Obese but not interested In Mounjaro, I’m genuinely interested to know why.

[Vatsallfolks]

I have struggled with my weight since my last baby 23 years ago.. prior to that I was a standard size 10 and never really thought about weight.. but last pregnancy at 39 saw me develop an underactive thyroid AND an autoimmune disorder that required an astonishing amount of steroids .. long story short.. I went from 10st to 22 stone in 4 years.. I hated it. I lost my sense of balance , self confidence, health… blood pressure meds , cholesterol meds, knee injections, chronic IBS .. because of the steroids I was extremely lucky to get a gastric sleeve on the NHS . Took me from 22 stone to 16 stone and there I stayed until this miracle drug came along.

I did my research. I looked at the pros and cons . The cons of being obese FAR outweighed the cons and so I began. Financially I thought it would be a terrible struggle but in reality I save money . No more latte and a croissant for breakfast at the station . It’s taught me to be mindful of what I need to eat to be healthy by prioritising protein, good carbs and fibre..

Im now BMI 22 and 9st 5 and size 10 again .. since end of November.. I remain on a small maintenance dose of 5mg and after a I had a chat with my GP yesterday, I am happy to be there for life .

so my question is .. if you are obese with all the associated health risks AND you have the funds to prioritise your health but are not interested.. ( earring in mind these drugs have been around since trials in 1992) why would you not ?

It's not like going up to people in real life though and asking them?

Im talking about real life. Because let’s face it, people will only answer here if they want. In day to day life it’s different - it could be very embarrassing or hurtful to hear the question and it puts them in an awkward situation.

It's a public forum and people can scroll past

Ah, that old chestnut.

Don’t like injections

My mum is on tablet ozempic and not seeing any results

Don’t like taking drugs really - same reason I have never taken hormonal birth control

I already eat well and little, I need to exercise more and not sure how jabs will magic me more time to be able to do that

For me and my own situation, it feels like a bit like sticking a plaster on a wound that actually needs stitches.

I would likely qualify for NHS treatment - my BMI was 53 at the end of last year, I had other risk factors - was pre and then in January just tipping into T2 diabetes, have cardiac risk factors too (genetic/inherited)

In the past I have lost a significant amount of weight (talking over 10st) and then put it all back on, plus more.

I'm in my 30s so hopefully have many years ahead of me yet and do not want to be taking a(nother) life long medication, or ending up back at square one. To me it's been much more important to address the underlying reasons for my obesity and relationship with food.

I chose to do this by investing in professional support to achieve this - more cost wise per month than WLIs I think, but it's totally been worth it

My hair is thin already and I'm worried about the side effect of the loss of more hair. Putting off starting because of this.

I am worried about long term side effects as this is a very new drug…. Ive just started though but everyday it is a conflict in my head? Am i doing the right thing? Am i too vain (for wanting to be slimmer)?
im definitely trying to stay on the lower dose possible. Then once i teach my GW, im thinking of doing 6months on (winter) six months off (summer)

This makes no sense as if you are morbidly obese a calorie deficit will still be quite high.
Mounjaro actually changes the way you see food. I have been a calorie counter for years but have honestly not needed to track at all since beginning the mounjaro. Naturally been eating a lot less

I chose to do this by investing in professional support to achieve this - more cost wise per month than WLIs I think, but it's totally been worth it

I also have professional support, have done for years and taking Mounjaro alongside the other things I have in place is what I call taking a ‘whole person approach’ to things.

It’s working for me and I’m already no longer pre-diabetic, my cholesterol is now perfect and in August I’ll more than likely no longer be taking BP medication as I’m already down to 5mgs daily.

Tablet forms of the GLP1s are nowhere near as effective. And I'm sorry if this sounds disrespectful but if you were eating little you'd be losing weight. Weight loss doesn't need exercise, it needs calorie deficit. But I do grant you that if a person is taking Mounjaro they should be exercising alongside to minimise muscle loss.

I don't think I get this food noise a lot of people talk about but I do have a very sedentary job.

I didn’t think I had food noise until MJ stopped it. I guess I would liken my experience of food noise to using food as a hobby and mindless snacking. Now I am only hungry at mealtimes and choose food that fuels my body rather than what gives me a dopamine hit.

The WLI don’t magically make the weight fall off you, rather if used sensibly rather than as simply an appetite suppressant they help people reset their lifestyle and eating habits.

Doesn’t mean you have to track. I have not tracked and lost 13kg in 14 weeks so far. I don’t need to track, I am not hungry and don’t fancy junk food.

You will naturally be in a calorie deficit because it stops you eating. You don’t feel hungry and you feel full quickly so your meal sizes reduce massively. I’ve been doing it and not counted calories because I can see how small my portions are now and I’ve cut out snacking completely

Hair loss is due to rapid weight loss however that is achieved.

It's a personal battle that I want to conquer, I want to fix the part of my brain that reaches out for food and binges on sugar for comfort so the cycle is broken for good. I've successfully stopped drinking after a long battle with alcohol and I feel proud of myself and able to use the same CBT tools to deal with my food issues. So far so good.
The risks of WLI and the weightloss rate isn't so amazing to justify it, as my understanding is that it just makes sticking to a calorie deficit week in week out easier but you don't necessarily be losing 5 or 10lb a week, it's still like normal weight loss rate if you stuck to a calorie deficit on your own and I have faith that I can do this on my own because I'm actually dealing with my food issues at the source and changing my values around food this time rather than another diet.

Fair enough. Two days a week I have 1 (normal sized) meal a day, other days I don’t have either breakfast, lunch or dinner. That should be enough cutting of cals. 🤷‍♀️ Walk home from walk 30 mins (hills). See a PT once a week. I’m not gonna make weight loss my whole world, that should be enough (by enough I mean, to keep my body functioning healthily - I’ve only ever lost weight by doing 2 massive workouts per day for 3 months straight no excuses).

Fascinating thread. I'm very tempted to take it (BMI 39ish) but currently too scared of having a reaction to it and dying. (I have health anxiety, it's very annoying.)

I'm also scared it will stop working at some point in the future and then I'll put the weight back on and the food noise will be worse because it will have messed with my body. I don't really believe that would be it, I wouldn't have to think about my weight anymore.

I've always said, if only there was something to stop you feeling so hungry I'd be able to make sensible choices and be slim. I lost loads of weight when I was pregnant because I felt sick all the time. But now that drug exists, I don't really believe it will work for me.

I’m on a weight loss journey. Have been for the past 2 years. I have had mega and life changing side effects from prescription drugs so wouldn’t touch the stuff.

Wow there have been a lot of monjaro posts recently with many singing its praises as the new messiah drug. Makes me think a bit of fake reputation management posts going on here…
I genuinely went on it for 6 months as just a regular person at BMI 31 who was already dieting and going gym and not succeeding to lose weight for over 2 years. Previous to this I have had great success with very low carb diets but found them difficult to maintain in real life. I literally couldnt then eat a sandwich say or potatoes or I’d end up on a week long carb binge, terrible guilt and then back on the low carb. And once I fully broke down I was always heavier than when I started - typical yo-yo dieting.
Monjaro sounded like a quick fix. At low doses I felt no appetite suppression but tired. Once I got up to 7.5mg I started with d&v every week after the dose and for a few days, extreme tiredness, aching joints etc etc. I stopped going gym. I stopped being able to eat vegetables or I’d feel like my stomach would explode. I did lose some weight and have some appetite suppression but not as much as people said and my life was upside down with me taking it of a weekend to try manage work and ruining every weekend. I couldn’t imagine that for life. Been off it about 8 weeks now and feel about 50 years younger. Back at gym. Back eating healthy. I have had no appetite rebound at all. I actually feel quite diet motivated and in control - and so happy to eat brocolli again without feeling like I might explode! I’m low carbing again but less extreme. I wouldn’t for me rule out another weight loss drug but not Monjaro. Let’s face it not everyone gets the benefits of this drug or any drug and it does have serious side effects.

@Maverick66 , I hate tracking calories too. I’ve been on Mounjaro since mid November and have lost 46Lbs without actively tracking calories. At the end of the day I have a rough tot up in my head to get some idea what I’ve had so that I can be a bit more mindful if I’ve gone a bit over the top, that’s it.

Sometimes I think there’s some cognitive dissonance about the ‘side effects’, or ‘long-term effects’, given the awful side effects and long-term effects of being obese enough to qualify for these drugs in the first place, which are much more dramatic than the medication.

Unfortunately obesity is one of these things where people have become quite desensitised in some ways to the huge strain on their body and the fact their weight is hugely increasing the risk of all sorts of things, including a lot of cancers, and they are more comfortable with that than taking the medication.

I don’t think there is a cognitive dissonance about the side effects. My husband tried it and ended up off work for a week and effectively tied to the bathroom. Now obviously not everyone will be affected that much but I can’t risk it. I’m very much overweight and have ‘just’ upped my exercise and started tracking what I eat (not excluding any foods). I have lost 12kg since 31st March. Looking at the weight losses people are getting with medication, I’m more than happy I’ve made the right choice for me.

I suppose that proves my point. A week of the shits isn’t nice but I’d take that over 20 more years of massively increased risk of all sorts of cancer and medical conditions and an early death. The whole point is that people who tend to take the medication have a long history of obesity and aren’t able to lose it another way. It’s not for people who can just wake up and decide to lose weight and lose two stone. It’s for people who have spent potentially decades obese, yo-yo dieting, etc.

@doodleschnoodle but it's not simply either stay obese or take WLI, there is still the option to change your diet and mindset just like an addict who might have tried many times to stop, recovery without drugs could still happen. If you have no urgent or pressing health conditions and the will to try again, it's still worth trying to modify our behavior specially since WLI do have side effects. It's not like take WLI without any side effects and fast weight loss, WLI are not a magic solution either.

Will the NHS fund this? It seems crazy for the tax payer to fund this for life. If it's your own money the fine do what you want. Personally OP I'd be worried about the long term side effects which ultimately no one will really know about for another 10 years plus.

It’s not that I don’t know the risks of obesity. I cannot justify a week off work for that treatment every time I go up a dose (this was him on 2.5). I’m a teacher. The only one in my department who teaches certain topics. It wasn’t and isn’t a viable option for me to regularly just take a week off work. And for what, a weight loss similar to what I’m achieving anyway? Pointless for me.

But we know that eat less and move more does not work for a huge amount of people as a philosophy for losing weight. It just doesn’t. If it did, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the western world in the first place. It’s far too simplistic and doesn’t account for so many things. On a mathematical level, sure it works. On a practical level, it absolutely does not work on a population level For many people, those lifestyle changes are impossible for them to make without the use of a tool such as WLIs. That’s why some people have spent their entire lives overweight or obese.