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Last week my son came with me to central London for a work meeting. As I walked up a flight of stairs, he stopped, looked at me and said, ‘You know, you’re moving a lot better than before. What has changed?
It’s true. My back pain has been greatly relieved and I can walk more quickly and easily.
I have a surprising reason: five weeks ago I started taking a new weight loss drug, Mounjaro.
Mounjaro acts similar to Ozempic and Wegovy, but the active ingredient is different. All three medications are GLP-1 agonists that act to reduce appetite and make you feel fuller for longer, but in the first two the active ingredient is semaglutide. In Mounjaro it is tirzepatide.
I realized that my weight had been increasing and I can’t deny that the passion for French sticks, croissants and brownies from the local bakery had been of no use to me. I went from 12.7 pounds to 15.7 pounds. I felt bloated and heavy. My BMI had fallen towards obesity.
Jenni Murray has found that her back pain has decreased since taking Mounjaro and that she can walk more easily.
To some extent, it was my fault. As I got older, my exercise regimen decreased significantly. I wasn’t helped by a couple of nasty falls which resulted in broken ribs and sprained ankles and of course the worst one which occurred just over a year ago when I fell out of bed and broke a vertebra.
It was my physiotherapist who recommended Mounjaro to me. He said losing weight would improve my mobility and that he had several clients taking the medication. They were all losing weight and seemed to suffer no ill effects.
What was more interesting, he told me, was that the latest research on slimming medications had found that they also work to reduce inflammation and pain in the body. He had suffered a lot with this on his back since the fall.
You can now get a prescription for a similar drug, Wegovy, on the NHS for weight loss if you meet very strict criteria. But Mounjaro and Ozempic are only prescribed for type 2 diabetes, which I don’t have. If you want to lose weight you must pay for it.
I got mine online through a well-known pharmacy. I sent pictures of myself to their team of doctors showing my size and shape, and a picture of the dial on my scale with me standing on them.
I passed the test, and two days later my Mounjaro pen arrived, containing four 2.5-milligram doses, wrapped in dry ice. Like Ozempic, it must be kept cold. I had to inject myself once a week for four weeks. The package cost £230.
It couldn’t have been easier. I wasn’t terribly hungry, I only got hungry at traditional meal times. I wasn’t sick, I didn’t have headaches and – oh joy – at the end of the month I had lost half a kilo. The doctors suggested I increase the dose to the next level and I did, but I felt a little anxious.
Last year I tried Ozempic, but only lost a couple of pounds on the lowest dose. When I went to a higher dose, I don’t remember ever feeling so miserable and sick. I had headaches. I was sick every day. It all seemed like too high a price to pay to lose a little weight. The highest dose of Mounjaro had no such effects; in fact, quite the opposite.
I have lost another 4 pounds. I feel absolutely fine and the most impressive thing is the significant reduction in pain due to inflammation. If the research is correct, losing weight should also protect me against worsening arthritis, cancer, and heart disease. All this without the dreaded hunger attacks.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting appears to have gotten the message about the success of weight loss drugs. Streeting seems to believe that prescribing these drugs to painfully obese people will help them get off the couch and back to work.
Perhaps he has been influenced by information emerging from the United States. One in eight Americans has tried weight-loss drugs, and the obesity rate in American adults fell 2 percent between 2020 and 2023. Could these drugs be turning things around?
I’m all for people getting whatever help they need to get in better shape and be proud enough of themselves to make going out, maybe to work, a pleasure.
I have no doubt that severe obesity can make going out painful and embarrassing. Just over 12 years ago, when I weighed 25, I never missed a day of work at the BBC, but I hated my clumsiness. It made every day difficult and losing weight made me happier and, I think, more effective.
For me, surgically removing half of my stomach and creating a gastric sleeve in 2012 worked wonders. In less than a year I had lost half my body weight and was happy at 12lbs 7lbs. I thought it would stay like this forever. I made a mistake.
When I found out I had recently won 3rd, I knew myself well enough to know that diets don’t work. I tried fasting. He had tried the one-meal-a-day regimen. None of that worked for me.
Clearly, more surgery was not an option. How much more of my stomach could be safely removed?
The truth is that people like me need help and support to lose weight. I hope Mounjaro is the solution in my case. I would like to get back to 12lbs 7lbs and will get jabbed once a week for as long as I need it.
Drugs like this make economic sense as they help obese people go out to work and stop being a burden on the NHS.
But its benefits are also for humanity. Obesity causes disease and misery, and no one should suffer like this.
You have to love Coleen, she can do it.
Coleen Rooney is reportedly paid more than £1.5million to take part in I’m A Celebrity
You have to admire Coleen Rooney. What a fighter she is. Always ready to fight. Remember her Wagatha Christie tricks to win her case against Rebekah Vardy?
Now he wants to make a lot of money and will reportedly be paid more than £1.5million to join other celebrities in the jungle. It’s a phenomenal deal, but if it were me, I’d have to say no. I’m a Celebrity means disgusting food, bugs, and being stuck with ‘camp buddies’ you wouldn’t want to spend two seconds of your life with. Too much, even for a fortune.
Let them continue with the dance.
Strictly’s Wynne Evans and Katya Jones, as the professional dancer appears to wave his hand.
How much rubbish is being said about Strictly’s Wynne Evans and her dance partner Katya Jones! He has been ridiculed for putting his arm around her waist on live TV (pictured) despite his steadfast insistence that it was all in fun.
They dance together every day, quite well. They are close. There was no sexual crime, just a friendly gesture. Why is everyone looking for smut nowadays?
Well done Tim Davie, director general of the BBC, for insisting that his presenters should no longer be called “talent”. I hated it. It diminished my role as a radio host and journalist, and seemed to set me apart from producers, directors and studio engineers, all of whom are also extremely talented and should be valued equally for what they do.
Do you have one sewn on a button, sir?
Queen Camilla and King Charles attend the traditional Easter Sunday matins service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in March.
King Charles is known for taking care of his clothes. He wears coats he’s had for years and is a big fan of grooming and mending.
Maybe you’re going a little far when you say that sewing on a button and hemming are essential skills.
How many times, Your Majesty, have you had to sew on a button?