August 2026 starters

[chocolatecoveredpretzels]

Hello everyone, I'm due to start on MJ in the next few days, and I'm feeling nervous!

I've been above size 20 since I was about 14/15 years old. The highest weight I've ever logged was 134kg, about 14 years ago. I'm currently 117kg. I also have issues with my heart caused by Cushing's, type 2 diabetes and PMOS.

In the past few years, I'm yo-yo'd between 125kg and 110kg three times. I know how to lose weight and can do it... but as soon as work gets busy or stressful, I fail and give up. I also have an issue with binge and secret eating.

I went for my annual diabetic review yesterday and the nurse basically used the whole time telling me about going on MJ, because my BMI is over 40 (well, as of yesterday's weigh in, I'm 39. something) and because of my other health conditions. I didn't have to fight for it, or request it.. they're just giving it to me.

Now I'm doing as much reading/ video watching as I can to clue myself up.

On my on-track days, I eat:

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs with some flavouring- chilli flakes or marmite or 15g cheddar.

Lunch: Chicken thigh fillet in some kind of seasoning mix, salad made of lettuce, pepper, tomatoes, cucumber, sugarsnaps, carrot. Sometimes 3 cream crackers and a laughing cow triangle as well.

Dinner: Varies- roast chicken dinner/ 5% fat mince spaghetti bolognese with wholewheat pasta/ beef burger without the bun with cheese, salad on half the plate, usually without chips, noodles with chicken and stirfry veg.

Snacks: Usually a portion of berries/ a nectarine/ cherries/ 25g peanuts at 4pm.

How does that sound?

I have a treadmill and run/walk at 6.5/6km/hr pace for 30 mins three times a week. The nurse said I should do some weights for my arms too.

Any recommendations for which day I should inject?

Yes, @chocolatecoveredpretzels money saving is the reason for me for as long as I find myself in the possession of an old pen. But I think with my second pen I might also try out 3 mg - if there is more left in the fifth dose, but I have 3 more weeks to think about it.

Purely money saving, I think. Though also gives you the opportunity to do intermediate doses.

Omg. 2nd jab, day 2. Eggy burps all day. Thank god I just made it to the toilet to break wind, which wasn't! Been there half an hr. Never had an upset stomach like it. Mental note - do not break wind without being on a toilet if eggy burps are involved. A 3 hr drive in the morning will be interesting!

The quick and unrealistic loss I had first few weeks is gone and it was fun and In will miss it. But I knew it's completely not how its going to be and I am ready for the dose of realism. Two more days to make most of the week and today is the last day of the month!

Is it unrealistic to think I can lose 1kg a week until the end of the year? I would be ok with 0.8 but 1 would be amazing. Well I am going to do my best to help myself too, and as long as the side effects remain same and the medicine continues working I have a shot. Pardon the pun.

Oh dear, all the best for that! Take some Immodium, would be my suggestion.

Depends what you weigh now. 0.5-1% of current weight per week is touted as the healthy range for weight loss.

I’m currently a smidge over 13 stone, which is 182lb, or 82.7kg. So for me, 1kg per week would be considered rapid, not to be expected or sought on an ongoing basis.

I’m aiming for 11 stone, 154lb, 70kg. At the maximum 1% loss per week, this will take me till Christmas. At the 0.5%, it will be late April. The truth is likely to be somewhere in between. Though AI suggested to me yesterday that because of the weight of the loose skin and belly apron I already have, (which won’t go away without surgery) a goal of 11-7 to 12-0 would be metabolically equivalent to 11 stone in a never-obese woman, and also more achievable and sustainable.

I dunno what I think about that…. though I have set a goal for visceral fat levels as measured by the Boditrax scanner at my gym. I will also be paying attention to HbA1C level, and if both of those are healthy, then it shouldn’t matter what the number on the scale is.

The thing is - Mounjaro will push HbA1C way down, if you recall it was initially developed to treat/manage type 2 diabetes. So a completely normal HbA1C on MJ does not mean my metabolism is completely healthy, bearing in mind my long term goal is to stop taking it.

To be honest the first I have made a plan for the first 12 weeks.
Strength every morning - even if it’s just for 5 minutes. However currently I am doing the equivalent of 2 body pump heavy workouts a week, dividing each 55 minutes workout to 3. Not that heavy weights, to get me started.
50minutes walk most mornings, but I average about 13000 steps daily in total
100g of protein daily and I am trying to have this throughout the day, some every 3 hours or so
25g of fibre
Minimum of 1200
No UPF or at least very very little
Outside that, I am not going to worry if I lose little over the recommended for the first few months. I will reconsider later. I keep reading the first 12 weeks is the honeymoon period and I plan to make most of it. I plan to try to stay on current dose as long as I can, but would increase if I stop loosing any weight for few weeks.
I track in KG, but the 2lbs is the recommended. After the honeymoon I will be adjusting targets based on that but for now I am focusing on my minimums and of course hunger and energy.

Week one results for me! Appreciate that's likely water but I'll take it for sure. Zero side effects to date 🤞

Starting Weight: 104.5 kg (230.4 lbs / 16 st 6.4 lb)
Current Weight (Week 1): 100.5 kg (221.6 lbs / 15 st 11.6 lb)
Total Lost: 4.0 kg (8.8 lbs)
Milestone 1 (1 Stone): 98.1 kg (216.4 lbs / 15 st 6.4 lb) — 2.4 kg (5.2 lbs) to go
Ultimate Goal Weight: 77.1 kg (170.0 lbs / 12 st 2.0 lb) — 23.4 kg (51.6 lbs) to go

@MiaN that is a brilliant fitness regime!

Weigh in day today - 3.4lbs loss - pleased with this as the scales didn’t move last week. I feel so much better not carrying around the extra weight.
NSV - having to adjust my drivers mirror due to now sitting lower in seat 🤨
So far a loss of 10.2lbs on MJ.
SW 14st
CW 13st 3.8lbs
GW 12 st

As I mentioned before I started dieting before Mounjaro and have now lost a total of 1 st 6lbs.

@MiaN sounds like you have a good plan...

My main take away for the first part of my MJ weight loss was that like most things you have to be consistent... there will be ups and downs....literally in some cases. Seeing MJ as an aide to establishing really good habits for the rest of my life is what I am focused on...

Last time I lost about 20kg over nearly 10 months...I have just looked back over my stats and there were definitely times where I lost more and there were also months where I stayed the same. I only went up to 7.5mg... mostly out of fear of going higher, and also I wanted to keep on being able to eat sensibly... I feared too much suppression and not being able to fuel myself adequately...restricting too much just isn't healthy nor is it going to be sustainable once you come off...

Averaging 2kg loss a month shouldn't leave anyone feeling disappointed...it is the cumulative effect that matters. % loss against starting body weight is a great number to track.

The times that I had no loss in weight, other stats changed...keep tracking those cms/inches too.

Some people loose incredible amounts super fast from the first doses and it can make you think that steady smaller amounts mean it isn't really working....when it is....healthy, smaller, losses per week or month are still REALLY GREAT.... I have to try not to compare to others and just remain focused and most importantly consistent.. so most of what I am writing here is a note to myself!

There is a thing called a 'set point' and that is pretty much where I had got down to when I stopped due to the crazy supply issues this time last year. I had lost the weight that I had added on since covid, but i was down to a weight that i had been at for about 8 years prior to that....

This time I am focusing way more on the exercise side of things, I was carrying an injury last time, and if I am honest I never really cracked on with that side of things properly.

I am just about to order my second pen which will be 5mg. I will probably take a 3.5 dose for the first jab of the 5mg pen to bridge the jump - it is worth noting that 2.5mg to 5mg is a doubling of the dose and this is the only time the step up is as big between pens... i did this last time and it worked well for me.

I keep reminding myself... nutrition, hydration, exercise and consistency...

good luck everyone!

@MiaN I don’t know if you’ve already shared this, but how much are you hoping to lose? And what’s your history - are you looking to get rid of weight you’ve gained in recent years, or have you always been big?

@HappyNewt I am also planning to make my 2nd pen a 5mg, and then take a view when I’m ready to take a dose from it how big that will be.

Apparently my first pen has a golden dose, which I am going to try to get at - and if successful, I will have been on 2.5mg for 5 weeks. But if I still have good suppression and the weight loss is chugging along, I may as well stick with 2.5mg from the 2nd pen. If I do go up, I don’t think I’ll go straight to 5mg either.

I was very for and healthy before 2020. Long covid and stresses and excessive medication I was put on to try to get me back to health and here I am 40kg heavier. I have never been overweight before. I have lost 8k (few before the jabs, 20kg more will bring me to healthy BMI. 30kg to happy weight bit I am ok with doing my best and let the chips fall where they may.

It seems that most/all 2mg pens are still the original ones, and I will definitely be using mine!

The other pens apparently are the newer 4 dose ones. It feels a shame that the pricing and dosing all got changed from how it was originally set here in the UK....based on market forces in other countries....it is way more expensive than it was and there is also on top of that a massive difference in how different suppliers charge...

Thanks for responding. Thinking back to that book extract you posted a while back - sounds like you have things in your favour in terms of potentially being able to come off MJ and still maintain your weight loss… as your excess weight is not longstanding/lifelong, like mine. All the best to you.

I, by contrast, have only been in the healthy weight range once in my adult life, in my early 20’s, and within 6 months I was overweight again, and then obese, then morbidly obese. I’m having my teenage years belatedly in my sixties, having fun with clothes and figuring out what suits me.

I don't know if I want to be without. Last 6 years have been awful, I love the head space. So what if I have to be on it longer if my side effects are manageable. I like myself better when on it. I am sure you can relate

@MiaN I don’t think I would say I like myself better on it…. more that it is much easier to eat the way I actually want to on it.

Compulsive eating, binge eating, overeating, grazing, excessive snacking, poor food choices, emotional eating…… all of these have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. They resulted in severe obesity and type 2 diabetes, but also a lot of shame and self-loathing.

The shame and self-loathing have gone.

I was always (physically) hungrier than most people. And I think that is at least partly physiological. Whether it was always in me, or induced by excessive sugar consumption in childhood, or something to do with my mother’s illness when she was pregnant with me (believed to cause insulin resistance in the foetus) or the fact she had to stop breast feeding early (associated with greater weight in infants), I don’t know. And it really doesn’t matter - I am where I am. But in addition to the physical part, there is an emotional part. I was always hungrier than most people - but I also ate when I wasn’t hungry, and in fact, when I was stuffed.

I have used, and am still using, a variety of tools to address both the physical and emotional components. Mounjaro is one more tool in the box. So why do I want to eventually stop using it? Partly cost. Partly because I think at some level that I “ought to” be able to.

But, anyway, there is a lot of road to cover between now and the point where I will need to make a decision about continuing or not. For now, it’s part of my toolkit, and I’m feeling good. I am starting to feel slimmer in the waist, and noticed this morning that my trousers were slack on the waist. All good stuff!

@PuzzledObserver so much of what you just said resonates with me as well.

I think the last time I was a healthy weight is when I was about 11 years old. The shame of overeating and binging became a pattern and cycle that not even a serious illness could make a lasting impact on me taking my health more seriously. The medication seems to help give me that worth that I’ve always lacked.

I can understand that. I guess I would try to lower dose and maybe stop while monitoring the situation at some point too. For now I just worry it continues to work. Like you, but with different tools I also view it as one of the tools that can help me and I want to use it as tool to help me develop the habits I want.

I am grateful for it as I felt lost to honest

So 4th weigh in yesterday and I didn’t lose anything!!! Which was a bit depressing.

But interestingly, I should’ve had a dose last night from my 2nd pen (start of 2nd month
) but I was at a party last night and wanted to drink, so didn’t want to jab after drinking so planning tonightz

but I’ve found just by being 24 hours late, I’ve already had food noise creeping back in. Today I needed a packet of crisps to eat, and have been dying for some sweets. I didn’t succumb but I’ve not thought about sweets for a month and suddenly I’m 24 hours late and all I can think about is sweets!
so doing dose tonight and hopefully I can get back on track. Only doing a 2.5 pen again but may need to consider going up to 5 for month 3 and easing myself in with less clicks

so weight lose in 4 weeks is 7.5lbs

Wait a couple of days then weigh again. It’s probably your body holding on to fluid from last nights sinking and eating.

Its September! There likely won't be many new joiners to our little but chatty group and we aren't going to be the newest newest monthly club!

@MabelMoo23 I'm the same, delayed jabbing ( my fifth) by a day as on holiday, knew I had eaten and drunk too much due to peer pressure, and while the jab has restored my satiety feelings, I also had cravings for sweets and crisps that I haven't had for a month! Very annoyed with my mother for asking on holiday "how was I losing weight?" She's never asked that before and we've both struggled with our weight. I don't know why it's made me irritated, though I'm happy to tell people myself?
Anyone else back to work today with that feeling of dread in your stomach?