Mounjaro - suppressing appetite but not emotional eating - what to do.

[ladygin]

i have lost 3.5 stone on mounjaro over a year (with a 5 month break in the middle), I am currently on 7.5mg.

It worked really well in the first phase both weight loss and food noise. But then I had a break as I could not afford it. I restarted and it never has worked as well so have gone up the doses to 7.5.

I am not hungry really but am happy to live on sugar and carbs and eat emotionally as before. So am loosing very slowly with lots of plateauing.

My question is should the mounjaro help with emotional eating? I appreciate a lot of it is psychological and will power. Also should I try going up to 10mg?

all advice / thoughts welcome.

My weightloss journey mirrors your (bar the break) and I'm on 7.5mg. For me, the appetite suppression and elimination of food noise meant that when I had something that would normally trigger emotional eating, I just did not fancy it.

But before I took the jab, I was acutely aware that emotional eating is a huge issue for me, and I was thinking a lot about why I turn to food or alcohol. So I'm really conscious now to any trigger, and just don't do it, as it's a backwards step. You need to supplement food with something else if you can, to take your mind off it. Going for a walk, reading, doing something around the house etc.

I also began regularly going to the gym to do system weights, which has helped enormously. I still have to force myself to go, but I know that bone density and muscle strength is my continual goal (I just turned 50) for health and wellbeing. My MJ journey is purely about that - I've suffered with back and knee pain and it was debilitating and frankly embarrassing - both have gotten better, especially the knee pain.

I am noticing the food noise/hunger creeping in a bit more but I'm determined to not go up to 10mg. I want to lose another 8kg - even then I'll still have an unhealthy BMI - to reach my initial goal, and then decide if I want to lose more or maintain. I am resigned (and happy about) being on the jabs at some level to help me maintain, as I have found the elimination of food noise the most liberating thing, having been overweight for as long as I can remember.

I think you'd really benefit from making some conscious decisions and effort to change your behaviour to emotional eating. Good luck - it's bloody hard, but worth it.

I did it the other way round - addressed the emotional eating first, then started Mounjaro when my weight loss levelled out and stayed there for 12 months. The fact it didn’t immediately rebound as it had done every other time over the past 50 years tells me I have found my solution for emotional eating.

Now, Mounjaro has reduced the frequency and strength of urges to eat for emotional reasons. But it has not completely removed them, I know that if I was determined to overeat for emotional reasons, I could.

So I know that for me, Mounjaro is a helpful tool, but it is not sufficient on its own. YMMV.

I see Mounjaro, alongside a low carb real food diet and intermittent fasting, as addressing the metabolic dysfunction which contributes to my lifelong obesity. And lots of work on my mindset and the Twelve Step program as addressing the emotional eating.

Other people say that MJ has completely stopped them bingeing and grazing with zero work on the emotional side.

Thank you both. It’s good to hear people in a similar place as all I was hearing was revolution on the emotional eating. So I will now investigate support on emotional eating rather than going up to 10.

It may sound obvious, but are you able to distract yourself when you feel an urge to eat for emotional reasons? Or keep a stick of carrots and apples handy for these moments and ensure you have no treats in the house.

Ive never had much suppression of either appetite or food noise. It’s frustrating and has been slower for me than many people who can manage eating like birds, however I have had to use willpower and think of ways of dealing with it too. I still snack and pick like before, but now it’s apples or carrots or a bag of popcorn that I grab rather than chocolate bars. And I’ve massively upped my exercise and step count, which helps. In some ways it’s a good thing to have to do a lot yourself.

Try Geneen Roth’s book, Breaking Free From Emotional Eating

I’ve found it far less effective after a break. I’m about to go to 10mg, I’ve upped running 5ks and will stop all snacking. I don’t feel I snack much but I do have a sweet tooth I need to tackle.

Does anyone know why it doesn’t work so well after a break?

I feel you, I'm the same. Never that hungry but could scoff sugar still quite happily. I could no easier say no to a biscuit offered now than I could before.

I don't know what the answer is, except to keep going up, I'm on 8mg and intend to get to 15.

Lots of us emotional eat, but some of us may fall into the binge eating disorder bracket. There seems to be mixed advise from experts re BED and the jabs currently? Hope youll get some sound advice. Take the loss as a sucess. Its bloody hard.

@Casualuser I was just kicked out by my provider for over a year because they finally bothered to check the nhs and saw I was diagnosed with BED.

^ loads of people have BED and have never asked for help. Not fair