I Didn't Start With a Target Weight
Why I never set myself a number to hit on Mounjaro, and what I actually want instead.
My personal experience of Mounjaro, weight loss, appetite, side effects and discovering that knowing why I eat doesn’t necessarily make it easy to stop.
Note: This is a personal account of my experience with Mounjaro (tirzepatide). It isn’t medical advice, and my experience won’t necessarily be the same as anyone else’s.
I didn’t start with a target weight
I started Mounjaro at around 16 st 10 lb (106 kg).
People often talk about weight loss as though there is a magic number at the end of the journey.
Get to 80 kg.
Get your BMI below 25.
Lose another ten pounds.
I haven’t set myself a target weight.
What I actually want is much simpler.
I want to wake up in the morning and walk downstairs without feeling out of breath.
I want to walk up the six flights of stairs at work without arriving at the top soaked in sweat and wondering whether I should have brought a second shirt.
I want to be able to do ordinary things without my weight turning them into an endurance event.
That’s the goal.
I don’t know what number on the scales corresponds to that.
Maybe there isn’t one.
What I actually want
I want to walk downstairs in the morning without being out of breath.
I want to climb those six flights of stairs at work without needing to wring the sweat out of the shirt I put on ten minutes earlier.
I want ordinary physical activities to feel ordinary.
I want to be able to move around without constantly being reminded that I’m carrying more weight than my body really wants to carry.
If that happens at a particular weight, great.
If it happens at a different weight, that’s fine too.
The number is a measurement. It isn’t the destination.