Mounjaro -10 stone or more to lose - Thread 11

[TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne]

Thread 11?

How did we get to this point?

Ah well. We're doing so well. Do join us.

Aaah I can relate to every single thing you've said @diggitydoo , you've summed up loads of how I feel especially the difficulty of trusting yourself. I find it so hard to trust myself to keep at this and not get bored and give up, because having such a lot to lose is overwhelming.. it just takes soooo long! I find this thread really helps mentally because people here can relate to all these feelings. I don't talk to anyone in real life about it and only my husband knows I'm on mj. So I love reading people's posts here, it's a revelation. @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne mentioned always being the fattest person in the room and that's nearly always been my experience, especially with all my friends who are all slim. It's a lonely place to be, I dream of the day I'm not the 'fat friend' anymore, but I'm also scared that people will always just see me as fat even if I got to a healthy weight. Like I've been pigeonholed. I looked around in the waiting room at the salon the other day and yep, a full room but I was still the fattest one there. I've always been obese and I just can't imagine not being fat, I literally can't imagine it. I lost a lot a few years ago and looked and felt quite good but was still technically obese, then I put twice the amount back on.
1.5lbs down last week which was a pleasant surprise although I'm just wishing it was faster, I'm 4.5 stone down overall (1 stone off since starting mj in November) but I've not gone down a clothes size! I'm still a 20-22 and have been for years. I'd love to buy an 18 or a 16 again (actually I have a pair of Asda jeans that are an 18 and loose but they're definitely not properly sized, a lot of my 20s are a bit snug!)
Here's wishing power to us!!

Week 41 and I have hit 6st off!

My BMI is still 42, but given that I started at 55.5 it is a massive achievement. This never would have been even a dream before MJ, but now I’m living it. I keep having to stop myself from going on a splurge to buy lots of new clothes, I’m trying to stick to the basics as I drop sides, I’m now in 22s bottom half, still 24 on top, from size 28 but am looking forward to buying clothes in a shop that I’ve been able to try on first.

Still need to get exercising though, as this isn’t about being thinner for me but being healthier
and that needs exercise.

I do love that we are getting new joiners to our group all the time, and would say, that we were all where you are now, nervous and wondering if this would work. So, please don’t be afraid to ask questions or pour your heart out, this group has carried me so far and I would imagine it will continue to do so. And if you think a question is daft, don’t worry someone has probably already asked it in one of our many threads so ask away, no-one will think any less of you.

I can't get past 3mg. When I tried 5 I was desperately unwell. Twice since I've done 3.33 and had a whole day and night of bad diarrhoea. I find it frustrating as I'm not losing anything anymore. I've been in hospital 3 months and only lost 12lb.

How can just a few tiny drops make such a big difference?

Given the circumstances you've been in these last few months (in hospital away from loved ones, not able to exercise, new medications etc) I think it shows incredible strength and determination that you've managed to lose 12 pounds in 3 months.

Once you're setttled at home and able to get some more steps in it'll start to come off quicker (....and if for any reason it doesn't, just focus on the fact that you are losing and its heading in the right direction)

I've been in hospital 3 months and only lost 12lb

But that's 1lb a week (or thereabouts) @PearlTeapot and that's a normal rate of loss.

You're doing well. You weren't even in optimum circumstances and you still lost weight.

@TheZingyFish yippee, 6st, well done. We're on a similar trajectory, I too am at 6st loss, and my bmi has gone from 56 to 40.4. Its quite surreal when you look at the numbers isn't it.

I had a lovely chat with my hairdresser today. Im sure you're all sick of me wittering on about my hair thinning woes, but she helped me put things into perspective, and gave me some sound advice and tips on how to disguise it while the minoxidil starts working it's magic. So I'm feeling a bit better about it now.

It has made me think though. All through my journey, I've only really been bothered about the weight loss, and not really thought too much about how I'm fuelling my body. I've continued the cycle of self neglect, having gone from eating all the wrong stuff and far too much, to eating all the right stuff but far too little. And its culminated in my body having a wee tantrum and taking it out on my hair. All my own fault, and a kick up the arse for me to look after myself better. As Zingyfish says, this is about being healthier, not just thinner. So I'll be specially concentrating on protein, hydration and exercise from now on. Jeez, its not easy is it 🙄

@PearlTeapot fwiw, I think you're doing amazing. To lose anything in your circumstances is a wonder. And actually, 12lb in 3 months is 1lb a week, which is bloody brilliant. You should be proud of yourself, because we all are x

You three, what a plonker I am, you're all right! It's a pound a week which is significant. I just hope as has been said when I'm home and eating my food choices, and walking and exercising, things speed up a little. Because I can't go up a dose that's clear.

@Billybingbong worries about your hair are totally ok- I know for me, we have hid inside bodies we have hated but our hair was one of the things I could feel ok about. So I feel your anxiety about it.

You’ve got this, all the little bits add up over time, and to achieve what you have with the extra obstacles you are facing is amazing! Just think where you’d be without the MJ.

When I’m struggling with a small loss, I sometimes think if I wasn’t on the MJ I might have put on 2lbs instead of losing 0.5lbs in a week so technically I’m 2.5lbs ahead not just 0.5lbs!

I love reading your posts and seeing how resilient you are becoming, you’re doing so well. This isn’t about losing weight quickly but creating a new way of living for the rest of our lives and that is what you are setting yourself up for now.

@Billybingbong
Thank you, I think I said before I always follow your posts as we started at a similar time.

I am too getting a bit of hair loss, thankfully my hair was quite thick to start with so isn’t thin yet, and I might be paranoid but I feel it is thinning a little around my hairline but it gets may not see it. I am hoping that it will thicken up again in time as I don’t want to have to spend loads of supplements as well as all the money on MJ so I will keep an eye out for how you and others are getting on with them.

@PearlTeapot you’re doing amazing, it’s taken me 16 weeks to lose my latest stone and that’s on 10mg, I had a small surgery and biopsy in that time and 2 lots of antibiotics so considering what else our bodies are doing we’re winning.

@PearlTeapot I doubt if you can reasonably expect to lose more than 1lb a week now.
That's a good, regular rate of loss.
It's actually likely to show down even further.

For some months now, I've been losing between half a pound and three quarters of a pound a week.

Morning all! Just catching up with you all.

@PearlTeapot - you have done sooooo well! You've been in a tough spot and still managed to lose, and resist all those pastries the staff kept bringing you. And had Christmas and a birthday. Steady loss like yours is fantastic. Give yourself a pat on the back woman!

@TheZingyFish - I really liked that comment about the weeks when you have a very small loss, thinking that if you weren't on MJ it would have been a 2lb gain or whatever. I've never thought of it like that but it's very true. I love the fact that whenever I come onto this thread, I find something that encourages me or informs me or just makes me see things a bit differently.

Hope the minoxidil works for you @Billybingbong and glad a chat to the hairdresser was helpful. I am also focusing more on protein and have been eating poached salmon fillets and salad for breakfast (uggh) in an attempt to set myself off on a healthier track for the day. It's not easy, but we didn't get to be where we are today by having an intuitively good relationship with food, did we? I do tend to get quite obsessed with things and disappear down rabbit holes, and the hair thinning is just the latest I suppose. I'm now on the minoxidil tablets, taking bovine collagen powders, using posh Kerastase anti-loss shampoo and yes, eating bloody salmon fillets for breakfast - come on hair, give me a break!

On a similar note, I remember somebody mentioning hair removal for the face a few days ago - I've already got a gentle moustache developing, and the minoxidil might encourage it. I've never been an especially hairy person apart from on my head - I've never once shaved my legs or indeed any other part of my body - and initially I was determined to ignore the whiskers creeping in as a feminist statement! But now I suppose I'm thinking maybe it would also be a feminist statement to have a fuzz-free face, just like men get to do! Any recommendations appreciated, I know somebody suggested a gadget but I can't recall it (I suspect I should be focusing more on the memory loss and less on the hair loss...)

It was also weigh in day for me yesterday. As you might remember I gained a whopping 15lb over Christmas - the only thing I lost was my trust in both myself and MJ. It was all very depressing, that familiar spiral of abandoning all hope as I sat alone on the sofa and stuffed endless After Eights into my mouth. I've been back in control since the 12th, so just over a week. I feel much better, but still wary - I still don't trust myself and feel like self-sabotage is just around the corner, and now I know that the MJ itself is not enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. I'm doing the only thing I can, trying to be positive, trying to ignore the evil voices in my head, and trying to take one day at a time. I was 237lb before Christmas, 252lbs after. I'm now 242lbs, so it is coming back off - frustrating to be here again, but I only have myself to blame, and constantly whinging about it will just make me feel worse! So, as we always say, onwards and downwards...

@eibbed999 i ordered some Hair & Me supplements, then realised it would give me more of a tash so didn’t take. I already have to go to get it waxed off fairly regularly and certainly don’t want to up my visits!

These posts are very comforting, in real life the only people I know who ‘diet’ have a bit to shift but can do with short term focus.

I feel like it’s not that comparable to me with my starting weight.

Having to have a mental shift that this is a very long term project.

Great advice on this thread too. If this is going to work then nutrition is a priority and so is getting my head round not just waking up and having immediately lost 5 stone because i took the stairs and didn’t get a treat after my dinner. 😆

Great advice on this thread too. If this is going to work then nutrition is a priority and so is getting my head round not just waking up and having immediately lost 5 stone because i took the stairs and didn’t get a treat after my dinner.

That really made me laugh @MG2026 - I think we all have an element of that inside us! And yes, our weight loss road is vastly different and much longer than most people's. Also the reasons for us being here much more complicated, I suspect, so it very much helps to have people to communicate with who understand. A friend of mine - naturally slim, naturally good with food, annoying as hell really - said the other day 'I just don't understand why people over-eat and end up getting themselves into these positions.' You know, as though we'd just woken up one day and thought: hey, I know what would be really fun - being morbidly obese!!! Pass me the mash!

There were a million and one things I could have said or tried to explain, but I've reached the stage of life where I realise people who say things like that don't actually want to understand, they just want to feel superior. It's not my job to educate people who are devoid of empathy. So I just settled for saying 'No. You don't understand, do you?' and leaving it at that, which I think unsettled her a little because it switched the emphasis back onto her!

Thanks for the new thread Broon ❤️
just read through the last 4 pages, and it’s such a rollercoaster of emotions isn’t it. I think I’m now going through the process of trying/learning to love myself, believing that I am worth something but am also angry at myself for not thinking that I deserved that at 21+ stone. it’s definitely been an emotional journey

@eibbed999 it was the Philips lumea that I use for my beard and moustache 😁 it really works but isn’t cheap, and it only works on dark hairs, so I still have to pluck the occasional white/grey hair that appears. I use it on my armpits as well as they are now proper ‘pits’ so harder to shave, who knew that weight loss would give you dips in your arm pits! I hadn’t ever considered that.

@PearlTeapot so happy to read your updates, and 1lb a week is huge considering what you are currently dealing with!

Huge milestone for me today and I want to cry, I never ever thought this would be possible in my lifetime. I used to have stupid nightmares about dying and having my coffin wheeled on a trolley rather than having pallbearers - how daft is that!

I’ve gone from 21+ stone to 10 stone 5lbs, lost 2lbs this week which puts me into the normal bracket for the first time ever.

I need to try and work out what I want to now, my ultimate goal was to get into the normal range and I’m there, is it possible for me to see 9 stone something on the scales? This is new territory (I think I say that a lot) and comes with a brand new set of fears, I’ve already reduced my dose gradually from 15mg and am now on 10mg. I think I’ll stay on 10mg for the foreseeable.

I’m off to have a bit of a cry I think

Congratulations @Iwouldratherbesinging - I share in your amazement, and I even feel like having a bit of cry myself now! Well done, and good luck figuring out what normal looks like moving forwards.

On the coffin front...weirdly, one of my inspirations is that I want to donate my body to medical science. It's quite a complicated process, and the local teaching hospital you arrange it with said they don't accept overweight bodies. No idea why, you'd have thought they'd be more useful - maybe it's a storage issue, and us fatties are even inconvenient in death! But I am determined to reach a stage where I can fill in that form and feel confident it will happen. Not for everybody I know and slightly morbid, but your comment about the wheeled in coffin made me think about it @Iwouldratherbesinging

Sorry I haven't posted much the last few days, this thread moves so quickly it's hard to keep up!! But I am reading all your updates, celebrating the successes and empathising with the struggles.

My little win today is that I am on a training course today, which is away from my usual office and started a bit later than my normal hours. I therefore found myself in the staff canteen with time to kill and no breakfast. They serve a lovely full English but I wasn't even tempted - I knew there was no way I'd be able to eat it all. So I settled on one slice of wholemeal toast with baked beans and it still felt like a treat, and a bit of a reward for a really good run this morning - my longest/fastest run outside of parkrun for a long time!

I'm finding exactly the same ..yet I still want to loose another 4 stone .
I hadn't expected it to slow down so much ,when I still have plenty left to loose

Can anyone else tell when it's wearing of ,towards the next jab .
I'm always fancying something, looking for food ,and then I think ,oh its near jab day ..
I guess that's to be expected..but I thought it built up in our bodies..
But it worries me for when I have to come of the jabs ..I can really tell in the amount of food consumed,if I've just jabbed ,or about to jab ..
Currently just greatful the weight is not piling back on ,as it always have every time I've lost weight in the past

@PearlTeapot ..your doing amazing, brilliant,to still loose weight while managing your mental health..and being away from home ,plus over Christmas..
Wow hats off to you xxx

How have you all managed clothing yourselves during weight loss? I'm having anxiety attacks about my clothes starting to feel loose. I'm autistic so struggle with the actual process of changing. Do you replace clothes as soon as you go down a size? Or wear them till they're falling off you and then replace them? Something else?

I managed to get my weight down to a size 14 in my 20s, so have clothes of every size between that and 26 stashed in the attic. But they're 30 years out of date and I don't want to look daft.

@Springflowers2 it's very typical for suppression to lower around day 5 and 6, certainly that's something that I've often found. The medication peaks in your system at around day 2 or 3, and then starts to fall until half of it is out of your system by day 5. It doesn't all go by the time you do the next injection, so the amount in your system does build up. But once you've been on one dose level for more than 4 weeks you reach a steady state where the peaks of medication don't get any higher and the troughs don't get any lower. I've been on 10mg for months now, so I'm in the steady state. I find that the reduction in suppression on the last couple of days each week is manageable. If I started to find that it was a struggle for more than a couple of days each week then I'd think about going up a dose.

I am also very aware of this in terms of eventually coming off the medication. I think that titrating back down doses may help, as you get used to managing on less medication each week, if you can get used to that. If I can't manage then I guess I'd be looking at staying on it long term, and maybe trying again to titrate down after a period of time.

@Iwouldratherbesinging massive congratulations on making it into the healthy weight range!