Back to routine – will 5mg start working or should I move up?

[Wishfulshrinker25]

My Wegovy experience wasn’t great, so I switched to Mounjaro. The weight loss has been very slow, which I’ve been okay with because I’m not expecting to be a super responder...BUT after a very relaxed summer, I’m now back at exactly the weight I was in June before the kids’ summer holidays. My weight has basically gone up and down by a couple of pounds all summer and ultimately ended up back where it started.

If I think about the nearly £300 I’ve spent, I find that really frustrating. I know I’m not expecting miracles, but it does make me question whether it’s actually having much impact. I’m still on 5mg and can’t really justify the cost of going up to 7.5mg if that’s just going to give me the same minimal results.

I’m wondering whether it’s worth staying at 5mg now that the kids are back at school and I’m back into a more normal work/routine, and seeing what happens when I’m actually back to my usual eating and exercise habits. Maybe the summer has just masked what 5mg is doing?

Has anyone else found that they started seeing better progress once they got back into a proper routine, despite having been pretty stagnant over the summer? Or I guess I'm also asking if anyone else has not felt the impact of Mounjaro as much as they were hoping to?

What do you mean when you say the summer has "masked" what 5mg is doing? Do you mean you've pushed through the suppression and satiety and eaten more because it's Summer? Or that the MJ isn't giving you satiety/appetite suppression at all?

If it's the latter then you need to go up a dose. If it's the former then yes, obviously, if you're not letting the MJ do its thing then it won't work.

It sounds like you've been eating maintenance calories. Have you calculated your TDEE and at least ballparked how much less you need to eat to be in a decent deficit?

Hey @GiveMeWordGames, I think I mean the latter really. If I've been able to eat enough to be 'normal' or only move 1/2lb up or down, then the appetite suppression can't be working properly. I understand it's not full suppression, but I'd expect to feel differently somehow if it was working like expected.

It would seem pretty straightforward that you need to go up a dose. Tricky if that’s something that will be difficult to afford.

If you stick with 5mg due to costs then you’ll have to really work with the medication, track what you’re eating, plan for high protein low carb and bulk out with veg. Try to avoid sugar or carb spikes as much as possible.

Yes @SilenceInside and there's an element of needing to 'restart' that reminds me of pre-MJ times, and I think I wasn't expecting to feel that like while taking Mounjaro consistently.

Yes, I would agree with @SilenceInside - it seems pretty clear that you need to go up a dose if at all possible.

I only lost a few pounds on 5mg but on 7.5mg really stated to lose the kgs. I think you need to go up to 7.5mg.

I has a similar thing and was unhappy with it. Then someone asked if I was in a calorie deficit and I had to admit I had no fucking clue because I'd hoped the meds would do that for me.

Now I use Nutracheck and know I'm in a deficit and the weight is going off again. I'm not on a hugely high dose and don't really want to be for financial reasons. I expect the people who have to force themselves to eat and lose stones in days are different people to me.

You haven’t really said what you are eating, which is key to your weight loss. I wouldn’t necessarily move up if you just need to rejuvenate the food slightly, perhaps being out of routine has meant you grabbing higher calorie food which you can sort out now?

You are supposed to move up to find your optimal dose and it’s the one before the one you can’t tolerate. You know when you get there as it’s works perfectly 24/7 and instinctively know you can’t move up more nor do you need to,

it isn’t a case you can just decide it works at a certain dose and thays it, for you 5 doesn’t work, it maybe 10 or 15 is the dose for you none of us know.

but what we do know is it is pointless to waste money on too low a dose for no reason,

No, I don’t agree that that’s the best option for everyone.

I think that going up the doses to continue losing weight without actively changing your diet and lifestyle, leaves you stuck in limbo when it comes to maintenance. I’ve read a lot of posts where maintenance is proving much harder to achieve than the initial weight loss.

Unless you intend paying for the higher doses of weight loss drugs for the foreseeable, you need a plan for maintenance (which might include titrating down to a very low dose of MJ), but unless you change the lifestyle that made you obese, you’re going to end up back at square one like the majority of people who lose a significant amount of weight on any diet.

I’m trying to lose 5 stones without going higher than 5mg as it’s too expensive to move to the higher doses and I need to work towards a solution to stay slim without WL medication.

For many of us using WLDrugs, it’s simply unaffordable long term.

Absolutely this
The people taking this and expecting it to do all the work are the ones who get a shock when they stop the meds
You still have to eat very healthily in a deficit and exercise, do everything that someone without wli is doing, for me it just makes it that bit easier to stick to

But you're only on 5mg. It's a very low dose so if you don't want to up it you really need to work hard alongside it. I'm in the same position but on maintenance. Put in a bit over the summer because I've relaxed. I'm on 5mg every 10 days. It takes the edge off but doesn't do the heavy lifting that higher doses do. Basically I need to either find the willpower or up the dose. I do find it easier out of holiday season as we eat out less but it's not easy.

Did you misunderstand what I wrote? Move up to your optimal dose doesn’t mean a high dose, it could be 5mg for some. It could be 15 for others.clearly5 isn’t working for the op.

and I don’t understand what you mean about maintainenance and no where to go. My optimal dose was 10mg. When hit goal I slowly titrated down whilst reverse dieting, ie slowly increasing cals. The increased cals offset any increase in hunger and I now maintain on 5mg. Have done for over 18 months v stable.

this is the issue with social media, people think they know better than the scientists and manufacturers.

Maybe I have misunderstood your original post as you seemed to infer that everyone should move up the doses to ensure consistent weight loss and leave the drugs to do the heavy lifting? I think you’re also correct in saying that’s what the manufacturer advises. In fact, there’s no information on the patient leaflet about diet and exercise or how to maintain the weight loss at all.

A poster up thread said…. “Then someone asked if I was in a calorie deficit and I had to admit I had no fucking clue because I'd hoped the meds would do that for me.” Reading numerous posts on here confirms that this is a common approach to taking the drugs, as endorsed by the manufacturers.

As I said previously, moving up the doses to continue losing weight without pausing to review your eating habits and general lifestyle is a common rookie error that leaves users stuck with nowhere to go when they reach the maximum dose and still not at goal or when they want to stop losing and maintain their new weight.

In your subsequent post, you clarified that you did indeed count calories whilst using the meds and slowly increased them after reaching goal and moving to maintenance. Good for you!

Final thought: The ‘scientists and manufacturers’ don’t appear too interested in supporting users to come off the medication. Wonder why that is??

Yes I think you have misunderstood, and also misunderstood what the manufacturer suggests, move up to find your optimal dose does not mean keep moving up, that would be silly and quite frankly dangerous . It’s move up to find your optimal dose which could be 5mg or 15, it’s very individual, sure some can make it work on 2.5 but in all tests and trials it had no therapeutic benefit on any of the tens of thousands of participants, therapeutic meaning blood sugar and insulin control.

I’d be tempted to give the return to your normal routine a little time before assuming 5mg isn’t doing anything. If you’re still not seeing progress, though, it’s worth discussing the dose and overall plan with your prescriber rather than increasing purely because of the cost

I think that might be me too, or I'm hoping it is! Just ordered the 7.5mg pen.

@jeffsaward and @LividRoasting, I use My Fitness Pal and am staying consistently in the calorie range now, cant say that I did over the summer though which explains the problem now!

Interesting you mention the willpower because that's what I feel I lack day to day, so was hoping Mounjaro would really help with that. I know what to eat, how to exercise etc and my planning skills are impressive BUT it never seems to come together. I saw someone on Mumsnet say they weren't fat because they didnt understand weight loss, and i agree with that for me.

I'd say it's now been a month of normal and maybe 4lbs loss so still very slow. Even at its most effective, this dose has been slow. I'm going to try 7.5mg and then reassess if needed I think.

Move up. The weight dropped off me when it was working and I could tell I wasn’t interested in food as much. If you’re not feeling anything it’s not working.

The majority of people don’t feel the full effects until 7.5 or 10mg.

That's what I was expecting more, to feel differently to food. Hopefully next month I'll be saying how much of a difference it's making!

From moving up from 7.5, 10 to 12.5 mg I have felt less and less hungry and even had to eat a protein yoghurt, because obviously I know I shouldn't not eat at all but I could easily go all day and not feel hungry at all.