Oh come all ye injectors, slimmer and maintaining, oh come ye, oh come ye to Thread Number Three! For all those who've hit goal, maintaining in whatever way they can / want to / aim to etc

[MargoLivebetter]

Welcome fellow maintainers to our third thread! Tis the season to be joyful and we do have reasons to be joyful, as we are still here. Not always the perfect journey and full of treats and temptations, but we'd have nothing to talk about otherwise. So hop on the Magical Maintenance Sleigh of Wonder and lets go! (Apologies to all those reading this for the first time in March! I got a bit carried away my festive season puns.)

Struggling since January...after 6 months on maintenance I gained over Christmas and NY then again on holiday...5 pounds over my maintenance weight and still on 10. I was expecting to titrate down by now but completely stuck I know I am repeating myself but it helps just to say it again to people who understand.

@Azuresky68 yes it is hard and very disheartening…
ive titrated down but ive just wolfed down 1/2 bag of kitten candy (healthier?? Still sugar!!), a bowl of salted nuts (proteins? Who am i even kidding!!), a glass of white wine and a glass of beer (it was begging to be finished)
i think wither i’ll reduce the numbers of days between jabs or i’ll increase the dose…
i feel like i have started something that i cannot stop… feeling very stuck now!!

ps im also with pharmulous and tbey did not accept my 3 months gap… i am on their maintenance program though

@Placestogo thanks for sharing...it's easy to think I am the only one struggling some days. How far did you titrate down? What happened with Pharmulous...did you have to start again at 2.5? It seems like suppliers are tightening up, maybe because if all the microdosing? I last got a delivery from Pharmulous on 2nd February so I need to order again soon. My plan was to titrate down to 5mg but use a 10 mg pen as it was more economical but here I am still on 10!

@Azuresky68and @Placestogo do you think some of it is boredom with it all? I have been struggling too and I’m in and out of my upper zone of tolerance and feeling fed up.

For me part of the problem is the long and desperate wait for bloody Spring to arrive and the weather to perk up and for me to enjoy salads again.

I wish I had words of wisdom or inspiration but I don’t! Just think it’s really tough sometimes.

Me too, I am eating so much junk (well, chocolate mostly). @MargoLivebetter I think some of it is boredom, some of it is old habits, mostly it's that chocolate is nice. @Azuresky68 @Placestogo we are all in a bit of a slump. I absolutely want to titrate down, especially as I got a bit messed about by Pharmulous who originally said I could take an ordering break, then changed their mind when I came to re-order a few months later. It got sorted out in the end but was stressful. I am determined now to get back to a maintenance dose of 2.5mg so it won't matter in future (but obviously that's going no-where right now).

I’m struggling a bit at the moment too, not with my weight which is stable and hasn’t changed, but with the way I’m eating. The urge to binge is back and I’m having one or two big binge days a week. I’m balancing this by eating under my calories the rest of the week so it isn’t affecting my weight (I also do loads of exercise every day which helps). But this isn’t how I want to eat, I just want to be normal, to eat my maintenance calories every day, enjoying the odd treat here and there within my allowance but without binging, like how normal thin people eat! Why can’t I do that?!

I don’t want to increase my dose, because I’m sure I’ll start losing again and I don’t want that. Maybe I just have to accept that this is the way I am and just be grateful that my weight is stable and well within my maintenance zone 🤷‍♀️.

I don't know @MummyInTheNecropolis but today I ate a lovely healthy breakfast, a big bar of chocolate and a protein bar for lunch, and vegetable soup for dinner because I was feeling guilty about lunch. It's disordered eating and very reminiscent of diets gone by. It's honestly behaviour that I thought I'd put behind me and the fact that I see it returning worries me a lot.

Yes that’s exactly it @OneThirdLess it’s so disordered and I really didn’t want to go back to this. I just wish I had more self control!

@OneThirdLess i am here with the disordered eating… it is awful.. trying to take each day at a time

the weather has an impact for sure but also work. My work is mentally exhausting and emotionally depleting and all i want to do when i am back home is snuggle on the sofa and treat myself…. (I am a therapist and it is hard to hear all day long really difficult stories - it is also very sendentary!!!)

Ah fellow weary maintainers, we need to remember to be kind to ourselves and not start beating ourselves up about "self-control". If this weight management malarky was straightforward and just about self-control we'd all be getting gold medals. For most of us, we have decades of disordered eating, poor food associations, poor portion control, emotional eating and so on.

I find it helpful to keep accountable on here, so if anyone else is up for it, how about we set ourselves a goal that we have a high chance of achieving to get ourselves back on track.

Mine is going to be that I start doing some exercise again. I've been so ill but I am definitely much better now and I need to start moving again. I feel sluggish and am tottering around feeling sorry for myself and over-eating as a result. I am going to make a commitment to myself that between now and Monday evening, I will do some exercise - so that is 4 sessions.

Maintained at 8 st 5 from August to December 2025 then gained 5 pounds after extended time abroad. Since end of January I have stayed the same at 8 stone 10 pounds. Have decided that I will have to live with those extra 5 pounds for a while as the only way I can lose is to cut down from 1250 to 1000 cals and it's not healthy for me at the moment with osteoporosis diagnosis and awaiting operation on my parathyroid. The stress of getting those 5 pounds isn't worth it. I am eating healthy, lots of protein, regular walking, a dance class and zumba class in between regular trips away. Still in size 8 and pretty good for my age! I am also going to stop feeling guilty about the cost of the jabs as life is too short ...heading into my 70's in July...I really don't feel that old and certainly don't act it 🤣🤣🤣

I agreewith everyone posting about the ongoing struggle...right with you all all - sending massive hugs 🤗💐🤗

It’s def harder to keep off the bad habits when we lower the dose. I was doing great on 5. Dropped from 15 as I’m hardcore 😂

Maintained for 6mths or so. Dropped to 2.5 in Jan and went wrong from there

went over my ballpark which is 3lbs - which isn’t a lot but if I have a 7lb ballpark I know I will get slack and hit the top weight

so anyway i wen back to 10 last week after doing 2w on 7.5 and finally today I’ve lost 2lbs and back in my happy ballpark of 3lbs which is 10.4 - 10.7

when it went to 10.8 I knew I had to do something

so feeling a bit happier tho equally poorer

hopefully I can get myself back int the swing of things and get back to 5 for cost

i know I keep saying it but roll on tablets as have to be cheaper

Well done @Blondeshavemorefun . Good to hear a positive story to cheer us all up.

On the subject of tablets, there is an article in the Financial Times today (that I get through work) on that very subject. Apparently in the US, doctors have already written 300,000 scrips for the Wegovy pill that launched in late December. Eli Lilly's pill is expected to get approval to go public in the US in late April.

The article also highlight that patents will be expiring in various countries for the jabs soon. Ozemipic loses patent protection in India, China, Brazil and Turkey this year and 11 Brazilian manufacturers have already filed for approval to make generic semiglutide. In India they are expecting 40 to file for the same. All of which will lead to a huge reduction in cost.

I do believe the medications will cheapen considerably in the next 5 years. So that is very good news!

5yrs 🙀🙀🙀 I will be bankrupt by then

i ideally wanted to come off it. You have @MargoLivebetter and survived

but I am not one of those people and fear I will be on for life

I did @Blondeshavemorefun for 5 months, but then went back on a micro dose last October as the bloody food noise was driving me mental.

I'm still fiddling around on the microdose. As you know I was a feeble lightweight and just the starter dose of 2.5 had a massive effect on me, so I never went higher. I'm on about half that weekly now to keep the food noise quiet. I've been struggling recently but I'm really hoping to get back to myself and shift a few pounds that have slipped on. It feels really hard going sometimes, but I'm very grateful I can get away with smaller (cheaper) amounts of MJ.

I wish I was a weakling and always a low dose - I wouldn’t object then

I felt nothing till got to 10 and even on 15 I still ate 3 meals

@MargoLivebetteryes i really value this space to vent about my maintenance struggles but also to hear about others experiences.
i will not up my dose (1.25 evry 6 days) and instead i will try to stick to healthy habits (gym, eating properly).
i am also still overweight and my original plan was to lose the remaining stone while on maintenance. I will still keep this in the back of my mind and hopefully, the return of the nice weather will enable me to achieve this!
let’s keep strong! 💪

Sometimes I need to remind myself how far I have come and 7s loss

the last 2 pesky pounds will take me back to 7s loss

That is so true @Blondeshavemorefun thanks for tbe reminder and well done to you! What a difference!!

I had an email from Cloud who I've used in the past about their maintenance programme. Looks like more pharmacies are looking to be more flexible around maintenance and dosing which is good to see.

https://www.cloudpharmacy.co.uk/weight-maintenance/?_kx=sW_rHl1IMDTu7UkZEWf2HKRY2bqRMf1Pks_S468Utd0.Rzf8nu

Thank you.

we need to beleive in our selves

Thank you for this @MargoLivebetter it actually really helped to read it. I am going to try and be kinder to myself and focus on my achievements rather than beat myself up for the odd bad day. I have lost almost 14 stone and have so far maintained it for 3 months, I should be celebrating that rather than feeling guilty and hating myself for overeating now and again.

I went to Sainsbury’s today and bought some new gym kit - I usually wear a size 10 but it looked too big so had to buy a size 8, which fits perfectly. That has also cheered me up! 15 months ago I was squeezing myself into a size 24!

Im still amazed how much you have lost @MummyInTheNecropolis- a whole larger person (before they used mj) or 2 slim short ones who have

@MummyInTheNecropolis 14 stone?!? Wow, wow, wow. You really should be celebrating that. Congrats and congrats on fitting into size 8 gym kit. Another non scales victory!

I think the triggers that made us overeat in our past are still going to trigger us sometimes. Maybe not as often and not always by as much but having lost weight doesn’t completely change our brains and emotions. But when it does happen we only have to take corrective action for a few days which is so much more manageable than when we had stones to lose.