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?

I'm re-reading some of these messages. I can't help but wonder if one of the issues some people have with WLI is that they result in fewer people to feel superior to. So the "you're fat and lazy and I'm not" thoughts become "you've cheated to lose weight whilst I have to deprive myself".

I think you are right. That IS what some people think and it is utterly wrong. The drugs do not do the work for you.

I've been wondering whether @Shouldntbutdo is a case in point there, though she isn't alone by any means.

It's exactly what it is. They don't have any basis for shitting on other people who have done it 'the hard way' because they're equals, so they're going after the people they use to shore up their own sense of superiority. The whole idea of 'cheating' isn't that people are cheating themselves, it's that they're doing those people out of something - their sense of being better than them.

Perhaps? I did have to deprive myself to lose the weight even with medicated assistance (fasting/VLCD failed to get the same results), so as far as I can see the medication works on insulin and the nervous system to correct a malfunction that either kicked in once I was obese, or triggered postpartum/ perimenopausally to make me gain weight. A bit like anti-depressant medication corrects a neuro-transmitter reuptake issue that seems to be part of depression. Like depression/depressive medication it may be a balancing act for the rest of my life, or it may be manageable with lifestyle changes.

12 months after reaching goal, I definitely have to do what thin people do - the ones who are wailing about self control/ignoring food noise etc. I have to weigh daily, adjust my diet and exercise levels immediately if my weight has crept up, have had to accept that carbs do not suit me, that my portions need to be kept small, that I need to eat protein at each meal, that I will never be able to eat a three course meal again without it impacting my weight the next day. The medication hasn’t helped me escape the same level of dietary/lifestyle tyranny that thin people are subjected to… it’s ensured that my body is working efficiently again so that when I submit to it, it actually works to keep my weight down. Finally.

It’s a medicine - do you tell your colleagues about your medical history? I don’t! I use MJ alongside my thyroid medication and HRT to give me lower chances of developing cancer and dying young. I lose 1lb a week and my hormones are finally aligning. I have always eaten super healthily and exercised loads, but I don’t tell anyone about my medications, including this one!

@CautiousLurker01 I think you are exactly right - the habits learned with MJ have to be kept up , many slim people I know have these habits built in their mentality , regular weighing, single course meals, knocking half a stone off immediately, low carbs etc - especially women I think . It isn’t that some don’t get food noise, it’s that they don’t act on it or do something like crap open a bottle of water or eat an apple etc. absolutely none of my slim friends would suggest grabbing a Greggs or a Maccy Ds or automatically get cake with a coffee - it’s just my observation

That is exactly it. They lose their moral high ground on thinking the only reason they are slim is because they are so great at managing what they eat every day forever. When in reality most of them are lucky enough to just be naturally slim with satiety and hunger hormones that are balanced.

I meant to respond to this earlier but didn't have time.

No. It's not a fair assumption. The drugs do not do the job for you. They don't melt the fat away at all. They reduce appetite somewhat so that you have much less (or no) food noise. You still have to reduce what you eat, get into the calorie deficit and make sure you are making healthier choices for you meals.

You might have reviewed a little of what you thought now, but this is a misapprehension that many people seem determined to believe and continue with.

It is interesting reflecting on my own decision making process that led me to take the plunge and use WLI. I was relatively ok with being big whilst many of my colleagues were even bigger. But when colleagues who were bigger than me started to use WLI and became smaller I didn’t want to be the biggest member of the team. It is absolutely true that even as a fat person, I was fat phobic. I’m ashamed of my prejudice. I won’t admit using to WLI to anyone other than DH because I understand that although it’s wrong and I dislike myself for it, people judge.

Could not give a fuckety fuck what anyone else thinks

THIS!!!

Yeah kind of know how you feel.

I’ve lost a support club on a Saturday for my honesty, maybe it’s for the best I still don’t know. Feel I can’t show my face.

Very difficult to sit in a room hearing this member lost 6 stone in 6 months and this was slimming world magic when they use to eat what red meat and salad every day.

Maybe being quiet about it is the best thing.

Me too, @RebelliousHoping ! I miss the support but I cant sit there pretending that I am doing it through following the rules. It also bothered me that there was so much emphasis on diet food and unhealthy food.

Whilst WW and SW can work very well for some people and I’m not disputing that, if you have high blood sugars many of their go to foods are off limits.

People don’t understand that fat free or reduced fat products contain much higher sugar just to counteract the reduction in fat. My GP is vocally opposed to both groups which I accept is harsh, but actually true if you need to monitor carbs and associated sugars.

As with everything there’s misinformation and lack of knowledge and I think WLI fall into this category as well. The media portray diametrically opposed stories of people who have supposedly lost vast amounts of weight with no effort just taking the injections and those that have suffered huge side effects. There’s very rarely a middle ground portrayed based on hard facts.

I was sceptical at the beginning of the year and only with hearing about friends or acquaintances who had started did I investigate further and I did thorough research prior to making my decision. I’ve chosen to get Mounjaro from my local pharmacy and have face to face consultations each month that I accept is at a slightly higher price but that’s my preference. During the initial consultation I was asked what my knowledge and expectations of the drug were and I answered honestly that I was expecting it to help me but I wasn’t expecting some miracle drug that would do all the heavy lifting and allow me to continue as before. I had it explained quite clearly that my understanding was correct and that if I didn’t understand that fully I would be wasting both my time and money.

I think a lot of people on here who are against WLI are forgetting that there is such a thing as metabolic disorders which most overweight people have, including myself. These medications help that and thus help with weight loss. It’s not cheating. It’s taking medication for a recognised and scientifically proven disorder, it’s also helping to prevent diabetes and many other illnesses which the overweight person is most certainly on the road to. If there’s something that can prevent that and give me a better quality of life you can bet your life I’m taking it. It’s changed my life and I’ll be staying on it indefinitely. Stop being so
horrible and jealous just because fat people are getting thinner and healthier. Celebrate it instead

Nobody thinks that. That’s not medically possible , well suppose speed would do it. But what is making it easier with is not wanting to eat as much or making you feel full for longer. So if you have two overweight people and they both have equal food noise and one is taking a weight loss drug they will find it easier as they don’t want to eat as much.

And one will most likely fail miserably again and the other will have a much greater chance of succeeding

Exactly - but that's great isn't it?

Sure, as with any weight loss program keeping it off is the thing and most people won't be on Mounjaro forever, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

But I think some people do think it melts fat. Have seen plenty of comments on here and elsewhere to that effect.

I agree. I think people think it works like the Phen-Phen drugs that were available back in the 70’s-90s, which were effectively speed.

There is no understanding that it preprogrammes your system to produce less insulin and to respond more efficiently to that insulin… and that this has an impact on your digestive system, obviously, but that it effects the whole of your endocrine system system such that the neurochemical responses to food also change (ie the reward part of your brain no longer responds to ‘food’ as though it was a cocaine substitute and thus you no longer crave it… food that is, or, from what I understand alcohol or many other ‘addictive’ things. It seems to help people give up smoking too).

Those of us with ADHD have found our general ‘distractibility’ has reduced so research is being conducted on that too, according to my endocrinologist. It’s fascinating what impact it has, but maybe the research will be able to help us drill down into what causes the insulin dysfunction in the first place - why/how we have that first instance of obesity. Whether that be the content of UPFs, stress/anxiety, exposure to aspartame and other sweeteners… all the stuff people are positing as factors in the increase instance of obesity not only in developed nations but in countries where it has never been seen before (India, etc).

I wish people would just step back, chose not to use these drugs if they don’t wish to (as is their right), but park their judgment of those of us who do use them.

It’s absolutely none of their business how or why you’ve lost weight. If you were wandering around crowing about how amazing you are for losing the weight that’d be different but I presume you’ve kept quiet about it and people have asked you directly. Just keep doing what you’re doing and ignore them.

What about any ‘danger’ of long term use? Doctor friends tell me about possible pancreatic damage? Should 18 year olds be on it? Some say sure these drugs have been around 20 years but only to treat the already sick?

To that end is it better to be on lowest dose possible?

@User14March your doctor friends sound somewhat under informed about GLP1s if they think there is a risk of long term pancreatic damage. Pancreatitis is a rare side effect, but it is also a less rare side effect of obesity. So it is better, less risk overall, to take GLP1s to lose weight and stop being obese.

Obesity is considered a medical condition, as your doctor friends will be able to tell you. This medication has had its uses expanded, much like many other medications do. As more is known about them, the benefits of using them for other conditions are discovered.

The “lowest dose possible” is the one that produces consistent effective weight loss without side effects. That varies by individual. Mounjaro ca. be taken indefinitely, if needed. Just like other medications.

Rapid weight loss can cause pancreatic damage with or without these drugs also. There's very little that is specific to Mounjaro or Ozempic that you don't get with weight loss in general.

Thank you. Would you be happy if a borderline obese teen requested to go on it & potentially for life then on?

Great post, thank you. It was definitely comfort eating with stress and unhappiness, and pregnancy/having young children and a stressful job, for me.