Average Joe My Personal Weight Loss Story
It’s important to share my personal weight loss story because even if one person can connect it can help someone else achieve their dreams. I didn’t have a lot of weight to lose but I felt compared to my old self I felt awful. I used to love taking photographs but I no longer recognised the fat person I could see on camera. In my twenties I was on average a size 12 but by my mid 40s I was a size 14 (pushing it) in truth I was probably closer to a size 16 but I just bought a large size to hide the truth from myself.
I am clinically obese but also I’m aware that I am not obese like others who have really struggled, so my journey is different but nevertheless, I didn’t feel confident about myself. There was one evening when I was emotionally triggered after some fat jabs from a family member and I cried uncontollably for the first time in my life from the moment it happened until the next morning. I’m normally really good at keeping my emotions hidden but this time it hit a nerve, other emotions were mixed in so it wasn’t really so much about the fat jab but that was the trigger.
I didn’t actually start my diet immediately, on and off, in the past I made some minor attempts at dieting, but it’s never lasted more than a month, why, because I never believed that after I got fat that I could lose weight. I blamed it on hormones, I blamed my weight gain on some undiagnosed illness, my family are super slim and my weight gain was gradual, I had other weight related side effects but I never believed that it could be my diet, unfortunately with my stubborn mindset unless I believe in something I can’t follow through. Don’t get me wrong, I hated my chubby body and be shocked at how the scales would increase incrementally, I looked at my old photos and my size was normal, I didn’t look ridiculous in group photos, yet now I do, yet I still couldn’t change.
I don’t know why I couldn’t change, despite my weight causing me distress, I think I accepted that ageing is making me grow fat, it’s not my fault, I eat a bit of junk food but I’m not going crazy, in fact I don’t even eat much, 2 meals a day and snacks. I was putting on weight slowly but surely, but I would rumble along.
Personal Weight Loss Story & Health
My health deteriorated, I suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure. I went through a stage where I felt like I might die soon, I felt unhealthy, I was a size 14/16 but my belly was so bloated I looked like I was 9 months pregnant. When it first happened I even went to get a health check but the Dr said I had phantom symptoms. I cried how can my stomach be so big when I’m fat but not so fat for the size of my extended belly. I suffered from acid reflux. I felt so terrible yet despite all of this I still didn’t go on a diet.
Ozempic came out and I was curious, but all the side effects put me off, who wanted to look like one of those skeleton celebrities, what about the side effects, then Mounjaro was released, hailed as the King Kong of weight loss jabs, I was tempted but I was scared of flabby loose skin, I was scared of my hair falling out or worse suffering from a serious side effect. I didn’t do anything still.
Then, one day someone I knew was looking slimmer, she told me she was on a diet, and I was like wow you are looking fantastic, give or take her starting size was the same as me, but she kept losing weight and then she let slip she was on Mounjaro. She was the first real life person who I could refer to, she was looking great and told me the side effects weren’t too bad, obviously everyone is different, what she tolerates, I might not and what I tolerate other’s won’t so always get medical advise if embarking on weightloss injections.
Personal Weight Loss Story & Action
Anyway, I was inspired, it still too me another 6 months before I tool the plunge. I bought my Mounjaro injections and I am losing weight. Hurray!!! I am a slow loser 1-2 pounds a week. So far I have lost nearly 2 stones, I want to do 1 more stone without Mounjaro. It wasn’t easy losing weight even with the injectons. For me it wasn’t a magic bullet but it definitely helped, I doubt I could have loss weight without it but there are some underlying reasons on why it worked for me.
I like to read about other peoples stories too
Remember to seek the right advice too
The details in part 1 of my story
I used to look at people who won slim fast awards and they had an amazing glow up using different diet techniques. When I looked at people’s success stories, I thought this could never happen to me, it only happens to other people, so the biggest challenge with losing weight is belief. It’s a deeply ingrained belief that can’t be changed just because people tell you about the science, you can read all of the tips I give you, you can read anything anywhere but without the belief, you will never succeed. Changing your belief isn’t a choice, I believe it’s involuntary, it feels like its innate, you want something different for yourself but it’s impossible to achieve.
My belief about the ability to lose weight only happened because in my mind, Mounjaro would give me the tools to lose weight, in hindsight I could have saved the money I spent on injections, however my mind wouldn’t have been able to break the barrier that I had created, which is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose weight even if I tried. In truth, I never tried very hard before, I tried a little bit, but I was never dedicated, and to lose weight you need to be dedicated.
I started on 2.5mg for a month and then moved straight up to 5mg. I stayed on 5mg and weightloss injections for a total of 5 months and I lost just under 2 stones. I’m really chuffed with this result and my target is to lose one more stone naturally learning the techniques I learnt. For me I purposefully did not move up the range, or stay on it for longer, my thought process is that I prefer to be on the medication for a shorter period of time and also it’s expensive. I could afford to stay on for longer but in my mind it would be more sustainable if I didn’t completely rely on the medication.
Let me share, what it feels like to be on the medication. In my first month on 2.5mg I didn’t notice much appetite suppression but my bowel movements did change, I suffered from the runs and my body was getting used to the medication. I purposefully ate less, on the starter dose I could easily eat like normal but wanted to warm my body up to eating less, plus one of the biggest deterrents of snacking on junk food was the cost of the injections. I would sometimes crave for crisp or chocolate but the though of adding a few hundred calories to my diet whilst spending over £100 a month on injections stopped me in my tracks. This was the biggest contributor initially to stopping myself from eating junk food.
I moved on to 5mg in month 2 and this time I could feel the suppression, it’s still quite light so I would need to eat close to my old diet to feel uncomfortable. When on the injections my rough aim was to eat around 1500 calories a day, as I equalled this to 500 calories below average for a woman. Just to be clear in my old diet I still ate 2 meals a day only, I ate what I thought was healthy, I had some ready meals but probably around 70% of my meals were home cooked and I ate good quality food. I couldn’t really understand why I kept putting on weight, I had snacks but I didn’t think it was excessive. No more than 1 packet of crisp a day and a biscuit or chocolate with a cup of tea after dinner. My vegetable and fruit intake was moderate, less than the desired 5 a day but not totally non existent.
Whilst on the jabs, I still ate 2 meals a day but my biggest learning was serving size. The injections don’t stop you from being hungry so you will still feel cravings to eat, it does however make you feel full quicker. I used to think I ate maybe slightly larger than average but not excessively but when you need to lose weight you need to learn to calorie count. I always thought that diet recipes were the equivalent of kids sizes and this couldn’t be the norm. The biggest thing I learnt during this phase is to undo my understanding of what’s normal. I now understand that me and my husband would eat a bag of pasta designed for 4-6 servings in one session. A tub of prawn cocktail was designed to serve 2, a baguette could he halved in size. Everything had shrunk, when I pro ratd the calories I could eat the new portion sizes were correct. This is where I think the injections really helped me because it made me feel full quicker. On 5mg injections I was just about full. I could never had committed to eating this way long term if a) the belief system wasn’t reset and b) my hunger signals were dampened despite eating less and c) eating more cost me in pounds on the body and in the wallet.
Learning to eat differently is hard, it’s no walk in the park, I could have titrated to a higher dose, this would likely mean that I would need to eat less than 1500 calories but I wanted to do this in the most sustainable way that I could which for me means maintain the same calorie input without injections.
During my diet, I still had to eat some snacks, I wanted to be sure that I get some consistency and continuity, my main snacks are nuts, dried fruit, lentil crisp, popcorn and any junk food that I could lay my hands on that were under 100 calories. If I wanted cake I would have a third of what I used to have. If I eat badly, then I tried to make up for it in calories, there could only be one meal that was a bit heavier, if that was the case the other meal would need to be ultra light in calories.
Phase 1 included a birthday dinner, where I had rich french food, the calories for that weekend were off the charts but I repeated to myself this needs to be sustainable which means there are going to be some days or weeks where I cannot and will not stick to a calorie deficit.
In phase 1 I also joined the gym and got myself a personal trainer. Being accountable to someone else made me feel guilty if I wasn’t putting in the effort so most likely this has contributed to my weight loss. To confirm I loss nearly 2 stones in 6 months, for some this isn’t a lot at all especially since I am taking weight loss injections, but for me it was something I never believed to be possible. My aim is to lose another stone. This will be part 2 of my journey. As you read part 2, it may be in real time as I am currently at that stage of the journey. In total my journey will have 3 parts. Part 1 is my current phase (ending), part 2 is losing another stone, total goal= 3 stones weight loss, and part 3 is maintenance.
One parting advice about my learnings during phase 1 is that your weight loss is not going to be linear in a downward trend. If it is good on you, mine was a slow downward trend but also like a yoyo. It also slowed down by month 4 and month 5 was a trickle. Month 6 has been the worse yoyo, i think it took me the whole month to lose just one or two pounds. This also coincided with the time when I stopped my injections. A couple of things might be working against me, my body has got used to the calorie restriction and is holding on to what it can, there is a set point theory that your body tries to keep you at a certain weight for protection, it goes back to what it think’s should be the norm. Fatigue is setting in, sometimes I want to eat the bad stuff. I’m still a believer in moderation, my portion sizes are smaller than pre-diet but not quite as strict as during the Mounjaro days. I feel pressure though because I’m not at maintenance, I have another stone to lose. All the resources that I will share in this website is going to be the things that I will do to get to my goal, if I can do it then you can too because, though I’m not the hugest, I am clinically obese, I may be in the average for a UK size but I feel my body was built to be smaller, only you know where you need to be and the most important thing is for me and you too feel comfortable and confident in ourselves.