I Lost 8 Stone on Mounjaro… and Apparently Everyone Had an Opinion! 😂💕🙄

Five stone disappeared without anyone noticing, a stranger on a train offered me unsolicited medical advice, and somewhere along the way I found the confidence to stop hiding. Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Five Stone 🕵️‍♀️

Well, this is awkward.

Imagine losing five stone. Not five pounds. Not the weight of a particularly enthusiastic Christmas dinner. FIVE STONE.

That's 70 pounds. A quarter of my original body weight.

And apparently, nobody noticed. 🤣

When I started taking Mounjaro in October 2024, I was half a pound away from twenty stone. I didn't tell many people what I was doing because, frankly, I wasn't entirely convinced it would work.

I'd tried losing weight before. Many times.

I didn't know whether I'd experience dreadful side effects, whether I'd lose anything at all, or whether I'd end up quietly abandoning the whole thing and pretending it had never happened.

So I kept it to myself.

And then the weight started coming off.

One stone. Two stone. Three stone.

Still nothing.

Four stone.

Hello? Anybody? 👀

Five stone.

At this point, I was beginning to wonder whether I was actually invisible.

Not that I was expecting a marching band, a congratulatory cake or a spontaneous office standing ovation. Although, thinking about it, a small certificate might have been nice. Preferably pink. With glitter. 💖✨

But surely somebody might have noticed that approximately a quarter of me had gone missing?

Apparently not.

Is It Rude to Notice Someone Has Lost Weight? 🤔

Now, here's where things get complicated.

Because I completely understand why people don't comment on someone else's weight.

You don't necessarily know why they've lost it. They might be unwell. They might be going through something difficult. They might simply not want their body to become the subject of conversation over the office kettle.

And that's entirely fair.

But here's the other side of it.

I wanted somebody to notice.

There. I've said it.

Not because I needed anyone's approval, but because I was making changes to my life that had felt impossible for years.

I was walking more. Moving more. Exercising. Feeling better.

And yes, watching the numbers on the scales go down.

It would have been lovely to hear someone say, "Helen, you look fantastic!"

Just once.

I promise I wouldn't have demanded a commemorative plaque. 😂

Eventually, after almost a year on Mounjaro, I'd lost six stone and twelve pounds. I wrote a LinkedIn post calledA Quiet Transformation, sharing what I'd been doing.

And suddenly, everyone knew.

My manager was absolutely lovely. She apologised because she genuinely hadn't appreciated how much weight I'd lost. She saw me regularly, and the changes had happened gradually.

Another colleague admitted they'd noticed but hadn't wanted to say anything in case it was inappropriate.

So there I was, thinking nobody had noticed, while some people were deliberately being polite.

Honestly, being a human being is exhausting sometimes. 🤦‍♀️💕

Meanwhile, My Confidence Had Quietly Packed Its Bags and Moved Back In 🧳✨

The funny thing is, something else had been changing long before anyone commented.

Me.

Or perhaps, more accurately, the version of me I'd been hiding for years.

I started speaking up more in meetings.

I became more comfortable putting forward ideas.

And, in a development that would previously have required a formal risk assessment,I started turning my camera on during Teams calls.🎥🤣

Previously, I could find seventeen excellent reasons why my camera needed to stay off.

Bad lighting. Terrible angle. Hair not cooperating. Possibly a technical fault. Perhaps Mercury was in retrograde.

Anything, really.

But gradually, I became less bothered about what I looked like on screen.

I remember joking that after losing five stone, perhaps I had slightly fewer double chins. Not the seven I was convinced I'd had before!

But underneath the jokes, something important was happening.

I was becoming more willing to be seen.

And the extraordinary thing?

That started happening before anyone else gave me a compliment.

I hadn't suddenly become cleverer. I hadn't acquired a new personality or magically developed professional skills I didn't have before.

I'd always been the same person.

I was just starting to let her out again. ❤️

The Gym Instructor Who Changed His Mind 💪

Not every reaction to my weight loss has been lovely.

When I'd lost around two or three stone, I joined a gym at a hotel spa.

Now, joining a gym when you're still carrying a lot of weight and living with lymphoedema isn't exactly the most comfortable thing in the world.

I needed to be careful about my legs, so during my induction, I explained my lymphoedema and mentioned that I was taking Mounjaro.

Well.

The instructor wasn't exactly reaching for the party poppers. 🎉

There was some eye-rolling, followed by comments about women taking weight-loss injections, losing muscle and not necessarily putting in the effort.

I remember thinking,Right. Well, that's an interesting welcome.

I didn't argue.

I didn't deliver a passionate speech about GLP-1 medication.

I simply got on with it.

I exercised. I kept going. My weight continued to change. And over time, we could see changes in my body composition on the gym's scales.

Then, about six months later, something rather lovely happened.

That same instructor came over to me, completely unprompted.

He told me that watching my progress had changed his opinion of people taking GLP-1 medication.

He'd seen me exercising. He'd seen the changes. And he'd realised that his assumptions hadn't told the whole story.

I thought that was wonderful.

Not because I'd won some imaginary argument, but because he'd been willing to reconsider his views.

We could all do with a little more of that, couldn't we? 💕

And for the record, I don't believe anybody should have to prove they're working hard enough to deserve support with their weight.

But I did appreciate him recognising that there was more to my story than an injection.

And Then There Was the Man on the Train… 🚂🙄

Oh, goodness.

Where do I even start?

I travel into London for work, and when you use the same trains regularly, you start recognising familiar faces.

One day, a lovely lady commented that I'd lost a lot of weight and looked really good.

Hurrah!

A compliment! In the wild! Without having to announce my entire medical history on LinkedIn first! 😂💕

We got chatting.

I explained that I'd been taking Mounjaro, that I'd initially been nervous, and that fortunately I'd experienced very few side effects.

A perfectly pleasant conversation between two women.

And then, from absolutely nowhere, a man decided that what this conversation desperately needed was his opinion.

Because obviously it did.

Apparently, taking Mounjaro was cheating.

Apparently, I'd put all the weight back on.

Apparently, it was unhealthy.

And apparently, all I really needed to do was eat less, exercise more and stop being lazy.

Well, thank goodness he'd turned up.

Imagine me spending all those years struggling with my weight when the answer had been sitting in a railway carriage all along. 🤦‍♀️🤣

And the particularly delightful thing about receiving unsolicited advice on a train?

You're trapped.

You can't exactly excuse yourself and wander off into the garden.

You're sitting there thinking,Is it too late to pretend I'm asleep?

Now, I don't mind people having concerns about Mounjaro.

I've heard from people who have experienced difficult side effects, and I know that my experience isn't everyone's experience.

I'm fortunate that I've tolerated the medication well. Other people haven't, and their stories deserve to be heard too.

But there's an enormous difference between somebody sharing their own experience and a complete stranger deciding they're qualified to judge your health, your choices and your character.

I hadn't asked for a consultation.

I was just having a chat.

And for anyone wondering, no, I didn't suddenly develop a desire to share the details of my medical history with the entire carriage.

Some things really are nobody else's business. 💗

Apparently, Even Choosing a Seat Is Complicated 🚆

There have been smaller changes too.

Little things that probably sound ridiculous until you've experienced them.

On my morning train, there are groups of four seats facing each other.

When I was much bigger, I often noticed that the seat beside me was one of the last people chose.

I don't know what every passenger was thinking, and I wouldn't pretend to.

But I noticed the pattern.

Now?

Sometimes someone sits beside me almost immediately.

The first time it happened, I practically wanted to check whether they'd boarded the wrong train. 🤣

It's such a tiny thing.

Nobody made an announcement. There was no dramatic music. Snoopy didn't appear carrying a banner saying, "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE." 🐶💕

But it made me think about how differently everyday life can feel depending on your size.

And that's not always a comfortable thing to acknowledge.

Did People Change, or Did I? 💭

This is the question I keep coming back to.

Have people started treating me differently because I've lost weight?

Or have I changed the way I behave because I feel more confident?

I suspect it's complicated.

At work, for example, I'm much more likely to contribute to discussions than I used to be.

If people respond to me differently now, is that because I'm slimmer?

Or because I'm speaking up more, sharing ideas and putting myself forward?

I can't possibly know what everyone else is thinking.

But I do know this:

I was just as intelligent when I weighed nearly twenty stone.

I was just as capable.

I had the same qualifications, experience, ideas and sense of humour.

Although admittedly, my sense of humour has always been slightly questionable. 😂

Losing weight didn't suddenly make me worthy of being listened to.

I already was.

And that's perhaps the saddest part of looking back.

I wonder how many opportunities I might have missed simply because I didn't have the confidence to put myself forward.

How many times did I stay quiet?

How many things did I avoid?

How many times did I decide, before anyone else had even expressed an opinion, that I wasn't the sort of person who should be doing something?

That's quite a lot to unpack.

Preferably not all before lunch. ☕💕

The Woman Who Used to Hide Is Now Making YouTube Videos. Explain That One. 🎥😂

And here's the part that still makes me laugh.

I spent years avoiding being seen.

I didn't particularly like photographs of myself.

I wasn't comfortable on camera.

I worried about how I looked, how much space I took up, and what people might think.

And now?

I'm sitting in front of a camera, voluntarily, talking to the internet about my weight, my lymphoedema, the menopause and all sorts of other deeply personal things.

VOLUNTARILY.

Nobody is making me do this.

There isn't even a biscuit incentive. 🤣

And I haven't suddenly become someone who looks perfect on camera.

Sometimes my hair does something peculiar. Sometimes I ramble. Sometimes I start talking about one thing and end up somewhere completely different.

Occasionally, I even find myself discussing whether my jumper makes me look like Dennis the Menace.

Which is particularly ironic when I'm trying to talk about why we shouldn't judge women on their appearance.

Honestly, Helen. 🙄😂

But that's rather the point.

I'm allowing myself to show up as I am.

Not the perfectly polished version.

Not the woman who waits until she's lost another stone, bought the right outfit or found the most flattering camera angle.

Just me.

And that feels like a much bigger achievement than I ever expected.

Eight Stone Lighter, but Still the Same Helen ❤️

I'm enormously grateful for what Mounjaro has helped me achieve.

Losing eight stone has changed my mobility, my confidence and so many parts of everyday life.

But I don't want this story to become one where the woman I used to be was somehow less deserving of kindness or respect.

She wasn't.

She was struggling with her weight and her health. She was doing her best. And she deserved to be treated well, even when she didn't particularly believe that herself.

I wish I could go back and tell her that.

I'd probably also tell her to stop worrying quite so much about what everybody else thought.

And perhaps invest in a decent camera, because apparently we're going to end up on YouTube. 🤣📹

I can't control what people think about my body, my medication or my decisions.

Some people will be lovely.

Some people will be uncomfortable commenting.

Some people will change their minds.

And occasionally, a complete stranger on a train will decide to provide a free medical consultation that nobody requested.

But the biggest difference now is that I'm less inclined to let those opinions decide what I do next.

I don't need to become a different person to deserve a place in the room.

I just need to stop hiding the person who's been here all along.

And perhaps that's the real transformation. 💖✨

Have You Noticed People Treating You Differently? 💬💕

I'd genuinely love to hear your experiences.

Have you lost weight and found that people suddenly notice you more? Have people stayed completely silent? Have you had lovely compliments, uncomfortable conversations or a particularly enthusiastic stranger offering advice you didn't ask for?

Or perhaps the biggest change has been how you feel about yourself.

I'd love to know.

I've also made a YouTube video about my experience, including the gym instructor, the train journey and how my confidence has changed.

🎥Watch my video: How People Treated Me Differently After Losing 8 Stone

And if you're going through your own journey, please remember that you don't have to wait until you've lost weight, reached a goal or changed your appearance to deserve kindness.

You deserve that already.

Lots of love,

Helen 💕🐾✨

P.S. If Snoopy ever starts offering unsolicited weight-loss advice on public transport, I'm having words.🤣

This is my personal experience of taking Mounjaro, not medical advice. Medication affects people differently, so please speak to a qualified healthcare professional about your own circumstances.