Colleagues all dissing Mounjaro

[KateERxx]

I'm now officially 2 stone down and work colleagues are starting to notice and asking what's my secret etc. I don't want to lie but also after a conversation in the office a few weeks back, I now feel I can't be honest about taking Mounjaro, so I've just said I've been strict with my calorie counting (which is also true).

I work in an open plan office and someone brought up casually into convo about how everyone is on weight loss injections now and before I knew it, it turned into a frenzied attack on anyone who takes them. Comments such as 'it's the lazy way out', 'they'll put all the weight back on again', 'they don't know what they're putting in their bodies', 'no such thing as food noise', 'they have no self control', 'people have no discipline nowadays', 'that's the easy way', you get my drift. I just sat there, with a quiet smirk on my face I have to say, as these were all the same people who had quite literally said to me not 20 minutes earlier how great I looked 😂These comments were people from all builds as well, not just 'skinny' people.

In hind sight maybe I should have spoken up at that point in time to defend it and made them all embarrassed, but I'll lose another stone and maybe then do it 😜Anyone else had this at all?

Just try and ignore them OP and don't tell them anything.
It's a shame people are being so judgmental. Sometimes you just can't win.
I'm all for being cautious but not negative in the case of these injections.
Caution because it is a medicine and this is in my nature.
But I feel it may well become the wonder drug of the future with certain tweaks applicable to various medical conditions. So really, what you have here is a mass scale world wide trial on real individuals. It benefits everyone, those taking the injection and medical development in general.
So your colleagues are being very narrow minded. They're also unprofessional.

Congratulations on your weight loss @KateERxx . That's fantastic. IMO, you would not be lying to your colleagues if you said you had been eating less. I presume that is the truth, that you have consumed less calories on MJ than you were before? Anything else you do or do not want to tell them is up to you. You owe them nothing and their opinions mean nothing either, they are just opinions and say more about their own states of mind, than anything to do with you.

I told no one about taking MJ. It is my body, my choice and no one else's business but mine. I completely understand why other people are happy to share their story, but that is also their choice. Each to their own, I say! Do what you feel comfortable with.

I haven’t told my colleagues because they are also openly against the jabs.

Funny thing is, they are all on hrt. I would love to be on hrt, but can’t as I’ve had an estrogen fuelled cancer. Should I tell them they are cheating and they should just suck up the hideous pre-menopausal symptoms and get on with it? No, of course I won’t. I m pleased for them ( and a bit jealous). Not sure why they think the two scenarios are different.

I think a lot of us ARE jealous. Especially those of us who have deprived ourselves for years in order to maintain a normal weight. Wouldn’t you be? Each to their own, but don’t pretend you’ve achieved something by just taking a drug. You’ve just paid for something. And are taking all the compliments and not admitting to it. Makes everyone not on the drugs feel worse. Bingo!!

I tell people and I honestly don’t care about their opinions.
im not going to pretend that after years of struggle, that I’m now able to drop weight so quickly and I’m not hungry anymore!
if anyone asks I tell them it’s MJ and give them a cost breakdown £ for lbs

don’t pretend you’ve achieved something by just taking a drug

Of course they have achieved something. They have recognised that they have a problem and sought help to overcome that problem, as any sensible person would do. You'd have to be a very mean minded individual to begrudge them that help.

@Shouldntbutdoand lots of people have worked hard and deprived themselves for years to just be overweight and avoid being obese or morbidly obese. How would you feel then? Because that is the reality for so many people. Who work their arses off, starve themselves and still can’t shift a pound because their body just won’t let them.

i always think it’s no different to Botox or the likes. Loads of people get those and don’t admit it. Who cares?!

I've told people, I don't give a flying fanny fuck what anyone thinks. 2st 8lbs down and I'm feeling so much better.

I've only had one negative comment and that was from someone who told me her mother had died at Christmas after taking them. That was really awkward. She did have underlying health issues.

I do wish I hadn't told my boss though, because every time he sees me he asks me about it and it's starting to get on my nipple ends😂

The 'cheating' opinion seems to be very common. My DH has lost 30kg on Mounjaro. He was obese and is now within the healthy BMI range and I'm delighted, because he's now got a decent chance at being healthy in old age, as long as he keeps with the dietary changes he's made. He's got loads more energy, he's less grumpy, he hardly snores now and he's so pleased to be a healthy, normal weight again. It has changed his life for the better (and ours, by extension).

His DSis though, who is obese herself, is very disapproving of anyone who uses weight loss jabs, despite her own health and mobility now starting to be compromised by her weight. I don't understand that mindset at all. Surely anything that anyone is doing to make themselves healthier and happier is a good thing?

It's just jealousy tbh. I think people often like to think they are better than people who are fat

The side effects thing doesnt make sence, WLI have been around for years. First approved in 2017 in the US. Lots of medications are newer or of a similar ilk and no one panics. Apixaban was approved in 2012 and I don't remember any moral panic and now Noacs are one of the most common drugs.

I also don't think it matters if it's the easy way out. There's no prizes for suffering. Ultimately obesity is a problem in the UK and costs the NHS millions, I don't give a shiny shit if someone uses a medication to help with that or choses to try diet an excercise alone. I don't judge people for getting a taxi instead of walking, getting a cleaner. People pay money everyday to make things easier and improve their lives, take a fucking medication if it helps you.

I think it’s the lying that rankles. Sorry, just me I suppose. But if you are losing lots of weight on the jabs, and sat next to a fat person who can’t afford them, and don’t tell them you’ve had the jabs, they will feel crap surely? As though everyone else can do it and they can’t? If I smoked, and there was a jab to stop it, I wouldn’t lie and say I just used will power 🤷‍♀️. I don’t begrudge people the help but please be honest

I have been depriving myself for years to try to get to a normal weight, it was unsustainable for more than a couple of months. It hasn’t worked. On my first week of the jab, it has been far easier to go through that deprivation. Pre jab I was losing about 0.5lb a week, and I was hungry and light headed all the time (thanks Type 2 diabetes). This last week I lost 2.5lbs and wasn’t hungry at all. My eating habits haven’t changed very much, but I was able to cut out a couple of the snacks I normally need for low blood sugar.

Menopause, slowing down, diabetes make it harder to lose weight. The medication I’m on has helped. Why is that such a problem to you?

But people wouldn’t judge you for taking a jab to stop smoking.

Exactly. New drugs come on the market all the time. People aren’t up in arms about them. In fact when a new cancer drug comes on the market, people are pissed off if people aren’t given it.

A friend of mine works in the medical testing industry. She sees behind the curtain of testing for new drugs. She is very clear which ones she recommends we go nowhere near. She is fine with Mounjaro.

It's none of their business, let them think what they like. I wonder how quickly they'd change their tune if they ever needed to lose weight and couldn't, though.

FWIW, weight loss injections tend to have positive effects on multiple aspects of health, including endocrine, cardiac and liver function. Although you may run a higher risk of gallbladder problems if you lose a lot of weight quickly.

These drugs have been used safely to control diabetes for millions of people for over 2 decades. The dramatic weight loss was seen as a “side-effect”. Now exactly the same drugs are being offered to those of us not (yet) diabetic.

FFS. Obesity is a life-shortening condition. Research over 2 decades of extensive use for millions of diabetics have shown that those who use the drug have much lower rates of cardiovascular disease and obesity-related cancers, have a higher quality of life, are more economically active, and live significantly longer.

I am a research scientist. I deal with data and facts. Ignoring the very real and well-evidenced long-term benefits of these drugs to doom-monger about unevidenced “dangers” is absurd.

@BoredZelda the medication doesn’t “help”, it does the job for you. I just object to the idea that you are somehow making an effort when you are not. Come on, that’s fair isn’t it? If I take paracetamol for a headache and the headache goes away I don’t congratulate myself??

So you lied? Not sure you should be feeling smug about the weight loss if that's the case.

Why? They are medications that have been around for years, only are now being used in a different way. Which is a pretty common for pharmaceuticals - we use a lot of medication for things they were not originally designed for. Are you concerned about the dangers of the lash serums to make your lashes thicker? Or viagra? Or prednisone, which is showing promising results for parkinsons treatment? Gabapentin which is used for chronic pain and neuropathy, but was originally developed to manage seizures. Its interesting how this has become such a hoo ha when related to weight loss.

I think this is a very good point. These drugs are having a transformative effect on those of us who are able to pay for them. Why should these drugs not benefit everyone who needs them, regardless of ability to pay? If a large segment of the population is denied access to a transformative life-lengthening treatment because of an inability to pay £200 a month, this is going to accelerate socioeconomic inequality and be a terrible injustice. Those unable to afford the treatment should be rightly aggrieved about this.

I was chatting with a medical statistician today who told me about a conference he’d just been to where they were discussing analysis projecting the long-term beneficial impacts of these drugs on the NHS and on the economy: reducing obesity is going to reduce ill-health in a substantial cohort of the population, allowing many people to be economically active where they would otherwise be dealing with cardiovascular disease, obesity-linked cancers, and other incapacitation/life-limiting conditions. Making these drugs widely available on the NHS for everyone with a BMI over 40 would save the NHS far more money in the long term.

My friends daughter was really rude ages ago to me about taking ozempic
she is grossly over weight and when she was almost shouting at me saying how bad it was and that it was cheating blah blah
I simply replied I take it because i don’t want to get as overweight as you are

she hasn’t spoken to me since but I don’t care
Im slim ( size 8 ) healthy have ai much more energy and accept I will have to take these for life but I don’t care about that either

You sound nice.

Given the stigma and judgement associated with being overweight, is it any wonder people prefer not to say they’re using the jabs? Anyway, how is it any of your business what medication someone else takes! Do you go around with a sign stuck to to your forehead listing all the meds you take?

It's a destination; who cares how you get there? Is it any more noble to swim the Atlantic to the USA rather than fly?

I lost 6.5st on ozempic and MJ over an 18m period. Keep it all off (well, I keep gaining and losing the same 4lbs, so am still in active ‘maintenance’). So I DO now tell people I used it and when they comment about regaining it, I point out that I haven’t yet, after a year, and that tends to shut them up…

I’d wait until you’ve lost it and kept it off for a year to fess up, myself.

@TheMel yes of course it is more noble to swim the Atlantic than fly. Really?