It’s hard to believe, but I am in maintenance with my GLP-1/GIP Mounjaro. In April 2022, I weighed 405 lbs. Today, I weighed 132 lbs. My weight has fluctuated between 130 and 135 for 43 days now, with no more signs of losing more weight. That is a loss of 275 lbs. (with me at 130). It’s a stunning number.
Walking: Who is this Person?
While the weight loss is impressive, what is more impressive is, exactly one year ago yesterday, in 2024, I was thrilled to walk 2542 steps. There is an exclamation point on it in my calendar, so it was clearly a milestone. Yesterday, in 2025, I walked 13,576 steps… just shy of 7 miles. That included walking to the gym, walking “hills” on the treadmill, walking home, walking back to the bank, then home again. And just that was the 7 miles. That didn’t count what I walked for the rest of the day.
I used to pack my walker with everything it could carry when I was going to, or coming from, getting anything at home. I would pile in whatever I could so I would minimize the amount of steps it took to do the chore. Walking the one trip was enough for me. I couldn’t wait to get back to my bed and lie down.
Now, since starting GLP-1s, if I need three things, I will walk to get one of them, then walk back. Go get the second item and walk back. And do the same with the third. I often walk around when I am on the phone now, something that would have been unheard of three years ago. Honestly, who is this person? I do everything I possibly can to move. It isn’t even always conscious. I will find myself wandering through the house while on the phone and wonder when I got up and left the room.
As I write this, I keep shaking my head because I have minimized my energy expenditure for my entire life, since I was a kid. Except for while on Fen-Phen in 1986 and after the RNY Gastric Bypass I had in 2001. Even then, it was merely swimming, which was something I had done my whole life. (Hence the skin cancer now.) I know people think swimming is great exercise, but if you aren’t sweating while doing it, you aren’t doing much more than floating. Swimming is fantastic physical therapy, but one has to work hard to burn calories or gain muscle while swimming.
While I don’t sweat walking anymore, well, part of that is the weather, but I do not walk fast or far enough to get tired. But I do sweat while walking hills and valleys on the treadmill. Thank goodness for towels to wipe it off! I’m a mess by the time I leave the gym to walk home. Walking home is a nice cool down.
Food: Adding Foods to My Maintenance
I’ve been eating pretty much the same things for almost three years. Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice twice a day, a yogurt or fruit cup once a day, and alternate the third meal between veggie sausages (with ketchup), a veggie burger (no bun, just mustard and ketchup), or a small pile of shredded chicken with a bit of Sonny’s BBQ Sauce on it. That’s almost exclusively what I have been eating. It seems to have worked out for me since I have lost 275 lbs.!
I’ve been in maintenance since December 23rd, 2024 and decided… a conscious decision… to add new foods to my diet.
Denture Side Note:
Something I don’t give enough credit to about how and why I limit my diet so much is that I have dentures. I got them, ironically enough, April 22, 2022… the day I changed my life that has led me to where I am today. On that momentous day, I paid for those dentures. On my birthday in 2024, the people who did my first set of dentures, gifted me with a second set! I learned people need denture adjustments as they lose weight. Who knew?! When my denture people saw how loose mine had gotten from losing 150 lbs., they offered to redo my dentures for nothing. I wept with joy at having a new set of teeth as a gift. (Dentures are expensive!)
Well, even though I got new dentures, I continued losing more weight. Now that I am down another 100+ lbs., I need yet another set of teeth, but will have to wait for those expensive items. If you watch my YouTube Channel, you can see that I lisp at times, some letters or words are difficult for me to say, or that I just sound like an old lady with loose dentures in her mouth. Oh, well.
So, because of that, I am unable to chew anything of substance. All chicken has to be shredded. I can’t eat typical veggies unless they are cooked to smithereens. I can’t eat crunchy things like tortilla chips or tacos. My diet is extremely limited just by my teeth alone. Would I have wished for this limitation in order to lose weight? Probably not, but I am embracing it because my body and health are infinitely better with my more limited diet.
What To Add While Maintaining My Weight & Health
I don’t even think it was a conscious thing to start adding new/old foods back into my day. I’m only six weeks in, but am beginning to wonder if maybe I should have a plan for this.
I’m not even sure where the thought came from, but when I found myself looking at raisins, I thought, “Oh! I could add granola and raisins to yogurt!” I used to love granola and yogurt. I set out to find some granola that was fine enough for me to not have to break apart clumps. When I found that, I bought those raisins I’d wanted. “What about dried cranberries? Let’s toss some of those in, too.”
So that is what I did.
Today, I Instacart-ordered some steamed veggies with light sauces. As I got them, I thought perhaps I should not add too many foods at a time. You know, kind of like when doing an elimination diet and you are re-adding things to see if there is a reaction? The reaction I am watching for is weight gain or changes in my energy levels.
As the time goes on, I will write about what’s happening mentally, emotionally, and physically. It is all a great big experiment I’ve never considered before.
Sometimes, life is just WOW!
