Mounjaro starters Nov ‘24 Thread 12 - The one where we pack all of the smaller size clothes into our holiday luggage 🥰

[Mounjaropen]

Welcome to thread 12 fellow MN weight loss friends old and new!

Link to previous thread here

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5340601-mounjaropen-starters-nov-24-thread-11-the-one-where-we-have-no-chub-rub-and-are-wearing-all-the-shorts-as-we-head-into-june?page=40&reply=145390030

Feel free to lurk or post, absolutely no judgement here, just support and encouragement as we list old clothes on vinted, give thanks for MJ as we enjoy a far more comfortable Summer significantly lighter. We now wear ALL the damn shorts 💪🏻

Join us here to celebrate NSV’s, weight loss milestones, maintenance and our lowest stone brackets!

I’m on W35 D2 and on my fourth 7.5mg pen
F in my early 50’s
H 5’ 5.5”
SW 13st 11lb
CW 9st 10.6lbs
GW 9st 7lb
Total loss so far 56.4 lbs

We recommend the Shotsy app to monitor the amount of MJ in the system and pleasing graphs to look at…plus the MeThreeSixty body scan app to monitor inch loss for the weeks where weight loss is slow but you might have lost body fat etc. Both are free.

Feel free to swap recipes that might inspire anyone in a food rut, tips for managing side effects, exercise tips, tips for maintenance, titrating up or down and we love a wellness/supplements/beauty/ style chat too 🥰

Thank you! I do wonder, now that there is 60lb less of me, if perhaps the high dose is just no longer appropriate.

I've eaten 3 apples today and I was quite happy on that, no hunger at all. And I mean, just 3 apples, nothing else. I've just popped to the shop to buy a protein rich salad and a proper breakfast for tomorrow, for both dishes that I usually really like, and sat myself down like a child, going 'come on, eat, you need the nutrients and calories. You're not getting up til you've eaten!'

My trainer also tries to hold me accountable but most days 2 small snacks is all I can manage. Thankfully I do have the odd day when I feel hungry and I milk it, eating bigger meals and trying to hit 2,000 cals where possible.

How's your eating? I see from the 'what I have eaten on the death jab' thread that most people still manage 3 good meals.

Also, weighing in.

On 7.5mg
H 5’ 6”
SW 14st
CW 9st 13lb
GW 9st 7lbs
Total loss so far... 4st and 1lb!!! 💃💃💃

Despite some struggles with loose skin and losing my curves at different stages, I really love what I see in the mirror now, totally in love with my new, defined, toned shoulders, arms and back which I never had even as a teen. Also for the first time in my life, I love my thighs, and seeing/ feeling the muscle movement in certain situations.

I just hope the remaining 6lb come off my waist! That's the only area where body fat is still higher than would be considered healthy (as per BIA scan). Everything else on my scales app is now green, which is lovely to see 😊

I've been on 10mg for months but am pretty tempted to go up a dose for the next pen. It's still working to an extent but I've felt pretty hungry this week and wanted to snack. Might be partly coming back from holiday of course.

However, I'm also a bit concerned that the higher I go the more difficult it will be to reduce the doses again, and for some reason over 10mg seems like a bigger step.

Gosh no way I can manage 3 meals a day. Most days I'm one meal a day plus a snack. At the weekends I might have 2 meals a day, but if I have lunch I'm rarely properly hungry for dinner.

Well done @lindtcurves that's amazing! I'm a smidge taller than you at 5ft 7.5 but you've got me thinking about aiming for the 9 stone club. I couldn't imagine being 12 stone 6 months ago, but now I'm just a few lbs off the 10 stone club so why the heck not! I have 3 inches i need to lose off my waist so hopefully as i head further into the 10s that should do it.

Yes, I've thought the same. I'm doing ok on 10mg but I'm not keen to move up.

It’s funny how it affects us all so differently. I’m definitely on 3 (small) meals a day. If I skip one or leave it too long between meals I start to feel really nauseous.

Two meals a day suits me fine now. If I am going out then I will happily just have a few bits of fruit knowing I will have two courses later and maybe 2 glasses of wine.

I wonder if Mounjaro resets us to where we should be, if things hadn't gone a bit on the wonk.
I've always been fine with small meals, but my big, big problem was unhealthy, sugary snacking. Now I've mostly lost interest in that, the rest sort of falls into place. Mounjaro has also stabilised my blood sugars so I don't need a mid afternoon snack to stop me going shaky and faint by tea time.
So it could be that your default was always meant to be three small meals and someone else's was always meant to be one meal a day, we just knocked it a bit off course.

@SerenePeer @Pumpkinforever Ah I feel a tad more normal now! I’ve recently also found out eating one meal a day is a lifestyle choice that for example Carol Vorderman and Bruce Springsteen practice. It’s interesting how unconventional ways of eating seemingly might be a good thing… I think if I told someone I’d happily eat one meal a day, the backlash would be intense though! 3 is such a socially accepted standard.

@PinkArt well, ultimately it is a diabetes drug. I still don’t fully understand what exactly it does, but for example in my case, I assume I’d have been borderline insulin resistant, as I’ve been eating daily chocolate and sugary snacks, often large amounts, since I was a young child. Whereas now I have little interest and feel very consistent through the day, no afternoon sugar craving for example. Somehow it just kills off that sugar addiction. I wonder if that’s semi-permanent or only temporary

Did my charts in an Excel spreadsheet (geeky engineer and have been noting a few stats along the way.)

Yep - still every 7 days.

@pinkart that's really interesting. I know for my dh, he's always been a 2 meals a day person and was naturally very slim (mid life has caught up with him a bit now but he's still able to say "hmm, I think i need to lose a couple of lbs" and drops half a stone in the blink of an eye 😤).

Thinking back to times I've been a healthy weight, I was never a breakfast person. Always happier to wait until later in the day to eat. But then I bought into the "you must eat breakfast or you will damage your metabolism" 🙄

It's a really interesting discussion.
We all have our own circadian rhythm, as has now been proven, but I think that we also all have our own nutritional body clocks as well.

Over the years I/we have been told quite forcefully what to eat and when to eat and we have not been able to, and in many cases not been allowed to, listen to our own bodies. So much so that we have ended up with higher set points, cravings, and ingrained thought processes that have added to our weight difficulties and gain/loss/gain/loss journeys.
Over the years I have been told by different nutritionists, eat fat free, or focus on carbs, or skip breakfast, or fast every 3rd day, all of which made me feel ghastly.
Now I eat 3 moderately sized healthy meals, have some wine at the weekends and feel fantastic.

What I still find difficult to handle is the constant critical chatter/lectures all about what we should and should not eat, not just in the media but very much socially. I have lost the best part of 5 stone, which is very noticeable now, and people seem to think its ok to talk at me about what I should and shouldn't do or eat, as if my weight loss is public property.
For example yesterday "yes, you have done well, BUT the big battle now is keeping it off..... what you should do is......". What do I say? "REALLY??? (insert swear word) Gosh I hadn't worked that one out, thank you so much for telling me!!"

Fortunately my immediate family are hugely supportive and proud of what I have done.
DS (who is a scientist) asked me very gently yesterday, "So what is the exit strategy when you have finished losing weight and switch to maintaining?" which I thought was a very caring way of asking, and allowed me to explain without feeling judged.

Yeah I've decided to move up to 12.5mg. I checked and I haven't lost any weight in the last month. Ok it included a holiday but still. Hopefully 12.5mg will give me a boost and I'll continue to have no side effects.

My 10mg pen arrived during the week. I have spent two months dithering about it @Oceangrey My current plan now is two months on 10 and then to start going down slowly.

@MagnoliaTreePetals even though I still have a stone and a half to go to reach a BMI of 25 I too have had comments about don’t get too thin, you need remember to continue to eat smaller portions, avoid cheese, avoid bread blah blah blah. It honestly as though I haven’t done that since we started in November 😂. One comment, I kid you not, was I have always been slender because I eat like a bird, only small portions, so I never allowed myself to get fat. 😳 I sat there thinking how has this woman been my friend for so many years.

I think your DS phrase of exit strategy is lovely

Oh @magnoliatreepetals your ds 🥲 You've raised a good un there. That's very sweet.

We need to come up with a witty, sharp retort to these unwanted advice sessions that cuts the conversation dead and makes it clear its not public property! Thinking caps on death jabbers!

My exit strategy is staying on Mounjaro for as long as I can afford it! I'd been obese for over 15 years and am so grateful that it has enabled me to get to a healthy weight. It was really starting to pile on and the screaming food noise was getting worse and worse. I honestly think it's got the potential to be one of the best public health interventions in my lifetime. Just incredible

I am toying with that old favourite of ‘did you mean to be so rude?’ @SerenePeer but its not quite right.

I agree @DarkForces

I want to get back down to 2.5mg and then stay on for quite some time. I just can’t bear the thought of my current loss of 4stone 11lbs / 67lbs / 30.4 kg going back on. It can’t go back on as I have cleared out anything over a size 16 and they will go once I am a comfortable size 12.

'You first, what medication have you taken recently?'. I'd love to think up something pithier but it still needs to highlight that asking someone if they're taking X meds is such a bizarre question.

Congratulations on your wedding day @Mounjaropen

great to see the fabulous losses continue!

I’m easing off mj and dropped to 5mg every 10 days to finish my last pen. Off on holiday next week to Greece all inclusive. I’m looking forward to all the prepped fruit and Greek salads. I’ve maintained since May now with a couple of ups and downs but I’ve stopped daily weighing and weighed today for the first time in about 3 weeks and lost 2lbs without trying.

I know we’re all different. I was very healthy and running half marathons in 2020. It was a shift at work that led to my over eating in 2022 for comfort. I was so unhappy. I can’t be sure I’ll not be unhappy again but now I’m aware of the 3 stone gain impact, I hope to be more mindful. On to my next chapter of life after mj… 2 more jabs left to aid shifting holiday gain 😂

That's so great to hear @TeenLifeMum , thank you for posting your update. It's really reassuring to hear how well you have maintained over the past few months and how you have done it. I am going to move from moving to maintaining fairly soon and am feeling a little nervous about what will happen!
Have a wonderful holiday!

Thanks @MagnoliaTreePetals

i do think there’s a difference between being big all your life and having a time when you can see where the weight went on. I don’t mean that critically to anyone, just the adjustment is possibly different. Even on mj, I had 2 weeks when I gained - I can look at my weight graph and see when my parents got their cancer diagnosis in February then April when dad got an additional diagnosis of a brain tumour. It’s fascinating how linked my weight is to my emotions. I’m hoping that knowing this will mean I can control it more. Time will tell.

For the first time since dc were born (now 17 and 13) I’ll be wearing a bikini on holiday. I tried it on and dd3 commented she’d never seen me in a bikini before but I look great. I think she might want something as she’s also been commenting that dh and I look a lot younger than her friends’ parents 🤔

Gosh you have had a really tough time @TeenLifeMum , my heart goes out to you.
Life has been a real rollercoaster over the years in the Mgnolia household, for various reasons, but especially when No.2 DS was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 5, so I know all about and hugely sympathise with stress/emotional eating! (Despite a poor prognosis at the time he has defied all the odds and is now aged 30). In fact I am really impressed that you only had the 2 brief blips, it shows how very well you have done.

@MagnoliaTreePetals The reality is that’s life and it can be pretty tough. I need better ways of coping rather than eating.