u/Different_Oil_107

So been on Mounjaro 16 weeks today. Still can't quite believe the rate of progress. Feel fitter than I can remember in the last 3 decades. No longer diabetic or high blood pressure, cholesterol excellent too (but started a statin as well to get even lower). Had a DEXA last week, which still shows a long way to go (Body fat 38.3%, VAT 298 cm2, A/G ratio 1.31) but muscle well preserved (9.2) and got a dietician review whilst their - though they would be pleased with my 140-150g of protein a day (which I struggle to eat, as Im not hungry, so take 2 protein shakes a day to get to that level)... but they said to aim for 180g/day! Anyway feel blessed I can afford Mounjaro. Only 3 regrets

(1) sitting on the fence for at least a year reading about it / seeing the amazing before an after photos on here, but somehow - stupidly - thinking its only people doing well who post, so it might not work for me)

(2) not getting a baseline DEXA. I was pleased with my muscle but so hard to interpret when I was already 15 week in - wish I had done at week 0 but they aren't cheap and my Eufy scales were no where near [saying Im around 33.5% fat]

(3) Its a national scandal this isn't available on the NHS *much* more widely. I was no where near NHS criteria despite BMI nearly 39, diabetes, hypertension. It really difficult to see why they are not massively widening access - it's bound to save the NHS a shit tonne of money managing chronic diseases. I just don't get it

I sat on the fence about Mounjaro for the best part of a year, lurking on here, before I finally plucked up the nerve to start (just over 3 months ago now). The thing that kept nagging me the whole time was whether forums like this are just highly selected success stories, because the poor responders don't post, or are far less likely to. I reckoned there was probably some truth in that.

So over the last couple of months I've been picking away at a bit of a side project on the flair data (I'm a bit of a data nerd and science person, so this is my idea of fun….). I looked at roughly 854,000 public posts and comments from this sub, about 235,000 of which have self-reported stats in the flair including start and current weights. Some genuinely interesting stuff has come out of it and I wanted to share a few (nerdy, sorry) charts. This is the first.

I want to be clear up front about what this is and isn't. It's not about best vs worst, or fast vs slow, and it's definitely not a leaderboard. What I think it's actually useful for is this: if you're tracking your own journey carefully (like I am, and I know many are here too), it lets you get a feel for where you might sit, and where you might end up if things carry on roughly like the people who've gone before you. Not "the real world" exactly — obviously it's Reddit :-) — but the real redditors who bothered to self-report at least a couple of weigh-ins, which is honestly the closest thing to a mirror we've got. As a data nerd I did loads of reading of the actual trials when I started… and none of them really answered that question. They give you an average, they don't tell you where someone like you tends to land. This does, at least roughly (its not advice, just an observation).

Anyway, see the chart. It shows the 2,752 people who've updated their flair at least a couple of times, plotted as one faint line each, lined up from their first post. The blue dot is each person's best-ever loss. The coloured lines are the spread across everyone at each point in time: green is roughly the top 5% (that's the 1 in 20 did the best in terms of weight loss), red is the bottom 5%, and the orange in the middle is the median, half the people are above this line and half below it. The numbers down the right are those same cut-offs applied to people's best result.

The bits that stood out to me:

• The genuine middle (median) lands around 21% of body weight at its best — half of everyone here is below that. For what it's worth that's in much the same ballpark as the headline Mounjaro trial, which I take as a decent sign the whole exercise is broadly consistent with the main trial outcomes. I wouldn't read much more into it than that (the doses vary, people are at all sorts of stages, and there's the selection point below), but it's reassuring that the middle of a messy real-world sample lands roughly where the trial does.
• A quarter of people don't get past about 12–13%. That's NOT failing, it's just the ordinary spread of how people respond.
• There's a bit of a hierarchy at the top that I found interesting. The top third or so (very roughly 27%+ at best) is about where the literature is starting to draw the line for "super-responders". But the truly eye-watering results — the 45%+ losses, the AMAZING and genuinely inspiring before/after pics that get the most upvotes, and rightly so — are the top 5%, the super-super-responders if you like. Those people have done brilliantly and deserve every bit of the praise…. but they're not typical, and you are absolutely not a failure if you don't get anywhere near them.

To give you a real example, since I don't mind sharing my own numbers: I started at 107.4kg and I'm at 92.2 by week 13, so by my reckoning I'm tracking somewhere up in the top quarter or so. That gives me a much more grounded idea of where I might realistically end up than anything the trials told me. Which I personally find really useful.

Now the honest caveat, and it's exactly what I was worried about when I was lurking. This is already the flattering version. It only includes people who kept updating their flair. Loads post once and vanish, and the ones who stall tend to go quiet rather than announce it, so they're barely in here. So if anything the real "typical" is a bit more modest than even this chart looks, and reading your own future off it is a rough steer, its deffo not a promise!

Which brings me to the bit I most wanted to say, mainly for anyone still on the fence like I was before starting, or feeling slow next to the flair update/post: you're very probably the normal case. The home page / landing wall is a highlight reel, not the average, and measuring yourself against it isn't a fair fight.

Data isn't for everyone and I know full well I'm a nerd about it, but I'm sure there are a few others out there too…. I've got more tables/charts if there's any appetite (starting weight vs how much people lose is the next interesting one). This isn't medical advice and I'm not anyone's clinician, just a fellow user who got a bit carried away with a spreadsheet. Would really value your thoughts, and happy to explain the method in the comments.

Data, privacy & a personal note

This was a one-off statistical exercise using publicly available flair data from this subreddit (Feb 2024 to Jul 2026). To protect people's privacy, all data was processed locally and pseudonymised the moment it was collected. No user text, verbatim flairs, or account names were stored or used in the dataset. Tabulated data is fully aggregated, and any sub-group with fewer than 10 people has been suppressed so nobody is identifiable. Put another way, this analysis has less personal data than it in your own posts. The raw intermediate files have since been permanently deleted. It's entirely non-commercial and independent, and done with respect for the r/MounjaroUK community it came from because I'm one of you! I've only managed 3 posts (and, paradoxically, haven't even done my own flair yet!!) but I'll be forever indebted to this forum for being, in no small part, the nudge I needed to start Mounjaro — which has reversed my high blood pressure and normalised my diabetes and cholesterol. I'll always be grateful for that. Most people, me included, love the before/after photos — truly inspiring — but if this post helps those who are wired a bit differently and need the data to come off the fence, then I hope it's helped!

Had been lurking on this forum for ages thinking do I or dont I?

And heard an interview on the radio and thought Im doing this and dose was in that evening (thanks to a supermarket who sells this) = that was 12 weeks ago.

Being a bit a data nerd and scientist, I though it would be fun to measure how I do against the trials so did some baseline bloods (privately) and bought a home BP machine. So glad I did. Revealed diabetes (HbA1c 50), high blood pressure and cholesterol on the high side. But by the time the results were back, I could already see progress so I decided to (rightly or wrongly) not go to my GP and wait a few weeks and recheck (not advice, just what I chose to do). My only other post was about whether to stick or twist on 5mg (Id already bought 2.5, 5mg and 7.5mg from Asda when I started)... the hive mind said stick on 5mg as I was doing well on it. Im glad I did.... so here are my results.

Amazingly the diabetes went as quickly as it came HbA1c 29 (private) and 30 (GP) so now plumb normal. No tablets or other treatment just diet and MJ.

Blood pressure, now 'optimal'. No tablets just MJ and weight loss / exercise.

And cholesterol / lipids all pretty normal too (from Mounjaro alone) although have since decided to add a statin having talked through it with my GP.

12 weeks in 107.4kg (16st 13) down 14.1kg (2 Stone 3lb). Still a long way to go (I want to get to 6 stone down - a BMI of 24.9) - its a long way away - I reckon a year - but Im not in a rush. Im enjoying the journey.

Still on 5mg (4 weeks at 2.5, moved up to 5, not gone higher yet) and reviewing that against weight loss but I dont want to lose faster than I am. Waist 128cm to 110.6cm, so about 7 inches off the belly

Full details in my infographic but sincere thanks to this forum. Its been a huge support, even in lurking mode. The before and after pics have been an inspiration even if Im too shy to post mine (for now at least!). Im really enjoying the journey too feel a millions times healthier, more energy and blessed I have been given the chance to do this. Only wish I knew about earlier. At least a dozen serious diet attempts (and Orlistat x 2) all worked when they worked and all failed eventually.

So got my head round this is probably for life. Its not cheap. But its probably saved my life. So on that basis, its completely worth it.