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?

Absolutely, thats how I see it. As I say, it's anecdotal based on my own experiences but the heavier I got the more the cravings increased. As someone who used to be slim (although not for over 2 decades!) I can compare the two experiences and they are so far removed from each other.

I do understand why people get irritated with the phrase 'food noise' but that is what it was like at my heaviest: constant, screaming klaxons all the time, at every hour of the day and night.

I do have sympathy for those who feel its a battle to stay slim. But the kast two decades have been a battle, one that I constantly lost. And I refuse to believe I lack grit or willpower, when I was able to quit smoking, able to hold down a ridiculously stressful job, able to continuously force myself to put in hours of work on evenings and weekends, able to do so many things requiring mental fortitude every single day. I'm not weak and it's such a relief to realise that.

That's a really good point on willpower. In the last 10-ish years, even while I got fatter, I have also given up smoking and almost all alcohol, both on willpower alone. I don't lack effort or determination.

Does anyone else on WLI also find their response to sugar has changed? Before, if I ate something sugary, I would end up going on a bender. Like, have one biscuit, eat the pack. Now I can have square of chocolate, and put the rest of the bar away. Something I have never been able to do in my life before. I guess my brains response has significantly shifted.

I don't fancy sweet things anymore.
Dh and I used to have a square of dark chocolate with our evening cup of tea.
I don't want it now.
I used to put a teaspoon of sugar in my porridge. That tastes awfully sweet now.
I can eat one biscuit, not the whole packet. But to be honest, I have stopped buying them as I just don't fancy them.
I used to put a teaspoon of honey in my greek yoghurt. Now the only sweetness I can tolerate is from the fruit I top it with.
Dh made some date/raisins/hazelnut/chocolate cereal type bars two weekends ago. Normally they would all have gone by the end of that weekend. They are still languishing in a tub...

On the flipside though, I still crave cheese like it is going out of fashion....

Wow, so much hate.

I am 46 years old and have been obese since I was a child i was forced on diets as an 8 year old and remember crying watching the entire family having ice creams whilst I was given an apple. I was bullied throughout childhood and tried to starve myself as a teen. I have tried litterally every diet as an adult, and made myself ill, to bo avail.

Being fat is not about being lazy or ill informed, I am well educated and fully understand the calories in vs energy burned.... but I have an illness! I litterally think about food 24/7, i do not feel full no matter what i eat, my entire life revolves around food. That's not just lack of will power or greed, it's a medical condition .

These injections don't give me an unfair advantage, they just level the playing field.

They allow me for the first time in my life to feel full after a normal amount of food, they allow me to not constantly be obsessing over what I can eat next and actually think about othwr things. They allow me to make healthy choices......... just like people who are naturally a healthy weight.

The choices, prep and calorie counting are down to me now, just like they have always been down to you.

Leveling the playing field doesn't make me a cheat, or mean I've had an unfair advantage over you, it means that finally I get a chance to feel how you have ( luckily) felt your entire life.

You wouldn't tell an athlete with a missing leg that they had cheated if they were given a prosthetic to wear in a race, so please dont insinuate that my disability/ illness is any less deserving of help, just because you don't suffer with it!

I lost 2 stone by myself and then struggled to continue he loss, have taken mountjaro and I have continued to lose modestly another 12lbs down in 5 weeks. I still have too eat, I don't get hungry as such but I can feel when I need food and I overeat much less. It is not a magic cure but a tool, she still need healthy eating habits. Well done and keep it up.

I think it’s because with alcohol and smoking, the longer you abstain, the easier it becomes. Not the case with food. You never get any less hungry.

There is no hate at all! Everyone has the right to make themselves feel better and be healthier. I think the problem for me is when people say that everyone who is a healthy weight is “naturally” slim. It really isn’t true. It is a daily battle. I was overweight and thought that slim people didn’t have to try. I asked someone once “how do you do it?” and they said it was a struggle. It is a struggle. There is definitely a lot of jealousy on my part that weight loss injections take away that struggle. And that people don’t own up to it?

Just for those of you saying that hunger is normal and everyone just needs to try harder and exercise more self control.

Excess hunger is a common sign of High blood sugar (and of Low blood sugar). People with an endocrine disorder like PCOS, Diabetes or Hyperthyroidism are more likely to have abnormal blood sugar levels, the higher those sugar readings get the hungrier you feel, which causes you to eat more, which causes your sugar levels to get higher, which causes you to be hungrier and round and round it goes. It’s not normal hunger, it’s gnawing, stomach rumbling, mouth watering, painful hunger that stops you from thinking about anything else and makes you feel unwell.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/symptoms/polyphagia.html

In fairness I know several people who are naturally slim simply because they just aren’t bothered about food. They only view it as fuel and have no problem eating odd things as they haven’t bothered food shopping etc.

They have small appetites and don’t really enjoy eating out, hate cooking and food shopping and are very uninterested in food as a whole.

@friendlycat i would say quite a few of the very slim
people I know are like that - food isn’t a big deal for them -

I know many slim people who very much like and enjoy food, but they absolutely do not have this screaming food klaxon going on every hour of every day. I've quizzed them how it works and they all have pretty much the same story. That they only think about food when it's close to mealtimes, then they eat until they are close to full, and then they don't think about food until it's time to eat again. Fascinating.
Not saying many slim people are also not struggling to stay slim - I've been one of them for many years myself - but many are indeed naturally slim without much of an effort.

I think there’s a distinction between having a daily struggle and succeeding to maintain a healthy, or even slightly overweight weight, and having a daily struggle and always failing. Then having the consequences of obesity in addition to the daily struggle and the repeated failing. It’s not that one is worse, but it is clearly a different situation. Hence one situation requiring medication to address, and the other, not.

@HeavyHeidi I can’t help but wonder if this is a bit of a viscious circle though - all the very slim people I know have a lot of extra curricular activity going on in their lives - ( and I don’t mean involving kids) - they all seem to do classes, dance, gym, - even the ones with kids and prioritise looking after themselves over and above meals and food . I can’t help but wonder sometimes if too much time on your hands is a big issue for some with weight issues ( including me by the way during lockdown or when DH has been away for a few days with work) - I find myself then irresistibly drawn to the fridge- it’s one reason I don’t choose to work from home if I’m honest -

"Own up to it" suggests that it's something that should feel bad about it and almost apologetic for.

Yeah everyone gets hungry and craves food, bit if you have never experienced what some of us are trying to describe that goes way beyond the normal , then you don't really understand.

Most of us have spent our entire lives " struggling ", that with the help of these in sections the struggle may finally pay off is certainly nothing to be jealous of!

It’s not a struggle for Everyone. I was slim until mid 30s and used to regularly eat Starbucks coffee and cake for breakfasts, ate huge plate of pasta for dinner etc, help myself to snacks in the office, order 3 course when I went out to eat and so on.

The only exercise I did most of the time was walking which was probably about 15K steps daily, but that was effortless in the sense it was part of my commute/socialising in London so I didn’t even think about it.

I did go to the gym every now and again but usually only for a few months before I’d quit.

Yeah in my case it eventually caught up with me when my activity levels began to plummet and I ordered too many takeaways, but if I’d kept up the walking and just cut down even slightly I think I’d have maintained my weight. I know other slim people who eat a fair amount and they never get much bigger than a dress size.

I would never take it myself but again as I said upthread - I find it bonkers that some people are jealous of others weight loss! Especially if they’re slim themselves.

Personally I’m really thankful I was able to lose it without injections. And also thankful I had the sense to do it in a sustainable way which hasn’t made me miserable or driven to jealousy of others who have lost it faster. Because that would suck lol

No, but the ‘journey’ is as equally important as the destination: as it is where you acquire the skills to lose weight and practice those skills to ensure you can maintain the loss. The destination is the goal, yes, but the acquisition of the skills to achieve it is an essential part of the task?

@CautiousLurker01 I agree with that totally -

I agree with this. So very strange. People like that are never satisfied if they don’t fix their mindset.

So I guess I was the ‘naturally slim person…’ I’ve been ‘slimish’ most of my adult life - because I worked incredibly hard at it. Constant diets, loads of exercise, constantly denying myself food. Secret binging then not eating the next day to make up for it… but to my obese friends I can see that it looked ‘easy’. Eventually the wheels fell off - something horrible happened in my personal life and I lost the willpower I needed… my BMI slipped up to 30 and I felt too broken by life to go on the brutal diet I would have before. So I took mounjaro and it is much easier than any diet I’ve ever been on. I’m so grateful that it exists and I wish that it was available to everyone. For what it’s worth I am a medical doctor and I’ve done my research - for me, the benefits far outweigh the risks.

However my husband is naturally slim - still a BMI of 21 in his late 40’s. He does almost no exercise and eats exactly what he wants. He has never had to think about food in his life - that is naturally slim a result of good genetics and no desire to comfort eat- my (and from your comments perhaps yours too) desperate attempts to maintain my weight were never ‘naturally slim’ they were a car crash waiting to happen.

I am now using MJ to lose weight and thinking hard about how to maintain my weight without it one day. I realise it’s going to take a lot of therapy!

@Incognitoburrito88 that has given me pause for thought. Thank you.

I was definitely 'naturally slim' for a long time in my life. I ate and I enjoyed food but I rarely gave it a second thought outside of mealtimes. One time I put on a little bit of weight when I was living away and partying a lot and it was absolutely no sweat to bring it back down again, all I done was go for a half hour walk in the evening for a few weeks. The difference from then to now (or at least pre-mounjaro), with incessant compulsions to eat, but especially to overeat and to never feel satisfied, and the absolute struggle to try to overcome it with a body that doesn't function properly is night and day.

I don't think everyone who is slim is slim effortlessly. I sure wasn't, always a fake slim person, with a fat woman inside me, trying to get out. I think most people who are most vocally against the WLI are in fact those slim people who need to put a lot of effort into staying slim, and have been able to feel superior to people who are not successful in being slim.

Edited to add - my naturally slim friends who do not need to work hard to stay slim do not seem to care if anyone else is slim too. Because it's not hard work for them

Post & during meno for many of us it’s like a thermostat or switch malfunctions. The GLPs WD40 to get ‘machine’ reset & simply working again.