What’s your strategy for stopping? Mine clearly hasn’t worked.

[somedogsdo]

So I had to stop MJ about 8 weeks ago. The first couple of weeks were ok, but then appetite came back with a vengeance. I’ve put on over half a stone in 6 weeks!
I’m hoping to start again, but think I need to rethink my strategy.
Up until now I’ve just eaten when I’m hungry and stopped when I’m full. Over time I lost around 3st (pretty slowly but I was fine with that) and my BMI had just dropped below 30 when I had to stop.
So now I’m thinking I need to either be on these meds for life or alter my strategy.
Obviously when I’m off the meds my appetite goes right back to normal and I eat too much. So what do people do? Do I need a different strategy when I’m on the meds to help me transition coming off? Do I just accept I need them forever?
I’ve really enjoyed not having food rule my life but as soon as I’m off the meds, I’m ravenous. I’m aware I’m eating more but, because I haven’t had to think about it on MJ, I’m just eating until comfortably full, as I was on the meds, which is actually probably more than I was eating before I started them!

I do have some whey protein isolate each day but most of my protein is from food.

30g in fat free natural skyr breakfast
30g in tuna or similar in salad at lunch
30g in protein shake in gym (myprotein whey protein isolate)
60g in chicken at dinner

along these lines

Fruit veg pulses herbs spices seeds nuts etc. I get 10 a week from nuts and seeds.

I think intermittent fasting is a good way to manage weight maintenance as it helps with insulin sensitivity. It will also help reduce snacking as you can only eat within your eating window.

Another consideration is tapering down really slowly if you plan to come off the medications all together. There is probably some adaption of the hunger and satiety hormones to GLP-1 medications that make the hunger and food noise much more intense when you come off them too quickly. By tapering down and continuing to track your calorie and nutrient intake, you should be able to keep eating at a weight maintenance level.

The third thing would be to be ready to go back on the medications if needed. We know that weight rebound is a strong possibility so don’t wait until you’ve gained a lot back to restart the medication. The price should start to come down in the near future as medical patents expire.

I had to come off MJ due to pancreatitis - not confirmed it was the MJ, consultant muted it could have been viral. I only took 4 doses and I lost roughly 10lbs. I went on a low fat diet on discharge from hospital and lost another couple of pounds but am now back in the see-saw of putting on a pound one day then losing it again in a couple of days. I'm not really sticking to any diet.

I have no idea why I haven't put all the weight I lost back on but I still hover around 10-11lbs lost. I expect that to change over Christmas!!

If you like the taste, start your day with greek yoghurt (i do 5% but you could have 0% for a bit more protein), with chia seeds and a load of raspberries. Thats a good chunk of your daily target sorted.
Snack on ham slices, tesco honey roast are 30 calories and 5g protein each. Or chicken or prawns or eggs
If you eat avocado, thats also high fibre.
I roast a load of sweet potatoes to eat during the week.
Apples, pears, they help with fibre intake too.