💉 The “Miracle” Drug: Why I Stopped Taking Mounjaro 💉

Why I stopped taking Mounjaro after almost a year

Hey! Welcome back to my blog.

I’ve always tried to be open and honest about my journey so it only feels right that I share this part of it too. If you read my previous blog, *What People Don’t See: Why I Chose to Start Mounjaro*, you’ll know that starting Mounjaro wasn’t a decision I made lightly. It came after years of struggling with my weight, my relationship with food, my physical and mental health and trying what felt like every diet under the sun.

I started taking Mounjaro in June last year after it was medically prescribed to me as an aid for weight loss. From the beginning, I said I didn’t see it as a miracle or a magic fix. For me, it was a tool that could give me a bit of extra support while I worked on my eating habits, my relationship with food, my training and probably most importantly, myself. Fast forward almost a year and at the end of May, I decided to stop taking it. I think that decision deserves just as much honesty as my decision to start.

Mounjaro gets called a “miracle drug” all the time, especially when it comes to weight loss. I completely understand why people describe it that way, my experience has shown me there is a lot more to it than taking an injection and watching the weight disappear. So, why did I stop something that had helped me lose weight? That’s what I want to talk about.

Before I Explain Why I Stopped, Here’s Why I Started

I’ve already spoken in much more detail about why I started Mounjaro in my previous blog, so I won’t repeat the entire story here. To give you some context, I had struggled with my weight for years. Before starting, I was in a genuinely bad place physically and mentally. I was extremely self conscious, overweight and unhappy with myself and I felt like I had tried pretty much every diet going without really getting anywhere.

When Mounjaro was offered to me medically, I decided to take the opportunity. That was actually quite a big thing for me because I hate asking for help. I’ve always been the type of person who would rather struggle through something alone than admit I need support, eventually I realised that accepting medical help didn’t mean I had failed.

It didn’t mean I was lazy or taking the “easy way out”. At the time, I believed it was the right decision for me and looking back now, I still believe that. I hoped it would help me lose some weight, become more mindful about my portion sizes and maybe give me some breathing room to work on the negative relationship I had developed with food.

I know some people see weight loss injections as cheating, personally I don’t agree. I think Mounjaro can be a useful tool, I also think you have to pay attention to what is happening to your body and mind along the way. Something being right for you at the beginning doesn’t mean it has to be right for you forever.

You can read my previous blog here, where I explain in more detail why I chose to start Mounjaro:

https://www.chloeblogs.com/post/what-people-don-t-see-why-i-chose-to-start-mounjaro

What Mounjaro actually did for me

I don’t want this blog to suddenly sound like I think Mounjaro was a terrible experience because that wouldn’t be truthful. It did help me and while taking it I lost around 2.5 stone. As someone with PCOS who had struggled to shift weight for years, that felt like a huge achievement for me.

My clothes started fitting better, I felt more confident in my body and I was still going to the gym regularly, getting personal bests and making progress with my training. Seeing those physical changes definitely gave my confidence a boost too.

However, alongside those positives, other things started changing. My appetite reduced massively and at first, I suppose that sounds like exactly what you would want from a weight-loss medication. Over time though, I realised there is a difference between having better control around food and barely wanting food at all.

Food started tasting different to me and everything seemed bland. I could only manage really small portions and sometimes meals that felt more like child sized portions. I have always loved food and probably always will, so when I got to the point where I genuinely didn’t enjoy eating anymore, that became one of the first red flags for me.

The food noise was almost completely gone too. Again, I know that probably sounds amazing to someone who has spent years thinking about food constantly, but strangely, it scared me. I’ve been around dieting and the gym world for years and I started worrying that I was going too far in the opposite direction. I didn’t want my relationship with food to move from one unhealthy extreme to another.

Food is fuel and your body needs it. As time went on, I knew I wasn’t giving mine enough.

When the side effects started outweighing the positives

Throughout my time taking Mounjaro, I had periods of feeling sick and having diarrhoea, particularly when I increased the dose. Those symptoms came and went but what bothered me more over time was my energy because I was tired constantly.

I could sleep for eight hours and still wake up feeling exhausted. At the beginning of my journey I was training regularly and coping fairly well but the fatigue slowly became worse. My diet had also become extremely limited and there were days where I was basically living on things like cheese strings, Peperami, Fridge Raiders, boiled eggs and the occasional salad. Some days I wasn’t even eating 1,000 calories.

I had bought multivitamins before starting Mounjaro because I had done my research and wanted to be careful. I also continued taking the vitamins I already used for my PCOS but eventually I felt like I was constantly buying different vitamins and supplements just to try to feel normal.

I went to my GP and had blood tests on a few occasions. There was nothing major showing up but I still felt like my body wasn’t getting what it needed. That was difficult because on paper, things were going well. I had lost weight, I was still training and my body was changing but I didn’t actually feel good.

I think that distinction is really important because a lower number on the scales doesn’t automatically mean everything else is healthy.

Was it really a “miracle” drug?

I completely understand why people call Mounjaro a miracle. If you have struggled with your weight for years and suddenly something makes your hunger, cravings or food noise more manageable, it can genuinely feel life-changing. I also think calling it a miracle can hide everything that happens behind the scenes.

People see the weight loss, but they don’t necessarily see the difficult days, the training sessions, the meal choices, the changes to your routine, the mental work or the effort that goes into changing your relationship with your body and food.

For me, Mounjaro was never a miracle. It was a tool and I still believe that now. Having PCOS meant I never expected weight loss to suddenly become easy, so I was genuinely shocked and proud that I managed to lose around 2.5 stone, however, there was still a lot of work happening alongside that injection.

Sometimes I did feel like my own hard work was dismissed because I was taking Mounjaro, almost as though the injection had done absolutely everything for me. It hadn’t. I still had to make choices, go to the gym, change my habits and actually put the work in.

The toxic side of Mounjaro online

Another part of this journey that I think is worth talking about is social media. The conversation around Mounjaro online can be incredibly toxic because you seem to get two completely opposite sides of it.

Some people think anyone using it is cheating or taking the easy way out. Then, at the other end of the scale, you have influencers, celebrities and adverts that can make weight-loss injections look incredibly casual. Personally, I don’t think either side is particularly helpful.

These are prescription medications and I think people need to take them seriously. I’ve seen stories online about people buying questionable injections because they’re cheaper, people becoming seriously unwell and people taking medication without properly understanding what they’re using. That really worries me.

The impact on younger people worries me too. Children and teenagers are growing up surrounded by TikTok, Instagram, influencers and constant messages about what their bodies are supposedly meant to look like. When weight loss injections start becoming another trend online, I think we have to be careful about the message that sends.

I’m not against Mounjaro. I took it myself and I’ve been completely open about that. I just think there needs to be a much more balanced conversation around it.

When I started thinking about stopping

When I first started Mounjaro, I was obviously focused on beginning the journey. I don’t think I ever really thought about what the end would look like and I didn’t have some big long term plan. My aim was basically to lose weight while trying to improve my habits and my life in general.

I also didn’t increase my dose automatically every four weeks. If I felt unwell or didn’t feel ready to move up, I waited longer. As the months went on, though, my thoughts started changing and I found myself asking what would happen when I didn’t have Mounjaro as a tool anymore.

I knew I wasn’t going to take it forever but stopping wasn’t one sudden decision either. There were a few different things building up over time.

One of those things was my eyesight. I had been to the opticians before starting Mounjaro and then went again around six months into taking it, where I was told my eyesight had deteriorated slightly. I worried about whether there could be a connection. I was told it wasn’t linked but it still played on my mind.

Losing 2.5 stone was amazing, however, no amount of weight loss was worth constantly worrying about my health. Even then, though, my eyesight wasn’t the biggest reason I eventually decided to stop.

The point where I knew I was done

The biggest turning point for me was my mental health. I started feeling completely flat. I wasn’t particularly happy and I wasn’t particularly sad either. I just felt like I was existing rather than actually living my life.

Things I normally loved didn’t interest me anymore. I didn’t want to go to the gym, I didn’t want to write, I didn’t really want to go out or see people and even having a shower sometimes felt like a massive job because I had absolutely no energy.

That was when I knew something wasn’t right for me. I felt like I was slipping into a bit of a hole and thankfully, I noticed it quite quickly. By that point, I also felt like I was injecting myself every week simply because that was what I had been doing for almost a year. My weight wasn’t really moving, I didn’t feel good physically and I definitely didn’t feel like myself mentally.

So I stopped.

I stopped from the dose I was on rather than gradually reducing it. That was my personal decision at the time, not something I would recommend anyone else copy without speaking to an appropriate healthcare professional.

I was nervous because I had heard so many horror stories about people stopping Mounjaro, gaining all their weight back or feeling awful afterwards. I also knew I couldn’t keep taking something purely because I was frightened of what might happen if I stopped.

What happened after I stopped taking Mounjaro

I want to make this part really clear: this is only my experience. Everyone’s body is different and my experience stopping Mounjaro isn’t necessarily going to be the same as somebody else’s.

During the first week, my body definitely felt different. I had been taking the injection for almost a year, so I expected there to be some changes. Instead of panicking about it, I tried to put my energy into getting myself back into a proper routine.

I went to the gym, started eating more fruit and vegetables, meal planned and focused on eating properly again. I’ve always been someone who does better with routine and tends to struggle when things change, so I knew I needed some structure around me.

The biggest difference, though, was how I felt mentally. I started feeling clearer and more present, I actually wanted to do things again. That made it much easier to make better decisions in other areas of my life too.

At the time of writing this, I’ve been off Mounjaro for almost three months and I genuinely feel better in myself, both physically and mentally. I’ve been working hard in the gym, eating better and moving more. I have more energy and I’m spending proper time with my family and friends rather than feeling like I’m just physically there. I actually feel present again.

Surprisingly, my weight has continued coming down too. That isn’t me saying everybody will lose more weight after stopping Mounjaro because this is simply what has happened to me. I think having a clearer head has allowed me to concentrate properly on my training, food and lifestyle again.

Do I regret taking Mounjaro?

No, I don’t regret accepting help when I needed it. Mounjaro was part of my journey and I’m not going to pretend it didn’t help me because it did. Injecting myself once a week wasn’t the thing that suddenly changed my entire life.

There were still choices I had to make, habits I had to change, training sessions I had to turn up for and difficult days I had to get through. Probably most importantly, there was also a relationship with myself that I had to start rebuilding.

When I wrote my first blog about Mounjaro, I said it was a tool, not a miracle and almost a year later I still believe that. The difference is that now, I feel ready to see what life looks like without that tool.

I’m not expecting the next part of my journey to be perfect. My weight might fluctuate, my appetite might change and there will probably be days where old habits and thoughts creep back in but I’m not the same person who took that first injection last June.

I understand myself better now, I trust myself more and I know that losing weight is only one small part of actually feeling healthier. Maybe that’s the part of this whole journey I’m most proud of.

Look out for my next blog soon.

Chloe x

**A little disclaimer:** This blog is based entirely on my own personal experience with Mounjaro and isn’t intended as medical advice. Starting, changing or stopping prescription medication is a personal medical decision and you should always speak to an appropriate healthcare professional about what’s right for you.