Essential Tips for Maintaining Weight Loss with Mounjaro

Share and Follow

On the surface, my weight-loss journey appeared to be a success. In just four months, I had shed nearly two stone using weight-loss injections, going from 72kg (11st 5lb) down to 60kg (9st 6lb). However, the numbers didn’t reflect the entire story. I was drained, frail, and petrified of gaining all the weight back.

Standing in front of the mirror didn’t bring the expected sense of achievement, either. My face still seemed swollen, and I was still wearing the same size 14 clothing as before I began my weight-loss journey.

The clothes felt slightly looser, yes, but not to the extent that warranted a new wardrobe. I had believed the medication was a miracle solution that would do all the hard work for me, but I soon realized my mistake.

Now, I know that I made a big mistake with the way I used weight-loss injections, and this is why I wanted to share my experience.

I’ve learned that these medications can be powerful tools, but they are not magic wands: you will only get the best results if you’re willing to work hard and change your lifestyle too.

Today, at 43, after my second stint on fat jabs in 17 months, I weigh 54kg (8st 8lb), wear size 8 to 10 clothes and feel stronger, leaner and healthier than I have in many years. My energy is back. Even my blood pressure – which has long been a worry – is improving.

So how did I get here? Let’s start at the beginning. My weight has always fluctuated, and I’ve never found it easy to stay slim. But before having children I was a healthy, active size 12 who regularly worked out and cycled, encouraged by my wife, Lynsey, a personal trainer.

In December 2023, Lisa Snell had a wake-up call in M&S while trying on size 14 trousers. She says: ‘The changing-room mirrors surrounded me as I stood in my underwear, aghast. I’d gained weight everywhere. I barely recognised myself’

Then in March 2019, Lynsey gave birth to our first son, Teddy. Life with a newborn was wonderful but hectic, and my gym visits dwindled. In 2020, I had IVF to conceive our second child.

IVF is an assault on your body, and I was pumped full of powerful hormones – but on our second attempt, it worked. That autumn I became pregnant, just as another lockdown hit. Working from home saw me barely moving and constantly in reach of the fridge.

It was a tough pregnancy, and the only time I didn’t feel sick was when I was eating. I had high blood pressure and developed gestational diabetes. By the time Sonny was born, in July 2021, I’d gained three stone.

In December 2023, I had a wake-up call in Marks & Spencer while trying on size 14 trousers. The changing-room mirrors surrounded me as I stood in my underwear, aghast. I’d been in denial, but now I saw the truth. I’d gained weight everywhere. Horrified, I took a photo. I barely recognised myself.

Knowing how worried I was about my health, for Christmas Lynsey bought me a membership for the health app Zoe, which includes a device to monitor your blood sugar and offered me a personalised nutrition plan.

I overhauled my diet, tracked everything and lost 5kg (11lb). Then my weight stalled completely at 72kg (11st 5lb), which was still too heavy for my 5ft 4in frame.

Around the same time, my GP put me on blood-pressure medication. With my gestational diabetes and family history of type-2 diabetes (putting me at a 40 per cent risk of developing the disease), I began to feel scared about the future. Meanwhile, the GLP-1 weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic were everywhere. I hoped they would be the solution I needed.

Today, Lisa’s size-14 clothes are long gone. Even her size 10s are loose. For the first time in years she can wear a sleeveless top without feeling self-conscious

Normally, you’d need a BMI of 30 (the marker at which you are officially obese) to qualify for Wegovy, but my high blood pressure made me eligible with a BMI of 27.

Signing up with a high street pharmacy’s online clinic in February last year was shockingly easy. Upload photos, type in your stats, tick a few boxes – and days later, I was collecting my first pen. I could have lied about my health and I never spoke to anyone in person.

I don’t remember being given advice on diet or exercise, either. There was no mention of preserving muscle or eating enough protein, but I wasn’t worried about that. I was so blasé about it all.

Lynsey supported me. As a fitness professional, she believes these medications can be valuable tools. But I didn’t use them properly. I stopped tracking my food with the Zoe app and ignored the importance of nutrition entirely.

I skipped meals and grazed on chocolate, nuts and protein bars. I wasn’t interested in cooking, so I’d nibble on takeaways. On the plus side, Wegovy killed any interest in alcohol too, but I wasn’t exercising. I told myself everything was fine if I was losing weight.

And I was losing weight. By September last year, I’d lost 10kg (22lb), and was down to 60kg

(9st 6lb). The scales pleased me, but to my surprise my clothes were only slightly looser. I suspect much of the weight I lost was muscle, not fat.

I was also finding it so hard to cope with the tiredness that I was thinking about weaning myself off the drug. In the end, the decision was taken out of my hands when the pharmacy simply stopped my prescription because my BMI had dropped below their cut-off of 23.

Yes, I was in the healthy range (18.5 to 24.9), but with no advice about tapering off the drugs or a maintenance plan, I knew I was likely to regain weight. It felt unfair, especially as my blood pressure was still high.

By January, hunger and ‘food noise’ were back with a vengeance. I tried to diet, but my weight crept up to 63.4kg (just under 10st). That’s towards the top of the healthy BMI range, but the regain wasn’t stopping and I was terrified I’d just put it all back on. I was determined that, somehow, I had to get back on the jabs.

I started asking around, and in February this year I was recommended a private doctor who focuses on weight maintenance using the injections. Unlike the online pharmacy, he took my whole health into account.

He ran blood tests, talked about diet and discussed my blood pressure and diabetes risk before prescribing Mounjaro, another type of GLP-1 medication. This serious, personalised approach made me take myself more seriously too. Today, six months after re-starting the jabs, I’m still on 5mg of Mounjaro, which is enough to reduce ‘food noise’.

I speak to my doctor every month, or earlier if I have questions. It costs £157 a month, including having the medication delivered. It’s expensive but worth every penny for my health.

Lisa says the weight loss was just the start of her journey. The real transformation came from building strength and eating for health, and she now feels like she’s added years to her life

Crucially, instead of relying on the drug to do everything for me, I revamped my diet. Lynsey helped me devise a way of eating that would support my health and help me preserve muscle as I lost weight.

She had tried to help me before, but I didn’t have the right mindset then. The most important thing is protein, and I aim for 100g a day. I returned to my Zoe app and religiously log my food and nutrition. This is key to staying on track.

I limit ultra-processed foods to under 10 per cent of my intake and eat 30 different plant foods a week for gut health.

I made smart swaps, such as switching creamy yoghurts for fat-free and sugar-free Greek yoghurt so I could get more protein and calcium for the same calories. I look for at least 20g of protein in every meal, more at dinner. Instead of takeaways, we often use high-protein meal kit deliveries including Mindful Chef, enjoying dishes such as home-cooked steak with potatoes and asparagus or chicken and edamame bowls.

I calculated the calories I’d need to lose weight in a safe, slow and sustainable way – 1,400 a day – and try to stick to that.

Lynsey also helped me start strength-training two or three mornings a week. My heaviest dumbbells are 12kg – nothing crazy, but it’s building muscle. I move arond a lot more. I average 12,000 steps a day, around double my previous tally. Rain or shine, I get off the train a few stops early to walk to the office and do it again in the evening.

It’s not glamorous. It’s 6am starts so I’m up and working out before the children are awake. It’s rainy walks after long days and resisting office treats. But it works. I’m full of energy, and free from side-effects.

Today, my size-14 clothes are long gone. Even my size 10s are loose. For the first time in years, I can wear a sleeveless top without feeling self-conscious. My arms are toned, my shoulders defined. More important, my blood pressure is coming down. I’m getting some normal readings for the first time in years.

In January, I will have my annual NHS blood-sugar tests (after having gestational diabetes) and I’m hoping those will go the right way, too.

My BMI is now 20.4, still in the healthy range, but I don’t want to go much lower. My doctor asks me what my target weight is, but I’ve never had one. My goals are about my health. One day, I hope to come off Mounjaro completely, but I’ll work with my private doctor to find the best approach.

When people call these drugs ‘the easy way out’, I bristle. Wegovy didn’t get me up at dawn to lift weights. Mounjaro doesn’t track my calories or make me walk to work in the rain. That’s all me. That’s discipline.

Perhaps the most important thing with weight loss is finding the motivation that keeps you going when you want to hit snooze on your alarm or temptation strikes.

For me, it’s my family. My dad died of a heart attack at 57, linked to type-2 diabetes. I was only 20. I’m painfully aware he’s missed half my life.

I had Sonny when I was 37, the same age my dad was when he had me. I don’t want my boys, now six and four, to feel the same loss. I want to be there to see them grow up, go to university, get married or do whatever they want in life. I want to be the 73-year-old at the gym, like my mum. I want decades more life.

So many are on these drugs – an estimated 1.4 million get them every month from an online pharmacy, with an additional 200,000 accessing them through the NHS. But as a nation, we aren’t having the conversations we need to have about how we preserve our health while we are on them, or what happens after we lose the weight.

The weight loss was just the start of my journey. The real transformation came from building strength, eating for health and fighting for my future. I feel like I’ve added years to my life and I intend to make every one of them count.