January 2025 starters - it's our anniversary!

[HeidiLite]

new thread, losers!

and as for cost, I posted on another thread - if someone had asked me that would you agree to pay about 35 eur per week to be slim, I would have bitten their hand off.

Congrats @26inprogress on the job! Enjoy shopping for your new work outfits!

@meatyryvita well done, you’re so close to your goal!

thanks for sharing that link @HeidiLite i think it’s good we’re seeing more maintenance dosing research.

Mid-week weigh in and I’ve put the kg back on to get me back into my preferred 58kg+ range. I am finding myself hungrier this week, and no ‘post-meal’ nausea which is good. Also, energy is up this week. I’ve done two 30min Peloton rides and walked to the station every day. Could be the brighter mornings, could be the Vit d supplement I’ve started, or could be the slightly lower dose…

Unfortunately I did eat a whole kinder bueno yesterday - after someone offered to ‘get me a snack’ and I was having quite a shitty day at work. It’s been a while since I’ve used sugar as a pacifier, I’m wondering if I can be more mindful and just have a cup of tea next time. Tbf if I had gone to the cafe myself I would have picked up a dark chocolate bar and probably only had a couple of squares.

Anyway, it’s Friday, am WFH today, need to get up and move before I’m chained to the laptop for the rest of the day!

Who are people using for maintenance? I’m thinking of options in case Voy are tricky (they were picky on a previous order even though my bmi is 22.5).

I also think I’ll take long term but want to wean down from my 15mg soon (2.5lbs to go!).

Congratulations @26inprogress. Loving all the good news.

@BlueLimes I’ve been using Oushk but today I finally bit the bullet and filled in the assessment for weprescribe. I’ve been discussing things over email since Oushk first pissed me off and was impressed with their responses. They have a good trustpilot rating and they are cheaper than Oushk so fingers crossed. I’ve got my video consult on the 20th.

Weighed in - dropped to 8st 7.8. Not sure how or why.

Thanks @Jins that must be your ultimate goal ? I seem to remember you said you wouldn’t mind 2 more lbs.

@BlueLimes I’ve had 81/2 stone in mind from the start but I’ve not actually been aiming to lose weight to achieve it. I’ve been steady at 8 10.2 since before Xmas and was happy with that. BMI is 21.2 so I’m not worried.

I have another unexpected side effect.
So of course I needed to change my entire wardrobe. My wedding ring is too big and I really need to get it re-sized, wearing it with a plastic adjuster at the moment. My feet are about half a size smaller, very annoyingly between sizes now.
But it's quite sunny here and I just discovered my sunglasses look funny. Face has gone from square to oval and they don't suit me any more.
Weightloss is expensive!

Had maintenance consult with Pharmulous, not really anything much to say. They don't support anything off label (so no changes in doses or timing), don't offer any discounts for maintenance. They do have a 12 month period that you can restart in if you stop injecting.

I’ll keep pharmulous on the back burner based on that I think. I need to find one that’s a bit more relaxed about spacing doses. Depending on how my video consult with WePrescribe goes my plan is to switch my Oushk maintenance plan to their flex plan for a while at least as I titrate down but hopefully a few more will get on board with off label prescribing. WePrescribe do have a referral code system which isn’t my preference but they also seem to do 10% off as a regular discount so I’m still paying less even if I include the Oushk flex plan fee.

I’ve got a 7.5 and 5mg pen stockpiled ready for titrating down but I ordered another 10mg this time as it was a good price with my new customer discount. £224 including delivery was just too tempting for my last chance of an old school pen. Seeing as I seem to be losing weight at the moment on my current dose it’s obviously time to titrate down so that’s the plan.

I’m having my first full Mother’s Day with my lads tomorrow. It’s only taken 31 years 🤣. They’ve always gone to the massive celebration that MIL demanded, initially to spend time with their cousins and later to act as security for DH. Family dynamics can be complicated 😡. We have a meal out booked and will go for a few drinks first.

I’m also wondering what to do re: maintenance provider. I’ve got 2 x 5mg pens in the fridge. I’m on 1.75mg dose - so technically enough for 28 weeks. Which takes me to end of September. My last order from Oushk arrived end of Feb. So I could order another for mid-April. Or I could speak to them and say I want to take a break until September. If they insist I go onto their flex plan that’s £60. Or if I move to Pharmulous I could order a 5mg to get on their books plus I assume I’d have to pay £30 for a maintenance consultation, but then I’d be able to wait until November to order another pen. I’m fine with going back to 2.5mg for a first order as I’m hoping to be on 1.25mg by then anyway. Decisions decisions.

I’m having quite a stressful time at work, I think the MJ is helping to prevent me from catastrophising which is good. But it’s rather frustrating to have worked so hard on something that might be blowing up in my face. I’ve been quite a grump this week, and I’m not looking forward to managing this while DH is out for two weeks from Monday. Trying to remind myself that two weeks ago I was casually managing a breast lump investigation and a death in the family. So a not life-or-death work issue should be less stressful.

@Jins enjoy your Mother’s Day tomorrow. Sounds long overdue.

Morning all. I had one hell of a week at work. I’m too tired and all old for all this nonsense. And regretfully chocolate has got me through it all. Weight is up. MJ does not seem to be making a jot of difference to my appetite. I’m now torn between upping my dose to 7.5 and having to suck up the additional cost or just giving up all together as the lower doses really do not seem to do anything at all. I really need to get back to that level of suppression I had this time last year if I’m ever going to lose another stone. I’m so fed up with how I look, especially my face.

@Jins that sounds splendid! I hope they spoil you rotten.

@MJalltheway hmmm that sounds a bit disappointing. I wasn't really planning on switching as I have found them pretty efficient so far but I may look around a bit. I don’t actually know what I want from maintenance yet - ideally I’d love to be able to titrate down to 5 or inject every 10 days purely because I would like costs to reduce (I’ll have 2 lots of bus fares for college to fork out for in September plus uni to save fior).

Oh my lovelies!

@DGmaintaining I think given you are happy going onto 2.5, that 12 month option of a break seems smart. I am sorry re the work stress. I think it’s the insidious nature of it - the family and health stuff is part of being unfortunately so worrying and stressful and upsetting but part of life. Work stress is invariably cause by people being twats and is theoretically avoidable a lot of the time (excluding medical/social care type jobs obvs). So I find the futility of it utterly draining.

@Polkadotdash I am sorry it’s so awful. Firstly no beating self up for chocolate. You only have so much you can cope with at the moment. How does MJ affect your mood? I know for some it can make them flat. If it doesn’t do that to you and you can afford it, maybe going up a dose could be helpful not just weight wise but because it takes it out of the equation with other things you have going on (it works like this for me - I don’t stress eat on it so it then also lessens the stress associated with that). But that would only be my suggestion if it doesn’t flatten your mood. Is looking for another role on the cards? Or this current shit show ending?

@DGmaintaining it was £10 for a maintenance consult with Pharmulous for me - is it different if you are not already using them? I'm also going to check out Lotus, who I've had a pen from before, but that was during the pendemic.

weighed today at just under 70kg, so have been at/around goal since January now. Have consciously upped my protein this week (although seems a bit pointless as can't work out at the moment!) and discovered that Greek yoghurt mixed with a scoop of protein powder is delicious so that with a load of berries is my new favourite dessert!

Eldest is home from uni for the weekend, always a delight. Amazing how much it changes the dynamics in the whole house to have her back, the other DC are much nicer 😂 So we're off out for Mother's Day meal this evening cos youngest is at a school event all day tomorrow. Middle DC is having second thoughts about uni choice for September so is picking the brains of eldest for some tips.

I waited too long to apply for the job I liked the look of (closing date was Monday 16th so had planned to focus on it this weekend) and the advert closed early 😭 back to the drawing board!

@myladyjane the bloody project runs for another 18 months. The whole thing is a total mess and it’s not going to get any better with the way it’s currently being managed. I need to win the lottery and escape! And I don’t really know if MJ has an effect on my mood as I’ve been on a big whack of Sertraline for the last ten years so that might counteract it.

sorry to hear about work troubles.

Enjoy Mother's Day @Jins and of course the rest of you too (ours over here is in May).

@MJalltheway ah disappointing but I always think in similar circumstances that it just wasn't meant to be.

I'm thinking about watching the Manosphere with DS this weekend.
What do others with boys think? DS is pre-teen and claims there haven't been any talks about those topics at school. But he keeps insisting he wants to move from his small academic independent school to local comprehensive. I am thinking about it, but I'm sure there must have a few Andrew Tate fans there. So I would like to convince him how ridiculous those influencers are, just as a pre-emptive strike.

@HeidiLite both my teen boys describe Andrew Tate as a ‘melt’. They know he is an absolute joke. As long as kids understand the difference between rage bait content for engagement clicks and normality they will be fine. Tbh in my experience kids actually aren’t interested in the type of content he produces. It’s boring and old fashioned and doesn’t really appeal to Gen A.

@HeidiLite my girls have two very kind boys as boyfriends (one today agreed it was my motherly duty to show him a picture of dd age 5 pretending to be an actual deer, the other helped dd2 as she got really panicky in a stressful situation).

But I hear stories from them, from their friends about a worrying trend from some boys in their year being controlling, some sexist and racist tropes being run out without challenge by mates etc. I just asked dd and she said Andrew Tate isn’t a thing but there are definitely pockets of manosphere type influencing happening. this is a reasonable size comprehensive in a semi rural area, pretty good results and aspirations wise. the boys who seem most taken with this are actually a group of high achieving top set lads, destined for good a levels and uni so you may hope had the intelligence to see this for what it is (they are 16).

We watched it last night with our son (nearly 14) last night. He dipped in and out, but seems fairly unaware of anything like this in his school. I expect that's mostly to do with the kids he hangs out with, rather than anything else.

I'm having such an amazing time doing the pilates teacher training. It feels like it's a game changer for me, and how I move my body, before even thinking about actually teaching it.

@Polkadotdash work is such a huge part of our lives it's awful when it's miserable. Solidarity to you

@MJalltheway love yoghurt and fruit with or within protein powder. I have had it for breakfast the last two days (I usually don't eat breakfast) and it's lovely.

Happy Mother's Day everyone. I haven't been able to post because of an issue with the app.

@26inprogressI ended up having my appointment cancelled and moved to Friday and it ended up being with a nutritionist who specialised in emotional eating where as the other one was more sports nutrition. Pros and cons! I thought one of the reasons I might be binge eating was all the extra exercise.

She suggested that I need to eat regularly and mindfully. It was a 30minute consultation so limited in what she could offer.

I have a 90 minute one on Tuesday with someone I've paid for and I should come out of that with a more solid plan and then I have her in the end of WhatsApp for accountability. I really hope it works. I know I'm struggling with binge-restrict but I've put on weight so I want to diet which leads to binging, so for now I think I need to concentrate on three well balanced meals and hope these stop the binge desires (and if not mj is there).

The app is doing strange things so I'm going to do a different post to respond to others!

This makes me want to jab again. Although I came off as I went on to ADHD medication, but sadly it hasn't helped as I binge when the medication wears off.

I maintained successfully, eating what I wanted, without thinking about it for 7 months on 2.5mg.

@MJalltheway sorry to hear about the job

@Polkadotdashas someone who has been off for coming up to 3 months and with a 1 stone gain I'd suggest staying in if you want to lose! I thought the 2.5 wasn't doing much as I was able to eat and also put on a couple of pounds over Christmas, but I think it definitely made a difference

I totally get that. I stay off, as when I look at I logically I'm maintaining and although I think about it, it's not consuming me and it's not disordered eating. Just disordered thinking from a lifetime of worrying about my weight.

It's also interesting that over on the maintainers thread there seems to be a lot of people who are experiencing similar challenges but are still on MJ.

So, I wonder if there is a moment when it stops working with the brain so well?

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

I had steak and chips yesterday with DD and it was delicious. Spending today Vinting mostly.

I went to order from Oushk using their Mothers Day discount and they wanted to book a video call to progress, so I bit the bullet and used my Oushk points to pay for a maintenance call next week.

Has anyone done an Oushk maintenance call? I am worried they will refuse me as even fully dressed and in the afternoon, I won’t register above 20 BMI …

Happy Mother’s Day losers! I have had a delicious pastry and a coffee in bed. DC are still asleep.

Took the last of the dregs out of my 2.5mg pen and got 0.38ml which is about 1.58mg. So a bit under my planned 1.75mg dose. Will see how this week goes and whether I do 1.5mg next week. Weight is 58.3kg so am very happy with that. Next week is a 5mg pen, so that’ll be 18 clicks if I want to do 1.5mg. 21clicks for 1.75mg.

Either way, hunger has definitely increased a little this week, but not in a worrying all-consuming way. I’m back to rifling through the cupboard when I’m home from work and waiting for dinner to finish cooking, but it is usually about 8pm and lunch would have been 12 or 1pm. I think I need to have a decent protein leaning snack for late afternoon at work, as I’m definitely gravitating towards the biscuit jar on my colleague’s desk. Will top up on babybels, oatcakes and maybe bring in a small pot of Greek yog to have with some honey and nuts.

Given I’m maintaining, I don’t want to increase the dose if I can help it. Even with all the cake and biscuits I’m eating the calories aren’t turning to fat just yet - I’m somehow burning through them. But if I can replace those calories with more protein and fibre then I think I’d feel better overall.