Month: August 2025

Mounjaro Journey – 12 weeks in, 7.5mg

flidfit Disability, Eating Out, Eating Out, Mounjaro

This week has been much quieter from the point of view of having fewer social activities planned.  Enjoyed a coffee in the garden in 24 degrees this morning – on a Bank Holiday Monday too!

I have some support to assist me in doing the sort of everyday things that most people can do without any difficulties – my disability affects my dexterity, limits my mobility and my reach.  As I get older (63 next month!) I am slowing down more and more.  If only my ageing body were able to achieve all the things I plan in my head!  That’s where the valuable practical support provided by my wonderful PA Sam (Samantha) comes in handy.

Two mornings a week, I spend three hours working alongside Sam, who is a human whirlwind.  She helps me cook, clean, do the laundry, recycling… and this week also some sewing repairs and a trip to get my car cleaned inside and out.  I find myself feeling exhausted after she’s been, but in a very fulfilled way.  Sam came to work for me shortly after the Covid lockdown in July 2020. We work well together.

My sister also works to support me and spends a day with me every other week.  This is wonderful, because as well as having support for more time-consuming tasks (pruning roses, trip to the recycling centre with a car load of rubbish…), we get to exchange news and have a proper chat, putting the world to rights.

I love spending time with my sisters.  I have two of them.  We have come to recognise in recent years that the close relationship we enjoy as sisters isn’t what most families have.  We are very close in age (three years between oldest and youngest), all of us have quite different personalities, and each has very different strengths and weaknesses.  The most important thing we share is solidarity and honesty.  I would do anything for my sisters, and they would do the same for me.  We acknowledge and celebrate our differences.  Together, we create a formidable team that works well together, working collaboratively to support our Mum, who is 90 and has dementia but still lives in her own home.  More importantly, we support one another.

Back to Mounjaro.  Side effects…. I’d be interested to hear whether anyone else using Mounjaro has vivid dreams?  My dreams are wild and wacky and often involve traumatic events!  I’m always glad to wake up to the fact that it was all just a dream.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve been waking at around 4-5 am, and then drift back into a restless REM sleep.  My dreams involve total strangers, but I can see these people in vivid detail.  This may well be down to the medication.  Thankfully, they don’t leave me too traumatised, and I do wake up feeling refreshed.

One social event this week – a trip to a local venue, Park House, which is close by on the University of Reading campus.  A lovely old house with plenty of outdoor seating.  It’s always busy, but mostly university staff and members of the public, rather than students (and often large social groups).

My choice of food was a puy lentil, quinoa, lemon & sumac salad with seared rump steak.  Although the description sounded good, the food sadly didn’t match up.  Thankfully the company was excellent! I drank 2 pints of stout which made up for the disappointing meal!

There were around 12 of us altogether and the conversation was good – gardening, travel, food loves (and hates).  Bees and bee propolis.  I was given a jar of honey by one lady who has bee hives, and some propolis was delivered the following day to allow my partner to make a propolis tincture.  Propolis has anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.  In return for the propolis, she’ll get a bottle of the tincture he makes.

My final week on 7.5mg, my 10g pen is in the fridge; I’ll be taking my first dose today.

Weight loss progress – a week ago I was 65.6kg (10 stone 3lbs) and today at weigh-in I was 64.1kg (10st 1b), so a loss of 1.5kg.  Total loss of 7.2kg and over halfway to my goal weight of 57kg.

Mounjaro weight loss chart. I weigh myself every morning (when at home)

 

This is the entire 13+ years of my weight loss journey. The start of taking Mounjaro is the sharp decline at the end (June 2025)

 

 

Mounjaro Journey – 11 weeks in, 7.5mg

flidfit Disability, Eating Out, Mounjaro, Travel

I’ve not got as many images to share this week as I ate out a lot…. I feel it a little anti-social to start photographing one’s food.  But it was all delicious.

This will be my last week on the 7.5ml dosage, and we’ve been hit with the news that there will be substantial price increases for Mounjaro sometime in September.  Some reports are suggesting as much as 170% with the cost for the highest dose rising from £122 to £330.

My next injection pen will wing it’s way to me this week, increasing from 7.5ml to 10ml.  I am fortunate not to have experienced any side effects so far and am hoping this will continue.  So… depending on the hike in cost, it may be time to switch to Wegovy?  I’ll cross that bridge once I need to.

One thing for sure is that weight loss medication is making a difference to me. Mounjaro mimics the GLP-1 hormone (glucagon-like peptide-1), which tells your brain to let you know you’re full and slows down how quickly you digest your food. It helps me feel fuller for longer and reducing cravings.

Wegovy only works on GLP-1, whereas Mounjaro works on GLP-1 and the GIP hormone (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide).

The price increase is not something to concern myself with just yet!

I reported last week that I had two big social weekends, one immediately after the other, and this weekend was my second such weekend!  I was responsible for organising a weekend for 14 friends visiting Reading from Canada, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden and… Oxford.

Myself and my partner stayed at the hotel with everyone else so that we could fully participate in the programme of events that I’d planned.

I was a little apprehensive about everything going according to plan and without any mishaps or emergencies.  I’d done everything in my power to ensure this!  Most of the group are damaged as a consequence of the drug Thalidomide, which is how my own impairments were caused.  Six of us are wheelchair users!  So getting everything right was imperative.

Terry Dixon, Terry’s Walkabouts explains how locks work and describes the route of the Kennet and Avon Canal.

It all went brilliantly – from start to finish.  We had a brilliant private walking tour of Reading, which took in Reading Abbey, the Harris Arcade, and we heard all about Huntley and Palmers Biscuit factory production, learned about the Kennet and Avon Canal which runs through the centre of Reading and how locks operate.

I ate breakfast in the hotel each morning, drank alcohol, ate lunch and enjoyed dinner in restaurants.  I most definitely was eating far less than pre-Mounjaro – I even left food on my plate.  Even though it was all very delicious, I just felt full long before my plate was empty.  I enjoyed a Beetroot and rose syrup iced latte (sounds interesting I thought… must give it a try!)

Beetroot and rose syrup latte. Matcha latte.

And my weight??? I’m 65.2kg so slightly down from last weeks 65.9kg. Earlier in the week the scales gave me a 64.9kg reading – given all the socialising, I am very happy with a small loss!

This week things are back to normal so I can crack on with eating well, eating less and shifting some more weight!

 

 

Mounjaro Journey – 10 weeks in

flidfit Disability, Eating Out, Eating Out, Mounjaro, Travel

Wow, this was a social week!  I’m not used to eating out very often, but the next couple of weeks are quite full-on in terms of being away from home and eating meals out.

On Friday evening, I was invited to join a friend and his wife, who were visiting from Germany and were passing through Reading on their way from London to Exeter.

As a wheelchair user, I prefer to use venues that I know work well for me, in terms of travelling into the centre of town (by wheelchair, a 20-minute “run”) and which have plenty of space around tables and a decent accessible loo.

I settled on Cote Brasserie, which also offers great value for money.  I’ve never had a bad dining experience, and the food is “good enough”.  I settled on the “Prix Fixe” menu (two courses for £21.50).  My choices were the “Poulet au Bacon”, a marinated chicken breast in garlic, thyme & smoked paprika, with a smoked bacon velouté and salad vierge served with frites.  Not bad for 625 calories.  Then I chose two scoops of ice cream for around 200 calories.  Other desserts sounded more appealing, but in my view, just not worth 400-600 calories!  I drank two Blood Orange & Grapefruit sodas (around 100 calories each).

Saturday to Monday, I travelled to Bedford, two nights away with a group of amazing women.  These are disabled women whom I got to know when all of our children were just a few years old – they are now all approaching or already in their 30s (the children that is….!). Bedford was lovely (a market town on the banks of the River Ouse).  The weather was fab.

Together with others, we established a national organisation (charity) to support disabled people who were or who were planning to be parents.  That’s not “parents of disabled children” but where the parents themselves face challenges and barriers because of their impairments. Being a new parent is challenging enough without the added complication of an impairment.

Now I could devote a whole blog post to just how invaluable this organisation was to disabled parents who might otherwise have been isolated and alone in working out how to overcome the many barriers they faced – not just the physical, but almost more importantly, the attitudinal attitudes towards anyone who may need support to be the parent(s) they want to be.  BUT…. that’s not what this Blog is all about…  these women I count amongst the strongest, most capable and supportive bunch of people you will ever meet, and I love catching up with them all.

So…. food was enjoyed, alcohol was consumed.  The sun shone brightly and we talked (a lot!)  I travelled home to my next Mounjaro injection.

Scores on the doors……. weight is 65.9kg today, so up from 65.4kg (500g) last Monday.  I’d have been surprised to see a loss, to be honest.  This will likely be mostly food in transit.  Usually, following a weekend of eating more calories and moving less, the damage is worse!

Mounjaro Journey – 9 weeks in

flidfit Eating Out, Eating Out, Fakeaways, Healthy Swaps, Mounjaro, Recipes, Uncategorized

After my Blog post last week, where I expressed my slight disappointment about the lack of movement on the scales, I thought it would be prudent to take body measurements.  I’m so pleased that I did!  Whilst the scales haven’t moved much in the past month, the inches (or centimetres) are disappearing.

I have to say I was quite astonished – especially at the 8cm from my waist!  It’s given me faith in the process that my excess pounds are slowly disappearing!

I’ve lost 0.9kg this week (just under 2lbs), which brings my total loss in 9 weeks to 6.1kg (13½lbs).  I’m fairly confident that I’ll be hitting that 1 stone barrier over the coming week.

This week, I’ve discovered some great recipes to help increase my daily protein intake – simple and quick.

I came across a recipe for “sheet kebabs”.  Now I love a kebab, but threading chunks of meat onto a skewer and then getting them back off the skewer once they’re on my plate provides somewhat of a challenge with just three fingers, no thumbs, and shortened arms.  I usually end up wearing the marinade or losing half of my chunks of meat across the table top.  The “sheet kebab” method involves mixing all of the ingredients in a bowl and then pressing the meat mixture into a lined baking tray or dish, scoring it into (kebab-sized) lengths and cooking.  No skewers involved at all!

This preparation method meant I could dispense with all of those challenges (and mess).  I used pork mince, but chicken, lamb or beef would also work well.

Indian Spiced Sheet Pan Kebab – 99 calories each

Pork, Mince, 5% Fat – 454g

Red Pepper, Raw – ½ Med / 70g

Red Onions, Raw – ½ Med / 75g

Garlic, Raw – 3 Cloves/9g

Ground Cumin – 1½ Tsps / 7.5g

Ground Coriander, Ground -, 1½ Tsps / 7.5g

Cornflour – 1½ Tsps / 7.5g

Ground Garam Masala – 2 Tsps / 10g

Olive Oil, Extra Virgin – 7ml

Fresh coriander – 1 bunch / 20g

Method

Preparation:  Peel and finely dice the red onion.  Peel and mince the garlic.  De-seed and finely chop the red pepper.  Chop the fresh coriander.

In a large mixing bowl, using your hands (or someone else’s hands in my case…), mix together the spices, cornflour, red onion, garlic, red pepper and fresh coriander.  Ensure that they are well combined.

Line a baking dish (approx. 20cm x 20cm) with baking parchment.  Transfer the mince mixture to the dish and press it out evenly to fill the tray.

Use a knife to score the meat into 8 thin strips, about 2-3cm wide.  Adjust according to the shape of the pan you are using.

Then score each strip diagonally to create a decorative pattern.  This helps the meat to cook evenly and crisp up a little.  Use a brush to brush over the oil.  The oil will ensure better browning.

Preheat the grill to medium.

Place the tray under the hot grill and cook for 6–8 minutes, or until the top is browned, caramelised, and cooked through.  No need to flip.

 

Nutrition Data Per Serving (one kebab strip)

Calories (kcal) 98.6

Protein (g) 0.9

Carbohydrate (g) 3.6

Fat (g) 3.6

Fibre (g) 12.9

Fruit & Veg 0.3

Serve:
Slice or lift out the kebab strips and serve inside pitta breads or wraps with salad and a mint yoghurt dip or tzatziki. Perfect for a quick weeknight meal.

Tips
Try it with a spicy sweet chilli sauce or mango chutney for extra punch.  I had a few kebabs left over, so I chopped them into cubes and served them as meatballs (meatcubes!) with a Moroccan spiced sauce the following day.  Delicious!

Next weekend I have the challenge of a weekend away with some girlfriends – we are staying in a hotel and eating out 2 nights in a row.  My exercise will be limited as I don’t really fancy transporting my gym ball away to a hotel!  But I am determined to remain in control of my eating… I will make sensible choices.  I love a challenge.

Life is for living and weekends away are part of that.