Mounjaro -10 stone or more to lose - Thread 12

[TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne]

Thread 12!

Oh thankyou ,that is so kind of you to say xxxx

Wow ,you are an inspiration..that s amazing what you have fought against and won ..you must be so proud of yourself and it's fantastic how even though your husband left you didn't throw the towel in and go back to your old habits you kept on with healthy eating xx

Now that is very interesting, especially in light of what I know about my early years ..so my mum literally starved herself when she was pregnant with me .
She was very worried about gaining weight .so I was underweight when I was born and ended up in an incubator.
Now this was 1973 ,and by the time I was a year old I was as round and as fat as a beach ball and couldn't even stand up ,never mind walk ...all photos were hidden and I was so shocked when I first saw a photo of myself at 1 ,when I was an adult..
Apparently... according to my mum ,she was told to double up the powder in the bottle of formula milk ....from there I was taken to doctors appointments to monitor my weight...
I can remember hiding empty cereal bowls under my bed age 5 , because I knew I'd be in trouble for eating cereal..she pad locked the kitchen cupboards and no food was available other than what she decided was acceptable.
So lots of control there ..that when I got some control myself,I just put all the weight back on .
So early years are so important for programming the body for later years .

Wow, ladies your stories are heartbreaking. I have one too, but it remains untold except for two people, one who didn't believe me and one who did. Suffice to say I think our brains are probably the key to the weight loss door, if ther3 is such a thing.

@Springflowers2 - it does make sense doesn't it? My mum was an alcoholic in her forties who didn't even know she was pregnant, drank this terrible booze called Gold Label and never ate - so I was born both premature and severely underweight too. Childhood was chaotic and food not guaranteed, or prioritised. A friend of mine once said I did 'preventative eating', just in case I might one day get caught without food and end up hungry! I think she was right, and on some deep level - both psychological and maybe through the epigenetics theory - my mind and body are always preparing for the day when I'm starving again. It's all linked in with anxiety too I think.

I'm sorry you were disbelieved @Doggymummar - all too common sadly when it comes to heartbreaking tales.

I would agree.

I’ve been reading Why We Eat (Too Much) by Andrew Jenkinson and many of the things mentioned above are in there.

My story is not one of abuse but it does contain a lot of ED behaviours in various bits of my family, all of which were filtered through my young brain. I have been told I’m fat since I was about 7 or 8. I suspect the times I was fatter were when I was chubbing up before a growth spurt. I was put on diets from when I was 9.

And yet when I look at photographs of myself, I’m not actually particularly fat. I’m just not skinny, or skinny enough through that ED filter.

When I was 18 I had a tiny waist - it was either 19” or 21” I can’t remember now. I had a skirt which I wanted to make a net underskirt for and took to the needlework room for some help. Such was the universal perception of me that my teacher looked at the skirt and sneeringly said ‘that will never fit you’ and I said ‘well it does’ and put it on. It was snug but it wasn’t straining on the zip.

THAT was what I was dealing with. It’s like everyone saw me in a fairground mirror. It’s just very weird.

And it really sucks.

My poor brain and body are learning all over again how to just be. It’s exhausting!

Yes same ..
And now I over compensate,by very full cupboards..it took me a long time to realise I over bought food ,I panicked if there was not full cupboards for my children,and only through my counselling am I realising that it's ok to be hungry before a meal..
Because..well all of above
I'm so sorry this was your life as a little one @eibbed999 .. truly awful for you

Sending love ❣️ 😘

It wasn't all terrible @Springflowers2 - my mum had an addiction and that dominated our lives, but she was also very loving and deeply supportive in other ways. I look back and have huge amounts of sympathy for her, she was battling her own demons of booze, prescription drugs and depression, made worse by very bad relationships. She did the best she could, but it all had an impact. I remember going around to a friend's house for tea, and her mum always used to give me double what the dad of the house was eating - she was always amazed at how much I could 'put away', and I suspect knew I was eating what I could when I could! I'm sorry you had those negative experiences too. We should be proud of ourselves for at least trying to break the cycle.

So infuriating @TragicMuse - what a way to give someone a lifelong hang-up, it was bound to become a self fulfilling prophecy!

Thank you all for sharing your stories here ❤️

Some of your story resonates with me @TragicMuse , I was constantly called fat as a child and teen. I particularly remember primary school teachers being absolutely vile to me about my weight, and boys at school, and 'friends', and random strangers (almost always boys/men actually!) .Yet I wasn't THAT chubby! If I look at childhood photos I don't even look overweight, and I do remember kids in school that were much bigger than me. It was the 90s/2000s though so only skinny was acceptable I guess.

I do wonder if people were horrible to me partly because of my ADHD; I used to be quite silly and hyper and people didn't always like that, so as a teen I started minimising myself and withdrawing, staying home hiding and comfort eating etc.

A crap metabolism and anxiety are the causes of my weight issues I think, and growing up eating nothing but carbs and sugar and thinking that's a normal diet. I just hope I can fix myself!

Sending love to all 💐

Definitely.we should be proud of us ..xx

People were horrible to me at school because I was different. Autistic, but not diagnosed or recognised.

I was just seen as eccentric, and because I was also regarded as "a swot" and "posh" I had very few friends.

I hated school, but once I'd left and started working, I began to enjoy life. I found that I made friends easily. It was a revelation.

Starting nursing training was the making of me. We all had a common interest and I seemed to fit in.

I am proud of all of us!

Ooh and the dementia choir which I conduct won an award last night.

I see that I've written "I had a supremely happy childhood" - well, I did at home. My family was lovely.

However, school was a different kettle of fish altogether. Actually, for two years, I was a school refuser (which is common in autistic children).

I'm autistic too and was also a school refuser. I'm now dealing with it with DS and it's been a really heart breaking journey watching him on this path.

I hated school. My mum had issues which meant we moved house pretty much at least once a year for my whole childhood. I went to 12 schools although I stopped going in year 10. Like you @TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne I made friends in adulthood though and I'm very lucky to have good people.

Just catching up on the thread, haven’t been on in a while, I’m attempting maintenance now and while it’s going well it is a different kind of battle in itself and I am finding it harder than the weight loss. I actually miss weighing in weekly and seeing the numbers go down and feeling that sense of achievement. It’s weird because I definitely don’t want or need to lose anymore but I almost wish I did.

Thank you all for sharing your stories on here, you’ve all been through such a lot, which makes what you are achieving now even more incredible, you’re all such an inspiration. I hope you all realise how amazing you are.

It's really interesting how so many of us are ND here. I hated secondary school too, literally dreaded going in, like that sick sinking feeling every night and morning. I didn't mind primary as much but secondary was awful and strict. I didn't really come out of myself til my late 20s but even then I was playing a 'version' of myself to fit in. After primary school I wasn't really my true self til my 30s (when I was diagnosed, incidentally)

I'm really interested in your post @MummyInTheNecropolis because I'm almost at the maintenance stage.

How did you go down the doses at the end? I'm currently on 15mg and just about ready to start cutting down.

I've got two unused 15mg pens and I'll use them for as long as it takes. I mean, I won't chuck them out if they've been open for longer than 30 days. They're too expensive.

Wow, everyone's stories are heartbreaking but also inspirational- very proud of us all for tackling this when the root causes are often so painful. Also in awe of the adoptive parents who are doing an amazing job.

I feel like a bit of an anomaly. I had a happy secure childhood, parents were and still are brilliant people - was just a very loving, normal, uneventful homelife. School was similarly good - I was academic enough to do well without it being a struggle, nice little town school with lots of friends some of whom I'm still friends with now.

I'm in my 40s and feel like my whole life has been fairly happy and very lucky overall- obviously not all amazing but solid, stable, nothing traumatic to deal with (until my mum became ill a couple of years ago which has been really difficult).

Yet I've been overweight/obese almost my entire life - I remember being 8st at age 8 (had to weigh ourselves at school) and asking my dad if my weight would always be the same as my age and he reassured me it wouldn't...but actually for years after that it did keep pace and I was 20st at age 19. My parents and brother were a healthy weight (well, my mum was a little bit overweight but nothing like me), we ate healthy homecooked food, we were active, but from as soon as I could walk to the shops by myself I'd secretly buy crisps and chocolate with my pocket money and hide it all in my bedroom. I have always binged, always been obsessed with food and always had a huge appetite - I feel like my obesity has an entirely physical rather than psychological cause. A friend of mine who's also on MJ was having counselling a couple of years ago mainly to try to tackle her binge eating and she made a comment about it being linked to earlier trauma "as it always is" and I could tell she was sceptical when I said I genuinely don't feel like mine is - before MJ I was just always so hungry, could eat and eat and eat, and was plagued by food noise, whatever my mood. So I feel like having a medicine to treat the physical illness is exactly what I've always needed but I'm also very aware that I doubt I can maintain my weight loss without it and expect to be on some form of GLP-1 for life.

I was always obsessed with food for as long as I can remember. Stealing food, binging in secret etc. I’m glad you had a nice childhood and it just goes to show it’s not always traumas related.

I‘m incredibly moved by what you’ve all shared. So much resonates. Both on the physical side - I have always, from childhood onwards, wanted more food than was available - and the mental / familial - my parents and other relatives were SO focused on my weight. I’ve never heard the phrase “preventative eating” but it sums up so much for me! Growing up I always ate as much as I could because I never knew whether I would have enough at the next meal so needed to make sure when I could. My mindset was always - how can I get as much as I can?

Food - especially mine as I am the fat one - was so controlled at home. I used to sneak snacks up to my room. In the evening when I made my sandwich for school the next day I’d make a second one and sneak it upstairs. I also wanted sweet things so much and pudding was rare and usually “you can have fruit or yoghurt”.

When my mum is over she always tries to give my children fruit or yoghurt for pudding and I find it enormously triggering. My children, there’s always been access to snacks and to sweet things and they can help themselves and there’s usually a cake that I’ve made on the table under a dome - and guess what, they eat with moderation.

it’s no wonder our brains take a while to catch up with our bodies. Our brains have been wired in a particular way our whole lives. But the great thing is brains are plastic and endlessly rewiring and forming new neural pathways.

@TheBroonOneAndTheWhiteOne I never went higher than 10mg, after the price hikes I started stretching my pens out and only injecting every 10-14 days, and carried on losing at the same pace as usual. I hit target in December, and went down to 7.5mg, still injecting every 10 days or so. I’ve just finished my last dose of my 7.5mg pen and am going down to 5mg this week. I’m hoping to eventually drop to 2.5mg if I can but think I’ll probably stay on 5 for a while. I have way more food noise and less suppression but am managing to avoid overeating, I guess it’s partly the mounjaro and partly willpower/new habits etc.

I have increased my calories but I’m not tracking religiously anymore as I was getting too obsessed with it and I want to just try to eat ‘normally’ without counting everything. I’m still weighing myself weekly and if my weight does go up at all then I will start tracking again.

I actually carried on losing for a while as I was still trying to find the right balance for maintenance, so I’m currently 7lbs lighter than my original target, which is fine as my target was the top end of a healthy BMI, and it gives me some leeway if I do have a gain.

I’m exactly the same, I could’ve written this post. I’ve been obese and food obsessed my entire life. Even in photos of me as a toddler you can clearly see that I am twice the size of the other kids. My sister is exactly the same, neither of us have any trauma other than the usual stuff we all go through. It really does feel more physical than psychological for me too.

It's a bit like a crutch ,to hold us up ,food ...
A support, something to rely on .
To reach for in happy times , celebrating
To reach for in sad times , comforting.
We just didn't get the message when to stop ,what was a portion.
And also ,when you find at a young age ,it makes you feel better ,it becomes an addiction
And that is no different from the rest of society who are addicted to smoking,drinking ,drugs ..you could add extreme sports , gambling..
we are all searching for a high ..
maybe lack of dopamine..
maybe ADHD is massively under diagnosed
and all of us needing a crutch or a high of some sort need an aessment of ADHD .
I think there is a lot more social pressure on us ,than there was 30 Plus years ago ,to keep up with the Jones,to have the new phone ,new car ,new kitchen new season colour coat ,it's all pressure,
as is social media, it's a strong person who is not affected by that .
It's easy to comfort yourself with food when you can't afford the new phone ,new car ,new coat , because food is relatively cheap ( compared to a phone ect ) and easy to access .
Being an alcoholic or drug addict or smoker ,are in some ways easier to control than binging on food
You don't need drugs alcohol or smoking to survive,you can choose to walk away from it , although difficult
But food we have to learn to control,we can't walk away from our addiction with food ,we simply have to learn to manage it or we die , eventually from overeating or undereating .
A person who has never had an issue being overweight,is a rich person indeed

I repeat, you are all wonderful human beings. Reading about your struggles - whether childhood, adult, or simply the physical - is so moving. Thank you for sharing. Weigh in day, and a gain of a pound. It's a miracle it's not more.

SW: 307lb
CW: 237lb