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?

I started 12th of August. 8kg down in one month, over 17 lbs. I know some of it is water weight. I know it will slow down, it already has for week 3 and 4. But it is amazing to me. 3kg away form leaving obesity :).

@PuzzledObserver I do the swap skin cleaning since I watched the video.

@PuzzledObserver I always swab my skin prior to injection. I did IVF and I'm a regular blood donor, it just feels wrong not to clean the skin first!

@PuzzledObserverah that makes sense thank you, I hadn’t thought through the physics.

Those shifts would kill me. 😱

@Cheesecake53 @Anseranser do you use the same swab you used to clean the pen, or a fresh one? They only give you one swab per intended shot with the pens, and the instructions tell you to swab the end of the pen before attaching the needle, so that’s what I’ve been doing.

I had a couple of spares with my pen, so it's been easy so far. I keep meaning to get a job lot in though.

ETA: Of course the pen gets swabbed too. It's so simple compared with when I was measuring out IVF meds from a vial and using multiple needles etc, I keep thinking I've missed a step 😂

@PuzzledObserver the swabs are folded in on themselves and I used to use the outer layer on the pen and the inside layer on my skin. Since the video I bought a box of swabs and use two swabs. I use a fresh swabs on my skin before and after the injection (different sides of the same swab).

Thanks, both. Guess it won’t hurt to do it!

This is exactly what I thought re the IVF!
it’s so easy - no crying as I’m struggling with all the steps to prep and inject now!

@BraOffPjsOn yes it's much easier without all the associated emotional stress, as well as being physically easier 😂 my mum gave me a load of stickers for IVF, I've still got the card somewhere, covered in little stars for each jab I did. Sometimes I can't quite believe that that was my life. DD1 is 12 now and absolutely brilliant 💖

Weigh in day for me: the scales have been all over the place, I actually think they're broken, I have to get on and off three times before they settle but gosh I do dislike the Voy app! Every time I log a weight the same as yesterday it tells me I'm in a plateau and should cut calories or exercise more, it's really bad advice!

I'm interested in the discussion around loose skin. Up til now I've been delighted to drop inches, dress sizes ticking down etc, but yesterday made the mistake of looking at my reflection in bra and knickers. I was absolutely disgusted: I used to be big and solid like a stone age Venus carving. Now my top is size 16 and looks a lot better, but my legs look like a size 18 with extra patches of fat on the hips, inner thighs, literally like someone had put play dough on me, mounds of fat. I was so upset. I couldn't wear a swimsuit like this, I hope it goes eventually.
Where do other people see fat loss first and where does it linger?

Forgot to add:
SW 20 stone 6 pounds
CW 17 stone
GW 10 stone ish

@WombatCowgirl I see it first in my face and feel it first in my midriff/waist.

I don’t know if you’ve said how old you are…. I’m in my 60’s, and a few months ago I came to a realisation: that slim, fit teenage body I never had when I was a teenager, because I was already obese? I am never going to have it. Not just because of the skin….. but because I’m a post menopausal woman. Even if I had been a healthy weight my whole life, my body would still look, more or less, like what I am.

I won’t lie, I grieved that teenage body I never had. Because in all my hundreds of weight loss attempts, I never reached my goal, and only once got into the healthy range - and was back out of it inside a year. I suppose I always imagined that when (if) I DID get to goal weight, I would somehow have the body I would have had if I’d always been that weight. And that is simply not true.

I’ve heard that mothers should celebrate their mummy tummy and stretch marks, as evidence of the wonderful, miraculous thing they did when they grew and birthed a human being. It’s a badge of honour. That is not something I have done.

But I have done something equally remarkable, and, frankly, a lot rarer. I have taken a body which has endured decades of obesity and reduced it from grade III to grade II to grade I obesity, and kept it there for over a year…. And now, I have got it to merely overweight, and I am confident now I will get it to a healthy weight. Or at least, a healthy body composition- it may be that, because of the extra skin and the weight of it, and the fact I strength train, the weight which looks and feels best on my body may turn out to be technically overweight. I won’t know until I get there - but I think I will know when I’m there, iyswim.

I have a jelly belly, and bat wings, and wrinkly bits at the tops of my thighs. And if I could wave a magic wand and be rid of them, I would, of course. But they are not going to stop me wearing a swimsuit, and I’m not going to apologise for them, even as I dress to minimise them. They are the scars from the remarkable thing I have done.

If I didn’t have them, I would still be morbidly obese. That’s not a trade I am willing to make.

@WombatCowgirl you absolutely can wear a swimming costume. That whole "beach-ready body" thing is lies! If you wish to swim, go swimming! You are ALLOWED 💪

As I said upthread, my DD2 is an excellent competitive swimmer. This is what her club posted on social media recently:
"Every swimmer has their own journey ...

• Your goal might be a new PB...
• [more goals here]
• Or simply becoming a stronger, more confident swimmer."

This applies to you, and me, and everyone. All you have to do is want to swim, you don't have to meet an arbitrary aesthetic standard first ❤️

That's really thought-provoking @PuzzledObserver I really appreciate you sharing your reflection. It's true I've been more delighted by the health benefits than the aesthetics this time of losing weight as I was unwell last year and needed the mitral valve of my heart replacing, less than a year ago, in open heart surgery: six weeks ago I had to catch my breath at the top of the stairs and my ankles were so puffy in the evening.
Like you I'm a bit older : I'm 52 so menopausal, the last time I was ten stone ( my goal weight) I was working out 5 times a week, boxing and weights with a personal trainer twice a week, and only working part time! Now I'm near the top of my profession and a bit of a physical wreck- you're quite right I think I need to recalibrate my self image to a healthy confidence in what I can do! But I am also thinking about the kinds of swimming costumes that are little shorts and a bikini top I must admit!

Thanks @Anseranser that's really encouraging, I might pluck up the courage to go at half term!

@WombatCowgirl - maybe it is a bit different since you were once 10 stone and presumably had to adjust to getting bigger. My journey has been different.

At the same time, I made a decision 30 odd years ago that I was not going to allow embarrassment about my body to prevent me swimming. I enjoy swimming, and it’s good for me.

So if someone happened to watch me walking in my big fat wobbly body towards the pool (they probably wouldn’t pay any attention, most people are far more caught up in themselves), they are probably going to think some variation of two things

• look at that woman, embracing life and doing something which will make her feel great - good for her!
• look at that big fat disgusting woman.

If they think the first, they’re on my side, and I respect them. If they think the second, they’re not worth a moment’s thought.

I like your paragraph at the end more than the swimming clubs words. You're 100% right and we should all remember this. We're working to improve ourselves, everyone is too concerned about how they look themselves in swimwear to give two hoots what the rest of us look like anyway.

The second person is definitely not worth a second of our thought time

Thanks @CatMonj I agree, when I see other people at the beach or swimming, yes I do notice if someone is bigger or taller or muscular or whatever, but it doesn't come with a judgement. So hopefully other people will see me in the same light!

I guess my self disgust is a mixture of 80s/90s diet culture/ beauty standards that mean you can't offend someone's line of vision by looking ugly or different, and the experience of going for runs (pre pandemic and a size 12) and getting unsolicited comments and insults out of car windows from men. Yet it in all other aspects I think of myself as a confident person! My teenage daughters say things like "you don't owe anyone pretty" which is positive I think.

In support of my assertion that most people are more interested in themselves…

When I was morbidly obese, I was almost always the biggest person (not just woman) in the room. So I would see people who were clearly severely obese, and all I would be thinking would be that they were smaller than me.

Once I lost a lot of weight, I suddenly woke up to just how many very big people there are around these days. Including very young ones. I’m sure they were always there, in significant numbers, but I didn’t notice them, because I was obsessing about how big and unacceptable I was.

Now that I am just (only just) below the average BMI for my demographic, when I see someone bigger, I look at them with compassion and sadness. I don’t know how they got to be that way - their path may have been similar to mine or completely different. But however they got there, I know that they are suffering. Even if they are well groomed and have a smile on their face.

Hi all, 4th jab and weigh-in on 2.5mg MJ.

Not brilliant this week; only 0.5 lbs down. But, mitigating factors in play were: quite a bit of constipation and my mum's funeral yesterday and associated stress. I over-ate at the wake buffet (including 2 cakes; one Welsh, one cup) and drank 4.5 glasses of white wine due to various reasons, mostly anxiety about the whole thing.
SW = 15 stone 12
CW = 15 stone 7.5

@Gonksmum sending you love and hugs

I'm very sorry for your loss Gonksmum

Yes that’s true!
less pressure on whether it’s going to be successful!
congrats on your DD - my DS1 is 8 now!