January 2025 Starters Thread 8. New clothes, new shoes, new bodies...

[Thelittlestranger]

Roll up, roll up ....

@tinyemmy I’m only a couple of weeks into maintenance, trying to eat more, I’ve also become quite slack at tracking calories now that I’m less bothered about being in a deficit. I did another TDEE calculation and I’m supposed to stick to 1775 calories to maintain at this weight. But I’m pretty sure I eat more than that on some days.

@0ncemorewithfee1ing i read the article, I wonder if they got all their research from MN as it pretty much covers everything we’ve discussed on this thread! Unfortunately no tips on how to combat low mood other than to speak to your GP.

I am tired today. I’m finding the end of period can be as draining as the first day now.

On the HRT and WLI topics, I’ve just received an email from Boots Online Doctor who I’ve been getting my Mounjaro through (great for points on my Boots card). They’ve said that the British Menopause Society has changed their guidance and suggested that if you’re taking oral progesterone to increase dose as it’s theoretically absorbed more slowly and may be why it’s affecting periods and breakthrough bleeding if you’ve had the menopause. Looks like it’s an early review time with my HRT provider.

Otherwise, I’m still plodding along - 1lb to go until I reach 2 stone off my starting weight of 15st 8lbs. Once I get to about 13 stone I’ll be in long distant memory weight as I haven’t been below that for about 25 years.

@hunkydory54thats really interesting thanks.

Can I ask how you’ve all set your goal weights? I initially set mine at BMI 25, which was fairly arbitrary, just seemed like a good horizon! I’m down 4 stone and am currently BMI 28 - to get to 25, I’d have to lose another 1.5 stone ish. I’m wearing size 12 clothes and feeling great, going to the gym - I really feel like a different person to size 20 me in January. BUT the loose skin is frankly mad - my stomach in particular is so upsetting. I feel like I look bloody great with clothes on! And like some kind of swamp monster without them 😬 it’s making me seriously reconsider whether I want to go any lower, mainly to be honest because of the skin, but also because I read that slightly overweight people tend to live longer than healthy weight people! (Which I don’t really understand, but there we go.) Would I be mad to try and maintain here? Is it possible that if I maintained here for a while, my skin would shrink down a bit and then I could see if I wanted to continue? I feel really torn - I want to be healthy and give myself the best chance at life! But I also really don’t want to hate taking my clothes off. My partner is the best and keeps reassuring me that I don’t look like an alien, which is how I feel 😅 but my boobs are still big just now empty, they fall into my armpits when I’m on my back 😶 and my stomach is just…otherworldly. It’s so awful that I keep getting infections in my belly button, I think because it’s not ‘open’ anymore, if you see what I mean?! It’s even on my thighs and calves, the SKIN wobbles, where the fat previously held large but fairly firm. I’m so sad but I feel like I’m actually less confident to wear a bikini now than I was six months ago. What to do?!

@whyamisuddenlygettingolder it might be worth slowing down or pausing to give your skin time to recover. Depending on how long you've been larger it might always be a bit loose but it should improve with time. I'm expecting to have a lot of loose skin when I get to goal and may consider a tummy tuck if I can maintain for over a year and it's still not gone. I set 10st for my goal as it's a weight I've often been before, is within healthy BMI and seems achievable. I've been closer to 9 before and got lots of comments about looking ill, so I don't think a very low BMI is right for me.

@whyamisuddenlygettingolder first of all, amazing weight loss, well done!!!

I know exactly what you mean, I sometimes feel I look worse than I did, there seems to be more flab!!
I can’t offer any advice apart from to say that as I lose more, the flab does seem to reduce. I’m 5 1/2 pounds away from my 25 BMI target ( which is recognised as being slightly arbitrary!!) and my stomach does seem to ( slowly!) be reducing. I don’t know whether I’ll stop or carry on.

I think you do what’s right for you, you’re not mad, you know your body and how you feel. You’re exercising too so I’m sure you’ll find that this helps as well. May be worth speaking to GP if you’re getting constant infections though?

you should be super proud of what you’ve achieved, so try to celebrate that!!

@Thelittlestranger and @DGonMJ thank you for your posts yesterday which I read and thought about but didn’t respond to as I was on my phone.

@Thelittlestranger you made me reflect on my loss which is ok isn’t, start date 23/1 with three weeks off.

@DGonMJ am not going to calorie count when I’m away, I don’t expect to overeat massively but I will take part 😀. I’m really looking forward to getting away, I upgraded all our travel this week in a feeling fed up moment. I figured that by the time I’d paid for drinks/meals etc for three adults I wouldn’t be much worse off upgrading so that will be a treat.

Ladies, we need a new thread! Or is there one already?

Great loss @whyamisuddenlygettingolder I have been a member of a slimming club for my entire adult life on and off. I had always set my goal weight as the middle of healthy (when that was BMI 20-25). Although I initially set it at BMI 25 as I didn't think I could get lower and then found I could and now I have a BMI of 22 (not too much lower than 22.5 but it's been so easy it's tempting to get lower, the thing that stops me is I'm not sure I could maintain the weight, although I don't plan to come off mj)
I also had horrendous loose skin on my stomach. I can't decide however whether it looks a bit better than it did a month ago. What happened in that month is I've continued to workout twice a week, martial arts three times and lots of walking, I've lost a little more weight and just time has passed. I don't think I will get surgery because although it's quite standard if something went wrong and it impacted my family I couldn't live with myself but I did say I'd reassess after a year if holding this weight and although I'm sure it will still be saggy - my boobs are just skin! I'm sure it will have improved perhaps a little bit. I don't know if there is anything in the lose weight slowly so your skin bounces back or if it's just time based so you can lose weight fast but the skin will take longer to bounce back. Too late for me anyway. I lost 4 stone in about 4 months.

@whyamisuddenlygettingolder i agree with others that you may want to slow your loss or pause for a bit to let your skin naturally tighten up. Might be worth looking up what foods promote skin repair too. Sorry to hear you’re getting regular infections, could you ask your GP for a referral to see a specialist about that?

I set my target weight initially as the lowest I’d got to through weight training - BMI of just under 24. Then I moved it to just below top of the healthy BMI range for my ethnicity which is just under 23.

@MananaPenelope Good for you upgrading, when are you off? I can’t bloody wait for my holiday but it’s not until mid-August. Could do with a long weekend getaway before then but might have to just hold on, house repairs have cleaned us out for now!

New thread alert:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5350222-january-2025-starters-thread-9?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share