Hi all,
I joined Mumsnet after reading for ages, just so I could contribute to this thread.
I am at the beginning of my Wegovy journey. I am paying for it myself. I've been overweight to some extent my whole life but in the last three years or so it's got particularly out of hand. My BMI was 36 when I started five weeks ago. It has been higher, I piled a ton of weight on over covid (boredom/comfort/stress eating and drinking) and I ended up 14 stone at 5' 2". I'm going through menopause as well, which doesn't help.
I managed to get a grip and have some real success over the summer months with low carbing, but the winter weather and the run up to Christmas saw me plateau, then start to go backwards. Which is how it ALWAYS goes. I am so bloody tired of years and years of going one step forward and three back. I just want it to stop. I know I can have success with a determined effort at low carbing but it's so hard to sustain long term. I am so easily thrown off course. I love to cook and my life revolves around food. It's my hobby and my passion. I just want to be able to eat a tiny bit of whatever I like without feeling that fear that it will turn into a week long binge that will undo the previous three weeks good work.
Soo.. I thought some people might be interested in how I am getting on.
When took my very first dose I weighed 81.5 kilos. Today, 5 weeks later I weigh 80 kilos exactly. To say this is not the result I was hoping for or expecting is an understatement. I knew it could be a very slow build for some people and I know that apparently the best is yet to come, but even so I really did expect so much more by now. Reading this thread some people find they have very little appetite from week 1. Sadly I am not one of them.
I deliberately haven't 'tried' to consciously diet, or eat especially healthily, or avoid anything in particular. I've just let myself go with whatever I fancy. I wanted to see what the Wegovy would do without any special effort from me, and so far...the answer is nothing much at all. If anything, I've probably eaten less sensibly than before the Wegovy, where I would have exercised some levels of self control over my food choices, if not the amount of food on my plate.
I am not a massive chocolate and sweets person, I don't live on junk food and takeaways, (but my downfall is rich food, cheese, butter, cream, roast xpotatoes, lovely bread. I cook good food from scratch most days. Or at least I did, before the Wegovy.) I don't tend to eat anything until late morning or lunchtime but that was normal for me before Wegovy too. I'm eating a normal, reasonably generous portion of whatever lunch I choose, (soup and bread, poached eggs on toast, a sandwich and a banana. the usual sort of stuff. I am not experiencing any noticable lack of appetite once I sit down in front of a plate of food.
I am often hit the biscuit tin in the afternoon and then I am less fussed about dinner, so am probably eating a slightly smaller dinner or I am happy to just snack on something like cheese and crackers, or a tin of soup.
I do seem to care a lot less about food in general. I have very little interest in cooking, or meal planning, which is really unusual for me. Usually I go out of my way to make delicious and interesting meals. Since Wegovy I don't seem to care what I eat so long as it's low effort and does the job. In reality that's meant more convenience food and ready meals, so not really the kind of effect I was hoping for. 🙄But I wouldn't say that I am noticably less hungry yet, or more easily satisfied with smaller portions. Certainly for the first three on 0.25 mg weeks this was the case.
Since I've had 2 weeks on the 0.50 dose (I moved myself up a week early) I've noticed a slight bit of difference in my appetite, but it's yet to translate into any meaningful weight loss.
I'm going to either go straight 1mg next time, or combine my leftover 0.25 and .50 doses for 0.75mg. So that will be three weeks each on the lowest two doses. I'm getting too impatient to wait any longer for something to happen. I am getting demoralised.
As for side effects, the worst thing is the constipation. I absolutely HAVE to take something for it, at least twice a week. I have had a couple of headaches and some dizzy spells. A bit of nausea but nothing terrible. I'm not sleeping especially well, which is a pain.
But I'm cracking on in the hope that it will all be worth it in the end. Sorry for the essay.
Oh, one obvious benefit so far is that I am drinking less booze. I am not an especially heavy drinker but I do tend to drink most evenings out of habit. Usually a couple of glasses of wine or a large measure G&T. I'd say my consumption has gone down my about half, if not less. I just don't crave it as much. I either stop on the way to the fridge and think 'I don't really care if I don't have that, so I won't.' or some nights I don't even think about having a drink at all.
You'd think that alone would have lost me more than 1.5 measly kilos over 5 weeks wouldn't you? But alas no. 😤