Mounjaro starters Nov ‘24 Thread 10 - The one where we are very nearly beach body ready 🥳

[Mounjaropen]

Previous thread here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5301343-mounjaro-nov-24-starters-thread-9-the-one-where-we-dont-eat-all-of-the-easter-eggs?page=40&reply=143728593

Welcome to thread 10 to fellow MN weight loss friends old and new!

Feel free to lurk or post, absolutely no judgement here, just support and encouragement as we’ve successfully navigated Easter and head towards Summer Holiday Season. Stop here to celebrate NSV’s, weight loss milestones and admire our new svelte frames!

I’m on W25 D1 and on my second 7.5mg pen

F in my early 50’s
H 5’ 5.5”
SW 13st 11lb
CW 10st 9lbs
GW 10st (maybe 9st 7lb if I can)
Total loss so far 44lbs

We recommend the Shotsy app to monitor the amount of MJ in the system and pleasing graphs to look at…plus the MeThreeSixty body scan app to monitor inch loss for the weeks where weight loss is slow but you might have lost body fat etc. Both are free.

Feel free to swap recipes that might inspire anyone in a food rut, tips for managing side effects, exercise tips, tips for maintenance, titrating up or down and we love a beauty/ style chat too 🥰

Welcome #Iwantniceclothes
Your words could have been written by me! Same weight loss and food history, same dieting attempts, same stage of life, and now same fears about getting 'stuck' at a possible set point. You are absolutely not alone.
You are doing so well, I really admire that you have kept going. Some people do lose more quickly and some of us are in the slightly slower lane, but we are still getting there! Healthier and fitter week by week.

I am under the care of a very nice experienced weight loss doctor who explained that another of the benefits of MJ is it really helps to reset our set points. Sometimes it will take a few weeks of maintaining before we lose again, but we can re-write our future.

Thankyou @MagnoliaTreePetals that’s encouraging! I think I need to decide what I want my healthy habits to be going forward. I’m not too bad about exercising though there’s always room for improvement. It’s very nearly a non-negotiable for me now though.

Me too. Having been told that muscle loss was a serious threat I am prioritising exercise, even if I have to squeeze it into an evening. I HATE exercising as such, so it has to be what I like doing, at my own pace, with no one telling me what to do (horrible horrible P.E teachers at school scarred me for life). So I swim twice a week, do 2 long brisk walks a week and now small weights and toning exercises near every morning. not only have I kept muscles, but after 3 stone loss I can actually feel them!

Welcome! And thanks for sharing with us all.

Firstly, congratulations on the losses so far - awesome!

On to the your issue and question - I'm no expert but happy to share what has worked for me:

1. My BMR was waaaaaay lower than I had ever thought. I know mine from my Renpho Scales (£25ish Amazon) which is very important to understanding how much weight you can gain simply from eating above it. I now know post MJ I need to exercise at the same level and keep an eye on the amount of calories I will consume. If your weight is not coming down and you are emotionally eating, you will not lose any weight if you are eating way above your BMR every day.
2. You need to move. Every day. End of. This is the only way I have got the result I have - and even then I have lost muscle mass and tone. You need mobility for older age and so get into the habit now. Decide what you love to do and stick at it. Mine is Tennis, an incline walk watching shite on Netflix whilst on the treadmill and Pvolve. I love all three equally and they provide enjoyable pain-free exercise that doesn't leave me gasping for breath nor unable to walk the next day!
3. Monitor your macros - get at LEAST 1g of protein per 1kg of body weight into you every day.
4. Look at the really sensible advice around protein intake I shared earlier on in this thread from the Times Article. It explains how to avoid insulin spikes in a really easy way.
5. Have days 'off'. I have more than OMAD on Saturdays and Sundays in lieu of drinking wine on a Friday (or the rest of the week) and on my days off I neither exercise nor excuse myself a glass of wine or a bit of chocolate.
6. Really think about your food and what it is providing for your body. You wouldn't try and run a car on vegetable oil rather than petrol just because it is cheaper and also in your cupboard - it won't make your car work. Nor would you skip an MOT or never give it a wash and brush up. Treat your body in the same way - only feed it stuff that makes it run more efficiently, and make sure you give it some love along the way. Monitoring your data is like checking the MOT - you confirm that everything is running tickety-boo.
7. Monitor your inch loss on the weeks thing are slow scales-wise - it keeps the motivation.
8. Drink plenty of water every day.
9. Find something new to do for the week - go and watch a film by yourself, take a class or go ad take a book to a cafe. Change up your life. There is joy to be found in the simplest of life's pleasures.
10. When you reach for food instead of a getting on with a task or to provide solace - just stop and consider why you do this. You don't have to share with us, just know for yourself. If I am bored I make another cup of decaf coffee or read the dailymail online (guilty) or look at MN. If you think you are hungry, drink a glass of water and then see after that if you really were or not

The main thing is to keep going - you have got this! Work out your calories and then tell us (or ChatGPT) what you like to eat and we'll try and work out a meal plan or swap recipes to inspire you!

My Renpho scale is not my friend any more. My birthday binge didn’t result in any extra weight thankfully but being a year older means that Renpho has decided my metabolic age has also gone up! It hasn’t reduced in 6 months/3+ stone which is frankly quite rude 😆. I’m 58 and the Renpho age is 65 now 🤬.

@Novjaro They did the same to me. Thanks for the birthday wishes twatty scales!

Totally twatty!

@MagnoliaTreePetals and @Mounjaropen thank you both so much for the excellent advice! I'm taking notes and @Mounjaropen I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. It's good to see how much you both have benefitted from exercise. I do weights 5 days a week most weeks and it has been the thing that has made the most difference to me in years. I don't do anywhere near enough cardio though and I need to be outside more. I ordered new renpho scales - I had been using ancient Weightwatchers ones - and they arrived today. Well that was a revelation! My BMR is sadly lower than I'd like and most of everything else is higher than I'd like! Very informative and motivating. I've no idea how accurate the measurements are but it's fascinating. And my metabolic age is 7 years older than me which is just shocking.

Good to hear you are feeling positive!

The metabolic age will decrease as soon as you get to your healthy BMI. Don’t despair!

The BMR is an eye opener though isn’t it?

Make sure your weights are heavy enough so that you lay down new muscle fibres and counteract the MJ effect.

Finally made it to 2.5 stones loss! 🙌

The last few weeks have been very slow, probably to do with the Easter chocolate!

Next goal is to get into the 12’s!

🥳🥳🥳🥳🙌

Well done!

scales stayed the same for the 3rd week. I guess that's a set point weight thing to overcome. Sugar and carbs have been creeping into my food so I'm going to be more vigilant on that.

Keep going!

I had a lovely comment from a colleague today. She said she saw a team photo from Christmas 2023 and couldn’t believe how different I look. She never thought of me as big but can really see a difference, especially in my face. She didn’t know me pre getting fat.

How lovely! Hope you have many more to come!

Just jabbed: 6mg. Hope to go up to 7.5 next week if this works!

I usually feel very uncomfortable with comments but she did it very nicely.

Day 3 on 10mg, side effects no worse than 7.5, and I feel like they’re settling down, no food noise, high suppression, scales down almost a kg.

Had salad in the sunshine at lunch with work colleagues and could barely eat any of it.

Glad I’m not the only one Renpho thinks is much older than reality.

Best of luck to those stalled/at a set point, it really is frustrating. I’m keeping all crossed mine is over for a while after 2 days losing in a row.

I had my maintenance appointment with Oushk this week, helpful, pragmatic and approved for the flexi plan. Advice was to restart on 2.5mg if > 4 weeks since last dose. I started the Zoe programme this week so monitoring glucose responses to different foods this week, will leave next injection for a couple of weeks whilst I’m doing the glucose monitoring then do a pen in June to get back under 70kg (currently hovering at about 70.5, was 68 at lowest)

6mg bearable so far. I had a 4 hour meeting yesterday, which was kind of exhausting, and had two bowls of cornflakes at the end. The second bowl was very hard to finish and this morning I was only just able to manage a coffee so I think it's kicked in.

Glad the 6mg isn’t making you unwell and well done getting through the meeting! Four hours is very long, no wonder you were exhausted.

That sounds brilliant - how long to they recommend you stay on 2.5 - or is it a permanent thing?

I did the Zoe programme and found it so interesting. I was pretty steady but my friends DH got the most enormous spikes when he ate potatoes which he’d never have known if not for Zoe.

I’m stuck at 9.1 stone. It’s been ages and the scales won’t move. I was trying to be very good yesterday sticking to soups and protein/veg but my DD had made a berry crumble in Food Tech and I felt bad not eating any and then my whole family wanted me to make flapjacks, so I did and then they insisted I ate one with them, so in order not to make my teenagers feel a flapjack is bad I ate one - very annoying because I really didn’t want or need it.

Has anyone found their tastes have changed? I used to love bread but I’ve gone off it - not sure if it MJ or just a change in taste due to not eating it for so long

What is your goal weight @StarShapedWindow? Are you tracking your calories. As we know you won’t lose if you aren’t in a deficit. I think it’s ok to say to your children that you aren’t hungry right now but you will have your flapjack when you are. Modelling healthy eating doesn’t have to be saying yes to everything. And it’s not saying ‘oh I can’t eat a flapjack, they are bad’ but ‘I’m not going to have that right now as I’m not hungry’. As @Mounjaropensaid earlier, often our TDEE is a lot lower than we think and I think I’ve gone my adult life thinking anything under 2000 calories a day was being ‘good’. I don’t think it’s unhealthy for teenagers to be aware of this and to understand that in order to maintain a healthy weight we have to be mindful of our intake.

Yes, but sadly not with bread. I’ve really gone off mayonnaise. It just tastes claggy and artificial. I should maybe have another go at making it myself, but my only attempt at it a few years ago was a miserable failure.

9.1 is a brilliant weight to be, though! You should be really proud of that!

I’m still 9.11 and my BMI is 25. I need to just edge a tiny bit further down - half a pound would probably do it - to get into 24.9 territory.