Mounjaro / Wegovy with > 5st / 30kg to lose: Thread 6

[VelociraptorsVelociRapping]

Thread SIX of this lovely community. Anyone using weight-loss injections to lose more than 5 stone or 30kg is very welcome to join us, no matter what stage of the process you are on. Share your losses, your non-scale victories (NSV), your frustrations and your love of Longley Farm cottage cheese and kiwi fruit here!

Please don’t post discount codes on this thread as your post will be deleted. These need to go in the dedicated thread on this board.

Met my first real life MJer yesterday.
Currently in hospital (not MJ related) and one of the nurses told me she was taking it yesterday.
It was really good to discuss with someone in real life without judgement.

I'm on day 4 of Week 2 of MJ and I'm not feeling much effect. Last week was amazing - the silencing of food noise and reduced appetite. This week, food noise is back and so is hunger.

I'm considering moving my third dose forward by a few days to see if that helps. Has anyone done that? I'm really worried MJ just isn't going to work for me. On the other hand I don't want to overdose!

I genuinely wouldn't mess about with the dosing schedule this early on. You are supposed to have at least 4 doses of 2.5mg to build up your levels before moving up. It doesn't have much effect for some people. Just try to keep yourself in a calorie deficit, focus on protein and drinking a lot. Most of all relax it's a marathon not a sprint and the weightloss will come.

@taylorswift1989 you’re on 2.5mg I assume? I wouldn’t. 2.5mg isnt effective for most folks because its not a higher dose. Its there to get you used to the med. Its way too early to start messing about with timings and doses. I say this kindly, because we’ve all been desperate to make MJ work at some point, but please try to manage your expectation of it. If you’re trying to chase total suppression, you’re only setting yourself up for short term success, but long term failure.

Use the time to build your good habits and learn what your body likes and doesn’t like on it.

You’ll find some who get success on 2.5mg, but its not most of us!

@taylorswift1989 I wouldn’t.
See if you can ride it out. I also found when moving up a dose this happened unexpectedly but it’s kicked in now.

Try and see if you can satisfy your hunger with different food types and lots and lots of fluids. Did read that when you significantly reduce your calories your body can respond to correct this with hunger but know if you are using your brain to calculate your food you can trust it.

Okay I hear you! I'll stick to the schedule.

What i don't understand is why I had such a good response in week 1 and then nothing in week 2? Surely the drug builds up and would therefore increase the response? It's like the 2nd dose didn't even happen.

It has a half life, so the amount of 2.5mg acter 7 days in your system is minimal.

consider getting shotsy, its an app, you enter your doses and it tracks whats left in your system. I’m on 8mg, and at its peak, I have 10.53mg in my system, by the time I am about to inject again its something like 5mg.

Right, so then the second dose should be added to whatever is left of the first dose to have a slightly stronger effect, and so on.

Or if there's nothing left of the first dose, the second dose would at least have the same effect as the first?

Obviously I'm wrong somehow here because in my case, the first dose produced a strong response and the second dose nothing! Just struggling to understand why that should be the case.

@taylorswift1989 Don’t panic! Maybe last week’s suppression was a placebo effect. Or maybe you ate more protein, which will naturally keep you fuller for longer. Or maybe it’s to do with your monthly cycle. Sometimes, there really is no rhyme or reason to why we feel the way we do, whether we’re on MJ or not. Bodies are strange things.

I’m on week 14, lost 31lbs and I’ve gone up a dose every four weeks, so now I’m on my second week of 10 mg. And it’s only been these last two weeks that I’ve had serious suppression, where I can’t really be bothered if I eat it or not - other people reported this feeling on 2.5mg. Until 10mg, I was still hungry at meal times but focused on protein and fibre (I use Nutracheck to track) and I’d stopped snacking - for the first time in my life I could look at a plate of biscuits and think meh! Because of the strong suppression, I’ve decided I’ll drop back down a bit for my next dose. Don’t try to compare too much with other people, everyone seems to react differently.

@taylorswift1989

Echoing everyone else. Do not mess with the dosing schedule in your first few weeks. You need to do a minimum of 4 weeks of 2.5mg - 7 days apart.

Why are you hungry? For me it could be any of -

• I am thirsty - I am not drinking at least 2L of water a day
• I am hungry - my body reacting to not eating enough calories in previous day/week
• I am not eating the right foods - not getting enough good quality protein and fiber in. Haven't been eating protein with every/most meals.
• I am missing out on a specific nurturant/vitamin/mineral and my body is signaling hunger to obtain it
• I am hormonal
• I am reacting to eating too much sugar/carbs - spike in sugar is followed by a crash which triggers hunger signals
• Mounjaro dose is no longer effective

I am 40 weeks in, 35 weeks on 3.75mg and my suppression comes and goes for days or even a week at a time. Sometimes I can't explain it, but sometimes it is obvious why (one or more of the I am points above). When I sort whatever it is out I am able to stay on the lower dose.

Mounjaro doesn't do everything for you all the time, you need to work with it.

It will take time and patience to understand how your body is responding to it.

I have to say 2.5mg started amazing for me and then I think by week 3 I was ravenous all the time and really struggled. I think its just your body adapting to the drug which is why they recommend you take that dose before moving up. Being fully transparent I did move up early, I did 3x2.5mg and then used the extra to make dose four 3.75mg.

I'm 26 weeks in now and I still have some weeks where my suppression isn't as great or my food noise comes back with a vengeance, this is definitely worse if I eat any UPF

It’s because your body is acclimating to the changing levels of hormones that MJ affects. You need to just ride it out.

make sure your diet is high in protein, good fats, fibre and low in carbs. This will help because the MJ affects your insulin production and sensitivity, you can assist it in doing that by not throwing too much glucose at it, protein and fibre also takes longer to break down so keeps you feeling fuller. Lots of water will fill you up, flush toxins, encourage good kidney function and is used by your body to break down fat and heal muscles.

Dont worry too much about calories, focus on the make up of your food. If you are peckish have some Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese, or a bit of cooked chicken or a boiled egg. Really work on not causing sugar spikes when you are hungry.

Thanks! I think my diet is pretty good for the most part but definitely need to work on upping protein so I'll focus on that and hopefully the MJ will kick in at some point!

@taylorswift1989 yes, and that is still a very low dose? Some people tend to get massively strong side effects and respond super well as a result, some don’t.

So even with 3.something, its very small?? And your body has adjusted so well, it doesn’t feel noticeable?

Its the way it goes, everyone is different. For me, i felt the effects the first two weeks of both 2.5 and 5, but it wasn’t until 7.5mg that i found a good balance of suppression and reduced food noise for more than a few weeks and I have been on 7.5/8mg for 23 weeks now.

I agree re: not upping your dose or messing around with the days just yet - it's definitely a marathon and once I realised it's going to be years/forever on MJ, I've kind of settled in to the process a bit more, rather than wishing the days away each week - but that took a few weeks to get to!

Re: feeling full - I know they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I find having a chocolate protein powder drink in the afternoon/tea time really helps when I'm feeling hungry/want something sweet. I think my protein levels are pretty good anyway, because I'm mainly eating chicken/fish with veg and having tons of greek yoghurt in fruit smoothies for breakfast, but can highly recommend having a protein drink in the afternoon. For me, it satisfies my sweet tooth (I use a chocolate protein powder from Tesco, and I add cocoa powder, crushed ice and milk) - tastes like a McDonald's chocolate milkshake and feels me up 😃

Ha! It totally doesn't feel me up!!!! 😮😂 That's an altogether different kind of afternoon treat...! 😬

Wanted to share as you all know I had a tough week last week and stuck it out.
@taylorswift1989reading others successes definitely helped me when I was struggling.

I am hormonal this week, waiting for my period to arrive, so being kind to myself and not expecting a loss at weigh in due to this and accepting general activity as feel ‘meh’ for the gym.

However, I did have a loss of 1KG this week.
@InfoSecInTheCity inspired me to work out my average loss over the 11 weeks when responding to another post…
I am averaging 1.4kg a week!
I can’t remember who posted a pretty graph, but that inspired me to to go in Shotsy and do my own 🙂
I also decided to look at my ‘month loss’ rather than just week, which ofcourse has slowed from the start but… I have lost 4 KG in March which is actually great!
I am tantalisingly close to being under 120KG and under the BMI 40
I am hopeful this week or next I will be there! Ofcourse a long way to go but to be around 115kg in May would be great 😊

Also, a NSV: my faithful soft, forgiving, comfortable, stretchy and flattering jeans which have supported me while bigger and safely through this weight loss period are now baggy, too loose and less flattering. I am both happy and sad at this.

Thank you all for the inspiration and support x

@MooBaggage for a while last year I tried the New You plan, wasn’t for me but I did learn a few useful tricks. The premise of the plan is you buy all their meal replacement stuff and it’s low carb, high protein, fast 800 style VLCD. They have forums and facebook groups dedicated to making the meal replacements nicer. Did you know that if you reduce the liquid in a protein shake (to about 100ml) and whip it up good you end up with a mousse that you can eat like chocolate pudding, or if you heat up a chocolate protein shake you end up with a nice thick hot chocolate. People would make elaborate desserts by combining different flavoured milkshake mixes so they’d have a layered mousse with chocolate and mint or freezing chocolate, strawberry and vanilla to make neopolitan icecream.

Thank you all for the warm welcome to us newbies! What a lovely thread this is. @MooBaggage Your post late last night really resonated with me, thank you.

End of week 2 for me. I've lost 1lb. In keeping with this thread, thats a guinea pig (I think). I'm quite disappointed tbh. I lost 5.5lbs on week 1 though so I shouldn't complain. Suppression has been really high this week, too high actually. I've eaten well though and counted calories to make sure I was eating enough. I'm considering not weighing again now until the end of this pen. It messes with my head! I also hate counting calories, that's what made me fat in the first place.
Positive pants on, will take 3rd jab later today.

@taylorswift1989

This is such great advice. Alongside @WeAllHaveWings list - thank for that, I have copied it to myself😊

I am not a super responder and don't get the suppression that others have talked about on MJ, but it is fine for me (for many reasons, not least I am mindful of adopting a way of eating for life, so see MJ as keeping me on track and giving me the edge, if that makes sense).

I was extra hungry on Monday which is very unusual for me, but I know (and was reminded by WeAllHaveWings list) that I ate carbs on Sunday - a massive bread roll to be exact (went out for Mother's Day treat with my daughter and Grand daughter and already knew I'd have a bacon roll, as I was not sitting with a black coffee when they were so excited to be treating me - and brown sauce, 2 packets, cause I am Scottish😂). Anyway, I didn't have anything else to eat on Sunday (I do intermittent fasting so no big deal). That, combined with the refined carbs, made me hungrier than usual on Monday, so I had a "refeed" day which I didn't even know existed had it not been for this helpful thread. I recall that being the advice of @VelociraptorsVelociRapping - very helpful it is too.

Fill up on nutritiously dense foods which are higher in protein - eggs, greek yoghurt; meats and chicken; prawns, cheese, nuts as well of loads of vegetables. It will keep you so full.

@MooBaggage protein shake is a great idea. I rarely have an urge to "snack" but when I do, my go-to is full fat greek yoghurt, handful of mixed nuts (and if I need a sweet fix a handful of frozen blueberries) sprinkled with cinnamon. Low-ish carb and high fats and proteins. It really does the trick and feels indulgent and filling.

As others have said, try to resist chasing high suppression, but at the same time, don't go hungry as you'll feel deprived and get despondent and worry MJ isn't working. So, once you know you are properly hydrated, go and have something nutritionally dense that you want to eat. I guarantee it will satiate you.

Trust the process. It works. I am a slow loser; averaging 7ish pounds a month. 7 months in and I am 52 pounds down. I absolutely love this thread and it really does help to hear the wisdom of others. The inspiration I get is very motivating.

Hope this helps.

Could it be related to your cycle?

I typically do not lose weight or only a teeny bit the week before my period starts, then it drops off the next week. I started marking it on my weight tracker and the trend became clear within 3 months. I now know that even if the scales are being bastards that week, we will be making friends again the following week, which makes it easier to deal with the disappointment.

@NewbieMJ I must have missed the term "refeed" day in previous posts. It is (another) interesting concept and descriptive - I guess it also connects in with calorie cycling which I have found over time MJ naturally makes me to do.

I "refeed" at least once a week with my chinese takeaway! 🤣 (although more sensible choices and portion sizes)

Thanks so much everyone for your support and encouragement! I am trying to be patient with it. And yes, more protein. That will be my mission for today!

Thank you. I haven't had a period for 10 years thanks to the mini pill. Maybe I still have a cycle, who knows. I'm sure next week will be better. I'm going to try and not weigh again until the end of week 4.

@taylorswift1989
Have faith. I've been on MJ since October last year and it definitely hasn't been a linear process, losing every week. The first few weeks were slow-ish to get going and even now there are some weeks when I lose next to nothing which annoys me. As for changing dose, I've always done this when I feel I'm becoming tolerant to the dose I am on. I use a tracker app so I can tell when things begin to plateau. From memory it's been something like 2.5, 5x2, 7.5x??, 10x3-4(?) and I have just moved up to 12.5.
I'm expecting to be on MJ for the long haul- been playing with my data recently and it's looking like possibly Christmas this year. Once you've been on it for a while, you'll be able to spot trends like this for yourself