What do you do after reaching your target weight?

[JuststartedWLI]

I have been on Mounjaro for 3 months. Have lost 18lbs since I started and I need to lose another 16lbs until I hit my target weight. My goal is getting back into healthy weight range according to the NHS BMI calculator.

I am wondering what you are supposed to do once you reach your target weight. Do you just come off the MJ and try not to regain all the weight? My main motivation for starting Mounjaro was that all other traditional weight loss methods were ineffective for me. Support from my GP was also near non-existent. I'm worried that if I come off it, I'll regain all the weight quite quickly and be back to where I started. How do you avoid ending up in a kind of no-man's (or woman's) land once you've reached your goal weight?

Maintain on a low dose, your provider should help you, oushk does the best maintenence, not sure if they take you on for maintenance below 30 though, have a look.

I hit goal a couple of weeks ago having lost 3stone. I’m currently on 5mg - going to finish my pen then titrate down to 3.75mg then 2.5mg. If I’m maintaining ok on 2.5 I will try spacing out doses a bit. My plan is maintain with the help of MJ for around a year - In this time I’m planning to increase my exercise again - I struggle to exercise on 5mg (was reasonably fit before I started losing weight but have exercised less in the 6 months I’ve been on WLI), work through the slimpod program and have some targeted therapy around my emotional eating. I am perimenopausal but ideally I don’t want to be on WLI forever. I have just signed up for Oushk’s flexi plan which will let me restart if I need to.

I've been changing providers each month to whichever is cheapest. It seems as though it's hard to get maintenance doses prescribed unless you are with a subscription service (Oushk, Shemed etc).

@JuststartedWLI ,yep sneaky buggers aren't they, it seems subscription maintenence is the only way if you want to stay medicated. Otherwise you can order bundles in the largest doses you can and take smaller doses from them, while they last, that's what I did. Not for everyone though because obviously it's going against all the guidelines, and once they do run out you would find it hard to get a prescriber to take you on.

I came off Mounjaro completely in the last week of December 2024. My end weight was 8st 11.6lb, my current weight is 8st 3lb this morning. I haven't been trying to lose any weight, just maintain (and this is with two all-inclusive holidays this year!) I've stabilised as this point about 2-3 month now so I don't expect to go lower.

I've not struggled maintaining, the most I bounce up by is 1lb or 2lb and I find a few days of being very conscious brings it back down.

I used my time on Mounjaro to build better habits, I eat a lot healthier, I don't snack on crap, I no longer eat things like pizza or big bowls of pasta etc, I don't even want to eat sweet stuff anymore. I drink tons of wine though there has to be some balance 😆and I eat loads of chips, definitely my downfall. I move a lot more - I've made a real effort to make sure I am hitting certain step goals.

There has been no RAGING HUNGER that everyone said would return. I get hungry of course but it's no different to how it was previously.

All-in-all, I've been very pleased with how it's gone this year!

Oushk are a standard pharmacy prescription service, not a subscription one. They do maintenance plans as do pharmulous and swift doctor. If you look at www.monj.co.uk they have a maintenance section with more info and prescribers.
Oushk do not have a cut off to join. You do have to have a maintenance consultation and pay £5 for it, then you keep ordering pens and receive 25 off as a maintenance discount or move on to a flexi plan if you want to come completely off. They also allow you to order every 2 months on maintenance. I have no idea about what the others provide.

As said, you can taper, stay on or just stop immediately. Tapering is usually the favoured option. I’d choose a provider that supports maintenance and stick with them for a while.

I decided to stop using MJ two weeks ago after hitting target weight. Mostly due to cost factors (thanks Trump).

Having said that so far, it's actually been fairly positive. No raging hunger as poster above mentioned. Food noise hasn't crept back in, and it was really bad before I started. I eat sensibly, and mindful of what I eat, but I definitely feel like something has changed.

Admittedly it's only been 2 weeks, but so far I'm feeling good.

It does stay in your system for 30 days

There is a great thread for those who have reached their target and are aiming to maintain. There are a variety of different methods so it might be worth skimming through it to see what others are doing.
The great thing is that we have a choice as to what suits us best.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight-loss-injections/5403680-thread-2-because-we-have-reached-our-goal-weights-and-we-want-to-maintain-not-regain-we-might-be-going-cold-turkey-or-titrating-down-or-staying-on?page=14&reply=147692627

I am at goal and on my way down the doses, aiming to keep on reducing very slowly and hopefully stop taking MJ altogether next summer. I have a little stockpile from early on when I would buy the next pen at the first reminder, and I’m buying my (hopefully) last two pens from pharmacies that will let you restart within a year of your last prescription, so that’s my safety net I guess. So far I’ve been maintaining for 8 weeks and have lost a couple more pounds. I gain a couple but then find it very easy to lose them again, it’s like my body just wants to. I am still on MJ though ofc, currently 6.7mg from 15mg at my highest but mostly 10mg. Very encouraged that worst case scenario, I’ll probably be ok on a maintenance dose of 5mg, or maybe the Wegovy equivalent. I have always regained in the past so was fully expecting to do the same again. Right now this feels different though 🤞

I'm not far away from target weight. It's my intention to then slowly titrate down and taper off completely by probably the middle of next year.
I'm buying high dose pens and will be using them over an extended period, so I'm currently ordering monthly and building my stock. At some point (quite soon) I will stop buying them on the basis that I'll be at target and will have my 6-8 month supply. I realise that there will then be no going back with my supplier.
I'm encouraged by the fact that I've completely changed my diet and eating habits, and actually love the food I eat now. I therefore feel it realistic that I should be able to maintain with my new habits.
Not for everyone, but that's the way I've chosen to do it.

@HappyWineDay ,I am doing it that way too, I have been at goal for a few weeks and am taking a smaller dose out of the pens I have left, if the price had stayed the same I would have carried on buying a 10 for 149, but it imploded with the price increases, so I felt like it was time to stop. I feel ideal on a 5 dose, that's perfect for me, but not financially lol, so titration and stopping is the way I'll have to go. I've now lost half a stone past my goal and will keep losing while ever mounjaro is helping, then I'll have a buffer, because I am definitely expecting water weight and inflammation coming back.