I suspect this will be the first post in a series… it’s not a topic I’ve written about before, but I’m hoping by sharing my experiences it can help other people in a similar situation.
Since my injury in 2021 I’ve been getting pretty heavy… it accelerated a trend starting way back in 2015… since then my weight had grown over 25%… from ~70kg to ~94kg.
There’s a lot of reasons, limited ability to be active being the biggest… I’ve been proactive trying to change it, but it’s been stubborn.
I managed to loose a little weight with intermittent fasting, but that’s really tricky with ADHD meds… fasting on a ADHD meds day was a very bad thing.
What’s more, even if I maintained a calorie deficit (right down to 1200kcal!) my body didn’t change much. It’s been a bit baffling, the doctors even ran a few tests to rule out anything scary.
Even when eating well, I often experienced sugar related weirdness with my vision. My colour perception being a good indication of my sugar levels… if I’m out riding my bike and my eyes hurt and green trees, sky and ground all look shades of brown… it’s time to eat a bit of sugar.
The weight makes my injury worse and limits my mobility… worse of all, I’m hitting the weight limit for the adapted seating and buggy i need for day to day life & getting around.
With the blessing of my GP, it was time to explore something else.
Mounjaro is an injection that I take once a week. There’s lots of other info online about the specifics, but for me, it seems to smooth out the sugar issue & helps me maintain a small but effective calorie deficit.
I fall outside of the NHS requirements, so I started treatment privately via Boots.
It’s been about 3 weeks and the results have been pretty good. I’ve not had any sugar related vision issues and my weight first stabilised, then started to decline. I’m currently loosing weight at around ~1kg a week.… 3kg in a little under 3 weeks.
So erm. Yeah. That’s what’s been happening.
I kinda wish I’d done this a long time ago, but i believed I could get the same result by ‘just trying harder’. I didn’t quite understand there’s a biological reason why my weight has been so stubborn.
It’s changed my emotional relationship & physical reaction to food.
I didn’t even know the term ‘food noise’ before I started, but it describes a lot of how I experienced food. I’d eat the things I felt drawn do, often with lots of sugar as I felt so awful without it. There’s probably an ADHD element to this stuff too, but that’s a little harder to untangle…. More on that another time.
These day, I eat a handful of small meals a day and a few snacks if I fancy them.
The sensory experience and mouth feel of some foods and textures have changed. I’ve found myself enjoying fresh and crisp foods more. Carbs are a little tricky sometimes… for whatever reason sausage rolls have gone from a ‘yum’ to a ‘yuk’
Mounjaro changes how my energy works in a pretty subtle way. I have about the same energy / spoons as before, but the peak energy level is a little lower.
My monotropic tunnels are a little less deep and I don’t get quite as ‘into’ things as I used to.
However, my energy is way more consistent through the day.
I’ve kept with the same ADHD meds pattern as before and the change is pretty subtle.
The meds peak a little lower, but they seem to last a little longer. I need to make sure to eat lots of protein for breakfast or the meds won’t do anything at all… same as always, just moreso.
Yeah… I know. That didn’t seem very Jamie. Not at all.
I needed a lot of support from trusted people the first time. One of the support folks in my live is also on Mounjaro and they demonstrated it step by step. I then copied them.
The first time was scary, but kinda surreal. I couldn’t actually feel the needle at all.
I’m only doing the injections when I have support to make sure I follow the process correctly. I don’t think I’ll be attempting it alone anytime soon… that’s a future thing to work out!
Talking of the future, I’m coming into this thing with a fairly chill set of goals. I want to feel better in my body, have smoother energy & avoid the sore eyes and other low sugar stuff.
Weight loss is part of that but not all of it. If I can get back to around 75kg then I’ll be very pleased.
Life without the food noise has been nice. Not world changing like is I for some. But a pleasant break from something which was occupying more of my brain than I realised.
Once I’m back to my target weight I’ll work with the doctors on how best to maintain the weight into the future. I don’t plan to stay on these meds forever if I can avoid it.
So erm, that’s my experience so far. It feels nice to be taking control and succeeding in an area where I’ve felt I’ve had little control for so long.
I hope this is all useful to share. I’ll keep updating as I continue the treatment. There definitely a bunch more ADHD and autism specific things to explore once I’m further along.
All in. I’m pretty optimistic & curious where this will end up.
