May 2025 Starters Thread 7 - Ending the year as we mean to go on ✌️

[FlorenceNightshade]

A sparkly new thread for our chatty gang!

I think cinder blocks are used in the US to weigh dead bodies down and hide them in water! I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts and I’m sure they have a construction purpose too! They are kinda hollowed out rectangles of concrete I think 🤔

Well done @TreesOfGreen99 and everyone else who’s absolutely smashing it! Feeling very inspired by you all 💪

As of this morning -a loss of 50lb - a small bale of hay. I'm ignoring that as I don't have a scooby what a small, medium or large bale of hay looks like.

I’ve lost an average two year old 🧒 and a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts 🍩 .
Oooh, I could sooooo eat a jammy doughnut right now ….

Edited to add : thanks very much for the new thread, @FlorenceNightshade ! 👏

I’ll take you a picture later when I’m at the stables. They’re about 4’ by 2’ by 1’ and an average one takes a reasonable effort to lift.

I have lost another 1lb. Slowly plodding along! I have taken 4mg every four days rather than 7.5mg weekly this week. I don’t know that I have less appetite or feel fuller, but I am less grumpy about it! I think I have a golden dose left then I start a 10mg pen. See if that gets me!

Well done all, on the many and varied losses amongst us! Very proud of you all.

Don't want to bring anyone else down, but in case anyone else is struggling out there, wanted to post this so they know they aren't alone. You all know I have lost much since my first few weeks on MJ, and that has been hard and I have been feeling rough as a badger's a**e. At first, presumed it was just SEs, but now not 100% sure as is going on past when those would usually give me a little break before jab day. So, as I'm ot sure if I'm poorly, or of it's the MJ I've decided to take a break for a little while to find out.

After a month or so in August when they finally subsided, the SEs have come back and really been kicking my butt for a while now, and dropping dose back down to where it was whe they weren't doesn't seem to be making a difference. If I'm honest, I'm miserable and I've never really had the suppression of appetite or food noise many of you seem to have had (if anything, the food noise is worse as I've been obsessed and all my dieting trauma has come right back with avengeance).

Being on MJ seems to have brought out all the worst aspects of my AuDHD, and thinking about food, diet, the numbers etc has become a hyperfixation, to the point I can hardly think about anything else, and I had been in quite a good place before starting, accepting I may not ever be thin, but at least I wasn't getting any bigger. I have so many things wrong with ny body that make functioning hard anyway, so constant nausea, reflux, diarrhea and fatigue isn't helping. I really wanted to reverse my fatty liver, and that was why I was prepared to take the risks on this, but it's too much for me right now, I think.

Not sure how long I'll be off, but I'll check in on you all from time to time. Take care and keep on heading onwards and downwards my lovely friends.

I’m so sorry to read that @notgonnafail. Please stay in touch. If you fancied doing something like couch to 5k to take the focus from diet to exercise I would be happy to join you. How about just doing clean eating without calorie counting and upping the exercise? A natural way to lose? I did that several years ago and it worked well.

@Notgonnafail please stick around and let us know how you're feeling from time to time. You've made a hard decision but clearly it's the right one for you. 💛
@ElsieMay are you going to pick up random small children and ask their ages? Sounds fun! As do donuts.
@Gingercar Oh please do put a photo up! Preferably with a context so that I can appreciate it properly.

Thanks @Gingercar unfortunately my disabilities make exercise complicated. I only rarely have the energy to work out (actually trained as a PT and taught exercise clases once long ago, so this is particularly frustrating for me).

I have realised that 'clean' eating is just one of my many triggers into disordered eating, along with any other 'diets'. I think I had always presumed/convinced myself I was just a yo-yo dieter, but the past five months have definitely taught me that I probably have a full blown eating disorder.

I was happiest about my body when I gave up dieting and was on a more Health at Every Size approach, with no weighing and measuring (of me or my food!) and there were no 'good' or 'bad' foods. I wasn't losing weight, but I wasn't gaining it either. I ate fresh fruit and veg from my garden because I liked them, and I felt happier, more at ease. And because I was less anxious and stressed about food, I had more energy to workout more regularly.

Sadly, I'm a fraught mess again now, and I am so fed up of sulphur burps and running to the loo! I just want to eat food because I want to - not just because I need more protein to meet my macros (fibre really not an issue, I looooove fruit, veg, pulses etc!)

@notgonnafail thanks for sharing. I hope things work out for you and appreciate your honesty. I’m mid 50s now and have spent half a century working out how to get to and stay a healthy weight and still not there yet! I’m dreading maintenance now as I’ve less than 3 pounds to go to goal 😩. I should be celebrating but instead I’m worried about life off MJ. It’s such a shame it runs our lives. In a more positive note I’ve lost just over an elephant heart ❤️.

Im on 7.5mg but I’m finding the side effects are getting worse and lasting longer so I am thinking of dropping down a bit. I’ve been on it three months now strange that they’re getting worse now but may be because I’m getting close to goal? Going to try 6mg on clicks next jab.

@PinkScot Can't be being close to goal, as I'm still about 5 stone from it and I've been rotten with SEs again!

Turned 50 in April. My first diet was when I was about 8 I think. MJ felt like my last chance to finally be thin, but my AuDHD and diet history has just too much damage to me mentally, I think. I need to focus on building a healthier relationship to food and my body and stop trying to change it and follow other people's rules and to try and trust myself more. Before MJ I think I had managed this pretty well, but it's gone haywire!

All the best everyone xxx

Aww @notgonnafail sending you so much love! I really hope you have good support IRL to help you navigate your way through all this. You are so brave, for trying and then for acknowledging that it isn’t right for you. Will be thinking of you and wishing you well x x x

Omg, I’ve just worked out that if I add on the new bunny I rescued this week, when I hit goal I will have lost the three rabbits, the cat, the little dog and the smaller lab!!! All together! That’s ridiculous! How was I carrying all that around? I couldn’t fit them all on the settee at the same time!🤣🤣🤣😫😫😫. And I’m only half way.

Oh and this is a bale of straw, which is the same size as a bale of hay (hay weighs more). Standing next to a regular bucket.

I thank you. I am ok with this level of weight loss but know it isn’t as much as some others

Thank you @Gingercar!

I'm going to collect up a bag of books (very easy here!) that weighs 50lbs and attempt to carry them around for a bit.

I’ve lost a human leg or a small child - I can relate better to that! I’m still on 5mg and hoping to carry on losing slowly and surely for a while yet. Six months is coming up towards the end of the month.

Hi everyone, I am tostaky, nc for something else and it has stuck!
Lovely to hear about everything we’ve lost!
@notgonnafail sorry to hear things are tough at the moment. A break can be good. Plus you have a lot of with the house renovation and your DH being far away. Dont be too hard on yourself.

I am 12 kg away from a healthy BMI (1.3/4 of a stone i think?) but i dont think i would look too healthy if i lost that much weight….
i think i might stop after 1 more stone (7kg) which is not too far away… so im thinking about maintenance and finding a provider that lets me order after 6 months if i want to. I will probably end up jabbing 1.25 every 7 days because beside the weight loss, i feel like all my perimenopausal symptoms have disappeared, i feel more motivated and so on. i dont want this to stop! Not yet.
my question is anyone else is thinking about a maintenance friendly provider? I wonder how many pens i need to buy before i am a “worthy” customer? I have been a real butterfly and not ordered from the same probider twice yet!

@Placestogo on the maintenance thread I think there is a link to a spreadsheet thing that has details of providers that do maintenance. I lurk there but don’t post yet, I’m going to titrate down my current pen and then I have one 2.5mg one that I will use to hopefully come off and a back up 2.5mg with a 2027 expiry date for emergencies!!!

I think as long as you have proof of previous prescriptions and of current BMI you will always be worthy 😘

So strange one for me this weekend, I jabbed my usual 6mg on Saturday night and by Sunday had bad stomaches that came and went over the next two days (still have them a bit now). I’ve never had that before - even when starting out I’d get D&V but not this low level ache. I am also under a lot of stress at work so might be a combo. Anyone else?

Also, for those of us who were talking about the generational attitudes to our bodies the other night, I saw my mum on Sunday and for the first time in my entire life she said I should stop losing now, or at most another 10lbs!! She actually said I look good! This has never happened! I have at least another 30lbs to go but so weird. So weird that it didn’t even feel good. Just weird.

A few people I know have had people say that, despite being well over their healthy BMI. I wonder why? Do people just not see us as it as we are? I think my husband doesn’t see me as big as I actually am. He never really has.

@HKG our guts and our stress levels definitely affect each other and that’s without MJ thrown into the mix! If nothing else has changed diet and exercise wise that might be it!

Strange isn’t it how “compliments” from some people feel like anything but!

@Gingercar yes! My DH is the same, he doesn’t think I should pay attention to the BMI range as it doesn’t reflect muscle mass and many other things. It’s a beautiful thing that they don’t see us as we are and love us just the same but it makes me wonder if he has a weird type of body dysmorphia with regard to me if that makes sense?!

@FlorenceNightshade I must read more on gut health, might be my missing piece! Yes also on the compliments, feels ungrateful but I almost thought at the time this is another example of you (my mum) not understanding me…

Good news here! I've been unwell with COVID/chest infection for 2 months - I got some different ABs earlier this week and I don't feel like 💩 today. Thank goodness! I mean, I'm not going to be running a marathon today, but I definitely think it's time for the dressing gown of doom to go in the wash.
Apologies, I know it's off-topic, I just wanted to share my news.

Although, I haven't had much appetite recently so weight loss is quite good. I'm getting back to regular meals today though.

Good morning
Thank you for the new thread @FlorenceNightshade
I’m a slow loser but am pleased to announce that I’ve lost the equivalent of the amount of cheese an average American eats in (1) year. 🙌

Only just catching up on this thread and it's great to be reminded of the weight equivalents list. It's bonkers. Somehow I managed to pass elephant's penis without noticing! How do you not notice an elephant's penis? LOL

Up to an Irish Setter but hopefully hitting the gold brick in the next few weeks.

I'm struggling a bit, mentally, at the moment. I'm in that place where I'm frustrated at how long it's taking to lose the weight. I have a lot of weight to lose and what with tracking everything I eat and drink, and working out 6 days a week, I feel like I deserve to see better results in the mirror. Someone give my head a wobble please.

@lissie123 it makes me sad to think that Americans don’t even eat good cheese! All that plastic rubbish-congrats on your loss!!!🥳

@AlicesMum2025 I think all you can do is try to remind yourself of how far you’ve come! You’ve made a choice to improve your health and stuck with it for months! I totally get progress can be hard to see but it is there! Elephant penises don’t lie!

But seriously maybe have a look at old photos, if you take measurements maybe review than. And don’t forget all the other non scale stuff like having the energy and bloody commitment to work out 6 days a week!! How’s your sleep, mood and water intake? Improved I bet!! Keep on keeping on you are incredible ✌️