Category
The psychology of appetite — recognising the difference between hunger and wanting, and what's still a fight.
A medical appointment turned into a full English, four pints of Guinness, and cheese on toast for good measure. My wife and I compared notes on Mounjaro — she gets the hunger without the want, I get it the other way round.
Red wine was on offer, so Friday's usual rum got swapped for a Merlot. Turns out wine goes down faster than rum ever did, and worse, it doesn't stop the rum turning up afterwards.
The wife left a packet of Easter eggs out for Halloween trick-or-treaters. I ate three, realised I wasn't actually enjoying them, and quietly put the rest back.
I'm in a meh! period. Weight loss has slowed, and I just wanted to surrender to everything I've been swerving. Then I asked myself what I actually fancied, with no consequences attached, and the answer wasn't food at all.
Half a four-cheese pizza, a few chicken nuggets, a bottle of red. A few days off work and still an hour of work, then home automation projects. Turns out the food wasn't the thing worth looking at.
14 st 2 lb today. Two days running under the 200 lb mark now, which makes it harder to call a fluke. I'm pleased. I'm also quietly terrified of what happens if I can't keep this up.
A colleague mentioned drinking two bottles of wine with dinner, then went and bought a burger, a pasty and a cookie for lunch the next day. They don't look like they're paying for any of it. I sat there and sulked.
Halloween, the wife's birthday month, then Christmas. I can see the whole run of temptation coming before it's even started. Turns out the thing I actually need to worry about isn't any of the food.
There's a KitKat on my desk that's been there for longer than I can remember. I look at it, and nothing happens. I don't really know what that means. I'm just noting that it's odd.
Tai Chi is supposed to be slow and gentle. I feel like I'm sprinting to keep up and sinking at the same time. If you've ever been the one person in the room who can't make a 'simple' movement look simple, this one's for you.
I've started wondering if I've forgotten what physical hunger actually feels like. I'm not sure I can answer that one. What I can tell you is what happens when I open the biscuit tin now, and it isn't what used to happen.
A joke on Mock the Week's 2026 summer special landed harder than it should have, because it described a way of eating I genuinely didn't know existed. Then I noticed I do the opposite too.
I'm not really a chocolate person, but I've been eating less, the chocolate's still in the fridge, and somebody has forgotten the rule. Two bars of 85% cocoa are now the most difficult thing in the kitchen.
I want to move better, and the plan is Tai Chi in the front room. The hard part isn't the movements. It's being seen doing something that feels unfamiliar and slightly ridiculous.
I never thought I'd be someone who injects themselves with medication. Then I remembered who taught me it wasn't a big deal, and it wasn't even a person.
It isn't cheap, and I've been worrying about what happens when I stop it. Then I did the maths and found what looks suspiciously like a loophole.
A Tesco Finest Belgian Dark Chocolate Ginger Cookie, and the realisation I hadn't had chocolate in weeks. Turns out eating some doesn't mean I've fallen off anything.
My wife's stomach says yes and her head says no. Mine is the other way round. Same drug, different doses, almost opposite experience — and it explains why she can leave food on a plate and I can't.
Mounjaro doesn't replace a calorie deficit, it just makes one easier to hold. Turns out my actual problem isn't breakfast or lunch. It's what happens to whatever's left on the plate at dinner.
Not hungry, three hours after dinner, stomach still growling, and yet stood at the fridge wanting something I couldn't name. That's when it stopped being obvious where the medication ends and I begin.
The office kitchen rarely has treats in it. When it does, it's grossly unfair. And this time the treats never seem to run out.
Three roast potatoes and a Yorkshire pudding left on the plate, half the crackling handed to the dogs, and then the real test: a Sunday dinner with no pudding to follow.
She's tried every diet going, and only Mounjaro has ever worked for her. I never needed her to change. What I hadn't understood, until I started taking it myself, was how differently the two of us actually experience food.
A workplace safety sign for the only hazard that actually threatens this operation.
It's not really about eating the thing. It's about deciding I deserve it, and then seeing how long I can leave it sitting on the desk while I get on with a day's work.
Sat with a cup of tea, thinking about a KitKat, and my mouth starts watering. That's not supposed to happen if it's just in my head.
A four-finger KitKat surviving three days on my desk, then my wife puts a bag of yellow-label custard doughnuts and a cup of tea right next to me. This wasn't a clean win. It was a genuine fight, and I very nearly lost it.
Trying to actually live by Friday's plan to cut the rum measure - a smaller glass, a battle I didn't win, and a silver lining that's real even if it isn't the one I meant to earn.
I've got pretty good at noticing when I don't need the food. Turns out I needed to point the same question at what's in my glass.
What Mounjaro has and hasn't done for my relationship with food, and why the biggest change isn't the number on the scales.
My wife pointed out I go for the good stuff first at Sunday dinner - which makes leaving food behind now a much harder argument than it sounds.
A flashback to 2020, when COVID took away my sense of taste completely and I still finished the whole Sunday dinner - a reminder of what my relationship with food actually was.
Mounjaro changed the physical side of eating. It didn't install willpower - it just showed me how much of it I'd been using all along.
Mounjaro made physical hunger quieter, but my brain never got the memo.
I have not become someone who treats food as fuel - I just started noticing that finishing a plate and being hungry are two different questions.
Why I never set myself a number to hit on Mounjaro, and what I actually want instead.