’s a free country but I questioned the motives behind the (often) smug or disrespectful remarks is what I was getting at. They rarely seem genuinely questioning or friendly.

Exert from the Zoe interview with Dr Louis Aronne which talked about the benefit of weight loss injections.

00:53:16] Dr. Louis Aronne: It absolutely is. I mean if there's a final message that I would like people to hear, it's that it's not their fault.
If you have obesity, it is not your fault. Everybody is not eating very well, but only some people gain weight. And the stigma, the bias, the blame that has gone into damaging the psyche of people with obesity, we now see people being freed from that.

I know what you mean about wondering why those posters are scrolling through, but I do often see WLI threads in the active or trending lists of threads. After all, this is one of the most active boards - so why wouldn't they show up?

I always click on ACTIVE, which is where I came across it

Me too.

There’s currently 8 threads from this section in tending so yes they do!!!

Do you follow the topic? If so I think that’s why it’s in your trending.

It is a risk that we all take with any diet. The difference with WLIs is that some of us will have spent a lot of money over the course of 6/7/8 months in order to lose the weight we have.

The benefit of WLI is that they help reduce the risk of initial failure or giving up after three or four weeks.

No - not that I’ve given this any thought before now, but it appears that both ‘trending’ and ‘active’ threads have nothing to do with personal preference or topics that are followed. Those appear in ‘My Feed’.

Currently showing in my ‘trending’ are Christmas, Children’s Health, and Conflict In The Middle East, none of which I’ve ever clicked on.

Your insulin resistance doesn't increase afterwards. I wonder who was behind that initial claim. We have to apply critical thinking. All markers will have much better numbers after signoficant weightloss. This alone is worth putting a lot of effort into maintaining. Yes obesity is complicated. No, we are not happless victims of it. We know watching our sugars, portion sizes and eating food that looks like it came from a farm is best. If we eat processed foof we will gain weight. Choices. If you really want a cake make it yourself eith one kind of sugar, not all the additives. If you don't ferl like msking it you don't really want the cake. I saw a comment saying takeaway portions are huge like this is inevitable and unavoidable. If home cooking is impossible make the takeaway last two days, don't eat all the rice and add veg and protein if it's low..
I sound naggy and patronising. I'm working on myself too.

My insulin resistance has decreased on 7.5. I've not lost any weight.

You can be fat and eat healthily.
I eat no processed food and I am fat. My friend lives on unhealthy processed food and is very slim.

I can’t help smiling at anyone coming onto threads on the WLI board and telling people they just need to eat less and move more (or weigh daily 😛) in order to lose or maintain weight loss. Seriously, has the message not landed yet that despite the thousands of diet books, exercise videos, government campaigns, Instagram courses, New Year’s resolutions, decades spent queuing in shit slimming clubs and living in a world where fat people are loathed and that same message has been shoved down our throats relentlessly……. IT’S CLEARLY NOT AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

There are two options - either the majority of terminally fat people are just too thick and lazy to sort their weight out, or…. all these obesity scientists are right with their thinking that we’re being fed faulty messages by our hormones and brains that tell us we’re still hungry when we’re not, causing us to obsess and snack on foods when naturally slim people are oblivious.

I ate home cooked food, rarely ate sugar (don’t really like sweet things), kept my carb intake low and mostly complex carbs at that, takeaways always stretched across several days. And I was still obese.

Oh my goodness, you sound just like me. It’s not that I have no willpower, it’s years and years of dieting and bingeing, even the mention of restrictions send me eating anything and everything. People just don’t understand - well I don’t really understand - why I can’t just “go on a diet”. I used to be able to stick to a diet for months, then weeks, then only a week and now as soon as I think about “dieting” I binge - I’d just about given up on losing weight or ever having a life again. I’m about to start MJ, and really hope this helps like you say it’s helped you.

The difference between the jabs and traditional dieting is that this is an effective method for shifting a lot of weight, users can literally become totally different shapes without much effort or risk of failure. I know DP plans to get to a weight he is happy with and incorporate more exercise and healthy habits, the jabs are the magic wand he’s needed, removing the struggle and effort SW or WW involved, the off button for sugar cravings and binge eating.

Arriving at goal weight and actually being happier and healthier will be key for everyone on them. The secretive routine of calling in the supermarket after work for a bag of baked cookies or demolishing a massive takeaway are no longer part of his life, the temptation has gone. Maintaining that new behaviour after the jabs should hopefully be easier, if not then he can reassess.