Catching up. Some dozen or so years ago, I lost over 60 pounds in a year basically by changing my diet. I called it my "No white food diet." I quit eating bread (except for an occasional slice of whole wheat), potatoes, rice (I ate a little brown rice), pasta, and sugar (which I never ate much of anyway). I went from 260 down to 195 then eased back up to 210, which I maintained with little or no effort for the next 10 years.
Then, after a prostatectomy and a return of elevated PSA, I was put on Lupron just after major back surgery, and about the same time I retired. I then started to gain it back. I'm now at 235. Less everyday exercise (I can walk maybe 50 before the pain gets too intense), and the effects of Lupron seem to be to blame, for the most part.
I've discussed all the weight loss meds with my doc, and he and I have agreed to hold off for the time being, because otherwise my health is very good (excellent if you leave out the 'mechanical' problems left over from the back surgery and the old knee injury).
In fact, other than an elevated BMI (I'm 6 feet tall), I have no real medical issues at all. BP is great, no heart problems, no diabetes, no nothing. So, we wait. (And I'm not sucking up any Mounjaro that Bill could use. -)
But I'm keeping an eye on the situation and Bill's work has been invaluable.
As a Junior in high school, I weighs 192 to195, 1961. By 1976 I was up top 255. Did the bacon and grapefruit thing and got to 235. Read "Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It" around 2009 and dropped to 205 to 210. I think you have done a lot of these things previously. Am now down in the 198 to 201 range. So Age 16 to 79 a gain of under 10 lbs, but trading muscle for fat. If I cut down on the Bourbon, I'd drop some more. My lovely wife thinks pate is the perfect food, and I need to remind her I can only do it once a week. Kroger just put Prime Rib on at $6.97 a lb and I'll get 5 or so.
I'm glad this is working for you, and glad my program works for me. Big Note is the time scale for both my gain and loss, and the plateaus. Gradualism and stabilization may be quite important. Best wishes./
Dec 16, 2023·edited Dec 16, 2023Liked by Bill Quick
A lot of the more successful weight loss doctors (Westman, Eades, Bosworth) are hesitant about the new drugs and recommend against them, but they also express concern about lean muscle loss along with the fat. Eades, in particular, demands you get about 40 grams of protein in one meal every day, to trigger mTOR and building/preserving your muscles.
I hope you are getting that. As long as you keep your strength, I think you'll be ok on the drug.
I'm still losing very slowly on hypercarnivore (a misnomer; it means carnivore but not 100%). I lie to my GP, a kidney doc, and tell him I'm eating more veggies than I am, to keep him off my back. I also fast about 40 hours once a week. It's mostly painless, and the hunger pangs I do experience are ephemeral and mostly psychological. It helps to know that in a few hours, I can actually eat as much as I want.
More rapid loss would be welcome but I still have a couple more avenues to explore before I move to the drugs.
"A lot of the more successful weight loss doctors (Westman, Eades, Bosworth) are hesitant about the new drugs and recommend against them, but they also express concern about lean muscle loss along with the fat."
Frankly, I don't care. And I get a lot more than 40mg of protein a day. More like 120, and some days a lot more. I don't track it carefully, but I know an egg has about 6 grams, a slice of my low carb bread has 8, a slice of cheese six, so a nuked fried egg sammy has nearly 30 grams (even though it adds up to a total of around 200 calories.
But all these delicate pussy-footing docs are, I suspect, more interested in protecting turf than anything else. I've done high protein very low carb for much of my life, and have lost considerable weight at times, especially when I was younger. Eades has always been one of my go-tos, along with that Fasting Doc, and even the Godfather of them all, Robert Atkins. (I credit him, rather than Stillman, with the massive popularization of the ketogenic diet, though he didn't call it that). But their success rates will not come remotely close to what people will see with Mounjaro/Zepbound, and they know it.
I'm benching my bodyweight again. I'd be squatting that as well, but I'm taking it easy with the heavy lower body exercises - squats and deadlifts - because of some minor aches and pains I don't want to turn into major aches and pains. I'm not as strong as I was when I was lifting heavy and weighed 225 a decade ago, but I don't need to be.
And I'm just not frightened of the drugs. Probably because I've been taking drugs for chronic conditions - high blood pressure, high cholesterol, COPD, asthma, etc., for most of my life. And will continue to do so. I'm not going to tip-toe delicately around Mounjaro, when I can see the massive benefits I get as compared to what I view as very minor risks.
This is not to criticize your own efforts. Everybody must decide for themselves what level of risk they are willing to bear. At any rate, I'm glad to hear your strategy seems to be going well for you. Good luck!
I am happy to hear that report. I merely changed my diet and "my portions". You may recall that I went from 240 to 160, but I am a bit over 6'2". I don't do any gratuitous exercise. I have too much to do as it is.
If your drug sources ever dry up or supply disrupted, my money will be on your ability to maintain your current weight.
It is easier to lose weight when you really enjoy what you're eating.
That has not been my experience. For instance, just before I left California in 2016, I dropped from 235 to 160, using nothing but willpower and starvation. Within a few years I'd gained every bit of it back, and more. I've done this three or four times. Each time involved more weight gain and loss than the previous one.
Do you never get hungry? Have you managed to maintain your entire 80 pound weight loss? For how long?
Perhaps the biggest difference is that I really enjoy what I eat. I love bacon, but I only eat half a slice at breakfast. I actually drool over my lunch which is a decent size salad with about 15 ingredients, all of which I enjoy....even the raw cauliflower. My evening meal is difficult. Lots of beans with sausage or some other meat. I treat myself every month or so with an all you can eat Japanese/American buffet where I eat a lot of sushi and fried chicken.
I began my current diet in 2019 after I saw my brother so skinny I worried he was ill and just hadn't told me. I got the outline at a brief meeting....nutrition and diet info from the experts is mostly bullshit. He credits his wife with the due diligence of wading through all the weight loss dietary claims, but I didn't ever get all the details.
I credit my wife with showing me that the amount of food required to keep us going is a fraction of what I had believed. I weigh every morning (obsessive I know), but it was a long hard journey and I start every day looking at the result.
I am a bit concerned that with the extreme loss of fat, you are bound to lose some muscle. Jars are now harder to open. Carrying 40 lb bags of sunflower seeds (for the birds) is harder. After work in the yard I have a lot more aches and pains than before, which take a lot longer to diminish. However, I am only a few years from 80 so some of that likely comes from age.
I lost 40% of my weight before Easter 2021 and the rest by the end of 2021.
Oh, I snack a lot, mostly peanuts, cashews and spicy Blue Diamond almonds. If I didn't really enjoy what I eat I doubt I could have lost this much weight. Even then I wouldn't want anyone to think it was easy. 162.6 this morning
Bill, you are an inspiration. What dosage are you on currently? How are you approaching maintenance? Are you sticking to the once a week or are you extending? I’m bumping to 7.5 this week on Zepbound.
I am now, and have been since spring, on 15mg once a week. I will probably continue with that permanently, if circumstances allow.
Whatever side effects I might have had at the beginning were so mild I wasn't entirely sure they were side effects. I do suspect that my low carb/ketogenic diet lifestyle had something to do with that, as I mentioned in earlier reports, I think. Anecdata from other users, mostly on Reddit, mention the same thing. Apparently Mounjaro doesn't like to be carb-bombed.
Congrats on Zepbound! Are you having good results so far? I think it's amazing that Lilly was able to roll it out so soon after the FDA approval. They seem to have their $hit together much more than the makers of Ozempic/Wegovy. I was following the speculation at various sites immediately after the approval, and most people, even including some who claimed to be "in the know," seemed to think the earliest we could see the first dribbles of distribution would be after the first of the year.
I’ve had the same experience as you re side effects. I almost don’t see the carb issue as a side effect so much as a negative reinforcement NOT to over indulge in carbs/beer/sweets. Actually think it’s a positive!!
Can you comment on any side effects you may have experienced? What is the injection procedure like? I have the typical phobia of needles and am apprehensive about trying it.
I have lost and gained 50+ pounds many times in the last 8 years and am tired of the yoyo ride. These treatments concern me with the cost and the potential loss of availability due to loss of income or general economic conditions.
If you check at the end of this essay, you'll find links to my earlier, far longer and more extensive posts about my experience with Mounjaro, where I answered your questions about my own experience with side effects, as well as the injection procedure. I am, by the way, no fan of having sharp pointy things stuck inside me, but the Mounjaro stick is the least intrusive I've ever seen. Anyway, he's a link to a YT video about the injection procedure.
I don't think the needle actually goes in much more that a quarter inch. All it needs to reach is the layer of fat just beneath your skin, so it doesn't need to go deep.
A bit of advice: If you do decide to start, tell your doc you'd like to administer your first dose in his office. Then either do it yourself, or let him do it. Either way, you'll find your concerns are greatly eased. At least mine were. My first injection took something like five seconds. I didn't feel anything. I looked and my doc and said, "Is that it? Did it work?"
She said, "Yes, that's it. And it worked. You just took your first weekly dose."
Hi again. I have just finished 4 doses of Mounjaro (2.5). Was on Trulicity but am having difficulty with my A1C. The doctor thinks I'm overweight (175 at 5'9") and that this will help, even though I am 18 ish % body fat. Will be doing a round of 5.0 starting tomorrow.
As to the jab itself, I've never had any problem with the Trulicity injector. But one of the Mounjaro injections left me with a hole where the needle went it and a surrounding bruise... It was really odd. Thankfully, I am not needle adverse thanks to the dentist visits as a youth because I get jabbed quite a bit. 4 times a year, my blood is drawn. 1 time a year, I get a flu shot. Several times a year I have to poke my fingers. My dentist has replaced nearly every crown in my head and filled teeth that had damage from my grinding, so lots of shots recently. And every 10 days I staple a Dexcom to my stomach.
But, if I can do that and not even remember the injections, I think others considering Mounjaro would be able to handle it as well. Of course, I still have body fat in my stomach and dread injecting anywhere else. We will see though.
Catching up. Some dozen or so years ago, I lost over 60 pounds in a year basically by changing my diet. I called it my "No white food diet." I quit eating bread (except for an occasional slice of whole wheat), potatoes, rice (I ate a little brown rice), pasta, and sugar (which I never ate much of anyway). I went from 260 down to 195 then eased back up to 210, which I maintained with little or no effort for the next 10 years.
Then, after a prostatectomy and a return of elevated PSA, I was put on Lupron just after major back surgery, and about the same time I retired. I then started to gain it back. I'm now at 235. Less everyday exercise (I can walk maybe 50 before the pain gets too intense), and the effects of Lupron seem to be to blame, for the most part.
I've discussed all the weight loss meds with my doc, and he and I have agreed to hold off for the time being, because otherwise my health is very good (excellent if you leave out the 'mechanical' problems left over from the back surgery and the old knee injury).
In fact, other than an elevated BMI (I'm 6 feet tall), I have no real medical issues at all. BP is great, no heart problems, no diabetes, no nothing. So, we wait. (And I'm not sucking up any Mounjaro that Bill could use. -)
But I'm keeping an eye on the situation and Bill's work has been invaluable.
Thanks, Jorg. I'm glad you find it helpful!
Hi Bill
As a Junior in high school, I weighs 192 to195, 1961. By 1976 I was up top 255. Did the bacon and grapefruit thing and got to 235. Read "Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It" around 2009 and dropped to 205 to 210. I think you have done a lot of these things previously. Am now down in the 198 to 201 range. So Age 16 to 79 a gain of under 10 lbs, but trading muscle for fat. If I cut down on the Bourbon, I'd drop some more. My lovely wife thinks pate is the perfect food, and I need to remind her I can only do it once a week. Kroger just put Prime Rib on at $6.97 a lb and I'll get 5 or so.
I'm glad this is working for you, and glad my program works for me. Big Note is the time scale for both my gain and loss, and the plateaus. Gradualism and stabilization may be quite important. Best wishes./
Good luck! BTW, would you share how tall you are?
6'3", medium build.
A lot of the more successful weight loss doctors (Westman, Eades, Bosworth) are hesitant about the new drugs and recommend against them, but they also express concern about lean muscle loss along with the fat. Eades, in particular, demands you get about 40 grams of protein in one meal every day, to trigger mTOR and building/preserving your muscles.
I hope you are getting that. As long as you keep your strength, I think you'll be ok on the drug.
I'm still losing very slowly on hypercarnivore (a misnomer; it means carnivore but not 100%). I lie to my GP, a kidney doc, and tell him I'm eating more veggies than I am, to keep him off my back. I also fast about 40 hours once a week. It's mostly painless, and the hunger pangs I do experience are ephemeral and mostly psychological. It helps to know that in a few hours, I can actually eat as much as I want.
More rapid loss would be welcome but I still have a couple more avenues to explore before I move to the drugs.
"A lot of the more successful weight loss doctors (Westman, Eades, Bosworth) are hesitant about the new drugs and recommend against them, but they also express concern about lean muscle loss along with the fat."
Frankly, I don't care. And I get a lot more than 40mg of protein a day. More like 120, and some days a lot more. I don't track it carefully, but I know an egg has about 6 grams, a slice of my low carb bread has 8, a slice of cheese six, so a nuked fried egg sammy has nearly 30 grams (even though it adds up to a total of around 200 calories.
But all these delicate pussy-footing docs are, I suspect, more interested in protecting turf than anything else. I've done high protein very low carb for much of my life, and have lost considerable weight at times, especially when I was younger. Eades has always been one of my go-tos, along with that Fasting Doc, and even the Godfather of them all, Robert Atkins. (I credit him, rather than Stillman, with the massive popularization of the ketogenic diet, though he didn't call it that). But their success rates will not come remotely close to what people will see with Mounjaro/Zepbound, and they know it.
I'm benching my bodyweight again. I'd be squatting that as well, but I'm taking it easy with the heavy lower body exercises - squats and deadlifts - because of some minor aches and pains I don't want to turn into major aches and pains. I'm not as strong as I was when I was lifting heavy and weighed 225 a decade ago, but I don't need to be.
And I'm just not frightened of the drugs. Probably because I've been taking drugs for chronic conditions - high blood pressure, high cholesterol, COPD, asthma, etc., for most of my life. And will continue to do so. I'm not going to tip-toe delicately around Mounjaro, when I can see the massive benefits I get as compared to what I view as very minor risks.
This is not to criticize your own efforts. Everybody must decide for themselves what level of risk they are willing to bear. At any rate, I'm glad to hear your strategy seems to be going well for you. Good luck!
I am happy to hear that report. I merely changed my diet and "my portions". You may recall that I went from 240 to 160, but I am a bit over 6'2". I don't do any gratuitous exercise. I have too much to do as it is.
If your drug sources ever dry up or supply disrupted, my money will be on your ability to maintain your current weight.
It is easier to lose weight when you really enjoy what you're eating.
That has not been my experience. For instance, just before I left California in 2016, I dropped from 235 to 160, using nothing but willpower and starvation. Within a few years I'd gained every bit of it back, and more. I've done this three or four times. Each time involved more weight gain and loss than the previous one.
Do you never get hungry? Have you managed to maintain your entire 80 pound weight loss? For how long?
Perhaps the biggest difference is that I really enjoy what I eat. I love bacon, but I only eat half a slice at breakfast. I actually drool over my lunch which is a decent size salad with about 15 ingredients, all of which I enjoy....even the raw cauliflower. My evening meal is difficult. Lots of beans with sausage or some other meat. I treat myself every month or so with an all you can eat Japanese/American buffet where I eat a lot of sushi and fried chicken.
I began my current diet in 2019 after I saw my brother so skinny I worried he was ill and just hadn't told me. I got the outline at a brief meeting....nutrition and diet info from the experts is mostly bullshit. He credits his wife with the due diligence of wading through all the weight loss dietary claims, but I didn't ever get all the details.
I credit my wife with showing me that the amount of food required to keep us going is a fraction of what I had believed. I weigh every morning (obsessive I know), but it was a long hard journey and I start every day looking at the result.
I am a bit concerned that with the extreme loss of fat, you are bound to lose some muscle. Jars are now harder to open. Carrying 40 lb bags of sunflower seeds (for the birds) is harder. After work in the yard I have a lot more aches and pains than before, which take a lot longer to diminish. However, I am only a few years from 80 so some of that likely comes from age.
I lost 40% of my weight before Easter 2021 and the rest by the end of 2021.
Oh, I snack a lot, mostly peanuts, cashews and spicy Blue Diamond almonds. If I didn't really enjoy what I eat I doubt I could have lost this much weight. Even then I wouldn't want anyone to think it was easy. 162.6 this morning
Fried chicken is on my diet. Rice is not.
Bill, you are an inspiration. What dosage are you on currently? How are you approaching maintenance? Are you sticking to the once a week or are you extending? I’m bumping to 7.5 this week on Zepbound.
I am now, and have been since spring, on 15mg once a week. I will probably continue with that permanently, if circumstances allow.
Whatever side effects I might have had at the beginning were so mild I wasn't entirely sure they were side effects. I do suspect that my low carb/ketogenic diet lifestyle had something to do with that, as I mentioned in earlier reports, I think. Anecdata from other users, mostly on Reddit, mention the same thing. Apparently Mounjaro doesn't like to be carb-bombed.
Congrats on Zepbound! Are you having good results so far? I think it's amazing that Lilly was able to roll it out so soon after the FDA approval. They seem to have their $hit together much more than the makers of Ozempic/Wegovy. I was following the speculation at various sites immediately after the approval, and most people, even including some who claimed to be "in the know," seemed to think the earliest we could see the first dribbles of distribution would be after the first of the year.
Taking my first dose today. Will let you know.
I’ve had the same experience as you re side effects. I almost don’t see the carb issue as a side effect so much as a negative reinforcement NOT to over indulge in carbs/beer/sweets. Actually think it’s a positive!!
Can you comment on any side effects you may have experienced? What is the injection procedure like? I have the typical phobia of needles and am apprehensive about trying it.
I have lost and gained 50+ pounds many times in the last 8 years and am tired of the yoyo ride. These treatments concern me with the cost and the potential loss of availability due to loss of income or general economic conditions.
If you check at the end of this essay, you'll find links to my earlier, far longer and more extensive posts about my experience with Mounjaro, where I answered your questions about my own experience with side effects, as well as the injection procedure. I am, by the way, no fan of having sharp pointy things stuck inside me, but the Mounjaro stick is the least intrusive I've ever seen. Anyway, he's a link to a YT video about the injection procedure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUZWM_90qR0
I don't think the needle actually goes in much more that a quarter inch. All it needs to reach is the layer of fat just beneath your skin, so it doesn't need to go deep.
A bit of advice: If you do decide to start, tell your doc you'd like to administer your first dose in his office. Then either do it yourself, or let him do it. Either way, you'll find your concerns are greatly eased. At least mine were. My first injection took something like five seconds. I didn't feel anything. I looked and my doc and said, "Is that it? Did it work?"
She said, "Yes, that's it. And it worked. You just took your first weekly dose."
Hi again. I have just finished 4 doses of Mounjaro (2.5). Was on Trulicity but am having difficulty with my A1C. The doctor thinks I'm overweight (175 at 5'9") and that this will help, even though I am 18 ish % body fat. Will be doing a round of 5.0 starting tomorrow.
As to the jab itself, I've never had any problem with the Trulicity injector. But one of the Mounjaro injections left me with a hole where the needle went it and a surrounding bruise... It was really odd. Thankfully, I am not needle adverse thanks to the dentist visits as a youth because I get jabbed quite a bit. 4 times a year, my blood is drawn. 1 time a year, I get a flu shot. Several times a year I have to poke my fingers. My dentist has replaced nearly every crown in my head and filled teeth that had damage from my grinding, so lots of shots recently. And every 10 days I staple a Dexcom to my stomach.
But, if I can do that and not even remember the injections, I think others considering Mounjaro would be able to handle it as well. Of course, I still have body fat in my stomach and dread injecting anywhere else. We will see though.
"But one of the Mounjaro injections left me with a hole where the needle went it and a surrounding bruise..."
I can't claim encyclopedic knowledge, but that is a new one on me.