Give me a boost!

[Movinondown]

Have been on mounjaro best part of a year, only lost 10lb..... I was on 7.5mg and am the same weight I was in June, no more no less. So obviously even with the MJ I am eating at maintenance.

Came off it a few weeks ago as had COVID and felt awful for a couple of weeks and just forgot to jab so have wasted a couple of weeks of 7.5 pen.

Looking to restart but feel so crap about how little progress Ive made. I don't have bad side effects, do feel suppression and reduced food noise, meal plan, high protein and weight train 3 x per week, feel like I'm doing everything I should but it's just not working.

Turn 40 next July and would love to give it some Welly and be close to target by then but just feel so demotivated by my rubbish progress. I have a friend who has lost the amount I wanted to lose in the last year and she's done so well. She doesn't know I was also on mj at the same time thankfully!

Also since price hike it's such a lot of money to spend if no results, I have the money but only just and feel so guilty spending it with no results. Considering switch to wegovy but that would probably be even less effective

Any advice, support, insight welcome to give me the boost I need! Or some tough love / reality check!

Are you calorie counting?

I know lots of people don’t like to but if you feel like you are doing everything right but still not losing you really need to monitor your calorific intake very carefully to see what is going on.

So, what is your daily calorie deficit based on your meal plans compared to TDEE and do you think your calorie tracking is accurate? I’d be trying to figure how why/how you’re eating at roughly maintenance rather than a decent deficit.

I do track on nutracheck, aim for 1600 calories (suppression has never given me the ability to eat mega low cals like some people) I would be happy with slow steady losses but aware that I'm probably just eating around maintenance when it's all averaged out. Without mj I struggle to stick to 16-1800 cals daily. Maybe with a high dose I could aim for 1400...

it depends on what your TDEE is.

Just calculated TDEE at 1836... So yeah I should be aiming more 1300 for lb a week .... 😔

Increase your protein, I did 45 mins exercise today and ate 1259 and I'm quite happy with that. I have 80-105g protein a day which fills me up and drink water inbetween meals or if I'm feeling snacky and it helps. Higher protein low cals (no exercise until today) has gotten me to 58.7kg 9st 3lbs bmi 23.2 and I lost continuously over the year, other than 6 weeks in that year where I ate too many carbs.
Yesterday I had 800 cals, 70g protein, because it was after jab day and id done the golden dose around 10mg and was highly suppressed, and lost 1.2lbs overnight. It was a lazy day so I didn't need many cals.
1600 is probably too high to lose weight if your maintaining, but check your tdee on tdeecalculator.net and keep an eye on your macros, lower carbs where you can.

I guess your choices are review diet to see if you can make it more satisfying with less calories, or up dose.

Is your high protein whole food and minimal UPF/bars/drinks, with lots of veg, some healthy fats to fill you up? Plenty of water?

You could try putting a couple of days meals into ChatGPT and tell it to tweak to make it 1300 calories and more satisfying and see if it comes up with ideas for you.

@Movinondown you could reframe the last year as managing to lose a small amount of weight rather than putting on more weight than that. Mounjaro has helped you to stabilise and slightly reduce your weight. So it’s not “no results” compared to not taking the Mounjaro.

I would gain massively on this. I only lose weight at 800idh calories. It’s nothing but my digestion and metabolism must just be really slow. It’s made me very aware of why I couldn’t keep it off

Sorry my previous post should have said higher protein, low carbs not cals though at times I have low cals, I generally aim for 1000-1200 a day.

Thanks, I already eat high protein though, easily hit around 100g daily (probably wouldn't on 1300 cals tho!)

Breakfast: protein Yog, 20g muesli, chopped apple - 300 cals

Lunch: chicken ceasar salad or protein ready meal 350-450 cals

Dinner: spag bol / chilli and rice type meal
650 cals

Milk in coffee throughout day 150 cals

1550 cals and then yeah probably 200 cals worth of fruit / other snacks taking me closer to 1800

I struggle to eat less than this, could probably cut some carb from evening meal to bring it down a couple of hundred

But this should be enough for someone, why is it so hard? I rarely drink alcohol, don't have takeaways, try and be mindful at weekends, maybe I just need to keep working up to highest dose of mj?

Ok a few things here

1. According to the instructions you can go back to the same dose you were on if you’ve only had a 2 week break so you don’t need to start back at 2.5mg
2. What does a day of food actually look like for you?
3. How carefully are you tracking your calories, are you weighing and measuring? You don’t have to do it forever but a couple of weeks helps to really get a good idea of portion sizes, they can be surprising.
4. Are you drinking enough, you need around 2 lts of fluid a day, fat breakdown is a chemical process that uses water, if you don’t have enough then that process can’t work.
5. Are you sleeping enough? Sleep affects hormone levels that have been found to affect weight loss and hunger signals.
6. When you’ve calculated your TDEE what activity level did you set? I usually set mine to sedentary unless I can be very very sure I’ll be doing at least 3 vigorous activity sessions a week.

Agree. Friday I had 1489 cals and gained 1lbs overnight. I did have a high carb day and it came off yesterday after 800 cals on Saturday, low carbs.

I would reduce your card and increase your fibre. So with your ur evening meal id reduce your pasta or rice by half say, then add in loads of roast veggies or salad to bulk it out

I set TDEE calculator at sedentary, I AVG 7-8k steps a day plus 3 X weights workouts a week in gym. Try and get more steps at weekend, 2 young children mean sleep and opportunities for cardio are limited!

You didn't gain 1lb of fat overnight by eating 1489 calories, but you will have gained water weight if eating more carbs than usual

I think what is frustrating is I have a really good understanding of calories, macros, science based nutrition, I just can't seem to apply it! Or I can apply it but it still comes out at too high calories!

I already know I can't stick to 1400 cals a day without help, I've been trying for 25 years! I guess my really question is, with my limited success so far on mj is it worth paying £250 to go back on it at 7.5mg and give it another shot!

I rarely have rice and not eaten pasta in 13 months, it's the price to pay when losing rather than maintaining. You could cut down the carb portions if you don't want to do without it? Weigh them out.
Also you could reduce the fruit as its mainly sugar which causes sugar spikes which increases carb and sugar cravings and you can take vitamins for the nutrients. 650 cals is a lot of cals for an evening meal, you could have chicken and veg and sweet potato, chicken is lower fat than beef. Muesli is also high on sugar.
I hit 100g protein easily on less than 1300 cals, I have protein shakes for breakfasy and high protein yoghurts as a snack. I use almond milk which is very low calories.
That's just a few tips but then it's upto you after all as it's your body.

Thanks, all good tips, I did 2 years v low carb and that was the last time I lost a significant amount of weight, so I guess that is the way to go, just can't bring myself to do it while hog again, don't want my diet to look massively unbalanced for my kids, but yes could probably reduce pasta type meals

You could try wegovy? Some say its weaker but some have had good results and if you've been off MJ, you may do well on wegovy.
Yes I knew it wasn't fat gain but water weight, as I generally lose regularly with low carb and had a high carb day. Though my tdee is 1530 so it was close to the top of my maintenance cals so i was concerned and it's still disheartening to see a gain after working hard to lose.
I'll be moving on to wegovy next week at 1.7mg due to hair loss and hoping it helps, I'm also 3lbs from maintenance so wanted to use it for that.
Hope you make a decision on what to do.

That 1lb had nothing to do with calories, it was water retention because of the carbs. You can’t gain or lose 1lb of fat overnight.

Thank you! Good luck with the last few pounds and hope the hair loss subsides, you may find it does when you are at maintenance

Yes have considered wegovy it's cheaper but not sure it's significantly cheaper if it's less effective if you see what I mean

Yes you would have to try it to see if it helps. I have read some good reviews. A friend is on it from 15mg to 1.7mg, which was ok and now 2.4mg which she says gives super strong suppression. Another was on 10mg stalled for months and has started losing again on 1.7mg. There are many who say it is not as good as MJ.

I never said that it had anything to do with fat on any of my posts. Clearly i said it was a high carb day. My point being a lower carb diet is better.

@Movinondowni had to go very low carb when I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes last year. I’ve always had PCOS and got GD when pregnant too. Having spent over a year tracking my glucose levels I can say with absolute certainty that my body cannot handle carbs, even the ones that are supposed to be good for you cause my sugar levels to spike and stay high for hours.

Looking at your diet I actually wouldn’t make huge changes, if your TDEE is just under 1900 then 1400-1500 calories a day should result in consistent losses.

I’d ditch the granola with your yoghurt and switch out the carb element of your dinner for veg. If I’m doing spaghetti bolognaise for the family then I have the bolognaise with greenbeans, if I’m doing lasagna then I hold back some of the meat in red sauce and use it to stuff a couple of big mushrooms or hollowed out peppers and bake them at the same time, if I’m doing chicken and potato wedges then I’ll have chicken with a frozen steamfresh bag of tender greens or a portion of roasted broccoli.

I’d cut out the snacking and muesli or cut down portion size for dinner,

Right I'm giving it one more go, ordered a 10mg but might only give me a 7.5 as I last ordered a while ago, see what I get!

Will focus more on reducing carbs and cals down to 1300 range and see how I get on!

Thanks everyone, helped to refocus a bit!