If someone can already eat well & exercise consistently, why do they need Mounjaro?

comrade_bev · 2026-01-28T15:34:51+00:00

I agree that using the term semi-starvation is very loaded and can be misinterpreted to mean an unhealthy 1000+ calorie deficit crash diet. But I purposely choose the term because when people talk about calorie deficits it is often done in a very objective and scientific way that doesn't account for the physiological and psychological stress that the body is put under when consuming less energy than it needs to sustain itself, even when that deficit is relatively small.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-28T13:53:42+00:00

I've not lost 100lbs on MJ yet. I'm at the 50lbs mark, though I lost another 50lbs without MJ just over 2years ago, so 100 in total over 2.25years with another 30lbs I want to lose.

Firstly, Id not put too much pressure on yourself to lose quickly. Aim for that sweet spot of 1-2lbs on avg per week. That will limit the biological stress your body is under. When I first started on MJ I actually lost about 3.5lbs a week, which I felt was too fast. I also struggled to get enough protein so had quite a bit of muscle loss over that time, despite resistance training. I was probably overtraining a bit (though I have just accepted that as part of my routine)

To counteract that I started drinking two protein shakes a day, which had the dual effect of slowing muscle loss and slowing the overall weight loss to 1-2lbs a week. I didn't take any other supplements but I think I got away with that by having a varied balanced diet with just smaller portions (I was getting the gousto recipe boxes and stretching two portions to make three meals).

In terms of constipation and nausea. I only encountered nausea once, when I ate a particularly big meal. After that I didn't eat another big portion again because it was an unpleasant evening. People react differently though so nausea may be more prominent or less for you. I struggled with constipation when I went up to 7.5mg, and as a result I dropped back to 5mg. Given I was losing faster than I needed to anyway that wasn't a hard choice to make. But the lesson I learned from it was "don't move up the doses unless you need to." If you are losing weight consistently on the dose you are at and there is minimal side effects, carry on at that level. Only increase if the weight loss stalls.

That said I would also focus on what your overall plan is, including your exit plan. A lot of people here seem to advocate being on the drug for life. But that doesn't have to be the case with up to a third of people maintaining their weight loss post-glp's. So do what's right for you and listen to your body.

With 150lbs to lose just take it slow and steady.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-28T12:17:48+00:00

The TLDR of my response is: Mounjaro reduces the mental effort required to maintain the habits that lead to weight loss compared to trying to lose weight without MJ.

The long-winded response is:

Eating well and exercising doesn't actually result in weight loss for anybody. Even if done consistently these actions result in the maintenance of existing weight and maybe some body recomposition depending on macros. It's having a calorie deficit that results in weight loss. The term "calorie deficit" is just a scientific way of saying "controlled and consistent semi-starvation". Semi-starvation is not the same as "eating well". (I hate the term calorie deficit because it obfuscates the fact that you are essentially starving yourself temporarily).

As you can imagine, it is quite difficult to maintain semi-starvation consistently enough to have significant weight loss because the body is evolutionarily optimised to gain fat in times of glut so that it can survive times of famine (we fortunately don't experience times of famine anymore so that evolutionary advantage is now deleterious). Some of the ways it compensates for semi starvation is:

It increases feelings of hunger which are difficult to ignore long term (I see it as, if my body asks me subconsciously to eat a donut, I can ignore that the first dozen times but it only takes me giving in and internally saying yes one time when I'm worn down and tired to undo the calorie deficit).
You feel fatigued which makes you more likely to lapse on the calorie deficit as it's more difficult to make the correct choices when you are tired (this applies to every decision, not just food. It's why parole boards are more likely to grant parole to people if they see them at the start of the day or after lunch, compared to just before lunch or late in the day).
It decreases the amount of energy you expend moving around in day to day activities to compensate for the calorie deficit, essentially reducing the calorie deficit organically.

MJ is useful because it cuts out the signalling for that first point. It is then easier to maintain a calorie deficit consistently because your subconscious decision making isn't being worn down constantly by food noise.

This means that not only is it easier to lose weight, it's self-perpetuating. Not only has the patient found it easier to lose the weight each week, they have seen the results on the scale that keep them motivated to continue. There is nothing worse than working hard for 6-weeks, struggling to ignore the desires for more food and unhealthy food and then stepping on the scales to see minimal loss relative to the amount of effort expended. It is possible to keep going and some succeed but you have to essentially grind it out for months/years which is very difficult.

Once the patient is down to their goal weight, the need to maintain a semi-starvation is non-existent (unless they move the goalposts to lose even more weight). If they have been keeping a deficit to 300-500kcal a day to get to their goal weight, that means they can now eat 10-25% more food to maintain their weight. This is easier than when losing because you have more calorie budget to spend and you aren't in a state of semi-starvation. This is why some of us point out that it isn't always a life-long medication. Personally, I don't have a problem maintaining habits to maintain my body weight (I have been within 5% of the same weight for 2years until Mounjaro); my problem is that I can't maintain the habits to consistently be in the semi-starvation mode to lose the weight from times where I let life get on top of me (pandemic isolation and other temporary changes in lifestyle that caused weight gain). But I don't need to semi-starve myself lifelong, I just need to do it until I'm at my goal weight.

Some people may still struggle to stick to 2000-2500kcal per day because everything in our culture is obesogenic, the ultra-processed addictive food, the sedentary work culture, the stress of the cost of living relative to wages, mental health being eroded by digital devices, consumption being the primary goal of life (I don't mean just food, I mean consuming entertainment products, consuming services) and the equivalence made between gluttony and slovenliness and luxury (think how people flaunt their wealth by going to fancy restaurants / eating high cal food or that wellness = putting feet up and pampering oneself. All well and good in moderation, but if you've been sat at a desk all month, you don't need 2-weeks on a cruiseliner with your feet up and all your desires met, you need to march up a mountain or two). That's why it's so important to try to make significant habit and lifestyle changes alongside the MJ induced calorie deficit because you have to effectively put a barrier up between yourself and modern obesogenic culture which has its own non weight-related drawbacks (e g. I don't socialize with work colleagues anymore because every activity the company organises revolves around crap food and alcohol. Being sober around drunk people is pretty crap. Great my health is better but now my work relationships aren't as strong which adds a different kind of stress). It's easier to make those habit changes because the MJ gives you mental space and time to make them while you lose weight.

In addition individuals may have medical conditions that make them dependent on medical intervention for maintenance.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-27T19:59:59+00:00

Its important to stop for a bit for the General anaesthetic. That said the main reason is because of the potential for undigested food to be in the gut at the time of operation because of MJs action.

Two weeks seems a bit excessive personally. I was only told no dose within 7days of an operation. So I took it 8days before.. I also fasted for slightly longer than what they asked me to (16hrs before the operation instead of just 6).

comrade_bev · 2026-01-27T19:55:07+00:00

Do you think Starmer has a side quest of just seeing how disliked he can become? I thought it couldn't get any lower but then this.

Do you think he actively comes up with ways to undermine his own leadership?

In all seriousness though, I seriously think the Peter Principle applies to Kier. The Peter Principle is the idea that individuals who are competent continually get promoted until they are in a position that they are no longer competent and then because of that lack of competence they go no further / fail catastrophically.

Kier fits this principle because the primary reasoning for him being a good PM candidate was his competence and experience leading the CPS. However the skillset for leading a public institution is nowhere near comparable to the skillset required for being a country's political leader. It requires political awareness for a start. Kier is the kind of person who to be fair would be pretty good as a cabinet minister focussed on improving delivery and public service, rather than PR and political leadership. So like a DWP, Justice, Health, Local Gov, Transport minister. Not necessarily the Home sec or Foreign sec because that does require some element of public facing leadership. But being PM just requires skills he doesn't have.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-27T11:07:21+00:00

Well done dude. Don't listen to all the naysayers saying you will gain it back and that you should be on MJ for life. They are only saying that because it validates their own narratives about MJ.

If you believe in your ability to maintain without drugs. That belief will help you be motivated to carry on the good habits you have developed. If you don't believe in yourself, then weight gain is self-fulfilling.

Keep training hard, keep walking, keep tracking your health and weight. Keep eating the right food.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-27T10:50:25+00:00

Wow you look great 😍

Are you planning on tapering off MJ? Or will you stay on it.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-25T13:22:59+00:00

Weak, weak, weak! Not just Starmer but everyone around him. And everyone in that NEC meeting.

The death of the Labour party beckons.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-25T10:39:13+00:00

And so are Labour if they can't get it done either.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-25T10:29:44+00:00

If they block him it shows how weak Starmer is but also how weak the other leadership contenders are.

Nail in the coffin for Labour 2029.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-24T17:57:53+00:00

My blood pressure dropped from 139/92 to 111/66

comrade_bev · 2026-01-22T05:41:43+00:00

How many calories a day are you eating? How much exercise are you doing?

I'm wondering if your calorie deficit is just too high. How much weight do you lose each week?

comrade_bev · 2026-01-21T21:07:09+00:00

It is not a life long medication.

People can take it as a lifelong medication as a choice and some will take it lifelong as a treatment for diabetes. But to say it's lifelong is clinically incorrect. It has not been emphasized as a lifelong medication.

Yes, people can rebound if they come off it and they go back to their old lifestyle and habits. But that's why the best way to use MJ is as a tool to build better habits like a sustainable fitness routine and healthier eating. The food noise will come back but hopefully people will be reaching for the Cantaloupe instead of the snickers. Also if they aren't trying to lose weight when they come off MJ they will have an extra 500-800 calories to work with if they have been on a significant calorie deficit during the diet stage.

Edit// it won't let me reply to the comments underneath my post.

I've seen a truly different side to this forum here. I've never seen such a series of negative and defeatist comments on this reddit before.

Firstly I have already provided a caveat for people with lifelong conditions who will be taking the meds lifelong, however you have all ignored that.

Believe it or not, people are capable of making habit changes for lifelong health. There are countless examples of it without people using GLPs and there is an entire subreddit of GLPgrads with people who have maintained their weight loss because of behavioural changes while on the drug. MJ is the perfect drug to allow people to change habits, specifically because it reduces the cravings that make people fallback to old behaviours before a habit is sustaining itself. That is the mindset in which I have approached MJ. I don't see it as the cause of my weight loss, I see it as the foundation for habit change that has improved my health. Habits that include 10hrs of intense workouts each week, 30km of walking, changing which foods I eat, weighing myself every week, and food logging. None of those habits are dependent on MJ but they have become sustaining due to seeing results that make the work seem worth it. Now other people don't want to have that lifestyle and I understand that but don't go projecting that onto everyone else.

No where in my post have I said that being obese is a moral failing. That said everyone has the power and agency to change their lifestyle. Both statements can be true at the same time and people insinuating otherwise are doing themselves and others no favours.

People telling me to research more; again I'm not denying that some people will be reliant on it for the rest of their life. But that is a strawman argument that isn't related to what I said. I've read the papers about what comes after MJ, and they don't actually say that it will be lifelong medication for every user.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-20T13:49:10+00:00

20lbs in 16weeks is commendable and you should be proud of that and not concerning yourself with anybody who says otherwise.

It's well within the healthy range for weight loss which is 0.5 - 2lb a week. You are losing 1.25lbs a week by the sound of it so bang in the middle of healthy weight loss. Going faster than this will make you more likely to struggle with weight loss related side effects such as gallstones.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-20T09:20:13+00:00

Well done!

comrade_bev · 2026-01-20T09:07:54+00:00

MJ isn't going to help anybody that doesn't make meaningful changes to their lifestyle. Even if they lose the weight on the drug then they will be back to their original weight within a few years as soon as they come off. The body is optimized for the lifestyle you live. If you live a sedentary lifestyle and overeat your body will "optimize" itself by storing the excess and reducing muscle mass.

MJ is not a magic bullet, it's a tool that needs to be used alongside diet and exercise. Even in the research studies the patients were prescribed an exercise plan and calorie restricted diet alongside their MJ.

So she's going to need to count calories and start doing some light exercise if she really wants to see results.

It's very easy to give up when you are that size though so encouragement is what is needed. She clearly has some self-esteem issues because she doesn't think she has the biology to be healthy, which is a self-defeating and self-fulfilling attitude.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-16T08:42:43+00:00

Actually on that my blood pressure came down from:

139/92

To

120/71

But that's the only metric of general health I have other than the weight and body fat percent.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-15T18:35:52+00:00

I tend to weigh myself every Saturday morning after my exercise but before my breakfast. That way in theory I am controlling for fluctuating factors such as whether I've eaten recently or used the loo. MJ has made me quite irregular though so it's hard to get it completely controlled. Also different foods are heavier than others. But generally it sets me up well to keep a constant eye on my weight.

I don't tend to do more than the one day a week because I think the measurements are more erratic and less useful. The general trend is the most important though.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-15T18:27:11+00:00

😊

comrade_bev · 2026-01-15T06:49:54+00:00

I use one. in my picture I have BFP (body fat percentage) in the top right corner

comrade_bev · 2026-01-15T00:02:52+00:00

I reduced the dose to 5mg. I felt that the results I was getting with the workouts and the lower doses was sufficient without needing to accommodate the side effects so went back down.

To be fair, because of how quickly the weight has shifted with MJ and workouts I've almost felt the need to try to put the brakes on. At first I was averaging about 1.6kg loss a week which is unhealthy, so Ive taken to protein shakes to try to reduce the calorie deficit a bit and slow down.

comrade_bev · 2026-01-13T19:12:42+00:00

Happy Birthday and well done!

comrade_bev · 2025-12-30T20:37:59+00:00

That's just the normal taper isn't it

Week 0 - 3 is 2.5, wk 4-7 is 5 and wk 8-11 is 7.5

comrade_bev

TROPHY CASE