How does food suppression work?

[VioletandMauve]

I’ve just taken my first jab this morning.

So I understand the theory behind food suppression but I’m just wondering about the reality and how it works for people.

An example as I understand it - say I have a sandwich and a small packet of crisps for lunch. Does the food suppression stop me wanting (and having) a second packet of crisps? Or does it stop me wanting the first packet of crisps and just eat the sandwich alone?

Or does it stop me wanting lunch altogether (which has never happened to me)! 😂

It will stop you wanting lunch altogether. And especially stop you wanting carbs.

It has completely changed the way I eat even now I'm off it, I used it to retrain the way I eat because I knew if I just used it to eat less I'd be in trouble down the line. It balanced out ghrelin and leptin, and I didn't and don't eat foods that will spike insulin it's so easy on mj.
So for instance a PP has said they go out for a meal and eat smaller portions and a bit of wine, I always choose the cleanest option on the menu so something grilled usually a steak with a salad no dressing no wine ever I don't drink now it repulses me. Lots of people find this it interrupts the dopamine pathway so dopamine seeking behaviours are quelled, as someone with audhd a fucking revelation.
Every day is very similar food wise, no breakfast, lunch is yogurt or soup, dinner is something grilled with veg or salads, yogurt again with nuts seed and fruit, nothing else after, tea is my drink of choice now and it's worked! I only intended losing 2 stone and even that seemed like a distant goal, but I kept going and here I am 4.5 stones down feeling great, exercising much easier, and not feeling like it's a hardship.

It works differently for everyone based on the conversations I’ve had and my own experience. My own experience is that I’ve never been completely unable to eat. If I want to I can sit and work my way through a buffet quite happily, I could eat as much as before. I just dont really care to anymore. I’m able to better control my instincts to eat and push aside the hunger.

Before Mounjaro I was starving hungry all the time and constantly thinking about eating. For example if on a diet I’d turn down a piece of cake, that cake would then play through my mind incessantly, my mouth would be watering my stomach rumbling, I’d eat something else like salad or fruit to try to appease the hunger but nothing would make it go away until I had some cake, then within a few minutes I’d be hungry again and scouting for more food.

Now, I’ll notice I’m hungry, look at the clock and tell myself dinners in an hour, set the thought aside, and it’s fine. I’ll go to a restaurant and eat what I know to be a sufficient amount of food and then I stop and leave the rest on my plate because I know I don’t need to finish. I’ll walk past a display of delicious cakes, recognise that they look amazing and would probably taste amazing too but that they won’t fit into my calories today so I can’t have one, and that’s fine, it doesn’t bother me and I don’t dwell on it.

A BIG part of why Mounjaro works isn’t the slowed digestion, it’s the improved insulin control. GLP-1s increase production of insulin in response to high blood sugar and they increase sensitivity to insulin produced so it works more effectively. High blood sugar causes feelings of intense hunger and tiredness both of which cause your brain to seek more food to stave off the hunger and to reduce the tiredness.

That sounds very like what it’s like for me. I don’t really get suppression, I can eat loads, and most things without any side effects. I can’t remember not being able to finish anything. But it seems to help with my commitment to eating healthy, wholesome food. I can put my fork down without finishing and tell myself I have had enough.

I'm actually thinking about food, meal planning and cooking more than I was. And that’s allowed me to be more in control and make better choices.

I was never much of a snacker, but would just eat a lot of whatever I wanted when I got hungry and because I rarely thought ahead I made poor and lazy choices, often “rewarding” myself with a chocolate bar or a cake.

Mounjaro has given me back control and calm about food and it’s so much easier to eat clean and healthy. I’ve pretty much given up bread (I have an occasional wholemeal pitta), chocolate, pastries, crisps, sweets and really don’t miss them at all.

It is weird. You lose interest rather than feel full (or at least I do). I remember in my first week thinking I’d finish off half a punnet of grapes. Pre-Mounjaro I would have wolfed the lot down in a few minutes, but I had six or seven and then just couldn’t face any more.

I mean because they could make you feel really sick. Not because I imagine you to be daft. Should have been more clear. Especially for the first few months I found anything deep fried, even a bite, gave me awful burps and nausea.

For me one of the very nice things about how MJ suppression works is that I can (now) eat a little bit of whatever I fancy, and stick at just a little bit. I feel satisfied and like I really enjoyed a taste but don’t need to eat any more. Whereas before I was bottomless.

So no foods are off the menu, but I feel like mostly eating healthy things. It’s a deeply weird feeling because I was always so strongly attracted to high calorie foods.

Don't listen to them...
I've had crisps a few times over the last 7 weeks I've been on MJ... when out at the pub with work colleagues.
I'm averaging a loss of 1kg a week.

I figure as I don't do it every day or every week, it's ok.

Another former crisp monster here who now wouldn't touch the crisps in the OP's example! It's a very powerful drug. I've been a salad dodger all my life (lettuce was just an attractive backdrop for chips) but now I love it and would eschew the OP's sandwich in favour of salad with some sort of protein. I don't eat many carbs at all. I used to eat constantly and now I sometimes need reminding that it's a meal time. It's brilliant. I feel totally in control, instead of struggling with the physical and emotional toll of scarfing down thousands of unnecessary calories every day. It's life changing.

This is really fascinating.
What side effects did you all have and how did you handle them?
What about concerns about long term effects or possible health issues down the line?
What happens when you come off it? I am confused because a lot of people seem to be in a maintenance dose forever. If you stop, do you start gorging again?

The effects sound to me like having a virus or Covid in the appetite. I just lose interest in food and weight falls off me when I am ill.

Before I started on MJ, I wondered the same thing. For me, it brought an end to the ongoing daily battle with food choices. I’ve spent a lifetime in ‘feast or famine’ mode - either on a diet or off a diet. I’d be good for a few days or a week but if I lost a few pounds I’d immediately start thinking about my ‘reward’ - usually a lovely meal at home (I love cooking), wine, snacks etc.

The next day I’d then start craving carbs and instead of being ‘good’ again, I’d be thinking about Greggs up the road from work and a nice crusty baguette and crisps. And on and on until the ‘good’ days were me, battling through 1200 calories just thinking about the food I couldn’t eat and planning ahead to the next time I could cook up a storm. It would be lose 5lbs, gain 5lbs and just go round and round in the same revolving door except every year at the end of the year, I’d be 7-10lbs fatter than last year. And suddenly (or so it seemed), I found myself 4 stone overweight - the result of years of faulty thinking around food.

MJ just almost instantly stopped all of that. It was almost weird at how quickly it happened. I just stopped thinking or caring about food. Food was no longer this emotional thing, I didn’t need a ‘reward’ and I didn’t need a ‘feast day’. I was able to stand in a supermarket and look at a lovely baguette stuffed with my favourite things or a Greek salad and choose the Greek salad without any kind of mental tug of war. Really interesting!

I now typically eat 1100-1200 calories of good healthy food each day. Towards the end of the week when the jab is wearing off, I’ll get hungrier between meals but even then, I’m looking for what protein I can grab rather than wanting to raid the biscuit tin. Lost just over 2 stone now with an average of 1.3lbs off per week. A little slower than others but I’m totally fine with that as I’m hoping the new approach to food is far more likely to stick once I decide to come off.

I am not sure people “gorged” and am rather appalled you used that word and feel that’s what people do to become fat. It shows a complete lack of understanding of weight gain, which can take many years and be the result of not many extra cals per day.

i thought people were better educated than this. Apparently not.

as for side effects, like 80 percent of people I had none. The drugs were 15 years in trials, and been used for over two decades for different things. When your doctor prescribes something to you, do you ask how long ago it was created, is 35 years not enough?

I will stay on as it manages my blood sugar and insulin appropriately. And gives a myriad of health benefits, from reduced cancers, cardio vascular, kidney and livery health/disease curing and also inflammatory reduction leading likely to things like dementia mitigation as we age, plus it is now being evidenced the anti inflammatory gives an anti ageing effect on our internal organs, as the inflammation goes, the cells regenerate. They are finding this out, as you know, it’s been nearly 40 years.

if I came off, would I start gorging again. No, as I never gorged in th4 first place.

For most people, side effects tend to be minimal and manageable. I had heartburn to start with but that’s settled down now. I always keep a supply of Rennies in my pocket though. I also get really constipated but I take psyllium husk every other day and that’s sorted me out.

If you use MJ properly, then it’s really meant to be a ‘time out’ to help you discover new, better eating habits. The media likes everyone to think it’s some sort of fat melting drug but if you want it to work properly, you’ve got to be in a calorie deficit, eat good protein and drink loads of water. For me, I’m trying to reset my emotional relationship with food so that when I come off it, my brain will have acquired much better habits.

Also words like ‘gorged’ are not helpful. For many overweight people, they’re not sitting there stuffing their faces with chips all day long, rather the weight gain is likely to have happened in increments over a number of years. Many will have spent a lifetime on diets, trying every conceivable eating plan under the sun and yet still lose the exhausting battle of trying to stay in a calorie deficit. I am ultimately responsible for what I put in my mouth but my weight gain happened gradually over about 7 years and wasn’t because I didn’t try to lose weight - I just kept losing the battle in my head.

I used to plan my days round meal times and if I didn’t eat I’d get hangry / jittery
Now I can easily go without eating and often have to force myself to eat!
Snacking has disappeared!
I eat because I have to!
So I have to be careful that when I do eat it’s healthy- I cut out all carbs and eat a lot of protein / salad
As you said this has NEVER happened to me before!
When I went to S/W I found that you had to think about food a lot - meal prep and planning but now I don’t think about food at all!!

I don’t gorge either. I actually eat really healthily but as you say it’s been gradual incremental gain over years. I used to be able to lose weight by controlling calories but this time I just can’t stick to it for long . It’s a mental mindset thing.
Sorry for using the word gorge bur I have read elsewhere that some people are very hungry and gain back all the weight when they come off MJ. Also, some people do overeat massively. It’s just a fact.

Well said.

I can and do still eat the full range of foods I like on mounjaro including chocolate, biscuits, cake, crisps but just not so often.

I have never felt that I don’t want to eat at all but overall I eat less as mounjaro has given me the full signal which was always missing from my body so that I can feel satisfied on the very low amount of calories I need to limit myself to (1280 for me) in order to lose weight without my brain screaming at me to eat.
I can’t burn more calories due to disability.

I’ve lost 9 stones.

For any new starters be aware that you may feel no positive effect until you get to higher doses. So many have expectations that they will lose weight from almost day one of their first 2.5mg dose.

I had no effects at all until I started 7.5mg and then have moved up the doses as my body gradually became tolerant to them and effects wore off.

I have never had any negative side effects.

every single person who gains weight overeats.

when people come off, then hunger returns as it was before. No more no less. Just it may feel more initially as they are not used to it.

it is a lifelong medication and many will stay on for life, I am one of them.

It doesn't stop you from eating completely, it just suppresses your appetite. Most likely you will still want to eat, but you will fill up quicker or just be less interested. Using your example, maybe you eat the sandwich and even a few crisps and then you think, "I will have the second bag." It is less about completely losing your hunger, and more about less desire to snack and overeat. Staying hydrated and eating balanced meals matters, because the jab can dull your normal hunger signals.

Yes, aside from some people who have medical issues, I’d say that in most cases weight gain is related to overeating. But for me (and probably others), it’s not a constant round of shoving chips in my mouth but just a slow increment of the scales going up over many years. Last year I was just over 15 stone, having sworn about 7 years ago that I’d never do that to my body again but yet, here I was back to square one. Realistically I was probably gaining around 7-10 lbs of new weight every year, despite feeling like I was constantly ‘on a diet’. Cumulatively though, it all adds up.

I REALLY don't want to be on lifelong medication and I don't understand how anyone would. The expense, quite apart from anything else. I just want to lose the weight and then make sure I don't put it on again.

I want for these reasons.

i don’t want to live my life constantly struggling wifh the scales and feeling deprived.
i want to stay slim, fit, healthy , eating a healthy diet, without constant struggle.
i do not want the inflammation to come back which it will when i come off
I want all the other proven therapeutic benefits of the drugs I listed up thread. Cardio vascular, kidney, liver etc etc

and I can easily afford it.

it’s ok if you don’t wish and make a different decision.

But my personal decision, based on my self education, discussion with my gp, my experience of using them and feeling the huge benefits, is I will stay on.

@Hanschristiananderson it's part of what you said - " I just want to lose the weight and then make sure I don't put it on again." For some people, part of making sure they don't put the weight back on again involves staying on the medication in some form or other long term. For some people, being on Mounjaro means taking less long term medication overall, as it means other meds they were taking can be stopped.

It does sound like once you're on it you can't get off though! That scares me.

Of course you can. Plenty do. What’s your preference, stay fat, or get slim and try to maintain without.

pick your poison.

Of course you can get off it. People are choosing not to, because it works for them. You can choose differently if you prefer.