When to stop

[MoralHighGroundGrandWizard]

Hi all!

I’ve been on Mounjaro since August. I started at 16 stone (5ft 6) with a BMI of 35. Even as a teenage I was around 11stone 11lb so my original target was 12 stone. Now I’m 11 stone 9, and on 12.5mg. I’m wondering when to stop. My BMI is 26 - I feel conflicted. Part of me wants to start tapering down, but a part of me wants to keep going, maybe until 10 stone.
im also worried about coming off and piling the weight on but I accept that I have to eventually due to finances as I’ve only really budgeted for a year.
im not sure at what point they would refuse prescription though.
does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

@U53rn8m3ch8ng3

For many people, certainly those with chronic obesity, inefficient and/or faulty insulin processing, glucose systems etc. are the root cause of the problem, or at least a good part of it.

Habits are helpful, and can certainly be built by the change in mindset processes that the GLP-1 medication allows to happen, but the medication is still needed to provide ongoing treatment for broken systems that may never be permanently eradicated.

I've lost significant weight many times over the last 40 years, run marathons, done most extreme fitness and weight loss programmes open to the public. The yo-yoing is so damaging.

Nothing has ever changed my mentality like Mounjaro has.

Yeah I actually think this is true. If it was easy to “change your lifestyle” then people would never regain weight after significant weight loss. The way some people talk about “building new habits” really downplays the role that WLIs play in allowing you to eat normally. People aren’t total idiots who just go back to their old habits - their usually bodies force them to do it - things like craving junk food, tiredness, even reducing the amount that you fidget to conserve energy. The body will usually fight tooth and nail to return to its previous state. So you can build all the habits you want when on injections but don’t kid yourself that it will be super easy to keep them up once you’re off the medication. Just being realistic.

Are you one of those people who suffered from food noise? If yes, I think the challenge is of coming off is potentially greater and you need to be prepared for that returning..

Have you overhauled your diet and developed good eating habits? Are you exercising? Do you maintain the disciple on the days when the dosage has worn off before the next jab?

If you feel you have developed the habits you need to manage without it you should titrate down slowly. You could also start increasing the time between doses - you'll have more days when the drug is a lesser influence than your own willpower. All the while, be monitoring yourself and working on maintaining your habits as the help from the drug wanes.. Can you stop eating before you're full/ leave food on the plate on day 6-9? Are you having cravings for things you shouldn't eat?

That's my plan anyway, for when I'm lucky enough to get where you're at.

Best of luck!

If you go back to the way you used to eat/drink/live, of course you'll put weight back on.

But if you have a plan, watch what you eat/drink and how you live you wont.

Exactly 👍🏼 I agree

Which is EXACTLY THE SAME AS ANY OTHET WEIGHT LOSS METHOD.

That 95% of people who make no considerable changes to their habits will gain weight again.

hardly rocket science is it.

@MzHz - which is why, in the main, the current GLP-1 medications are designed for those who have long-term, significant obesity, and have been unable to correct it by non-medical means and will stay on them for long term.

No matter how many changes I made to my 'habits' over the years - and trust me, I'm an intelligent person, well-versed in fitness and nutrition, and objectively successful in every other aspect of my life - my wiring and food noise just didn't allow me to maintain them.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

Interesting article. But where does it say 95%?

The weight loss referred to is just a drop in the ocean compared to what some people are losing on newer drugs. 8kg and 16kg is so much lower than what people are losing where they have been taking the drugs for over 4 months. I don’t think this study is an accurate depiction of what happens. Weight gain is inevitable but to gain it all within a year is not even physically possible for a lot of people.

I personally have lost one third of my body weight. I have gone from medically obese to healthy on the bmi scale. I eat less on mounjaro. I’ve taught myself I cane have a bit of everything and still be healthy. I can exercise now with ease. My stomach is smaller. I enjoy being active now. These combination of factors alone will mean I will never be this size again. And certainly not within a year.

Yes but the assumption of many on here seems to be that these people just shrugged their shoulders and decided to happily go back to their old unhealthy diets as soon as they came off Mounjaro. The reality is that most of them probably tried like hell to keep up their reduced calorie intake but weren’t able to do so. If it was straightforward to keep up habits that allow you to remain a healthy weight, few people would need WLIs in the first place.

😂😂 This is simply not true

Then that's not the fault of the medication is it and doesn't mean you NEED a maintenance dose. It means you should have changed your habits.

@U53rn8m3ch8ng3
I’m not sure you really understand how or why GLP-1s work.

how long have you been taking them?

I would stop when you think you’re at a realistically maintainable weight. Maintaining any weightloss is hard.

I never said it was the fault of the medication.

Did you actually read the news article I posted?

Let me rephrase it a different way that might help you:

Once a <insert weigh lost injection> user reaches thier target weight, 95% of those users will require a maintenance dose to maintain that weight long term

It is true - see the research I posted earlier.

It's in the academic paper the news article refers to.

And technically “eat less move more” means you lose weight. The whole reason why people even use WLIs is that we know that’s not helpful advice and nor does it work for people with obesity. So “keep up your healthy habits” means very little in terms of effectiveness.

I think it will be interesting what happens as more people reach goal.

I started off thinking I'd be happy at BMI 28ish (having been obese for much of my adult life), but now I'm there of course I'm thinking "just a bit more". I wonder if it is a bit addictive.
Would I be crazy to settle for stabilising at a weight that is still technically overweight when I could go for "slim"?!

But I wanted something I have more chance of maintaining whilst still enjoying food and wine, and I didn't want to lose too much off my face at my age

I think just be wary of shifting goal posts and the "just a little bit more" mentality!

Thank you for the comments. I appreciate the references. I know for some this is a life long drug - I suppose my mentality is that I’d prefer to try and come off and maintain without using the habits I’ve developed since I’ve been on. I do feel I have implemented good habits and changes a lot over this time (meal planning, no snacking, regular exercise and good hydration, no alcohol) and I do believe that I can keep these habits going with some discipline. Worst case scenario is I fail, realise I’ve gained weight and go on it again albeit from a lower weight.

I completely get the “little bit more” mentality. I’ve passed my original goal weight. Which was a BMI of 27. I’m aware I will gain some when I come off it with inflammation and water naturally so I guess I want to lose a little bit more and then settle out.

I think for me, Mounjaro has given me the headspace and focus to really get my diet and exercise under control, which I am really thankful for. I don’t currently see it as a lifelong drug but I recognise I may be wrong as it is also a very new drug in this setting.

I plan to stay on a maintenance dose as long as I can as I know from previous experience of weight loss that I'm greedy and will slip back into old habits. Some people, usually due to financial restrictions will come off it and most will probably find they'll gradually put some or all of the weight back on. WLI is no different to any other weight loss method in this 🤷‍♀️ It's quite naive to assume you'll somehow do things differently this time - obviously it would be great if we could go it alone and not have to take medication in order to stay slim but I guess if we were able to do that we wouldn't be taking WLI's in the first place!?

Yes even so…. the weight loss they studied is lower than the average of what people are now losing. From experience.

I read the Guardian article and I have to be honest with myself, I have dieted before and put the weight back on. Maintaining is harder in some ways than losing weight, as when you are losing you always have a positive goal to aim for, and there is that bit of excitement when you step on the scales and it shows a loss. Staying the same doesn't have the same power to motivate, at least not for me. I think I will have to stay on a low dose permanently, which does concern me a bit, but the risks are probably outweighed by the risks associated with obesity.

Given that lower doses did nothing at all for me I am thinking that I will need to stay on a dose which works for life.
Tapering down would be a waste of time and money.
Am currently on 10mg which works well and have lost 7 stones. I would like to lose another 2 ideally.
I am disabled and unable to exercise or cook from scratch. I have lost and regained several times in my life and I know that without mounjaro this would happen again.

I'm 5 months on monjuro and only lost 9 kg. I did go up I'm on 5 mg all the time. I don't want to be slim I'm size 16. I think I will reach 85 kg and stop, currently 89 kg. That will be my weight before kids and I was happy when I weight that much. I never was super slim in my life.