What is maintenance for you?

[CobaltRewind]

So I swapped from MedExpress to cloud for maintenance but (no judgement) there was no agreement on what maintenance would actually be.

I got an email today saying it was time to order my next pen but if I keep injecting I’ll keep losing weight and I don’t want to lose more. I’m also starting ADHD medication so that will possibly impact my apeitite. However I know for sure that without MJ my sugar addiction will get hold of me again.

Ive been without the injection for 2 weeks and can definitely feel the cravings come back… am trying to use self control but it’s hard. However if I keep taking the 💉 every week I will continue to lose weight and I don’t want to.

Ive suggested a month on and a month off with cloud… what do other people do? Still waiting on them to get back to me. I’ll call them tomorrow if needs be.

thanks in advance

I’ve wondered this too.

many people on fb groups talking about now being on maintenance etc, but nobody actually saying what that is.

What dose are you on? I think of maintence as just going onto a lower dose. So smaller amounts in your system.

I am currently on 5 mg and have been there for 3 months the effects are wearing off so I am comfortably eating 2,000 calories a day. I am staying on this dose for another month or 2 as things are mental at work and don't want to increase my dose right now but am not really losing weight. ( have bought my BMI down to overweight so happy to stay here for a couple months then plan on pushing up the dose later in the summer)

So I guess for me maintence will just be having a small amount in my system to make the food noise manageable along side good food choices.

oushk has a maintenance FB group with lots of discussion of what people are doing. They also offer consultations with their pharmacist for £5 which I found very helpful when deciding my approach (which is to taper down slowly, including reducing injection frequency to 9 days, and then aim to stop). I think you need to discuss with a professional given what you’ve said about other meds and your issues with sugar.

Well for me it was tapering down from 7.5 back to 2.5mg, which I’ve now been on for a couple of months and hope to stay on for the forseeable. My (final) target was 9.7 and I’ve been going up and down 5 pounds or so. If I lose a bit too much I am careful to eat a bit more.

Between the medication in my system & being what’s probably on the ‘super responder’ end the suppression back at 2.5 is still strong. Wary of coming off altogether though!

I think maintenance can look different for each of us.

You need to find the right dose for you to stop the food noise and increased appetite returning, but allowing you to increase your calories so you no longer lose weight.

So this should be a lower dose than you were on before you reached your goal. I guess it's trying lower doses to find where you hit that point of maintaining a steady weight.

Every time you order your injections can you request what dosage you use or do you have to increase to a higher one each time?

@BrendaSmall you can order whatever dosage you like as long as you have had the previous ones ie can’t jump from 2.5 to 15!!!😁 Some pharmacies may ask you why if you want to stay on the same or go down but a simple explanation will usually suffice.