Six months on max dose. I feel no different, have lost bugger all. Now what?

[ArdAz]

I have about 4 stone to lose. Mid 50s. Sedentary job but I'm active outside of that. My main issues are binge eating at night, too big portion sizes, but my brain tells me I'm still hungry if I try to cut these back too much.

I started MJ last year and have been on max dose for approx six months.

There's been a tiny reduction in my appetite. I recognise I am eating less than I usually do, but the desire to eat crap at night is still huge so it is all still a big battle that I'm losing.

I was so hopeful that MJ would be a magic bullet, but it just doesn't seem to be working on me to reduce the food noise sufficiently for me to be able to reduce my eating to affect my weight.

I am eating a bit less, and have lost a few pounds, but I thought it would be a few stone by now! I just can't see it happening if the MJ isn't quieting my brain.

Has anyone else been on max dose and not just not lost the weight, but not felt that MJ is really helping? Certainly not enough given how expensive it is, which is another issue!

You need to set yourself a rule to not eat after 8pm and stick to it. Say to yourself you are doing it for a month and do not break it for anything. It will be hard the first day but nothing worth having is easy- if it was overweight people would not exist.

The key to dieting is don’t break it not even once. I know that sounds stupid but it’s true. When you have cheat meals or cheat days it stops your will power and focus. Don’t stop until you’re at your goal weight.

@ArdAz , you say your main carbs are from bread. This could be one of the issues. Bread makes you fill full at the time you eat it but will very soon have you hungry again due to the sugar spikes.
As @Mysticmaiden mentioned, I would really recommend trying to cut out the four main carbs that cause these spikes - bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. Replace with protein and veg. You will feel fuller for longer and it might just help with the evening munchies.
But honestly, cut the bread out.

You're not wrong but if everyone could do this no one would be wasting money on WLI.

It must be your diet. I Lost 7bstone on MJ last year with little exercise

Bear with me here...
Might you have ADHD? Lots of people with ADHD find that, when medicated, their binge eating disappears. Helped along by the fact that Elvanse at least is actually used as a treatment for binge eating disorders.

A friend of mine got nowhere with WLI, but when she went on medication for her ADHD, which was diagnosed in her 40s, she lost a lot of weigh without trying.

Sorry op but you are expecting to inject and just lose weight without putting in any effort by the sounds of it. Cooking etc outside your job is not likely to help you lose weight, not being accountable for the amount of calories you consume is not helping either.

you need to start counting calories and doing some intense cardio and weight training, save a good chunk of calories for your 9pm to midnight munchies and not expect to lose weight just by injecting.

I'm not saying this to be mean, I know how bloody hard it is to lose weight, I am also a night-time eater (currently eating toast and having a cuppa), no point in trying something else, you can lose weight but need to change lifestyle as well.

Just for context, I'm almost 50, been fat all my life, probably lost and gained the same 5 stone over the last 30 years, but MJ didn't really do the work for me, I had to calorie count, change habits, limited night time binges and work out. Lost 4st so far but no longer take MJ

I think simple, well-defined rules like this are much easier to follow than vague rules like 'I need to eat healthier' or ones that deny us things we enjoy 'i must not eat any chocolate.'

I agree that counting calories is essential for sustained significant weight loss even with mounjaro but if you have tried that and are finding mounjaro has such little effect on your appetite that you are unable to restrict your calories sufficiently then you may well be in the 15% of people for whom it is ineffective.

Retatrutide is coming, supposedly in 2027 last I read and hopefully this will be more use to you.

I have also read that there are approximately 200 other weightloss drugs in development so I’m hopeful that the lifelong misery many of us have have endured will eventually be a thing of the past.

Regarding late evening snacking, this was a big problem for me too but just before starting mounjaro I lost the first few stones of my weight by trying 16:8 eating, ie I only ate in an 8 hour window which for me was 12 midday to 8pm and this was really helpful.

I know that there has generally been the idea that you must have a sustaining breakfast promoted as part of dieting so as to avoid hunger driving you to overeat later in the day but for me this really doesn’t help at all so by saving my calories for later instead I actually eat less overall.

The New York Times just published an article about Mounjaro non-responders

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/well/weight-loss-drugs-response-wegovy-zepbound.html

One of the things that worked for one of the women in the article was combining Mounjaro with Phentermine...

Why are you buying crap to have in the house? I’m not going to lie, if there’s chocolate/cake/biscuits in my house, it gets eaten. So I just don’t buy it. Would you go out at night to buy it or are you just eating what’s in the cupboards?

I agree. OP writes as if she has no control over her weight. Stopping buying crap would be a start.

@ArdAz I was on wegovy first (MJ wasn't available at the time). I moved to MJ when I plateaued so coming at it from a different stage in weight loss but I think both MJ and wegovy were really good! It's maybe worth a try.

Try eating more food during the day so you don't feel as hungry at night? Snack on healthy protein bits rather than bread i.e. have packets of cooked chicken in the fridge you can reach for. I lost two and a bit stone, but I've been on a plateau over the winter. I find if I eat more eggs and protein for breakfast I lose more weight.

Maybe your evenings aren't food noise but some kind of psychological effect, habit, getting your time back, ...

I'd suggest trying to build a habit which will make it less natural. Specifically, get used to cleaning your teeth earlier in the evening.

Eat dinner, have a cuppa, maybe one piece of intentional 9pm snack - an apple, a slice of cheese and than go clean your teeth.

It's probably that it just doesn't work for you, unfortunately. Most of what you say about your eating habits would have described me before I started taking it and it 90% cured it. I think a lot of mine was emotional eating but because of the way glp-1s work, they do help with that. I think it's the hormonal effect.

Anyway, I would suggest trying something else. Retratrutide will be out next year I think and that might make a difference. You could try wegovy although i agree, it's unlikely to be the answer as it's just less than mj but it is different so worth a try.

I added exercise but I don't think it's the factor people make it out to be. It helps with muscle retention and makes you fitter but it's not a game changer for making glp-1s more effective.

More important would be cutting out the upfs. Even on mj, if I eat a lot of processed food I get more hungry. I'm vegan so my carb levels are high as well as protein. It doesn't stop you losing weight. Only a calorie deficit will do that. But being off the processed food really helps me to stick to a calorie deficit more easily.

So Mounjaro is working for me, but one thing I've noticed over the past year is that when I do eat carbs, I am very quickly a lot more hungry and get the old craving feelings back. Mainly I have cut out obvious carbs, so eat high protein and veg meals with no rice/pasta/potatoes and no bread. But if I go out for a meal or round to someone's house and have rice etc. I'm starving a couple of hours later and want to snack!

So I would try cutting out carbs and replace with nibbling on protein instead. I know it sounds weird, but I make up a load of BBQ chicken thighs, cooked in soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, tomato sauce and honey at the beginning of the week and have it in the fridge for lunches but also evenings if I just fancy something to snack on - it's tasty and does the trick. If I want something sweet I have a couple of sugar free sweets and a decaff coffee. Anything but carbs/snacks! I also drink 3L of water a day - usually with a bit of lime cordial in - and that really helps cut down the hunger feelings.

I'm sorry it's still a battle for you - must be very frustrating that the MJ hasn't reduced the food noise 😥

I note that you’ve lost a few pounds at least. I agree it’s not much to show for it.

Im an evening snacker as well and MJ has been effective for me. But I was experiencing evening snacking as entirely negative - out of control, feeling unpleasantly stuffed when in bed, expensive etc. I also don’t have kids at home any more so my life is easier. It sounds like your life feels very tough and the evening is when you finally can do things you experience as pleasurable, and perhaps you don’t have a lot of control over the rest of your time? Unfortunately MJ is not making eating unpleasant enough for you.

All I can suggest is that you do more things that are enjoyable but which don’t include eating - hot baths with a novel are the big one for me, or massages, or talking on the phone to friends, or sex, or going to the pub (for a soft drink). Maybe an Allen Carr sort of approach to your thinking around snacking as well.

I personally wouldn’t drop MJ immediately, but would try to combine it with one or two more habit changes. But you could stop; I just think you will probably have a rebound and it might be better not to be changing habits at the same time.

Just be really careful with WLI - they can stop you from being able to poo. And this in turn causes untold problems. I will have issues for life after taking them for 6 month (but no one wants to discuss the downsides because being thin trumps everything!).

Try the Michael Mosely 800Fast.
I lost 2 stone on it then I went on MJ and lost another 2 1/2 stone, I am now plateauing which is a bit frustrating.
MJ has reduced my appetite, though I can still over eat. I did yesterday and am paying for it today! I went up to 7.5mg, though to be honest there was no difference from 5, so I have gone back down. I think you need to use it as a tool.
I was like you, eating at night, the 800Fast helped me with my window of eating. I try and eat between 12 and 8pm. If you can get down to 2 meals and a snack that is ideal. Amazingly I wasn't hungry on the 800Fast. Restricting carbs is the only way forward for me.
I would like to lost another stone but it is really difficult. I haven't counted calories but I think I might need to now to lose the next bit.
Best of luck

You are here, discussing a possible downside. Most people don't mention the very rare serious side effects because they are very rare and the vast majority of people don't experience them. They are also listed on all the information you are given about this medication, as it's a prescription medication and most prescription medications come with a list of possible side effects. The risks of those potential side effects are outweighed by the potential health benefits for people who are obese.

There is also no indication that the OP isn't aware of the range of possible side effects. To counter your individual experience, I have taken Mounjaro for 20 months and my digestive system is unscathed.

I hope that your medical issues improve over time.

I'm maintaining a ten stone loss. I was fortunate to respond well to the medication and experienced significant appetite reduction but I wanted to respond because I was also a late evening binger / snacker. For me, staying up late was a defiant way of reclaiming some time for myself as an overstretched caregiver in an unequal marriage. It also added to the vicious cycle of my chronic sleep-deprivation, which was a major factor in my weight gain to begin with. In retrospect I am able to see that it was a form of self-harm.

Your evening binges are addressing a need on some level but they are also a behavioural habit, which you need to break. MJ suppressed my appetite, but because it also made me so fatigued in the early days I had no choice but to go to bed at 9pm and this has been one of the biggest game-changers in terms of changing my behaviour long-term to maintain my loss now that I am off the drug.

If you can make peace with the fact that you will have to give up your evenings to yourself, and that some things won't get done, then you can make a choice to change your evening behaviours and break your current habits. 'Close' the kitchen after your evening meal and go upstairs for the night. You don't have to go to sleep straightaway. Have a bath, do a yoga practice, watch some TV with a face mask, or go to sleep earlier. If you have a partner, have sex! Give yourself a minimum of a month but accept that this habit has formed over many years, probably, and will take time to break.

More GLPs are coming. Retatrutide may be here in 2027. In the meantime, I truly think this could make a big difference for you. All the best.

Op could you stop buying the unhealthy snacks / carbs bread and replace with alternatives. I went to a talk on healthy eating recently by a nutritionist who was talking about how ultra processed food is designed to make you eat more (rather than to be tasty). So its softness will mean your body doesn’t know it’s processing food and it takes longer to tell you that you’re full. She said that we (humans) just don’t overeat on natural foods and said that people can easily eat 6 packets of crisps or Pringles but no one could eat 6 apples. So could you just have non processed snacks in the house.

im not an expert at all and have struggled with my weight for years but I’m currently over a stone down and I’ve just hard boiled two eggs to shove in the fridge. When I next need a snack I’ll either have an egg or an apple or both.

also could you freeze your bread so it’s more inconvenient to eat? Or freeze a yogurt and eat that like ice cream? (But not one with added sugars or sweeteners?)

I am taking regular laxatives now as a consequence of the constipation and the pain when trying to poop.

If you are tracking all your calories, ensuring at least 100-150 g of protein, staying hydrated and doing cardio and you’re still not losing then I’d stop wasting your money, unfortunately it sounds like you’re one of the unlucky non responders op.

Have a look at Slimpod? Can really help with mindset and healthy habits. If your head isn’t in the right place then your diet/ behaviours will not change. This focuses on mindset which seems pretty sensible to me.