18 months on Mounjaro and not losing

[Polkadotdash]

Looking for other non-losers!
I’ve been on Mounjaro for 18 months now. I had a period in the middle where I lost some weight (about 2.5 stone). Then I stopped losing altogether about 9 months ago. I’ve since put on half a stone.
My current dose is 10mg. My BMI is 29.
I feel very disheartened. I’m in a lovely group elsewhere on mumsnet who we’ve shared our journey with from the start. I’m the only one who hasn’t reached their goal and has actually gained. I feel like I’m some freak.
Anyone else like this?

That's interesting re injection site. I realise I have moved from thigh to tummy as I have got slimmer as looking for somewhere soft to inject! Maybe I should go back to thigh

I did it in the back of my arm. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I’ve always used my thigh. Never done stomach as I’ve had a tummy tuck so I thought it might not get through the scar tissue as well.

Why does it have to be at the back of arm? Why not front

BMR, TDEE etc are estimates. Everyone is different and can change over time. If you're maintaining your weight, you're eating the right amount of calories for your body and would need to eat less (and/or burn more) if you want to lose.

Hi no I did read that but I don't focus on my bmr to work out my deficit, I focus on my tdee and eat 500 less than that. I probably didn't explain this well because I've had a terrible week of sleep. Not sure what your tdee is as you've only mentioned your BMR as 1650.

I’ve tried Wegovy previously and it does nothing for me. I got up to 2.4mg on it before I gave up. I think it’s the other additional hormone in MJ that actually has had some effect on me.

@Mysticmaiden my TDEE is 1900. So eating 1300 a day I should be well in deficit.

You're not in a consistent 600 calorie per day deficit, if you were your body would be drawing on its stored fuel supplies and you'd be losing weight. You're overestimating your body's energy needs or underestimating your calorie intake or both.

As I said before - calculating BMR, TDEE and daily calorie intake is not an exact science. There are a lot of variables and it's common for the online guides to be way out of whack. I believe you're placing far too much weight on them when the real measurable data - your scales - are right in front of you and telling you that you are not in a deficit.

I plateaued on ozempic so did a month of mounjaro. I went onto a fairly high dose as the GP felt there was no reason to titrate.

No appetite suppression and I gained a kilo even with monitoring my food closely. Went back on oz and the appetite suppression came back and weight loss.

I don't think there's any actual science as to why different parts of the body react differently to injecting but there's a lot of anecdata.

I take back what I said about injecting into your arm. I did it on friday and have been sick as a dog since Sunday.

@Pyjamatimenow oh that sucks. 🙁

@Sugarnspicenallthingsnaice I was just answering the question the other poster had asked about my TDEE. I literally just went to the website, put in my data and quoted those figures. This was the first time I’d looked at it in about a year. I don’t ‘live’ by it.
See this is why I never engage in the ‘what do you eat in a day?’ type questions because there is always someone waiting to pounce and say ‘you’re doing it wrong! You can’t eat two lettuce leaves a day and expect to lose weight’
I fully understand that the body is not a machine where input = output and performance is the same for every human being. That’s the heart of what I’m trying to explore in this thread. The range of experiences on MJ and what happens when you get 18 months into taking it and nothing is changing.

I am trying to help, but you obviously don't want it. You just want to know if there are other people out there who stopped losing weight on WLI? - well yes of course there are. But how does knowing that help you? You're not the same as them, you're not eating exactly the same and your body doesn't work exactly the same as theirs.

Successfully losing weight is about listening to and responding to your own body and no-one else's. My partner is taking WLI along with me - and one of my sons at times too - and all our experiences have been vastly different. I've had to zone them out and run my own race, so to speak. I am also the only one of the 3 of us to reach and maintain a healthy BMI.

Good luck.

After I plateaued for 4 months, I am finally loosing again. I just had 4 kgs to go but it just didn’t shift. I did 3 things so maybe you can try it and see. One : changed my injection site completely. I was doing lower abdomen and thighs previously , now I only do upper abdomen (left, right, center) . Second : Started drinking more water with alternate days of electrolytes. Third : Started injecting on sixth day instead of 7th day.

After following the routine for 6 weeks, I have lost 1.5 kgs. It’s not massive but atleast the scales have shifted.

I’ve lost just under 3 stones in 11 months - 13.2 to 10.4 which takes me just into healthy weight and I’m currently on 10mg of mj. Which is a weightloss on average of 0.8lbs a week. Some weeks I lose a couple of pounds, some months I lose nothing at all (looking at you April). To lose this I intermittent fast, calorie count (1200-1300 a day), rarely drink, walk over 10k steps a day every single day, jog and work out.

Not everyone is losing a stone a month and tbh I don’t understand because if calories in and out is gospel it means if you lost a stone a month consistently you were eating an excess of 50000 calories a month or 1500 too many a day. I don’t actually believe calories in and out fully explains what happens but there is no point looking at the people who weight has dropped off for them because that clearly won’t happen for me or for you op. If 10mg isn’t working for you then you are wasting your money so you can either dig deep for the cash to go up or try something else - the cost of 10mg would cover a decent gym membership and some pt sessions 😊

I haven’t said anywhere in my thread I’m looking for help. You’ve just taken it as that, offered what you think is helpful and then told me that i obviously don’t want help if I don’t take on board exactly what you say. There are loads of other threads asking for help and advice. I’m just looking for other non-losers. I congratulate you on losing so much, but with respect, this thread isn’t for successful losers to come and tell me how to do it.

OP, what are you looking for other non losers for? Just so you know you are not alone or do you want to hear their advice?

I'm really resistant to calorie counting, as I've done it so often in the past and find it makes me obsess over food constantly (which is what I've hoped the MJ would remove the need for!) I'm definitely not finding it an easy or lazy way to lose weight. Has stopped me gaining though.

When I had a plateau, I started dosing on day 6 instead of every 7 days and it’s definitely helped me to start losing again.

I think it works because the MJ in your system doesn’t drop too low before you re-dose again. Use the glp-1 plotter website to try different combinations of dose and periods of dosing (5-7 days). I found it very interesting and it has helped me get over the plateau.

Hi OP, I have been gaining and losing the same few pounds for a few weeks now. I've been on MJ two years and lost five stone in the first year, then it's taken me another year to lose one stone. Now I'm hovering up and down the same five pounds between a BMI of 27 and 28.

I am only on 5mg. This is because of intolerable side effects if I increase. I recently tried to move up towards 7.5mg and was extremely unwell. So I feel I am super sensitive to the medication in some ways! I lost most of the weight on 2.5mg and only increased very gradually when that stopped working.

I feel rather stuck now. I can't go up because I simply cannot live with nonstop diarrhoea, vomiting and sulphur burps for half the week every week. That isn't a healthy way to lose weight anyway. I do really want to get to a healthy weight though, and I want to stay on the medication for life because without it I absolutely will regain every pound and more. I wonder if I will just maintain here, at around 12 stone. It's much better than still being 18 stone, after all.

MJ has been a miracle for me and my life is transformed. If this is the limit - if the best I can do is a BMI that is overweight rather than obese, then that is still something to be grateful for. I swim, lift weights, do Pilates and walk so I know my body is stronger and I'm going into middle age and beyond in better health than I would have been.

I am optimistic about the future ahead - the continued development of these drugs and hopefully a pill variant to come. Maybe there will be a form that has less gastric side effects and also costs may come down too. For the time being, I am just glad I have got as far as I have.

OP, if you’re sure that your daily calorie intake is correct then something is wrong, even if your TDEE calculations aren’t quite right. Months and months in a calorie deficit with no weight loss at all needs to be investigated. You need to see your GP and ask for bloods. Good luck.

I mean this gently but looking for an echo chamber won’t help you lose weight. I suspect you know deep down and thays why you don’t wish to engage on what you eat. Yoire eating to maintainence. Or just above to gain. If you want to lose you need to drop at least 500 a day, and you’re eating more than you think.

@RomanticDarkComedy thanks for sharing your story with me. I’m hopeful for the pill version of the drugs too. It would definitely make it more affordable to switch to higher doses

@Safarisagoody I’m looking for others experiences of being on WLI long term and not losing. That’s not an echo chamber. That’s a support group.
And well done on managing to write a whole post before slipping in ‘you’re overeating’ at the end. I think it’s the two lettuce leaves rather than one I’ve been consuming.
I won’t post my diet because a) I didn’t ask for diet advice and b) no matter what I post it’s an invitation to critique. I could post the healthiest, fat free, low carb, low sugar, protein rich, nutritionally balanced daily menu and someone would pipe up saying ‘you shouldn’t eat that’ or ‘you’re a secret eater’ or ‘you are eating double the recommended portion amount’. I’ve seen it happen on too many threads. If you want to do that, there are plenty of other threads to go do it on.

Ok, good luck to you