Poor weight loss from mounjaro

[FML2]

Grateful for views on mounjaro. I am on 15mg and have lost one stone in 10months. I am 5ft 9inch and 16 stone 4 pounds. My weight loss is about 1.4 pounds a month. I feel it’s time to stop MJ as I can’t justify it anymore against the cost.
I have an autoimmune condition and just started tritation for adhd meds.
I did have appetite suppression but still couldnt shift the weight. Has anyone else found MJ didn’t work for them?

MJ isn’t a silver bullet and won’t magically dissolve fat. What lifestyle changes have you made in the last year?

I lost over 60lbs in around 9months on MJ as an early adopter but I did radically overhaul my lifestyle. I exercise 5X a week for at least an hour a day, pretty much cut out all UPF foods m, I drink plenty of water, dropped alcohol during the week and made sure I was in a calorie deficit. It was a slog but this is now me for life. It takes a calorie deficit (cals in vs energy expended) of 3500 a week to lose a lb of fat. It’s harder than you think to achieve that. Do you know your TDEE?

MJ did nothing for me. I had plateaued on ozempic so did a trial of MJ. No appetite suppression, gained weight.

Not everyone is a good responder to these drugs.

If you have appetite suppression and are losing weight albeit slowly then you will be in a small calorie deficit. If you want to lose more weight than your calorie deficit needs to be bigger, which can be achieved by increasing movement and/or reducing what you eat. What sort of things are causing that to be difficult for you at the moment? Is the appetite suppression not strong enough to support reducing your intake?

As others said, the drug doesn’t melt the fat off, you need to go on a diet, eat in a defecit, and the drug is a tool to enable you to do that.

You say this but I lost 33% of my body weight and didnt up my exercise (already walk 1+ hours a day) and didn’t count calories. It did feel like it melted away because I just wasn’t hungry.

Everyone reacts differently because the system and hormone levels at play in people is all different.

OP I would still continue if you are seeing a loss as any reduction in weight will be beneficial to your long term health.

@Oxaloacetate I didn’t count calories either but I was in a significant calorie deficit nonetheless as the appetite suppression meant that I was eating much smaller portions and not snacking. If the OP is only losing about 1/3 lb a week then she is not in a significant calorie deficit. There’s no need to calorie count, but to lose more weight the OP will need to reduce her intake and/or increase movement.

Of course, a deficit is necessary to lose weight that’s physics but the PP essentially made out as though people who don’t suddenly become super regimented about their food and do loads of exercise won’t see results when for the majority that is not true as the was MJ works is to make people want to eat a lot less without thinking about it.

Yes OP clearly doesn’t respond strongly to the drugs so needs to take her deficit into her own hands.

Way* not was

No one made out you had to be super regimented. The op is struggling, the drugs don’t melt the fat off, the op clearly isnt in a defecit, she’s effectively eating just below maintainance.

I think you are a bit unlucky. I have lost 40% of my body weight without counting calories or doing additional exercise. MJ has very simply restricted my appetite. I haven’t given anything up, just eaten less. In your case you don’t seem to be a good responder, and the only thing that will help is reducing your calories, so you do need to know exactly how many calories you are eating. It’s tough when others have an easier experience, but you have actually lost weight, so you can do it. Good luck.

I would have thought someone could lose that on a normal diet in that time and not spend the money on jabs.
I have lost a stone in 6 months just by cutting out sugar, snacks switching to skimmed milk. 3 healthy meals a day. No exercise and still have a treats and a drink at the weekend.

Ultimately the drugs help you maintain a deficit, and that’s why you lose weight. If you take the drugs and struggle to maintain the deficit then there isn’t any point. You are losing but very slowly. What would happen if you made more of a conscious effort to
weight and measure food
eat 120g protein and 30g fibre a day
stick to a deficit that should result in say 1lb a week
lifting weights to mitigate muscle loss

The med doesn’t work for twenty percent of people but you’re not one of them, as you do get suppression you say, but most of us can push through and eat more than we need, unless on too high a dose.

so id say as you’re eating just below maintenance, you need to diet. Use the suppression to enable that, I didn’t call count either, I simply knew roughly in my head and ensured I was in a sufficient defecit to lose one to two pounds a week,

so I’d also say unless you’re in the headspace to diet, you should stop, as relying on the drugs to do the heavy lifting for you isn’t working for you

Which ADHD drug are you on?
My son had methylphenidate, one of the side effects is it limits his appetite, so you may find this happens for you as you up titrate the dose?

Hey @FML2, I feel like my results are very similar to yours. Started Wegovy in December last year and had crazy little surpession so moved to MJ in April and only 1.5 stone down in total. I'm now 16 stone 9 and 5 foot 8 so still a way to go until a healthy weight.

My weight loss averages out at 0.5lb a week, which sounds so slow but I really like what @Oxaloacetate said about any weight loss being beneficial for long term health and that's what I'm trying to focus on. Where will I be in another year and what would the likelihood of me losing it (and keeping it off) without MJ?

I really wanted to feel the impact like @Onefairfish and have been waiting for the right dose for that to happen, but now feel like, although a very expensive way of doing it, my weight is going in the right direction.

The first reply said she had cut out all UPF, tracked calories, no alcohol, exercised 5x a week for an hour… and ‘radically’ overhauled her lifestyle. Is that not super regimented?

Yep, every 5% of body weight lost can drop blood sugar by 13mmol/mol… which for some can be the difference between being diabetic or not. It also shows improvement in blood lipids and blood pressure reducing risk of heart disease. Obviously these will vary by individual but these are observed trends.

5% of body weight could be just 4KG (8lbs) for an 80KG individual or 5KG (11lbs) for a 100kg (15st) individual. Even less than a stone but such a difference in health!