Huge shock on the scales- is Mounjaro right for me? Please share your thoughts.

[OneOliveOtter]

Hello,

Ive been wanting to get back into horse riding to heal some trauma I had from my childhood. Riding schools understandably have a weight limit and the ones I’ve looked at tend to be around 13.5 stone, with a couple of outliers going up to 14 stone. This meant I had to weigh myself which I haven’t done since my pregnancies.

Im 5ft 9 and a size 12/14 on top (usually the matters as I have very large boobs, 32K!) and a 14/16 on the bottom depending on the shop.

I stepped on the scales and I currently wear 15 stone 9ish which was a bit of a shock. I know I am overweight- I have very fat thighs and my boobs are massive and my tummy is flabby. But I didn’t realise I could be quite so far away from being able to ride again. My BMI is 32 so I do qualify.

Has anyone used weight loss injections in this situation? Losing 2 stone on my own feels completely insurmountable. I already eat fairly healthy but I probably fall down in terms of snacking and sweet stuff.

I think I need some help but I don’t want to be silly about this.

My mum died of bowel cancer two years ago, she had struggled with her weight for most of her life and had brief period of losing a lot and then gaining it back. I have regular colonoscopies and have reduced my consumption of things like red meat, I don’t drink etc but I’m aware that not being classed as obese would be another step to staying as healthy as I can. Can anyone offer any advice?

I don’t understand the point you’re making, if you don’t change eating habits then weight goes back on as it does for any diet.

It’s not about returning to normal eating habits. It’s going from having very little/no food noise and much less appetite to then being back to ‘normal’ where you feel starving hungry and can’t help but to eat.

Its common sense that if you take away the food noise/appetite - it’s going to feel much stronger than it felt before when you were used to it.

That’s why it’s something like 6x faster that people gain weight on the injections compared to other diets.

If you’re morbidly obese then these injections can make a huge difference but if you’ve only got 2 stone to lose then you’d be quite silly to go on them, especially temporarily as you’ll likely put the weight straight back on and waste your money.

Ifs much better to try other methods first where it’s cheaper and have a better success rate long term.

I would try to lose weight without them first, before rushing straight to a medical solution. You say that you’re eating a healthy diet, but if you’re snacking and eating sweet stuff then you’re likely kidding yourself. Try cutting out the sugar.

Can I ask why you wouldn’t use it if you didn’t have your gallbladder out?

My friend is on 10mg but is putting on weight but she’s mentioned pain in her stomach and I said to get it checked but she hasn’t yet.

I wonder if that’s got something to do with it.
Although she’s also eating a lot and I wonder if her body just isn’t used to it perhaps.

I lost six stone on MJ, wasn't hungry after stopping & have kept it off, because I cut the MJ dose down to 2.5 for the last 2 months & upped my calories till I was eating 1800 - 2000 calories a day when I stopped. Most of the horror stories are people who stopped on a high dose (sometimes because the NHS pulled the prescription the minute they hit goal) & when they were on low calories, so of course once the high level of suppression went, they were ravenous.

That is the point I'm making.

It might be better to address the I think my main problem honestly is that I don’t really know what I’m doing nutrition wise. and the snacks, oils, sauces and sweet stuff.

2 st sounds insurmountable but 1lb a week over 7 months doesn't.

Never has the phrase 'common sense' been so misused as by people bullshitting about WLIs.

This. I’ve lost 2st over the last 12mnths using calorie deficit. I actually lost the weight in 6mnths but have been maintaining for the last 6mnths before starting the deficit again this month. I still have a stone to lose but wanted to make sure that I maintained eating habits.

I hate weighing stuff out and doing the calculations so used various containers to weigh out food to make it easier to quickly add up your calories. There are plenty of apps you can use to both record and estimate calorie content.

Totally cut out snacks. I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth so chocolate, biscuits and cake are not an issue. I do like crisps so buy flavours and types I don’t like for the rest of the household.

Virtually cut out bread, I use sourdough if I fancy some toast. Tend to eat brunch and evening meal rather than 3 meals a day and have retuned into my hunger centre so try not to eat to a schedule and eat when I’m hungry I keep a contaner of nuts handy and eat a handful (small) before I start food prep so I don’t pick. High protein and fat satiates the appetite rapidly.

Low carb is better than low fat to maintain, but I have the odd carb day. Life’s too short to go without cake forever.

Having a goal is useful. Mine is health issues. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea 12 mnths ago. I took part in a trial using a new monitor and was referred for conventional testing. By the time I was retested I’d lost the weight and no longer had sleep apnea. I do feel better without the weight.

I’m also a breast cancer survivor and being overweight is a significant risk factor for cancer, particularly breast cancer so it is part of my plan to reduce my overall risk of it recurring.

Worked for me- low dose ( up to 5mg) for 6 months . Lost 2 stone and then weaned off. Now currently working on maintaining the loss. It gave me the rapid boost I needed to get back in the saddle but I did notice I lost a lot of muscle as well as far so am working on consolidating my weightloss and toning up now.

I’m expecting I might need to use it again in the future to reset again if I find my weight has crept up. But hope a few months will be all I need. I’m fortunate that I got an effect immediately with a low dose. I also never took so much that the hunger went away entirely- just to take the edge off it and make diet and exercise work for me.

just wanted to add my experience with WLI
im only 5 ft, started at 10st 13.8lbs, am now 8st 6.6lbs and a happy size 10.

WLI have been incredible for me - I was very stressed, food noise was intense. Meals were healthy but I was constantly snacking and the cravings were awful.
like others have said, you’ve still got to put the work into it to make it sustainable long term. So I did my TDEE and kept my dose at a level which stopped the cravings but I was still able to eat properly. I think it also goes badly wrong for people should use it to hardly eat anything. I used it to help me change my diet, focus on nutrition and cut sugar out. Although now I’m maintaining I still track every day. I am also learning what my maintenance calories are. I also weigh myself daily, and it’s fascinating how some foods really cause inflammation with an overnight gain of over 3lbs - really helped me to be conscious of what food and drink does to my body! Me and DH go out most weekends for our tea, but I can’t remember last time I had a dessert. Just lost the habit of it.
Will I keep the weight off? I hope so, I’m much more active and have accepted I need to stay focussed on nutrition for life. And make sure I’ve got the right stuff to snack on if I need to!

You don’t think people would struggle to keep the weight off if they use a medication that reduces food noise and then come off of it??
It’s not just common sense but facts too - ask any medical professional.

You have to work hard to maintain it.
Its going to take lifestyle changes and mental effort just like any other weight loss methods but obviously the big difference is you’ve dimmed the food noise and it comes back afterwards.

Losing weight on MJ is easier but keeping it off is harder - this is very well known and a lot of posters have said they’ve put all or most of the weight back on.

Before going on WLIs people have to weigh up the pros and cons. Apart from the side effects, weight gain is one of the biggest concerns.
For some, they decide that WLIs are a good idea and they’d prefer to lose it and try and maintain it (exercising etc becomes easier) but they’re not a magic wand and for someone like OP who perhaps hasn’t tried other methods and only has a couple stone to lose then it makes sense to try other methods first.

This is what I’m doing, lowest dose only. I get hungry. I still have to exercise will power. But I get full more quickly. I too track. How long have you been off the medication? I started at 12st now 11, want to get down to 9.5 but sustainably. Really interested in your experience.

Not at all, and if you'd written this instead of your first post that would actually have been valid as the majority of it is sensible.

But for some reason, you decided to make claims about weight gain being 6 x faster (what?!) and then also said people should choose other methods with a better long term success rate. Which do not exist. There isn't even one thing that works better than long term MJ, let alone plural.

While I agree OP should weigh up all options, that does actually require accurate information. The fact is that as an obese person, she's not likely to lose weight and keep it off via traditional methods, no way round that one.

I‘m on it and have lost 3 stone in 9 months - usually around 1 or 1.5lbs a week. I’ve overhauled my diet and I feel so much better. I took a little break over Christmas and gained about 6lbs but I’ve now lost that and this is the year I’m going to lose the final
3 stone I need to shift.

It’s been totally life changing. It’s the most weight I’ve been able to lose in years and I love being able to wear nicer clothes and how much better I feel about myself. The naysayers say ‘you’ll put it back on again’ and yes of course there’s a risk of that but also, staying fat (and slowly getting fatter) also came with a load of risks too.

Definitely the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time!

3000 steps a day walking the dogs

Frankly that's a piss poor effort, what kinda dogs are they?

This meta analysis looked at 37 studies with over 9000 people taking WLIs and found on average people regain weight 4x faster.

I have seen a few studies saying 6x faster but this has multiple studies in 1 so perhaps more accurate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c050ljnrv2qo.amp

It is common sense that this would happen and I’m not sure why you find that difficult to understand.

There are loads of studies and articles saying similar, as well as posters own experiences.
For those that have maintained their weight, they’d all admit that it takes a lot of willpower and work to do so.

I don’t think it means no one should take them but it’s worth noting when weighing up pros and cons and for those with only a couple of stone to lose then they would probably have more overall success with a traditional diet.

That’s why I said IMO OP should try reducing her carbs, upping her protein and tracking her calories for 4 weeks (all things you’d have to do on WLIs eventually anyway) and if she’s not lost weight, then consider them.

It is not common sense that weight gain would be 6 x faster, which was what you originally said. That was ridiculous, and I note you're not trying to stick to it now. Even the BMJ review contained considerable caveats, not sure why you don't mention those? The large majority of material they looked at wasn't from the newest generation of drugs and they also had to model some of it. They think more research is needed! Unfortunately the coverage was much less nuanced.

It's also a fact that there's not one thing, let alone more than one, that's been shown to work better than sustained WLIs for a person of OPs BMI. And it simply isn't true that for obese people with only a couple of stone to lose (not OP tbf) they'd probably have more success with a traditional diet- there is no evidence of this at all. Even at OPs height, a couple of stone actually shaves four points off BMI and takes her to almost the middle of the overweight range. It is not some small amount.

Again, you could have recommended OP try other things first without making blatantly incorrect claims.

As a (ex) chronic dieter I would not recommend any dieting. Healthy eating and exercise are the way to go. I'm on WLI now after 20+ years of chronic dieting and hypothyroidism and I try to discourage everyone from starting on the diet bandwagon. It's such a slippery slope and you just get bigger and bigger until you end up HAVING to rely on WLI. Don't start on that road now. It's a relatively small amount you want to lose so just try and eat healthier, a little bit of calorie counting is ok and up your exercise. Maybe aim for 10k steps instead. Lots of small steps

This is absolutely correct. It’s a fact that dieting from a point of obesity BMI 30+ to a healthy weight is less than 1:740 chance of success. Then - of those incredibly stoic ‘1s’ 78% put it all on and more in 5 years. Whats also important is that constant dieting causes insulin resistance (which was me) that’s why MJ worked so well for me. I didn’t need to make any lifestyle changes as l have always cooked from scratch and don’t eat upf. I just had no portion control.

I lost 8st over 1 year and 2 months and have maintained since Jan 2025 on 5mg every 10 days.

I also started riding again after a 25 year break. It’s the best part of being a size 8.

Best decision I ever made. Bmi from 31 to 19. No side effects at all (well constipation that’s manageable). Size 16 to an 8/10. Now working my way down the doses with no problem. I’ve changed my whole lifestyle. No fizzy juice. I ran daily. I focus on protein and I still enjoy eating out or takeaways very occasionally.

I only just saw this post. I was wondering what you decided.
I haven’t ridden for a good few years now because I was too heavy. My horses are retired now anyway.
If you do decide to try WLI and you think your food choices are your issue, perhaps try something like Voy or Juniper that includes advice and guidance, or doing it alongside slimming world or weight watchers?
ps, with big boobs, if you do go riding try a minimal bounce bra or even a swimming costume over your bra. (also big boobed myself!). Good luck, hope you get back into it and have fun.

Ps, I agree with the don’t diet, change your eating habits comments. I like Voy for that, they suggest the balanced plate method. I did my first couple of months with them, but then went for cheaper providers. I’m four stones down, mostly from cutting sugar and processed foods. I’ve just eaten whole, healthy food, no low fat or diet stuff.

They've not addressed the shit they ate before that's why. I have been a month off Monjaro and I gained a stone over Christmas and I am going back down in weight because I am mindful of what I stick in my gob. I do feel hungry but I know I won't die from starvation if I don't eat more food that my body doesn't need. You have to train your body to eat properly. The Mounjaro doesn't teach you that. I could barely look at food when I was on it I had to force myself to eat and that's not healthy. I would say 80% of my diet is good I just need to sort out the weekend laziness.

Mounjaro probably is the brilliant drug people think going by my experience and 95% of people on here!

Go for it if you can afford it OP, why wouldn’t you? I’ve been on it a year, lost 4 stone and gone from bmi of 29 to 22. I feel fantastic and haven’t had any side effects.

I’ve been on it 16 months and lost 4 stone, slowly and carefully. I’ve changed how I eat though don’t deprive myself of anything, just eat less and try to eat healthily 90% of the time. I never fancy more than one drink now either if that which has huge health benefits. I’ve had almost no side affects really (little bit of acid indigestion but only if I eat rich food or too much) and just massive benefits.

All my aches, pains and inflammation went within about two weeks. I lost weight easily but steadily. I feel about a million times happier in myself. I feel like me again. I’ve got half a stone to go to be back at my pre pregnancy weight.

So my view is go for it. Stay on as low a dose as you can. Try to change your eating habits. Being on MJ makes that easier. Then you’re more likely to stick to them when you come off.