Well, let me start by saying: WOOF. I have a lot of complex, complicated and, frankly, confusing feelings about My Brain on Mounjaro. This is probably not all that surprising, but it’s been hard to get my head around what to say, and how to say it.
The best way for me to get all of this down – and free up space, so to speak, for a more thoughtful, robust examination of all of this, coming soon – is going to be to do up an old reliable list, as well as answer some of the most frequently asked questions that pop up when I speak about any of this (on Instagram, where I do most of my speaking).
So, let’s start with…
The pros
(bear in mind that I am doing this to lose weight and to be smaller, not for any other reasons, so I will not be spouting ableist nonsense here – here’s a link to my “why I’m doing this” post)
* I have lost weight. A bit of weight. I probably would have lost more in the first (heady, obsessive, borderline deranged) two weeks on Slimming World or Weight Watchers, but the scale has gone down and, as that’s what I’m aiming for, that goes in the “pro” column.
* This weight loss has been, honestly, really f*****g easy. You know why? I’m less hungry. This has been well documented as basically the entire magic bullet of GLP-1s, but as I’m on a super low dose (1.25mg of tirzepatide / Mounjaro), I was not expecting my hunger to be curtailed this quickly. I’m not not hungry at all, but the feelings of intense I-have-to-eat-something-right-now-or-I’ll-die hunger I’d been experiencing on the regular are gone.
* The jab itself? It doesn’t hurt. This past week, it bruised, but that’s fine; between the baby kicking me and pulling my hair out and scratching at my face, I look a bit wrecked at the moment anyway, so, you know, what’s another bruise? If you’re a model, you might not be thrilled about this, but you could always just try a different injection site next time, and it might not bruise as easily there (my first two left no trace).
* I feel a slow, steady return of the feeling of smug I experienced the last time I lost weight. I feel… weirdly proud of myself. I’m being a good fatty! I’m trying not to be fat! (This is fucked up thinking, and could also go in the “con” column, honestly, but I feel less shame and less guilt about my body and my eating habits, and that feels good so… here we are. Like I said, IT’S COMPLICATED!)
* I’m eating less takeout, due to feeling less of the omg-must-eat-something-delicious-immediately hunger that seemed to be my daily default, so in theory I should be richer, but you know how that works out. The money spends itself!
The cons
* I haven’t lost enough weight. This is a me problem, I know. No matter how much weight I lose in any given time period, it’s never quick enough (or enough-enough). And I want this to be slow and steady. I want to use this as a way to change my eating habits, and to make better food choices for myself – like eating more vegetables and more fibre, and choosing fewer “easy” options. I don’t want this to be a crash diet. I’ve done those before. But there’s so much out there about people who’ve taken GLP-1s and lost stones in the first few weeks… I feel as though, in three weeks, I should feel (and look!) noticeably different. And I don’t.
* I’m thinking about food a lot. Like I said, not because I’m hungry, but I’m just… thinking about it. One could say “obsessing”, but I’m trying not to pathologise what is probably normal, human behaviour. Having decided to lose weight, I’m thinking about my food intake a lot more than I’d like to and, yes, when I had two bowls of cereal late last night (because I felt hungry and wanted them – I didn’t say I’m feeling no hunger!), I felt guilty about it. This is not the way I want to feel, although I’m not sure how not to feel this way.
* I’m weighing myself regularly, and I’m allowing the number on the scale to affect how I feel about myself. On the one hand, I feel as though it doesn’t make sense to embark on purposeful weight loss via GLP-1 and not weigh oneself, but on the other I feel as though weighing myself is almost always harmful to me. Ugh.
* It’s expensive! $250 or so for the first four weeks’ dose which, I’ll grant you, is basically five takeaway meals (and has probably already paid for itself in the absence of said meals), but it’s a lot of money to spend to inject yourself with a chemical that essentially changes how my body does its (vital, important) work.
* I kind of hinted at this above, but the excitement I’ve felt about food for pretty much my entire life is, if not entirely gone, then severely dulled. And I didn’t mind that part! I am happy to feel excited about delicious dinners and brunches and pancakes and pastries… and maybe a part of this is due to my not having many hobbies, and feeling like I’m in quite a tough season of my life, living in the US, having a limited circle of friends and two small children who are very reliant on me, but I feel as though this has taken some of the joy out of my life. And that has been really hard and, honestly, made me wonder if it’s “worth it”. (And then we get back to my complicated feelings about all of this because how can removing joy from your life in order to be physically smaller ever be worth it?! But then maybe I’d be more overjoyed if I finally fit into my Levi’s Wedgie jeans??!?!?! I DON’T KNOWWWWWWW.)
And some frequently asked questions…
A disclaimer: I won’t be answering medical questions and I won’t be giving advice. This is a medication, and those questions are best answered by a medical professional. Ideally your medical professional! I will tell you my experience, to a point, and then you’ll have to go chat to your own doctor about it. (It’s not going to be as scary as you think; I bet they’re talking about this a lot these days!)
Are you still breastfeeding? This feels like it’s getting close to a medical question, but it has come up so many times that I feel like I need to answer it. Yes, I am still breastfeeding Roman. I discussed it with my doctor (who happens to be his doctor!) and, based on her knowledge and understanding of the drug, she is happy for me to be on it.
Does the food noise actually disappear? I can’t imagine not always wanting something yummy. Like I said, I’m on the lowest of low doses, so a part of me wonders if I’m experiencing a bit of a placebo effect, but all the same I would say that yes, yes it does. I haven’t had what I would understand as a “craving” for food since I took my first injection. Sure, in the evenings, I think, what will I eat? But that feels more like a habit than a desire, and most evenings I just decide to have nothing. IT IS WEIRD.
Does it make you feel physically sick? Not so far, no! But I’ll update if that changes. The only side effect I’ve had – and I don’t even know if it was a side effect, or just a coincidence – is that, the morning after I took my first shot, I had a huge bowl of Special K Red Berries for breakfast (my favourite cereal, don’t @ me) and, afterwards, I experienced intense stomach cramping and then had diarrhea. But that sometimes happens me anyway, and at random moments, so I don’t know for sure that it was the injection. The subsequent shots haven’t come with any side effects at all.
Do you think you’ll have to stay on them for life? So, this is a pretty common question too, and I think the answer is probably yes, but I obviously don’t know what may change: my own health, finances, the availability of the drugs… From what I’ve read, it is very rare that someone can take these drugs, lose weight and stop taking them without putting on the weight again, and more and more research is showing that weight cycling is worse for than staying fat to begin with – so I feel as though I probably will stay on them, if even at a semi-low or “maintenance” dose, insofar as that is possible for me.
Will you do a weekly weigh in for your followers? No. I don’t think knowing other people’s numbers is useful or helpful for people, and carries more of a risk of harm than a chance that it will help.
I think I saw before that the injections cause your birth control to stop working, so will you use different barrier methods going forward? This made me laugh because I can’t imagine ever asking someone what kind of contraception they’re using?! (unless that person was my bestie or my sister) But gals, I had my tubes removed when I had Roman, so no eggs are making it into that uterus to be fertilised, weight loss jabs or no. P.S. It’s not that they cause your birth control to stop working, it’s that people can have diarrhea or puke on them, and that can mess with your oral contraception. So, you know, be careful. (When I got pregnant last time I tried a GLP-1, it was unrelated; we hadn’t been using protection, and it turns out that I was pregnant and didn’t know it when I started taking the shots.)
Do you feel you’re letting your following down by taking weight loss injections? Is it not a sell out? If I worried about “letting my following down” with decisions I make for me and my body and my life, I’d never get anything done, honestly! So no, I don’t; I don’t think online creators owe it to their followers not ever to change their minds, or to make choices they might once have disagreed with. That being said, I’m making this decision because I am sick of being fat in a world that treats being fat so terribly. I’m sick of not fitting into nice clothes and I’m sick of feeling embarrassed and ashamed of my body and I’m sick of being treated badly because of it (and, having experienced life in a smaller body, I know that I am treated differently, AND I AM A SMALL FAT PERSON SO HOLY F**K WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE IN A MUCH BIGGER BODY IN THIS TERRIBLE WORLD?!?).
But that doesn’t mean that I am not still radically anti-fatphobia, and it doesn’t mean that I will stop advocating for fat people to have access to airplane seating and healthcare and love and respect and clothes and God knows what else!
I’ll still write about thin influencers being dicks about fatness, the privilege of being unstylish (as long as you’re thin), how the word “flattering” has come to mean “not fat-looking” and why that’s s**t, because anti-fat bias is one of the last remaining acceptable biases in this world, and that will never stop being s**t. (If it wasn’t for anti-fat bias, maybe I would never have started my first diet, would never have started to think my body was “wrong”, would never have gone to fat camp, would never have tried the cabbage soup diet, would never have etc etc etc.)
And look: I don’t know who I’m letting down or not letting down. That’s up to my followers to decide. I don’t feel as though I’m “selling out” because I’m not gaining anything monetarily from this, but I would like to be clear: if anyone wants to pay me for being on a drug I’m already on, or for talking about a drug I’m already talking about, please, FEEL F*****G FREE.
