My journey from fat to fit
During the pandemic (and, if I’m honest, for a few years before that) I gained weight. Far too much. During this time, the niggling pains I'd been having became full blown hip arthritis, I caught COVID four confirmed times, and generally started feeling like crap.
Getting out of a chair became hard, noisy work, Sitting down was the same. Walking up, or going down stairs… in fact, pretty much everything, required excessive (and genuinely painful) effort and lots of groans and grunts.
I was taking daily prescription anti inflammatories and painkillers (naproxen & cocodamol) just to get through the day and eventually had a stomach bleed as a result. Then I learned something that really hit home... excess weight significantly accelerates osteoarthritis through increased mechanical load. Apparently, for every pound of body weight gained, the pressure on the hip joints increases by roughly 3 to 4 pounds during walking. For me, that was the turning point, and I decided to do something about it.
I’d heard about Mounjaro. I’d also heard the horror stories... blindness, muscle, hair, & bone loss, people regaining all the weight and more as soon as they stop taking it, even people dying. But rather than rely on the rumour mill, I dug into research.
What I learned was that many, if not in fact the vast majority of the reported problems came from misuse, or incorrect use. Some people treat it like a magic bullet, they stop eating properly because they aren't hungry, lose weight far too rapidly and sacrifice their health in the process. Others just keep eating the same poor diet that made them obese in the first place, simply less of it, and because they never changed their bad dietary habits they quickly revert when they stop taking the drug, and the weight comes rushing straight back.
Of course there’s also a group with genuine metabolic and or hormonal issues, and those with psychological problems who may need to stay on long term medication to keep them healthy. If this helps them, then more power to them 👍
Now that I understood the dangers and hopefully how to avoid them, I started my journey.
From day one, the “food noise” disappeared. I’d read about it, but didn’t really 'get' what it was until I experienced it's absence. It was a lack of the constant urge to eat, especially junk... it was just gone. I could walk past biscuits (cookies) or crisps (chips) without a second thought. In fact, I wasn’t particularly interested in food at all.
That made it much easier to eat with intention and forethought and so I shifted my diet overnight to whole foods and high protein. I didn’t count calories, I just ate healthy food until I was satisfied (not full like the old days!) at mealtimes, then didn’t eat again until the next one. Snacking ceased to exist.
At the same time, I hit the gym, hard. I was already going to the gym but in a very half assed way, so I had a bit of buried muscle, but I committed properly and I did (and continue to do) 3 to 4 times a week of intensive resistance training, and to be honest, the first few months were brutal to put it mildly. It wasn’t just muscle soreness, it felt systemic, the pain went right to my core. One night after the gym I told my wife that I felt like I was dying, and I meant it! I've later learned that one of the lingering symptoms of covid for many people is 'exercise intolerance', and I can verify that it's a real thing! Looking back, I had it badly. I came very, very close to quitting more than once, but I pushed through, and I'm really glad I did.
Halfway through the weightloss/body recomposition journey, I came across a YouTube video where a doctor explained 11 symptoms of low testosterone. Apparently, having 3 of them suggested you might be low. I had 9! weight gain was just one... I'd had these symptoms for a long time but never realised what they were.
Blood testing confirmed I was hypogonadal ( i.e. very, very low testosterone), so I started hormone replacement and brought my levels back to into the normal range.
Meanwhile, weight training continued (even if I couldn’t yet see the results through the fat), my diet stayed consistent, and the weight kept steadily coming off.
Eventually, the magic happened. The muscle I'd worked so hard to build had solidified for months under the fat, and as the fat burned gradually away, there came a wonderful time when they two met in the middle.. the dissolving fat revealed the hard work beneath, and over a couple of short months my reflection changed radically, to the point where I almost didn't recognise myself in the mirror. It was at this point I started tapering off the Mounjaro.
As you may or may not know, Mounjaro dosage starts at 2.5 mg per week and increases monthly up to 15 mg. I never went above 5 mg, there was no need. It was working so why increase? After 7 months, I went back down to 2.5 mg for a couple of weeks, then half that, and stopped completely. At that point I was 40 lbs lighter.
What really surprised me was that the habits I'd worked so hard to build during my weight loss stuck better than I had dreamed they would. The foods I used to crave (pizza, burgers, kebabs etc), now genuinely don’t appeal to me. I actively prefer whole, & high protein foods... And as a result, months after stopping the drug, I haven’t regained any of the weight. In fact I've found it easy to adjust my diet and drop another 10 lbs since stopping.
My original 'fantasy goal' had been to try to get back to where I was physically in my early 30's, now suddenly, at 55, I'm actually (much to my surprise!) surpassing that goal. I am genuinely in the best (external) shape of my life (buggered internal joints not withstanding, although they now gave me much less trouble).
Also, much to my amazement, I discovered that I have abs! Never seen those before! I always thought I was just one of those people who just didn't show them, even in my leanest younger years they were hidden.
Used properly, Mounjaro and similar drugs can be powerful, positive, life changing tools, but you really need to put the effort in and ideally treat them as a tool, not a crutch. En pointe diet and hard work in the gym are non negotiable to really reap the rewards.
Used poorly, they can cause real, negative, life changing problems
Used well they can change your life for the better.