Boyfriend thinks WLI are cheating

[Sogfree]

Posting here for traffic, as I think it's been lost in my monthly chat feed:

I've not told my boyfriend of 8 months that I'm on MJ. He's not noticed my weight loss really, as it's gradual. He goes to the gym 5/7 days. I've been running 5k+ 3/7 days for the last 10 years.

WLI were mentioned yesterday in conversation. He said "well those injections are just cheating, aren't they?"

I responded with something like "if it helps people become healthier long term, then surely that's a good thing"

Then moved the conversation on.

Where do I go with this?!

The article in todays Times may help @Sogfree posted by someone on a group thread today.
Written by a naturally slim person, but very much understands what a lot of us have been through/are going through:

POLLY VERNON
Sneerers are relishing the Mounjaro price hike. They want a refattening
The social divide on diet jabs is a borderline culture war — why are people so puritanical?
Polly Vernon
GETTY IMAGES
Polly Vernon
Sunday August 31 2025, 7.00pm, The Times
Today, then, is the day that private prescriptions of the weight loss drug Mounjaro become subject to a massive price hike. Manufacturers Eli Lilly have imposed an increase of 170 per cent in the cost of the drug, meaning the wholesale price on a month’s supply of Mounjaro’s highest dose is now £330. Yesterday, it was just £122. Not that most people could buy it yesterday; Eli Lilly halted sales of Mounjaro for three days before the price increase, to prevent stockpiling.
There’s an epic social divide in response to this. Borderline culture-war grade. There are those who’ve been on Mounjaro for a little while now. They’re losing their minds. Having originally been tentative about going “on the pen” at all — what if it hurts? What if they’re the one case which exposes some awful, probably carcinogenic consequences? — they then discovered it was, in fact, a kind of … miracle. The key to losing the weight which had limited their lifestyles, compromised their health, made them embarrassed, ashamed. How happy they were, then — and how panicked now. Scrabbling frantically through finances to find a way, any way. They’ll remortgage, sell livers, children, whatever, to absorb the new cost. Anything that will mean they don’t have to be fat again.
Then, there are those who want them to be fat again. Those who huffed and sneered from the sidelines as this weight loss revolution unfurled. Who predicted, grimly, that it was all “too good to be true”, and/or a perk of the “privileged few who could afford it”, a “quick fix” for the cheats and the lazy, who had the money but lacked will-power. Oh, that lot are delighted! Relishing a forthcoming comeuppance, a mass, real-time refattening.
“I hope you put all the weight back on,” someone said to a friend of mine, when she said she was about to come off Ozempic (which has nothing to do with the Mounjaro price hike, but entirely representative of the spite which flavours this argument).
Technically, I should be on Team Spite-addled and Sneering. I train six times a week, walk 10,000 (minimum) steps a day beyond that, cold water swim and squat cos I’m bored. I eat for fuel, never taste; barely drink alcohol; flat whites and dark choc are my only indulgences. I am a ripped UK size 8-10. But I am absolutely not on Team Spite-addled and Sneering.
If being the size and shape I am has taught me anything, it’s that I’m just lucky. Sure, I do the work – but through some glitch of my physiology/psychology: I lovethe work. Physical exercise is as pleasurable for me as an almond Magnum is to someone else. It is joy. This isn’t because I’m better. It’s dumb luck. Same for eating. I don’t care about food. I am deaf to its siren song. When another mate first started on Wegovy, and noticed the turning down of the volume on what is now called “food noise” — the constant background preoccupation with grub — she texted: “Is this what it’s like to be you?”
And yeah. It is.
Again: nothing to do with my mental fortitude or moral superiority. Just dumb luck. (Possibly an inferior palate.) As I have watched friend after friend take fat jabs, as I have seen how happy losing anything up to three or four stone makes them, how grateful, how relieved, I have only felt delighted for them. It is, without question, easier to exist in this society in a slimmer body — especially if you’re a woman. It is also (I write as someone who just published an extensively researched book on women’s bodies) healthier to exist in a slimmer body. Why should it matter how that slimness is achieved? How improved health is achieved? Why are we so attached to the idea that it must be a struggle or it doesn’t count? Why so puritanical? Do we think being fat is an evil, punishable via suffering, IE (intuitive eating) diets and exercise? Why?
As for the “privileged few” argument: put down your £4 latte (with optional creatine powder add-in), cancel your weekly one-on-ones with your PT and your organic veg delivery subscription, take off your £300-a-set Lycra, sell your Nutribullet … then come here and say that.
Polly Vernon | The Times & The Sunday Times
Polly Vernon is an interviewer and feature writer for The Times. She wrote one briefly controversial book, a more enduringly controversial column and she boxes at the weekend.
https://www.thetimes.com/profile/polly-vernon

It is cheating, in a way. The sensible thing would be changing your lifestyle and losing weight gradually. But that's really hard to do.
I'm not sure if it's been proven that being on mounjaro for life , when you didn't have diabetes, is healthy or possible. And if the food noise comes back, surely you are back to square one?

You could say “Well, we’ll have to agree to differ on that. I think it’s fine for anyone, including me to use them. Just so you know.”

Curious, how do you think WLI work? Fatties all sit on the sofa eating junk, then take one jab and by next morning, 5 stone has fallen off?

No need for that tone @HeidiLite. I'm going by what I've read on here. And I'm a fatty myself, thank you very much.
What i want to know is, what happens when the food noise comes back?

well obviously if someone starts eating like they did before they lost weight, they will re-gain the weight. The same happens when you stop any kind of weight loss effort and return to previous habits. The thing is though that you will not lose the weight on WLI if you don't change your eating, that part is no different.

What is different is all the people who seem to be so worried about other people re-gaining the weight. Why don't we see the same concern about people doing Slimming World, intermittent fasting, mediterranean diet or whichever other weight loss effort, even though 95% of them will also gain the weight back when they finish the weight loss effort.

I did it last night on the basis of this thread 🤣

The current, medically advised method for maintenance @JacknDiane is to slowly spread out the doses so that eventually one is taking it every 10-14 days, and then to start to titrate down the doses. until one finds a dose that one maintains at, alongside a healthy diet and exercise.
The aim of this is to teach our bodies/metabolisms/psychae that this new low weight is our permanent 'set point'.
For a very long time our bodies have got used to being overweight, and this is what it thinks is the norm and it will push for us to eat to get back up there.
By maintaining this way the aim is for the food noise to be much less, or to go completely, but it takes time.
Eventually one then continues to titrate down the doses and maybe no longer need it at all.

By using MJ to maintain we can hopefully re-set our set points and the overwhelming drive to eat when we dont need to.
If you are under the care of a weight loss Doctor, this is what they will prescribe/advise.
However, because the manufacturers of the pen have stated it must be used within 30 days of opening, the online pharmacies cannot overrule this. So they advise simply to come down the doses, but continue injecting once a week.

I hope that helps.

Of course it’s cheating but if it works who cares.

Honestly OP I would try and educate him if this comes up in conversation but would not get too worked up about it.

The pps going on about lack of trust in your relationship? Bonkers. Tell him about your use of MJ if you want to - but there’s no reason to. I’m was on MJ for a few months, now off it) and have not told DH. He’s noticed the weight loss and my restrained diet and my reduced drinking. One or 2 friends have noticed and commented but they are in the minority.

cheating? Well it makes it easier, but you still have to not eat stuff! And it’s an expensive choice…. You’re presumably having to cut down in other areas. I’d say it’s more of an informed choice. But if others think cheating, I’m not going to waste time giving that head space.

I've been on MJ since June. I've been seeing BF 8 months.

Been on 3 lovely holidays and lots of fun days out, and not denied myself what I've wanted.

So I've been super impressed that I've lost just over a stone in that time @RosaBaby2 I'm even more excited by the NSVs than the weight loss. I'm wearing clothes I haven't worn in years.

I agree. I'm not saying I'll never take them but injecting chemicals to help you lose weight is cheating. But I wouldn't take it as a serious comment from him.

Is taking anti-depressants cheating? Just smile more and cheer up!

I see mounjaro as similar to an AD. I believe there’s something wired not-quite-right in my brain which makes me not recognise genuine hunger and mounjaro helps me. I still get hungry; it’s just easier to manage

No one ever says that using vapes or patches is cheating when it comes to giving up fags and getting healthier. People say well done. Why is it different?!

Thank you for that article @MagnoliaTreePetals

I could never imagine being as excited about working out at the gym as I get over an almond Magnum. It's weird to me that some people do.

Interesting. Cheating who out of what, exactly, @BoarBrush , @rwalker , @Shellyash ?

Well if he doesn’t agree with them , he doesn’t have to take them would be my answer ! Simple enough

Cheating to lose weight. A few years ago I lost 12kg with no diet. Just ate less calories than I burnt, walked more. And decided that losing weight was my and mine only decision. WLI, fine, they work for a lot of people but still isn't teaching you how to use self control.

My DH also thinks they are cheating, and likens them to using steroids. It hasn’t stopped me from using it or telling him. It certainly hasn’t stopped him from appreciating a skinnier wife. I knew how he felt but told him I was doing them. I’m not going to lie or hide it just because he doesn’t like it, in fact for me I felt I needed to be open about it so as not to be hiding anything. Plus, I’m paying for it out of the joint account, so again felt that openness and honesty was the best policy.

Just drop it casually into conversation, don’t make a big deal of it and move on. Your body, your choice.

The sensible thing would be changing your lifestyle and losing weight gradually. But that's really hard to do.

Yes - the stresses of a modern lifestyle, with all the busyness and juggling that working parents have to do, being bombarded with junk food ads, shelves and fridge cabinets full of UPF at the supermarket, pester power, tighter budgets….

Or take perimenopausal women, these days more likely to be working, sandwiched between meeting teenage kids needs and those of ageing parents, coping with hormone changes…

These factors all work together to promote comfort eating and make it harder to lose weight via lifestyle changes.

Rather than calling weight loss injection users cheats, we should be taking a hard look at the society we are collectively endorsing.

Thank you @MagnoliaTreePetals

I couldn’t care less if someone thinks I am ‘cheating’. Who wrote the rules for weight loss? It’s just sour grapes on the whole, and goes along with the head tilt and faux concerned look when asking ‘but what about when you come off it’ (I don’t intend to), ‘how are you learning good habits?’ (I already know what good habits are, my problem is sticking to them). Glp1 injections are a game changer. I’m 4 stone lighter than a year ago, and so much healthier.

I have lost weight 'the right way' many, many times. I know all about healthy eating and yes I actually get more excited about exercise than Magnums. But my food noise and the compulsion to eat could only be managed with GLP1. It's a medication that addresses something that is wrong with my body. You could also say my thyroid replacement hormone is cheating then.

And I should add actually- I’ve lost 8 stone. But I’ve also regained the ability to exercise without pain. I’m in training for a half marathon, I’ve completely overhauled my diet and MJ has given me the space I need to really examine my relationship with food and health. I love the fact I am strong and feel fit. I’m not adjusting in preparation to coming off it, I am learning to FUEL my body and not view food as pleasure/emotional crutch. My entire attitude to life and my body has shifted massively over the last year.

I’m on WLI. I’ll m doing exactly the same thing as you did. The injection doesn’t stop me eating, it just seems to back up my willpower. Many bpeople on WLI are completely changing their eating habits for the better. Unfortunately others aren’t, and are able to get away with eating badly or still eating/drinking unhealthily because they have their appetite suppressed by the drug, and these are often the ones on social media bragging. They’re also likely to be the ones that yo-yo or put it all back on at the end. So people that don’t have much information on WLI see these social media posts and think it’s a magic drug that does it all for you and call it cheating. Personally I think it’s an aid. A bit like when I was hypnotised to stop smoking many years ago. I know in both cases that I did the hard work myself, but that little critical inner voice that likes to knock myself thinks something else did it!