MJ- food noise intolerable.

[Scared0112]

I see so many threads “oh it’s stopped working” and it’s usually for some blindingly obvious reason- no diet change, pissing around with doses etc.

Ive been on MJ since April 2024, starting weight was somewhere mid 14s. I lost most of it in the first 6mo or so, then it trickled slowly slowly but that was fine- I never got to goal, but I was having the most horrendous time in my personal life and I was so so grateful to be rid of food noise, regardless of what my weight was doing.

I have been plagued all my life. It torments me daily and I’m so so exhausted by it. People talk about food noise and some genuinely get it, but I’m starting to realise the extent of that noise for me is above normal. To have finally had it silenced was life changing. I felt like I could breathe, like I was normal
for once. It gave me brain space to tackle the intensity of my life.

slowly but surely it’s crept back. Quietly, at first. But over the last year it’s reached fever pitch again. Im
pm 15mg, have been for about 8 months so have nowhere to go with it. Ive tried hard to fight it. I’ve regained a stone. So now I feel like shit and look like shit and I’m still paying for the privilege.

im just so exhausted by it. Where do i even go from here? I thought I’d found the holy grail. That id be on it for life but with the cost now too, I can’t see its purpose but also terrified about weaning off, if its this bad now I can’t even imagine how bad it’ll be on nothing.

there must be something to stop this, surely? I actually feel like I can’t go on - and I don’t mean I intend to hurt myself, I just don’t feel like I can enjoy life when my every brain cell is obsessed with what I can eat, when, how much, where. All. The. Time.

Hey hun, you’ve done so well try to be kinder to yourself! I’m still early ish in my journey but I am obsessed with watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts etc on mounjaro so I would definitely recommend you take a look and search there. A couple of suggestions I’ve heard are to have a short break (e.g. 4-6 weeks) for a ‘metabolism reset’ (there’s info out there on this too) and I’ve also heard a lot about people actually going down the doses and somehow this helps?!

hopefully others will have some suggestions because we all know it’s not as easy as ‘track your calories and exercise more’ when it’s the food noise you are battling with! Good luck xx

If not tried already, research changing the injection site?
I changed from abdomen to arm - to good effect having read something on here.
You would need to do your own research…

@Scared0112 a few people on the long running 10st or more to lose thread have experienced similar when on the 15mg. A few have tried the stop for a few weeks and restart approach with some success.

The other thing you could try is a different GLP1, just to see if a change makes a difference. So Wegovy tablets or injections, or the new Foundayo tablets. They are less effective than Mounjaro but seeing as Mounjaro is not working for you at the moment, they could be worth a try.

I do worry about this, I do feel like we’re all losing this weight and then it will stop working in our bodies, and then we’ll be back to square one with food noise and just trying every new drug that comes out. but the companies will still make their money from new customers

I think they work for diabetics permanently it seems but as a weight loss tool they are temporary

Honestly I’d take something for the food noise regardless of if it does anything for the weight, although I suppose no food noise is how the weight comes off to some extent…

yes I’ve rotated injection sites regularly over the two years, I’m not sure I’ve ever really felt any site worked better than another, I jab into my legs and tum for ease mostly. I find the angle of jabbing into my underarm too much of a pita.

i feel like such a lost cause. I’ve had hypnotherapy, tried certain diets etc. I always start with a little success and inevitably it comes back. It’s true what they say, the mind is the strongest muscle. I can’t keep fighting myself like this. My health needs to be at its peak but I’m just a slave to food noise.

Go down and back up again is my suggestion. But equally I’d speak to a dietitian and try and come up with an eating plan that most minimises food noise hormonally.

Have you had actual therapy? Had anything changed in your life which is affecting the food noise?

You mentioned hypnotherapy, and I tried it for dealing with an addiction. It took me trying 3 different Hypnotherapists before I found the right one for me. He cured me in 2 sessions and was bloody brilliant.

I can’t recommend him as he’s retired now and moved away but just to say that sometimes you have to try more than one specialist before you find the right one for you.

I’ve had “proper” therapy yes- for years. I’ve had a traumatic life (although I’ve also got avery beautiful one now too) and so whatever causes this is very very deep seated.

maybe a club to the head 😅

kindly that’s not logical, they keep working for everyone.much of our issues is blood sugar control and insulin response, which causes cravings so they continue to work

but they don’t work for everyone and they don’t work the same way for everyone and mental health is a huge part of this.

‘I’ve been on well over 2 years and on a maintenance dose for 18 months, my optimal dose was 10mg, lost over 6 stone, now maintaning at a bmi 20, weight very stable.

but I can push through if I chose and eat more or as I please, the drugs simply allow me to say no, and stop,

I think everyone who has been on the drugs for any length of time, realises that firstly you can’t make the drugs do the hard work for you, then they will stop working, and secondly your desire to not eat the food is key, to be slim and thirdly, if you do over eat, you need to cut back immediately or the cravings come back,

all the drugs do, when the novelty wears off, is allow you control. But if your mental health round food is not resolved, and the drugs were doing the heavy lifting, then your desire to eat will overcome the meds.

op, as you got all the way to 15, id say they never worked so well for you. I for example could not have went to 15, id have been very unwell. And anecdotally it does seem to be the people who can get to 15 who find it stops working for them, becaude diet fatigue sets in, any placebo effect and determination wears off, and you’re left with realising the real impact of the med for you personlly.

but if they worked for you in the first place properly, they never stop working.

One stone on really won’t make you look like shit I’m sure. There are new meds being developed that will be here soon like Retaritide (might have spelt that incorrectly) that will be more sophisticated.

I’m not sure I agree that Mounjaro never worked so well for the OP. I think it’s quite common and normal for the obvious suppression to become less noticeable over time with long term use. The medication is still doing its work on your digestive system, hormones etc as it always did. But we become more psychologically used to the effects and when you’re on a stable dose level you don’t get the increased sensation of suppression from going up a dose anymore.

I certainly know that after periods of eating more sugary carby foods it can be hard to get back into the swing of feeling the suppression and feeling like it’s doing its job. Christmas, Easter, holidays are all danger points for that happening for me.

I was on 10mg for a long while, now trying 12.5mg to get down to my very final target weight having plateaued for a while a few kg higher than I’d ideally like. I started in July 2024 so not long after you @Scared0112. These days I don’t get the noticeable surge in suppression for the couple of days post injecting and I need to support the medication by avoiding the sugary carby stuff as much as possible.

I think any kind of reset or shake up of your current diet/weight loss approach would help to get out of the food noise focus. Just having a plan and working on it will help with the feelings of panic and despair. You aren’t failing at all with this, it’s hard hard work and we just need to keep plugging away at it and trying a different approach.

Lift weights x4 a week to increase miscle
mass.

Eat more protein, even protein shakes if need be. It’s very satiating.

Logically if can’t stop working. Think about it.

how does it work. It slows digestion and controls insulin response and blood sugar. All these things keep happening. They are physiological.

and factually drugs work differently on everyone. As said, I simply couldn’t have taken 15mg, the op not only can, she can do so and eat normally.

the physiological impacts of the drugs continue, there is no way they simply stop working , what’s the issue here is psychological. The mind is very very strong.

think any kind of reset or shake up of your current diet/weight loss approach would help to get out of the food noise focus. Just having a plan and working on it will help with the feelings of panic and despair. You aren’t failing at all with this, it’s hard hard work and we just need to keep plugging away at it and trying a different approach.

yes, but I guess it’s just the exhaustion of the sheer amount of effort required to spend the rest of my life actively fighting this every day that makes
me so despondent. I guess the only way I can describe it is imagine a very strong craving for something specific. You think about it alot and you’re a bit distracted by it. Infrequent for most people. It’s like this, except about no food particularly, just this incredibly strong urge to eat, all the time, feeling slightly on edge, an overwhelming urge to eat. Even when I can tell I’m not remotely hungry. It blights my life. I don’t understand it.

@Scared0112 you describe the food noise very well. It is something that I am very familiar with, having also had the same battle my whole life since childhood. The relief from it in the early days of starting Mounjaro was an absolute eye opener and made me feel quite emotional about what I had been dealing with and how that had changed. It was a bit of a rollercoaster of feelings.

I suppose my point is that having a plan to change up what you're doing is more psychologically helpful that continuing with what you're doing at the moment and feeling hopeless and despairing about it. Your situation is that you are experiencing food noise constantly and gaining weight. You may as well try another approach, there is very little to lose at this point.

I’m not surprised MJ hasn’t totally solved this and I’d look into hypnosis but it’s a bit of a hit and miss and you’ll need to try several. I’d start with the prerecorded like Paul McKenna and see if it helps at all. But even if not try in person.

I also wonder if a ketosis diet would help.

I suggested drinking protein shakes as it’s very filling and you’d feel full but sounds like this is not totally appetite.

I’m not surprised either, remember th4 drugs don’t work for 20 percent of people. And for the 80 percent it does, we all react differently. It’s the same for any medication, it’s why most come in different strengths and for many doctors need to try different drugs to get something thay works.

i suspect as this did work to an extent, whay its telling you is your urge to eat is not physiological, it’s psychological. As you’re not hungry, your digestion is slowed, your blood sugar under control and your insulin response optimal.

of course a psychological issue is much much harder to fix, there is no drug to fix that in itself.

but I’d look at therapy, as well as other potential issues, are you stressed, depressed, anxious, bored, unhappy?

Oh I’m almost certainly not hungry 90% of the time. I’ve even significantly upped my fluid intake - i literally cannot stop peeing! But to no avail. It’s just giving me a tummy ache, slosh feeling gang immediately makes me want to eat to stem the nausea, like morning sickness!

i did strict keto before - two years infact. Certainly the most game changing eating plan I’d been on- made me feel amazing and instilled a level of calmness, less food noise. But even then it inevitably crept back and the exhaustion of constantly trying to keep to it was just so hard. Before I knew it six years have passed and Ive not managed to ditch the carbs again .

sorry if I seem dismissive, I’m not I promise. And I am going to look into hypnosis. I’m just so very low about it right now.

It’s just how it is sadly. It takes so much effort to stay slim with the call of nice food everywhere, I would eat every minute of the day if I could but torture myself to keep the weight off

even when I’m heavy (have been 15st before) and im now 12 again.. have been 9.5…. Regardless of whether I’m dieting, completely off the rails with food etc… the noise is there 😞

Huge sympathy OP. Food noise is torture. I never knew how awful, all consuming and how much mental energy it took up, until it stopped when I first started using MJ. However, I think if I was at the highest dose and it was having no effect, I'd stop. That just seems like money down the drain.

On another thread someone posted this link: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/sep/07/glp1s-weight-loss-drugs-cravings-non-responders

It mentions a drug called Mysimba. I don't know if that would be worth investigating @Scared0112 .

OP, can I ask what your diet looks like in terms of carbs/sugar? These cause glucose spikes which switch on the food cravings. I know myself that I find it much harder to stick to the plan if I start eating these foods. So I generally avoid anything sweet/sugary (inc fizzy drinks, chocolate , biscuits etc) and also minimise the usual four - bread, pasta, rice, potatoes. Doing that for me minimises food noise. Otherwise I get stuck in a spiral of eat/noise/eat

Overeaters Anonymous

That sounds incredibly exhausting, especially after experiencing what it was like when the food noise finally became quiet. I’d speak to your prescriber rather than just accepting that 15mg is the end of the road, because there may be other things worth reviewing besides simply increasing the dose