August 2026 starters (Thread 2!)

[chocolatecoveredpretzels]

Hi everyone and thanks for the bestowed honour of starting the new thread, Puzzled!

It’s so lovely to have all of you along for the ride on here. Thanks for keeping me company! I love reading how things are going for you and being able to ask questions or share things.

Yesterday, I tried on a fleece top I bought last year. It fit me so snugly last year, I looked like a burst sausage in its casing. Now it’s actually loose. My rings are starting to feel a bit loose too- I wear my mum’s engagement and eternity rings and on the cold mornings, they’re starting to slip down my fingers.

I’m down 1.9kg this week and, although I’m still feeling hungry, it’s not an all-consuming hunger that leads to binging. I’ve actually needed to add more food as what I’ve eaten today and yesterday ended up being 1300 calories and 1100 calories. Given that my watch is still estimating approx 3000 calories burned on a typical day at school, I know I need at least 1600 to have enough oomph. Is anyone else finding the same?

I’ll link this thread in the old one so everyone can find their way here.

I am wondering how other people feel about side effects etc. I did two weeks on MJ and was getting on well with it despite a rocky start with acid reflux and stomach pains. Then went on holiday and it was too hard to manage so I intended to skip a week. I am now beset with worries about collagen loss which apparently starts int he first week, and eyesight issues as well as hair loss. I noticed my face was looking saggy and wondered why, apparently collagen loss is just something that happens. I''m panicking now. Anyone else worried about these things?

@Chaostheory12 sorry you had such a tough start. I take amino acid builders which mimick human collagen each day, I also drink tons of water and electrolytes to plump up skin cells. I've not noticed any hair loss at all - and that can happen with any fast or extreme weight loss. Take it slowly and allow your body time to catch up and not overreact to a sudden loss of calories and it should be fine.

Would you mind linking to ones you take please?

I haven’t experienced hair loss, and I’m not worried about collagen. Thing is, I had already lost a load of weight before starting Mounjaro, and come to accept that, with my history, a perfectly toned body with flawless skin and a fat tummy is simply not going to happen. I am going to have saggy skin whatever I do.

So in terms of side effects, I am only concerned about the ones which do or could cause practical problems, such as muscle loss, and my current favourite, constipation. Those need to be handled, mitigated, avoided, whatever.

My face has gone a lot thinner, and I do now have fine lines visible around my mouth. But I’m 62 - what you gonna do? I’d rather be a bit wrinkly and healthy than have smooth skin and be unable to walk.

Just had my weigh-in for the end of week 10 today and 11th MJ jab yesterday. Only lost 0.5 lbs which isn't great but I've felt hungrier this week and less nauseous. I've also had Halloween sweets in work and been chain-eating mints to stave off nausea, as well as eating slightly more bread, so it all adds up.

Not sure yet whether to move up to 7.5mg or sick at 5mg. Will see how next week goes.

SW - 15.12.25
CW - 14.13.05

That should have said flawless skin and a FLAT tummy is not going to happen. A FAT (well, flabby) tummy is exactly what I expect to have to live with!

Collagen supplements are very much the thing of the moment, but I'm highly sceptical that they do any good - they'll get digested just like any other food and used for what the body needs, so you're better off eating a healthy balanced diet and trusting your body to look after itself. Collagen depletion is (I think) a thing that happens naturally with aging, and no amount of supplements are going to help with that.

Beyond discomfort in the here-and-now, I'm not worried about side effects. I'm trying to keep it steady, and so far so good. It'd be tricky for me to notice hair loss though, to be honest - I have very thick hair that is cut short, so shedding is much less noticeable than when it was longer.

I think I did 4 last week and I went to 3.75 this week just to make it easy with the clicks. Wrong week to do that. I am definitely hungrier (maybe I was ready for 5!) and yesterday with all sweets in the house I was tempted.

I am so annoyed at what introducing this type of food to my diet 2020 did to me, or what I did to myself by introducing it. I wasn't much of sweet junky food eater before that. There was no way I am going back down that road.

@MiaN that’s interesting….. was it lockdown and all the banana bread that did for you? Were you not overweight before then?

I stuck with 4mg this morning. I had been thinking of going up to 5, but decided to defer that until I’m confident the constipation is fully resolved. My weight is unchanged from last Sunday.

I’m not going to be derailed by that, but I am going to commit to a full day of fasting on Tuesday this week. Especially since we will be going for our monthly curry on Thursday.

I’ve just started looking at a book called More Than a Body, which promises loads of insights and exercises to overcome body image issues. Part of it is shifting the focus from how our bodies look to what they can do. This is something I try to do myself, but obviously not totally successfully! There are loads of exercises in there (not physical exercises), let’s see if working through those can shift something for me.

I take these ones : Vollagen® Vegan Collagen Alternative - Vegetology https://share.google/DKTl5bsFsc06OMpDY

I also take omegas dha and EPA for my skin and eyes etc. as well as b12, vit D I'm turning 39 early next year and determined to enter my 40s healthy and without losing my hair 😂

No I wasnt overweight or obese ever before that. I had classic covid and long covid and very bad chronic fatigue, and generally feeling sick most of the time. Combined with extreme stess in work and lockdown, and moving to new home unable to get tradesmen in, or buy furniture- it is old house. 2020 and 21 I went from healthy weight to obese.

Another 0.5kg off this week.

Super steady, but pretty consistent so far.
Importantly, from my perspective, this is pretty much all fat, as the weights I am lifting at the gym are increasing, and the getting back into running is also going well.

I am on 7.5 and now have some reasonsbly good suppression. I am not snacking, I am eating a considered diet. I still enjoy food which is important for me if this is going to work long term...focusing on establishing healthy, sustainable habits for the future.

I suspect I will purchase a x2 pen bundle of higher doses, which I will click count to 7.5 and only go higher if i feel i need to. It seems to make most sense to do that from a £ per dose perspective.

Keep focussed everyone and remember even (relatively) small loses mount up!

You said you weren’t really into sweet things before. Whether it’s because of the Covid itself, or that you passed some sort of sugar/junk food consumption threshold during that time, it seems as if something has fundamentally changed in your relationship with those foods, does that seem fair? You used to be able to take it or leave it, but now you can’t.

I have never been able to take it or leave it. Moderation doesn’t work for me - it has to be abstinence. At least for now it does.

@MiaN I put on five stone during 2020-2021 due to the pandemic & lockdown. Definitely not my finest hour. I was maybe a stone “overweight” before that gain but still a healthy BMI due to being a six footer. I lost it all (ie, six stone) 2022-2023 with diet and exercise and kept it off until this year, when I regained a bit under two stone (not sure of exact number, I’d stopped weighing myself). I have used MJ to nip all that weight off & will be going into maintenance after the last dose from my current pen (which will be this coming Sat).

I can’t even blame very bad covid or anything—I was proper sick when I got it but it faded after about a fortnight & seemed about as bad as flu. No after-effects like yours. So no idea what got into my head, but I went from someone who has never been fat in her life to someone with a BMI of 33.

If all goes to plan my BMI will be ~21 +/- on Wednesday when I do my weigh-in at the gym.

Good to be reminded that even small losses mount up as it can be a bit demoralising to read about all the people whose weight is whooshing right down while mine is just trickling off slowly!

Also mindful that for me it’s two steps forward and one step back as I’m just re-losing weight that I already lost last year under my own steam.

On reflection though that’s the story of my life. Lose weight under my own steam, gain it back over the next few years, then lose it again. Maybe the Mounjaro will break the cycle.

Hope we all have a good week 💐

I will be honest, it wasn’t like that. I ate very healthy and whole foods, I was very active. I recall my husband bringing chocolate from some fancy place in Switzerland and I didn’t go near it – I didn’t want to go near it. I recall thinking that it’s really odd to think toaster is mandatory home appliance, I never had toast. I was in the yoga studio when on my birthday age 39 2019, and I remember thinking this is my happy place. On holidays I would get up at 5, do 40 minutes walk at the sea side, do bodypump in local gym – or trx class, return to the hotel and have a swim before going for breakfast with my family. And of course chilling for the day. I loved it. I loved eating healthy, I loved being active.
2019 I was too busy in work and with house search and sell I didn’t want to mess up the kitchen and we were on the go a lot. I wasn’t taking lunch breaks. The sale of our place failed twice. We lived with my in laws for few months between selling and moving in and I didn’t have my kitchen to deal with. By the time I moved in to the new place December 2019 I already gained some weight (although healthy bmi). There as prolonged stress in work (hence I stopped lunch time walks and when I got the original covid I never recovered. Doctors didn’t know about long covid, were medicating me with everything – anti depressants, anti anxiety, 6 doses of antibiotics, steroids. The steroids actually helped in the end – but I was getting sicker nad sicker and any attempts to return to exercise resulted in crash and burn. It was at least 2 years before I got better advise by that time I was obese.
So it wasn’t I could take it or leave it – I didn’t take it. I didn’t eat any crap on regular basis, I was cooking and meal prepping and eating healthy and I was very active. I would have not stop doing dose if I had chance to turn back the time, as when sickness and lockdown hit – it floored me. No job or house is worth that.
But that’s the honest truth, I wasn’t eating crap and when I introduced it to my diet - you know the rest. It's not that I wasn't into sweets, I was into healthy eating and exercise but the - it is just until we get the house, until this project is complete etc that I lowered my standards of eating and cut the exercise.

I guess you can say I didn't have good stress management skilling and I with all my love for healthy eating and exercise - I put work and house move and everyone everything else. I though it is going to be for few months only - you never know what's behind the corner. though lesson to learn

Mentally I have had to tell myself that this time on MJ it is a tool to establishing good habits, which it is then up to me to maintain....It is the mindset that I had when I ordered in August...The pricing now is such that for me it isn't something that I am prepared to commit to long term. x4 more pens maximum for me. I only stopped the fist time, before I got down to target weight, due to the supply issues a year ago.

It is more than 10 years since I have been below the weight that I am now, and if WHEN I get to my target weight it will be probably be 30 years since the last time I was around that weight.....so there is a fair amount of resetting to be done!! But WHEN I get there I will be around 35kg lower than I was 2 years ago, in the healthy zone (but at the mid to upper end - I am 162cm). I will be stronger and healthier than I have been for around 10 years too.

I started a new gym at the time I ordered in August - small group weights based. And also started back running from C25K at the start of Sept, and I really do believe that this is key to being able to maintain - I still need/want to be able to eat and enjoy food so cutting calories too low isn't a consideration and the exercise part is critical for me.

It is super tough if the losses are slow(er) (relatively), I remember seeing this when I did my first stint on MJ - so I have to motivate myself by focusing on my positives...(not seeing negatives against someone else's positives - if that makes sense?). A big positives is not having side effects, I did see plenty of that from others last time (there were more of us posting in the group that time and over the months a lot of observations!)

I know it sounds a bit woo woo...but we do all have to believe that we are breaking the cycle or fixing new good habits.

Have a good week!

Steroids and anti-depressants put weight on, for sure.

On the habits thing…. You have many years of solid healthy eating and exercise behind you, hopefully they will reassert themselves. That’s what your brain is more used to.

I have a lifetime of crap eating habits and no exercise, interspersed with brief episodes of better eating and manic exercise. Trying to find a better balance now - good eating habits and regular, sane levels of exercise. I suppose the fear has been that I will go back to the old habits and get trapped again….. although as time goes on I am getting more confident.

Hello all.

I spent last week in Ireland having a wonderful time and not thinking about my diet. I definitely drank more than I should have done, but it wasn't excessive. I actually went for a chinese on the last day, and after about 5 mouthfuls I was done. I didn't ever finish a meal and I was actually quite chuffed with myself.

Until I weighed in this morning. I have somehow managed to gain 6Ibs in 5 days. I actually burst out laughing. It's a joke. Yes I had a hearty breakfast, but then nothing until dinner. I only ate a dessert once. I certainly didn't gorge myself on treats. But 6Ib 😅

Anyhoo, onwards and upwards. Another 2 weeks of the 0.5 pen, and then I go up to 1mg. I would ideally like to stay at 1mg, but I guess we will see what happens.

Weigh in for me today - another week stuck at 93.4kg. this seems to be my pattern, a bit of a whoosh then two/ three weeks of no movement then a whoosh again.

This week my eating wasn't great, I had a hen do with copious amounts of espresso martinis and wine! I also ate a lot of beige buffet food on Halloween so I'm not surprised but disappointed that my suppression is basically nothing and I have no self control!! (I suppose that's what got me to 17 stone in the first place!)

Anyway took my first dose of 3.75 today so hoping I feel some more suppression and a reduction in food noise this week 🤞 I'm pleased I managed to lose 11kg and 10% of my body weight on 2.5mg but I think it's run its course now.

Well done to everyones loses. I am reading and trying to motivate myself to exercise again

@Mamatriesmounjaro I’m a bit similar but then when you look at the overall trend I’m always a bit shocked my weight was so much higher 2 weeks ago etc.

Boring teacher interlude. Stuck marking essays. Down to the final 7 and normally I’d be snacking away to reward myself. Not feeling any desire to do that though!

Hi everyone. Good to hear your updates. I love how open and frank people are. Highs, lows and everything in between.

I did my first 7.5mg injection yesterday. I felt really gassy in the evening and have been burpy AND farty! Lying down to sleep last night was uncomfortable with heart burn and gas bubbling around. I am hoping it will settle down, which is what happened when I moved to 5mg. My weight loss has fluctuated up and down since the second month of 5mg and I have stayed somewhere around 106kg for a few weeks.

Hopefully it’ll start coming down again now.

I am in two minds what to do with my dose tomorrow. I messed up and instead of 4, I did 3.75 last week and I felt it. I am hungrier this week and my calorie intake is higher but still great deficit. About 150 calories a day extra. I had it in my mind I will go to 5 Christmas week. I had few mild cravings as well, but nothing like they were pre mounjaro.

I am trying to decide if I should go to 5 now, or go back to 4 for a week and see how that goes for me. 4 was working well the week before. And am I trying to ration the medication (it is expensive!), is it sensible to use few weeks like that before moving up a dose to practise the way down, is it even time to eat little more and improve energy. The deficit was less, hunger was more, no food noise however.

I think I will try 4 for another week (tomorrow) and reconsider again. If I have to move to 5 next week I will.

I don't want the expense of going up too fast, I don't want to have to be on higher maintenance dose if I have to be on the meds long term, I don't want to have many dosed down when I reach weight I am happy with. But if I need to I have to be prepared to do what I need to do.

@Belladog1
a lot of that will be sodium and general travel bloat. Weight again in few days and you should see a lot of it going down. I am up even if I eat sushi for dinner - the sodium makes me store water but it does go easily as it's not actual weight gain

@Mamatriesmounjaro
That's impressive loss for the starter dose. It would be great if we can lose it all on it, wouldn't it - but I am too trying to balance sense, what I would like to try and what my body is telling me. It sounds like you are ready to go up

Last week (11) was my first week that I am at home, and didn't lose any weight on weight in day. In fact it was up 0.1kg. I had few very quick loss weeks before that so it was the unfortunate payback time. I think with my period back in the picture, 2 easy followed by 2 harder weeks will carry on. I just need to try to remain balanced and have bit of a faith that as long as I keep steady the results will be great overtime. MUCH easier to say then emotionally accept.

@PuzzledObserver
I hear you. 5 years is long time to be obese (for me) and all that time I was trying to get a handle of it. I can appreciate waking up every day hoping for a change and not happening and I got to overweight bmi 3 times over that period and it didn't last. I keep thinking about one of the books that I read that most people that are successful long term do have many past failures and kept trying until something worked. I am dealing with same anxieties around long term maintenance.