Piling the weight back on when stopping MJ

[Richtea67]

Hi all....I'm so disappointed. I lost 3 and a half stone, have been off injections for a month and regained nearly 7lbs 😩. I was a slow loser (1-2lb per week) and focused on changing habits and reducing portion size rather than diets/calorie counting (this has led to binging previously). I have kept up with a lot of the habits (smoothie for breakfast, cutting out alcohol and healthy high protein snacks). But portion sizes have definitely gone up as I'm hungrier! And I've been more tempted by the biscuits at work and the kids treats! Any advice?? I'm considering re starting if I put too much weight on, but financially this would be a struggle, which is part of the reason I came off them. My starting weight was 14.5 stones, weight when stopping injections 11 stones and at present nearly half a stone back on!! Help!

Yes, accurately they do.

The kwikpen was DESIGNED to give between 1 and 60 units of medication and is used that way for insulin - with the user counting clicks for the required dosage.

OP, deep breath. You've gained it quickly and will lose it.

No to biscuits. Have your own healthy snack ready for when biscuit hour comes along.
Are you keeping your hydration up?

Protein with each meal. Not much. Be brutally honest with your TDEE and be sure you're not underestimating the amount of olive oil/ketchup/mayo/peanut butter you're using eg.
Have healthy snacks ready. Rice cake and cottage cheese, apple with cheddar, hard boiled egg with desert spoon of home made coleslaw made with yogurt, peanut butter on celery, carrot and humus and so on.

If you have a takeaway, celebration, meal out enjoy and rectify immediately. Look at the calories over the week.

Eat at 5 and stop at 6.

DO NOT DESPAIR.

Tell me you havent read the thread without telling me you havent read the thread.... 🙃

Hope you've got a hard hat to hand...

@SuperTrooper14 nope! Not in the mood to need one either. I was making dinner so sat on my answer for a while. Guess the convo moved on 😂. Oh well, useful for someone.

I see this has been answered

but yes you can count clicks on mj and it should be accurate

Thanks for that information about SURMOUNT @IrisPallida .

I'm surprised not all providers are giving advice on maintenance. I say this as someone not using WLI atm but very interested to follow the latest.

Qqqq

I think I’m understanding the phrase ‘food noise’ after reading about it on here.

I used to feel hungry a lot, despite eating a lot but I am now aware that the feelings in my stomach may have been a strong emotional reaction to some big losses in my life. Afterall, it was impossible to actually be hungry as I was eating loads!

In hindsight, perhaps talking about everything might have helped me to come to terms with the changes and interpret the feelings (anxiousness/despair/sorrow) that were going on…?

@SuperTrooper14 I like to come back and admit when I am wrong. I was listening to this podcast between 2 doctors, one is a bariatric surgeon and she mentioned the starvation experiment and it's relevance to theories of weight loss (10 mins in).

What I also found really interesting is her explanation of why obese people who have lost weight will regain weight far fast. When we lose weight we still keep all our fat cells, they never go away, they just empty. So people who lose weight will regain it fast if they eat a calorific diet because the cells are already there just wait to fill up again, and notably they will fill up with few calories than needed to produce new fat cells. So if you take a.person who has always been thin and a person who has been obese and has lost weight and feed them both a diet with more calories than they need the formerly obese person will gain weight far faster. The conclusion from the podcast is WLI are long term drugs and some people will need barriatric surgery and WLI.

castbox.fm/app/castbox/feed/7e1634b8fa5c5a4a5243d2dd1748fa476ad05f61/track/f1b3e396ace5fbbe07a62f93cd4851c33582fd5b

I am quite pessimistic in being able to maintain long term off the medication but will give it a go eventually.
Yes we need to learn good habits, prioritise protein & fibre, exercise etc.. but I don't know about you but I have done this on nearly every other diet I have been on & failed to maintain afterwards.
(I say diet but I know that faddy diets don't work so on the whole just talking about the traditional NHS style mantra of losing weight)
I would say a lot of us know more about nutrition than the average slim person who don't struggle with their weight. More so for us on these boards as we are actively seeking out discussion & engaged in our weight loss efforts.
This is the only 'diet' I have been on that has drastically reduced the food noise & made me not feel hungry near constantly.
Keto would have been the closest to it but I find it so restrictive that I wouldn't do that again.

I agree with this, if the drugs are given for free (either on the NHS or in a clinical trial) then they lose their value for a lot of patients. If they are spending their own money on something then it is perceived as having a higher value so they will try harder, engage more with the process and ultimately avoid having the cost again if possible. The real life data may prove slightly more positive than the trial data ultimately.

Maybe when it comes out on NHS ...if it actually does .
It needs to be a limit per person,say a year on meds and a year on maintenance.
I've been waiting on NHS for tier 3 weight loss surgery,over 5 years wait where I live
Yet people have had , sleeve done and then when they weren't happy with the loss ,went on to have bypass 18 months later ..all on NHS .yet some people still waiting 5 years for one operation..
I don't know ..feels unfair really , sometimes

As a biochemist then tell me why people on steroids, unmanaged diabetics, pregnant women, menopausal women, people with hypothyroidism, Cushings and PCOS struggle with their weight. Struggle as in can not control.

Clearly maintenance is a big market. ££££
Using dieting alone, or either a small dose of mounjaro, or some powder / supplement, glucomannan or similar. I think there's money to be made in that market aswell.

You need to be accustomed to a restrictive diet/disciplined to start with. I lost 1.5 stone doing a keto 18:6 diet for 6 weeks, until we had an unexpected death in the family which threw me completely. I’ve restarted that regime now, plus starting MJ to help whilst I’m still a little emotionally unstable

@Redlightbulb have you managed to work out what prompts your food noise? That is the biggest leap forwards for me on MJ, it gave me the chance to work out what made me consume too many calories, i.e. what was driving the food noise. I know it isn't the same for everyone, but if you can crack that particular issue, I think it helps give you a fighting chance keep the weight off.

@MargoLivebetter

It's difficult to pinpoint but some of it most be emotionally driven.
I have a tendency to binge eat off MJ (no binges since starting 9 months ago)

@Redlightbulb I found out mine was in part emotionally driven. I was able to identify what emotions and have found some other ways of dealing with them. I don't have a 100% success rate but I'm definitely fully aware now and it does make me infinitely less likely to put that unnecessary food in my mouth to comfort myself or force down my emotions I find difficult.

@MargoLivebetter

That's great. I am glad you are getting to the bottom of it.
I had thought I had conquered it before.. but it always comes back for me.
We can only keep battling and not give up.

This is such an interesting listen! Thanks for sharing, and for coming back. Debate is good!

@Richtea67 sorry to hear you feel demoralised. Keeping the weight off without WLI is tough.

I've been on a tapering programme and here's a few things that have helped maintain while reducing the MJ and having less suppression. Some of these are Glucose Goddess hacks, her book/channel might be helpful.

Smoothies for breakfast are a big no if you struggle with blood sugar regulation. They will give you a big spike in blood sugar and then a drop, so you're likely to eat more later. Go for something with protein, and preferably savoury or at least low in sugar.

1tsp Apple cider vinegar in warm water around 30 mins before a meal.

Berberine and chromium supplements.

If you eat fruit, add some protein and fat (e.g. a piece of cheese or some nut butter with an apple).

Eat some salad or vegetables before your main meal. Helps fill you up and you'll be less likely to overeat on the starchy stuff, which is what is more likely to cause problems if like me you were prediabetic before MJ or had subclinical blood sugar control issues.

Avoid snacking between meals unless you need extra fuel for exercising.

Minimise ultra processed foods.

Idk if any of this will be useful - take what is and leave what isn't, and good luck with it, I hope you are able to find a way.

Op have a read of this. https://www.medicinenet.com/set_point_theory/article.htm

It will help you understand why you've been struggling to not gain weight. Hope things are improving for you now.

Thankyou for this I will definitely try some of these things.

Any ideas for 'grab and go' breakfasts that are savory and high protein? I normally have boiled egg for mid morning snack...so something different to egg?

Few go-tos that aren't egg!

Slice of sourdough toast with avocado or cream cheese and Parma ham or smoked salmon. If it's too much to make toast, you could have rye crackers or something like that

Chicken sausages (got to pre cook them obvs but I don't mind them cold, I do them the night before)

Parma ham, tomato and sliced cheese roll-ups

Cottage cheese with chopped veggies (I hate it, but my fellow gym rats are into it for on the go breakfasts)

Full fat Greek yogurt with a handful of nuts and berries - not strictly savoury but berries are pretty low in sugar and the protein and fat from the yogurt and nuts balances it out