Louise, a 51-year-old former estate agent, has detailed her successful 6-stone weight loss and subsequent maintenance, attributing her transformation not solely to weight-loss injections but to a comprehensive lifestyle overhaul. By January 2025, Louise weighed 16 stone, struggling with menopausal symptoms and stress-induced emotional eating, which she used food and wine to manage.
"I was running on empty - battling stress and a brutal menopause, and using food and wine to fill the gap," Louise stated. Her previous diet included daily Diet Coke, pastries, egg mayonnaise sandwiches with crisps, and late-night wine and snacks, followed by dinners of curries or fish and chips.
The turning point came when she was told she couldn't ride a horse at a local stables due to her weight, a moment that made her realize the extent of her struggle. "The knowledge that I was actually closer to 16 stone hit me like a wall," she recalled. This realization prompted her to sell her business in August 2023, freeing her to retrain as a health coach.
A Guided Approach to Weight Loss
Louise began using GLP-1 weight-loss injections, specifically Mounjaro, about halfway through her health coaching course in June 2023. However, she emphasizes her use of the medication was at the lowest dose, 2.5mg per week, for nine months. She describes the injections as a "gentle nudge" to build healthy eating habits rather than a sole solution.
"I never went above 2.5mg of Mounjaro a week, the very lowest dose available," Louise explained. "The companies will tell you to go higher and higher, but I refused." She believes this low-dose approach allowed her to remain mindful of her food choices and avoid becoming reliant on the medication.
Her health coaching training provided crucial insights into her eating behaviors. She learned to identify emotional triggers such as boredom, loneliness, and stress, and to differentiate them from physical hunger. "Once you can sit with those feelings instead of eating through them, everything shifts," she said.
Lifestyle Changes and Sustainable Results
Louise implemented a non-negotiable daily goal of 10,000 steps, incorporating evening walks on a treadmill and fifteen minutes of at-home resistance training. She now avoids pasta, rice, and bread not due to restrictions, but because she feels they make her sluggish and bloated. Her current diet includes chia seed pudding or overnight oats for breakfast, chicken salads for lunch, and meals like spelt and cannellini bean stew for dinner, with an emphasis on home-cooked dishes.
Since stopping the injections in April, Louise has not only maintained her weight loss but has continued to lose more. She attributes this to her changed relationship with food and her integrated lifestyle habits. She noted that an 86% chance of weight regain exists when people stop GLP-1 injections without lifestyle changes, a gap she aims to close with her own clients through her "GLP-1 Success approach."
Louise also highlighted the personal victories, including fitting into airplane tray tables, comfortably tying shoelaces, and feeling confident enough to buy clothes she wants to wear. She shared a particularly touching moment when her daughter hugged her and could reach all the way around her middle, expressing pride in her mother.
"I feel like me again - but a far better version than ever before," Louise stated, now dedicated to helping others achieve similar transformations through her health coaching practice.