The Mounjaro 101 - How To Start Your GLP-1 Weightloss Journey
In this lengthier post I'll fill you in about important basics and give you a bit of a compass for your Mounjaro journey. Read more!
Undoubtedly, many of you already have experience with dieting and weight loss. Many of you have started on various journeys to lose weight, get more healthy and more fit, to a varying degree, with good or bad results.
And also undoubtedly, many of you who didn’t reach their goals in the past now are considering GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Mounjaro, Wegovy or Ozempic. Which is absolutely understandable and nothing to be ashamed of to get this off the table.
In fact there is a lot of shaming going on about the matter on the internet. A lot of people on all sides of the spectrum try to tell you what to do with your body, and that the people who use weight loss drugs are supposedly lazy or pick the easy route.
There’s one thing I know for a fact:
Being obese isn’t easy. It is not healthy, and it is even more difficult the older you get to shed the weight. So why shame people who try to improve their health and get down to a good and healthy body? In my opinion (and yes, I am biased of course) this makes no sense. What I find especially revolting are figures from the body positivity movement shaming weightloss medication users, blaming and shaming them publicly while themselves adhering to a philosophy that oversimplifies weight issues and the physical and psychological toll it takes on people.
But let’s dive into the important matters, shall we?
First things first: the research
It is of utmost importance that you do your own research, pick your own sources, speak to doctors, check YouTube videos, and gain as much knowledge as possible. It is your body, and you must make an informed decision on if this is the right tool for you and your health situation. Nobody - except you and your medical professional - can make any assumptions or decisions for you and whatever you do will influence the rest of your life.
Finding a suitable provider
Depending on where you are, your health insurance may or may not cover the costs for GLP-1 treatments like Tirzepatide or Semaglutide or other similar weight loss medications.
It’s also possible that your health insurance, being private or state, may only cover the costs or part of the costs if you have a certain BMI and also certain health impairments due to your weight (e.g. blood pressure issues, diabetes, …).
Here in Spain, insurance, at least state insurance, does not cover weight loss medication at all. You have to pay this out of your own pocket in full.
Be aware that weight loss medication like Mounjaro is not cheap. Even though the first appointment from an online clinic like ZAVA in Spain is pretty inexpensive (I paid €25 for the appointment and the resulting online prescription), the monthly dosage costs around €200 to €400 (at least here in Spain).
So if you take into consideration that you will likely be on this medication for a long time, maybe even for the rest of your life, you must have a proper financial plan in place to make sure that you can cover the costs each month, because going off medication has important consequences (this is something I will cover in another post).
The process
First, you have to get a prescription like for any other medication. Take this prescription to a pharmacy, or, depending on the country you live in, maybe you can also order it online and get delivery with either a so-called Kwikpen (that holds all monthly doses in one pen syringe) or four separate syringes, each for one weekly dose.
You then pick a day of the week - we call it “jab day” - where you inject your Monjaro weekly dose. This should be the same day and the same time every week, and I would recommend picking a day close to the weekend. My day is Friday, because if you have any side effects, you might want to be able to ride them out over the weekend and not impair your workweek.
I strongly recommend using a tool like the tracker I use, glp-journal.click (it’s free and developed by friends on mine), to track the following:
- your weekly injections
- your current state
- your measurements
- your weight
You can even take photos every jab day to document the process, and you will thank me later when you have lost a lot of weight and have the “photo evidence” that proves your awesome transformation!
Note that it is also very important to make sure to document any side effects you have or any other effects you notice. Track your mood and thus keep very close documentation of the process - it is still a medication you take weekly.
Tracking your calories
It is important to understand that just by taking a weight loss medication, you are not off the hook when it comes to paying attention to what you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat.
Theoretically, it is possible to be on a low dosage of Mounjaro and overeat so drastically that you even gain weight. The drug does manage your hunger and help you eat less, but you also have to work hand in hand with it for it to be of maximum impact for your life.
That’s why I recommend keeping a calorie diary of the foods you eat, and I’ll post the app I use below because it is very good, cheap, and easy to handle. It offers scanning of barcodes and QR codes to track your food and has a really big database. I use this in many countries, and it always found around 92-98% of the foods I was searching for.
Get Macro here (at least for iOS): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macros-calorie-counter/id1216666985
What to eat?
I see a lot of videos on TikTok or Instagram where people are pretty proud and brag about eating a lot of fast food and sweet treats and basically junk food while on the weight loss medication, because hey, what’s the problem with eating a truckload of sugar when I have a drug that regulates my weight gain, right? Wrong.
As important as it is to pay attention when you eat and take your medication at the right time and in the proper intervals, it’s also imperative to pay attention to what you eat.
Being on a weight loss medication like Mounjaro, Wegovy or Ozempic is not the permission to put tons of junk in your body, because eating healthy is as important as eating the right amount of calories. This does not mean that while on Mounjaro you are forbidden from allowing yourself a treat from time to time or have some foods you wouldn’t eat on a more restrictive diet (like for example no carb or ketogenic diet). The thing is, nonetheless, what you put in your body heavily influences your successes with weight loss medication.
Motivation as a key factor
As you might have already realized, I’m using this blog as well as the social media presence coming with it as one of my sources for motivation and to stay the course. I can only invite you to take part in my journey, and I would gladly take part in yours.
There are days when you might need a little extra push, motivation, or simply have to ride out a plateau. Having sparring partners or accountability buddies is important to ensure that you stay on track and have fun while doing it!
Speaking of which, I’d be glad if you would head over to (Bluesky)[https://mounjaroblog.bsky.social] and also follow me there as well as like my content there.
I’d also love to hear from your journey, where you are, what your experiences are, and what you think of Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy as well as Tirzepatide and GLP-1 in general.
Thanks for reading!