Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Weight loss injections/treatments

Discuss weight-loss injections and treatments, including personal experiences. Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. You may wish to speak to a medical professional before starting any treatments.

Did anyone here lose weight before without injections?

21 replies

kisaki333 · 28/02/2025 04:35

I'm on the fence about starting munjaro. I ordered the first pen and then chickened out. Why I'm on the fence? I previously lost a lot of weight (keto+fasting) so I know I can do it without. But life is more complicated now so it's harder to stick to the diet. I also fear the shots are the final resort, so if I use them now, I won't have anything for when I, inevitably, gain weight when menopause hits.
So wanted to know if anyone else has previous experience of large weight loss and how it compares to the injections? In terms of results but also side effects etc

OP posts:
Time4changeagain · 28/02/2025 06:18

If you use them now, Why do you feel you wouldn’t be able to use them again in the future?

Itsalwaysfools · 28/02/2025 06:29

Literally everyone who ever lost weight before injections existed did it without them.

MinnieCoops · 28/02/2025 06:53

You can go back on them if you regain weight

Paperwhite13 · 28/02/2025 06:57

I lost 59lbs doing keto and IF in 2020 and then gained all of it back (and more) over the course of a year. I felt as though I'd deprived myself of so much for 6/7 months that I just ate everything as soon as I took a 'break'.

I'm using Mounjaro and have lost 95lbs (at GW now) and I haven't deprived myself at all.. I've eaten carbs and didn't need to IF.

I've definitely learnt from the first time that I can't just take a break, but it does feel very different this time and I do think I can keep the weight off.

I wish I'd started taking it when I first heard of it.

CoverMeInMarmalade · 28/02/2025 06:59

Yes, several times I lost significant weight - always eventually 'crashing out' of the diet and regaining and always being angry and disappointed at myself.

Since then I have studied what your body does in response to big with loss and now I understand why it happened and why the drugs are needed for almost everyone to lose and maintain that loss.

Your body's processes work in a way that fights and then sabotages weight loss, because they evolved at a time when loss of weight normally meant food was scarce and you needed 'help' for it not to kill you.

Your body massively reduces how much leptin it produces. Leptin is what makes you fell satiated after eating. It massively increases ghrelin. Ghrelin is what makes you feel hungry. So the more weight you lose, the hungrier you feel and the less you ever feel like you've eaten enough - even when you've logically eaten enough calories. It changes your insulin pathway so you are driven to eat higher calorie foods than normal. And your brain responds to all this by thinking about food more and more and more. All designed to drive you to go and hunt/gather with more seriousness to overcome the food shortage. But in today's world all instead making dieting harder and harder the longer it goes on and keeping the weight off far harder than weight maintenance would be otherwise.

For some lucky people these processes only persist for a year or two after weight loss (even if you put the weight back on). For others it lasts more years than that.

It's one of the prime reasons the statistics show that the vast majority of people who lose significant weight will out it back on.

Having now read and listened to a range of obesity scientists, they all report the same thing. Losing and maintaining significant weight loss is beyond most people to achieve alone. Some people do it, sure. It's possible that those people had a different cause of obesity than the hormone imbalance that appears to contribute to most obesity and, therefore, it's just that but more possible for them.

I no longer believe it is possible for me without help. I have tried too many times on my own and failed even more. I have lost something g like 400lbs over my adult life - all the same 40-50lbs over and over. I know how to lose weight and can do so - but every diet needs the same. It gets harder and harder and I become aware at the end I am 'white knuckling' it. Until I break and then I gain at an approx rate of 1-2lbs a week until it's all back again. During that time I am driven to eat, eat, eat.

The drugs have changed my life. Totally and utterly changed it and left me capable of making rational choices around food. I am currently 60lbs down and still thinking rationally. I COULD eat plenty of food in day - the drugs don't stop that. But I want to lose weight and so find it possible to choose not to. Left able to make sensible choices, I find I make them pretty well and not only do I eat less to achieve my goal, I also choose differently. No more sugar, no more UPF, no more rubbish. Just whole, healthy foods.

HeavyHeidi · 28/02/2025 06:59

Oh only about a million times. And it was hard - it was clearly a temporary solution until I got to my desired weight, as I always felt so restricted and deprived that clearly I could not live like this forever.

On MJ, I have lost weight without effort. I don't feel like I'm missing out. I eat what I want - just don't want that much, and don't want unhealthy foods. I can live like this for ever. (no side effects really, just cold).

Finallydoingit24 · 28/02/2025 08:04

Yeah I lost 3 stone and then regained them. I’ve also had smaller losses along the way, all regained. I am driven to binge eat and can eat twice or three times what a normal person needs in a day. I don’t have that now and eat a balanced and sensible amount of calories.

I agree with others - why do you think this is a one-time only thing and even if it was, why not use it now? Why wait until some imagined tIme in the future when things are even more dire?

Finallydoingit24 · 28/02/2025 08:05

Also menopause at a healthy weight will be a piece of piss compared to menopause when obese. This is a chance to get your body into a healthy state so that it can cope with hormonal changes.

ThirdStorm · 28/02/2025 08:06

I have over the years lost plenty (and regained) and whilst I'm well versed in how to lose weight I was struggling to get started. MJ gave me a boost, my diet was really effective, I lost immediately and consistently. The extra help and lack of food noise meant I could really just focus on my health. I'm really glad I did it. Now I'm maintaining and I'm finding that hard work.

Delley · 28/02/2025 08:12

I have very disordered eating too, though I’m only half a stone to a stone heavier than I want to be. And I’m within normal bmi. But I want to turn off this food chatter, and just be the weight that I want to be.

I spent years yo-yo dieting and I’m too tired to do it any more. I also eat pretty healthily. I’m just always hungry.

But for someone like me, I don’t think i can access these drugs. Or can I? If so, how? I am sure my gp would not approve them. Yet many of you will be taking these drugs to reach your final optimum weight or not?

ThirdStorm · 28/02/2025 08:52

@Delley You won't be able to access them if you are at a normal BMI.

HeavyHeidi · 28/02/2025 10:54

Yet many of you will be taking these drugs to reach your final optimum weight or not?

Yes, but people with normal BMIs started on the drug while suffering from obesity or overweight with certain health conditions. The GLP1 drugs should not be prescribed to normal weight people who want to lose a few pounds.

kisaki333 · 28/02/2025 10:57

Thank you all for replying! In my case, when I lost the weight, it didn't come back on right away. I kept it off easily for 1 year. But then i had some rough times and went back to binging eventually. I am finding it much harder this time because, again, life is different now and I am very time poor. So no time to work out like I used to or track everything I eat etc.

My main reason for hesitating is what if the side effects are really bad. Or worse, what if it doesn't work for me. I don't get the "food noise" most people talk about, for example. And I can fast for 36h without much hunger. But as I am writing this, I guess I can always just try and stop if I don't like it/doesn't work.

OP posts:
ThirdStorm · 28/02/2025 11:06

@kisaki333 I found side effects were worse if I ate too indulgently, I had to eat very plain meat/veg type meals for the first month or so. If it doesn't work immediately then you know after 4 weeks you'll increase your dose. Or you can just stop as you say if it isn't for you. I didn't think I had food noise, until I didn't have it anymore!

kisaki333 · 28/02/2025 11:21

@ThirdStorm Thanks, that's a good point, maybe I do have food noise and can't tell !

OP posts:
SharpOpalNewt · 28/02/2025 11:49

Oh yes. Quite the dieting history. This may be the problem, though I shouldn't really have a slow metabolism given I do plenty of exercise.

I was slightly overweight as a teenager- 11 and a half stone aged 16, at 5'7" which is just into overweight BMI. This was due to not liking school very much when I did my GCSEs and school was quite the obesogenic environment with loads of chocolate and crisps easily available and a big queue at lunch time. I didn't really eat properly and tended to gorge on crisps and chocolate.

Then when I went to sixth form college and loved it. Had started doing aerobics classes out of school and playing football and lost a stone in lower sixth. Also I noticed my slimmer friends had lasagne and salad for lunch not lasagne and chips. Or pasty and beans, not pasty and chips. So I did the same - who knew?

Stayed that weight (apart from gaining half a stone with beer and chips in first year of university, which quickly came off again once I settled in) until I was about 21 then took up running and got to about 9st 10lbs. Then I joined the gym and did running or gym every day and got down to nine stone to nine and a half. Apart from a phase where I was a bit stressed and being slightly daft about eating too little and over exercising and got down under nine stone- 8 stone 8lbs was my lightest - when I moved to London - I stayed under nine and a half stone until I was about 26 and started my career job. Then I put on a stone and a half in a year or so. the first time I did a proper diet, logging my food and exercise and weighing myself was before I got married aged 28. I did WW online and lost a stone and a half in three months.

Kept that off until I got pregnant. Put four stone on having DD1. Got down to ten and a half stone before I went back to work - then put a stone on with work stress and comfort eating. Was just about BMI 25 again before getting pregnant with DD2. Put two stone on that time.

DD2 is now 16 and since then I've not been less than 12 stone in spite all my best efforts since then. I didn't care about pregnancy weight with DD1 as I'd lost weight so easily before. Currently 13st 4lbs though not at my heaviest which was 14st 7lbs in 2017.

The closest I got to normal BMI (around 11st something) was 12 stone in 2021, doing Very Fast 800 for 8 weeks and losing a stone and a half. But this was in lockdown and as soon as life went back to normal and all the usual carbs were available I put it all back on, seemingly craving carbs in a way I hadn't ever before. Hence WLI! I've had enough. Now in menopause at 49.

I'm not massive, size 12/14 in clothes and do a lot of exercise and I am fit. I'm fed up of the fat covering up my efforts though and the extra weight making my knees and ankles ache when I run. I don't want to have weight related issues or additional risks for cancer or diabetes or heart problems as I get older either.

SharpOpalNewt · 28/02/2025 11:54

I'd like to get to 11 stone and see how I feel. Haven't seen 11 something since 2008. If I got to ten and a half though that would be amazing (BMI 23) and give me some wriggle room. Haven't been that weight in nearly 20 years.

weareallcats · 28/02/2025 12:30

I’m only at the very start - took my second dose yesterday - but I can already see that it is different with the meds. I have lost interest in food - only really eating because I know I need to, and am satisfied with a much smaller amount. Sadly it hasn’t put me off wine (although I couldn’t finish a pint of Guinness in the pub, as it filled me up so much). Whenever I’ve tried to lose weight previously I have obsessed over food constantly.

I haven’t been lower than bmi 24 since having my dc, but have bounced around in the ‘overweight’ category, sometimes lower end, sometimes higher. I tipped into the obese category after Christmas and a holiday, but would have been allowed meds at bmi 27 due to a medical condition.

I chose Wegovy, as I was concerned about side effects, and it lists fewer than MJ. I haven’t had any side effects at all (except possibly a bit more tired than usual), although I am only on the starter dose at the moment.

Ladymuck2022 · 28/02/2025 13:39

Yes! Good question as I’ve wondered this myself but I half think the world has changed so much.

2008 in my mid 20’s I lost 4 stone in weight in a whole year following Slimming World after trying the pink patch (banned now) and with loads of walking I was also reliant on public transport more then ever back then and working in hospitality pre 2007 when people could smoke in places and was totally off alcohol.

I remember getting awfully depressed when I got to goal and so it’s why I really shouldn’t mind it taking its time now. It’s two decades later I’m nearer the menopause in becoming older as much as I’d like it to speed up at times I got to remember what living at 10 stone was like. I’ve had three changes to my body in recent weeks but they seem gradual.

For me the side effects have been manageable so I’m ever so grateful.

I really hope I get to seal menopause without diabetes as I’m told that is the best thing not to go into menopause with it. I’ve thought on and off about weight loss surgery but I think when I probably can do it I’ll be to old.

MyFirmFatball · 28/02/2025 16:56

Yes, years and years on WW, slimming world, Rosemary Conley, Cambridge diet.
I then paid £10k for a gastric sleeve in 2018. It was amazing and I lost 5 stone over the first year or so.
Then paid for tummy tuck which removed all the baggy skin. I felt fabulous even though I was in my mid 50’s.
Covid and lockdown was suddenly sprung on us and with the stress of working from home, I managed to put 3 stone back on over the next two years. Mainly by ‘treating’ myself to chocolate buttons which slid down easily.

Having tried all the usual diets again, I started Mounjaro in October and I’ve lost 2 lb short of 2 stone. One more to go.
Had Mounjaro been available years ago, I would have jumped at it. Far cheaper than the gastric sleeve surgery and just as effective.
I know I’ll be on this drug for life and I’m ok with that.

Ive only had side effects when I’ve eaten something oily, so now steer clear of all rubbish food, even small amounts. I’m a very slow loser, some weeks 1lb some 2lb, buts it’s really just a way of life now for me.
Honestly, I’d highly recommend Mounjaro as long as it’s used correctly it really does get rid of the food noise.

ProfessionalWhimsicalSkidaddler · 28/02/2025 19:15

I thought about getting the injections but I decided to give it one last push. Last three weeks I've maintained as I've lost the mindset but I lost 8kg since Jan 1st going on IF but I ate 2-8pm. Probably 1000 calories a day plus gym.

It's all about the mindset and if you can do it at that time.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page