Do you pile the weight back on after Mj?

[Bigfatsunandclouds]

I don't know why I do it but I read a thread about why people aren't using MJ and a few people said about knowing people who have just piled the weight back on after coming off MJ?

Is this the case? I am hoping the healthy habits I'm adopting will remain if on it for a while but the thought of doing this and then pile it all back on makes me want to cry.

It’s the same as any other weight loss approach. Weight regain is always a possibility, that’s why people find it hard to maintain weight loss in the long term however they lose it. Mounjaro doesn’t make that worse or make it harder.

It’s something I think about practically every day that I’ve been taking Mounjaro, 9 months or so now. It isn’t going to come as a surprise that I need to maintain the weight loss. But, if necessary I can stay on it for a period of time, or go back on it if I regain to a bmi of 27, as I have high BP so could re-start at that bmi if needed.

I haven't used injections however I imagine it's like any diet some people maintain and some put back on.
The thing that has helped me maintain is consistently logging my foods and doing IF. So I suppose I got into good habits and maintained those. I would imagine that you'd have to be slightly stricter coming off a medication that suppresses your appetite and notice any changes in weight. I've never weighed myself but go on the feel of my clothes and get stricter if needed. I also think you need to look at behaviours that have caused the weight gain in the first place and make changes. For me it was ill health so I put things in place to help me eat well (even when I'm not well). So online shop, batch cook so there's always something to warm up, easy to prepare meals, healthy snacks, meal plan etc.

I know you are right! I need to stop obsessing about negative things people are saying - it's been wonderful for me so far, less food noise, more energy, no energy crashes so I just need to focus on that!

Yes, I know why I over eat and it's like it's become a habit in itself that I just can't break so I feel like this is a reset. I just need to keep in mind that it's like any diet!

I think some of it depends on your weight kind of history as well. When I had my maintenance call, the pharmacist was asking a lot of questions about whether I had always struggled with weight, whether it was triggered by something, etc. For me, I only really gained weight after two pregnancies and some family stuff, PND, etc. Up until that I was generally a healthy weight, so she suggested that tapering with a view to come off might work for me as my body has sustained a healthy weight for much of my life previously. For someone who has always been overweight, it may be more of a challenge because there’s perhaps more deeply ingrained physiological factors involved as well as emotional.

But the thing about MJ is that you can continue on it indefinitely. Not everyone will be willing or able to come off it, and will continue to take it at some dosage perhaps for much of their life.

I’m using Mounjaro to help me unlearn bad habits and learn new habits. It’s much easier when the food noise is quieter. I know I’m going to have to work really hard to maintain, but I feel I have the tools now.

It seems to be something that people seem to like to say about WLI without any actual experience or evidence. “You’ll just gain it all back and more!” and they always know lots of people who’ve taken it, stopped and regained. Despite the fact that I don’t know a single person who is taking Mounjaro in real life.

In the most recent study on Mounjaro, people who were moved to the placebo did regain weight compared to those who continued on Mounjaro who unsurprisingly continued to lose weight. But they didn’t gain it all back, they had still lost a meaningful amount of weight at the end of the study period, on average.

This is what I think.

It's usually people who don't use the jabs who 'Know someone' who has had a bad experience/died / failed/ whatever...... isn't it?

I think you're right, it's on the WLI bingo card so I hear. I think I just had a little panic but as pp said I did manage to keep a healthy weight for so much of my life that I think I can maintain after a reset. I'll just have to see how I feel once I've lost the weight I want to!

Yes!! Or heard through a friend of a friend someone who had something terrible happen on them!

I’ve been overweight, actually probably obese, from around the age of 12 or so. I’ve had a few periods as an adult where I’ve lost weight, but it’s never been something that I have been able to maintain. So I think that the real challenge for me is to maintain this weight loss from using Mounjaro rather than achieving the weight loss itself. And it may be that decades of obesity since childhood does mean that I may need medical help with that longer term. But I am certainly up for the challenge, and those kinds of threads definitely spur me on!

The studies on MJ were done when people had on average, gone from a BMI of 38 to a BMI of 31 (that’s maybe not 100% accurate, but it was something like that). So they were still obese when they stopped. It does seem that fat begets fat, so perhaps one of the issues there was that their body fat levels were still out of whack. I would really like to know whether the same effect would be observed if the participants got down to a healthy weight before coming off MJ. Or if they maintained at a steady, healthy BMI for a period of time.

I imagine that it’s the same as any other diet; if you go back to ‘normal’, you re-gain weight. Which is why I have no intention of coming off it and will stay at a maintenance dose as long as I can. I personally don’t buy into the theory that being on MJ gives me an opportunity to re-set or learn new habits. I’ve always known what needs to be done to be a healthy weight, but my willpower has not been able to override my various food cravings for the last 15 years. I have no doubt that if I come off MJ, I’ll simply re-gain the weight I’ve lost (albeit over a few years, which is what has happened each time I’ve lost a substantial amount of weight).

Been off MJ since mid Dec.,have gained only 2lbs

I'm calorie counting while I use Mounjaro and I have found that if I average less than 2000 calories a day over the week I lose a little weight. If I average a bit over 2000 calories I stay the same.

If I stop taking Mounjaro and start eating much more than 2000 calories (like I used to) I will put the weight back on.

It will be more difficult for me to stick to my calorie target of course without the help of Mounjaro - so that will depend on my lifestyle/orgsnisation/willpower and the events that happen in life such as bereavement/ poor health etc and how I deal with these. Some factors that contributed to my weight gain such as night shifts and caring responsibilities (lack of time for planning and self care) are still the case.

I gather that with the potentially rapid weight loss that can occur with weight loss injections up to 40% of loss can be muscle. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat so losing it will mean you can only eat a lower amount of calories each day without putting on weight.

We can minimise losing muscle by trying to lose weight at a healthy rate, prioritising eating protein and exercise/strength training.

If I were coming off Mounjaro I would try to do it at a time when my mental health is good and I am strong in terms of muscle and lifestyle if at all possible. I know finances are a factor for staying on the medication for most people of course.

If we go back to our old lifestyles and eating patterns we will unfortunately get our old bodies back!

I lost 60 lbs in total. I have been off the drugs now for a good few months (4?) and haven't gained anything back. Monjaro taught me what a healthy portion size looked like. I also know that, if I need it, I could take a maintenance dose (in the US, so it is available, I know this isn't the case with all providers in the UK). It's one of the best things I have ever done.

I also hope in the future that Mounjaro will become more affordable and that it will be possible to go back on it for the odd month if you notice you have gained half a stone etc.

It's not an urban legend that some people regain and more after stopping the injections, even if they have reset their eating patterns. The research is very clear it is a risk. I've known a lot of people online who came off the med and regained

I went off ozempic for 2 weeks prior to a surgery. It was not pretty. All we can do is trial a period of time off and see if you are one of the people who regain.

I started in April at 102 kg /BMI 37.5
reached goal in November 64kg/BMI 23
No side effects.
Maintain on 7.5mg every 10 days but will move this to every two weeks as weight has gone down by 1.5 kg since Nov.

To me it is a miracle drug.
I can walk for miles .
my back doesn’t hurt
I can join in all activities
I can wear summer dresses without chub rub shorts but that is nothing compared to :
Perfect blood pressure
Reduced Thyroxine
Off of anti depressants
No more steroid injections in my knees
and best of all .. no longer pre diabetic.

I will take THOSE ‘side effects’ against my former fat self any day of the week.. people banging on about side effects seem to have missed that a ‘COMMON’ side effect of Obesity is Stroke, Heart Disease and Death. To me it was a no brainer.

I do think there is a particular puritan clique that come in these threads to naysay the obvious advantages.. I believe they think that as we all got fat from eating to many calories (be that via appetite stimulants like steroids in my case) or sheer lifestyle choice .. then we should not have ‘an easy way out’ .. this is such a ridiculous thought stream .

Obesity costs the NHS a fortune. I was at the doctors every month for minor ailments all related to obesity .. for years. Haven’t been since June last year.

As mentioned above . Obesity is a life threatening condition. Just like Diabetes. Insulin was invented along with metformin and saved lives. Has to be taken for life.

MJ has been invented and can ‘cure’ Obesity . How is taking that any different ?

It’s just like every weight loss method. Some people regain, some don’t. For me, it’s been a blessing to lose the weight. Started in October with a BMI of over 33 and finished in February when my BMI reached healthy. I was always doing weight training whilst on the jab as I wanted to lose fat and not muscles.
I’m off the jabs since Feb 15, continued to exercise, conscious of my eating habits, no extreme hunger and I’ve lost 2kg more from my last MJ weigh and my weekly weight fluctuates within a kg so its still at least a Kg less than my last MJ weight. Exercises have been the game changer for me and i don’t plan on stopping that as it’s now part of my routine, one I now love.
Some people may have to stay on the maintenance dose which is fine as well, at least the option is there.

I find it interesting comparing the attitude towards wli and hrt. People are evangelical about hrt and there are fairly serious side affects associated with it. Its gatekeeping and resentment at us fatties finding a way to achieve a healthy weight.

I was listening to a podcast recently that talked about leptin and your ‘set point’ weight.

After weight loss your body will want to return to this set point. So you do really need to keep to a new healthy diet and exercise to counteract it.

Im trying to find out how long you need to be at your new lower weight before that becomes your new set point.

What puzzles me is why people like to say "you'll put the weight back on as soon as you stop, and more!", as in, what is their purpose in saying that? Is it to tell me that there's no point trying to lose weight by using the injections? So it's better for me to have remained morbidly obese than to lose the weight and to try to maintain it. Or, are they suggesting that I must only lose the weight the "correct" way without any medical support - which has never worked in the past and has also definitely led to regaining the weight and more?

I wish people that give this soundbite on threads about WLI would explain their reason for saying it. If it's not just to shame or judge people of course.

@Imgoingtobefree , I read somewhere that studies have shown it could have between 1 to 6 years.
Which in a way was comforting for me a bit because my BMI was over 30 for less than 2 years, it was all after DC3 and the weight is all lost now so hopefully, that has not been a set point for me.
However, on the other hand, I’ve had a BMI of around 26 to 28 for almost 10 years before then so I know it’ll always be a conscious effort to make sure I don’t leave the healthy range and it’s not a short term thing, I need to continue with what I’m doing now, off the Jab for years and years to come.