Mounjaro exit strategy recommendations.

I’m an American but live in the UK. So, I thought I’d ask my question here, where the answers are actually applicable to me. So, I decided to use Mounjaro to help me drop some excess weight. At 44 years old I stepped on the scale before going on a vacation trip last August and it showed the highest number in my life. 250lbs….and I’m just 5’8”.

Now, I understand that many people who turn to Mounjaro (for weight loss, not diabetes treatment) are of the mind that they’re using it to treat “metabolic dysfunction”. Maybe this is due to some contributing condition (PCOS) or some other reason…I’ve not researched this so can’t speak intelligently to it. However, the reason I bring this up is because many of the people who take Mounjaro for this reason are in the “I’m taking this for life” camp. The idea being that metabolic dysfunction is a chronic condition that can only treated, for life, not cured.

Particularly on the r/Mounjaro subreddit (many more members than the UK version) I see this sentiment expressed a lot and I also see, that when people discuss going off the drug, there can be very forceful replies along the lines of “If you stop taking the medicine you’re likely going to gain all the weight back”.

I don’t like reading those comments because it’s contrary to what I had in mind when getting into this Mounjaro experience. I’ve never felt that I have metabolic dysfunction. I’ve spent plenty of time in my life with a fairly normal weight/body composition. I feel that I got fat for the old-school reason…lifestyle choices. I’m at a point in life where there are loads of demands for my time and attention from work and family obligations. I’m also well over 40 now when the rigors of time sap us of some our youthful energy and endurance.

So, I spent far too much time being sedentary. I sit in my car and drive to work, I sit in my office chair for 8 hours at work, I sit in my car to drive home, then I sit on the couch or the dinner table relaxing after a “long day”. Rarely do I summon the motivation to exercise. Also, and this is a bit embarrassing to say as I don’t feel like it’s very manly, I also do a bit of stress eating. After a long hard day, with not a lot of pleasure/enjoyment involved, I do find solace/pleasure in a tasty meal, a juicy steak for example. However, I’m burning next to no calories with this lifestyle. So, it’s a no-brainer why I’ve been slowly gaining thru the years.

That’s how I arrived at my milestone 250lbs weigh-in. Because I felt that my gain was due to lifestyle choices, I also felt like I “could” also lose that weight with lifestyle changes. However, with all the hoopla around GLP-1 medications, I also felt like the process was highly likely to be easier & faster with “the miracle weight loss shot”. An analogy that just came to me is chopping down a big tree. Sure, I could do it with just an axe (lifestyle choices only). Plenty of trees have been chopped down with just an axe. However, I could do it with a chainsaw (lifestyle changes & GLP-1). The latter is much easier and much faster.

So, I signed up, and started the process, and it went well. To me, Mounjaro is a magic pill for willpower when it comes to eating. It’s not that it increases my willpower. It’s that it eliminates the forces standing against my willpower. Those forces being hunger, food cravings/noise, stress eating etc. It can be hard to have enough willpower to make consistently good choices when those opposing forces are in their full power. With Mounjaro, the opposing forces are hobbled. My willpower, which only “might” have been enough against fully powered opposing forces is certainly enough against opposing forces hobbled by the powers of Mounjaro.

To me, this was 100% the way of it. So, I’ve lost weight consistently over the past 5 months. I haven’t relied only on eating less. I’ve also exercised more, much more in many cases including both cardio and resistance training. I slowly built up my ability to run and participated in my first organized 5K in many years. Was a great day for me, even though it was FREEZING!

Now I’m on the doorstep of my goal weight (current weight is 182lbs) and trying to decide what comes next. My Mounjaro provider is one that automatically stepped up my dosage EVERY MONTH. Had I been more informed I probably would have spent more time working my way up. However, I’m at 15mg now, half way thru my first pen at that dosage. I have the next 15mg pen in the fridge waiting. I could stop now. Those two pens will get me to my goal weight. I’m down several pant sizes, can run up to 10K on a good day, went from XXL large shirts to only large (which are sort of loose on me). At this point, I’d say that most people who saw me on the street wouldn’t say I’m overweight. Maybe a bit of a dad bod at worst. I cut a decent profile. Having lost 68lbs (4.8 stone), I’ve certainly lost some muscle but I’ve always carried a decent build. So, even diminished some, I have something left in the shoulders and arms. Will try to overhaul some of that a bit, post Mounjaro. My wife also says I’m good to go and should stop.

When contemplating stopping, I don’t worry that I could gain the weight back because I’m no longer treating metabolic dysfunction. Again, I don’t think I have that particular affliction. However, I do worry about weight gain for a different reason. What I will lose is the strength of willpower Mounjaro afforded me by hobbling the opposing forces of hunger, food noise, and stress eating. When I kick the Mounjaro, I’ll lose that help and it’ll all be on me.

So, I don’t think I want to email my provider, say I’m done, and quit cold turkey. It feels safer to maybe titrate down thru the doses to ease into normal levels of hunger/food noise rather than all at once. I don’t know if this is “a thing” or is the best approach. I also don’t know if my provider (Voy) will be fine with me requesting a lower dose, several months in a row, after being all the way up to 15mg.

I was just wondering if any of you have or are facing this choice and if you have any recommendations on how to proceed. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have and best of luck on your weight loss journey!