Trying to lose weight during the Christmas season is not easy, not only is there more food on display than any other time of year, but you're expected to eat it all too.
Whether it's your mom's special mashed potatoes or your family's special cranberry sauce, turning down a celebratory staple could see you handed that worst Christmas title - Scrooge.
But for the millions of people now using drugs to aid their weight loss journeys, such as Mounjaro, this is the very real dilemma facing them over the holiday season.
One Mounjaro user, who managed to drop 42lbs using the appetite-suppressing GLP-1 drug, faced these hurt looks last year as she struggled to join the family feast.
Advert
But the anxiety she faced when she came off the jab has left her reaching for the medicine cabinet again this Christmas.
"As I truffle down another mince pie – one of many – I inevitably feel a pang of guilt that I can’t control my eating.
"However, I console myself with the thought that putting away a small mountain of food is an essential, joyfully shared part of Christmas," Lucy Cavendish writes of her pre-jab self in the Daily Mail.
The writer and mom said that this all changed when she began taking weight loss injections, with her looking down at the large quantities of food she was preparing and feeling disgusted that people can eat so much.
"I felt like an alien that had been beamed down to Earth, expected to join in with customs that I didn’t understand," she shared.
Cavendish found herself on the receiving end of dirty looks from family members, and even questions about whether she was ill, as she sullenly moved a roast potato around her plate, sampling the spread in small amounts.
This can even make others suddenly feel self aware of their gorging. "I caught sneaky glances at my plate from a few family members, followed by a sad stare at their own hefty portions," she said.
But despite this aversion to festive feasting, the author and journalist described a 'huge upside' that she could not have said in previous years, she was losing weight.
Not only did this allow her to squeeze into a size 8 outfit for the big day, but she found a new meaning to Christmas with her better able to partake in festivities without the 'food fog' from putting away too many mince pies - a British delicacy of small shortcrust pastry pies filled with dried fruit.
"Even better, I didn’t have to subsequently undo my trousers at the table or lie in a food coma in front of the TV by 8pm," she added.
Though Cavendish shared her 'smug' feeling as family member's moaned and groaned about being stuffed, this year, she is worried that she will not be able to hold herself back so easily.
"I came off Mounjaro three months ago and fear I will be at the mercy of the food noise that has since returned," she explained, adding that she had managed to keep her weight at 10 stone, even after coming off the jabs.
The anxiety that she experienced about regaining her lost 42lbs has left the writer resorting to a trick that her skinny friends have been relying on to keep the weight off.
"But I realise now that friends were saying they were off the jabs, while still microdosing small amounts," she revealed. In light of this, Cavendish might find herself struggling to eat once again.
She shared: "I intend to take a weekly dose as a perfectly sensible way to stay on course over the next few weeks, and my doctor has approved."
The writer shared that she would be taking the smallest dose once per week over the festive period, with regular 2.5mg injections to keep her appetite under control.
After all, you cannot argue with the results: "I want to put on that tiny sequin dress and sashay into parties feeling fabulous – not paranoid and distracted by food."
Topics: Christmas, Weight loss, Mounjaro
William Morgan