When I’ve interviewed people taking medications like Mounjaro and Wegovy, alcohol is often one of the standout categories they mention. Sometimes that’s because their capacity to drink has reduced significantly; sometimes it’s because side effects are brought on or worsened by alcohol; sometimes it’s because they wanted to cut down anyway and the GLP-1s have made it easier to follow through on their intentions.

The social element of drinking further heightens people’s awareness of how their habits have changed. A night out at the pub feels tangibly different if you’re suddenly the only one drinking sparkling water. Changes to alcohol habits are also often apparent to others and therefore more likely to be commented on. ‘How come you’re not drinking?’ somehow feels less intrusive than ‘How come you’re eating so much less?’

At the same time, it’s worth remembering not everyone responds to GLP-1s in the same way. At least 50% of GLP-1 users still visit a bar or pub once a week, some research suggests. Even in the small sample of users I’ve spoken to I’ve encountered a wide range of experiences, from completely going off all alcohol to no change at all. I’ve been especially intrigued by people who’ve cycled on and off the drugs and tell me their response to alcohol has changed each time, or by those who say their desire for alcohol came back once they’d been on the medication for a while. It’s one of the reasons why there remain questions over GLP-1s’ ability to help with alcohol abuse and addiction: we don’t yet know what percentage of problem drinkers might respond to GLP-1-based treatment or whether any positive effects would be sustainable over time.

In the meantime, there’s a lot to learn from the experience of real-life users. Drawing on conversations I’ve had for my ‘What I eat on a GLP-1’ series, here’s how six people say their alcohol habits have changed.

Jess, 43, from Sheffield

Being on a GLP-1 for a year helped Jess break her wine habit. When I spoke to her, she had been off Mounjaro for several months and was maintaining her weight without GLP-1s. While her appetite had started to come back, her desire for wine hadn’t.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do it […] was I’d got into a bit of a bad habit with wine. A bad day: open a bottle of wine. A good day: open a bottle of wine. The weekend: open a bottle of wine. It wasn’t dangerous, but I was drinking more than I wanted to. That definitely changed – I hardly drank anything while I was on Mounjaro.

Because it made me feel ill when I was on Mounjaro, it just broke the habit for me. I never got back into drinking as much alcohol as I did before. That is probably the biggest shift that’s come out of it for me.

Before I wasn’t very good at leaving a bottle open. I would always be like, ‘I’ve finished my drink, I’m going to go and get another one.’ Now I’ll have a glass of wine and it really is just a glass of wine.”

Steve, 57, from Wiltshire

Steve tried Mounjaro, came off, and then went on it again. He told me his desire for alcohol dropped to virtually zero when he first took the medication; the second time, the effect was not nearly as pronounced. His preferences also changed: beer is firmly off the menu.

“The first time, I wasn’t bothered about it at all, to the point where I almost stopped drinking alcohol completely. Even when I went to golf and all the other blokes were drinking pints, I was drinking lime and soda.

It’s not quite the same this time, but I no longer drink during the week if I’m at a hotel. Before Mounjaro, I would have had a couple of glasses of wine. I’m a diamond member at Hilton because I stay there so much and I get vouchers for free wine and I don’t even drink it.

I will have a bottle of wine on a Friday night, but I think that’s more because it’s a ritual that’s ingrained in me. I could probably quite easily let go of it.

I was never much of a beer drinker anyway, but I can’t have more than a couple of pints now. It’s a volume thing – it makes me feel completely stuffed. I won’t buy beer to have in the house anymore.

With spirits it’s the other way around. I wouldn’t drink spirits beforehand, but I would now. Just because of the volume. I don’t go out very often down the pub, but if I did I would probably have a spiced rum and Coke or something like that.”

Laura, 41, from Norwich

Laura had one of the most dramatic responses to alcohol I’ve come across. While having a single drink on a night out, she went through “all the stages of drunkenness” in a matter of minutes and felt like she’d been drugged.

“I did try to drink on Mounjaro and that didn’t work very well. I don’t drink very much anyway, but towards the turn of last year I went to the pub with friends. I thought I’d be very sensible and have vodka and tonic because that is the cleanest drink I could possibly think of.

So, I had a single vodka and tonic and I started to feel so weird. It was like I’d been drugged. I went through all the stages of drunkenness: I drank half of it and immediately felt so wasted I thought I’d fall over. Then I felt very hot and had to go outside, then I thought I might be sick, then the room was spinning around and then I’d be fine again for five minutes. It would cycle through this. It was like living your drunkenness in fast-forward mode. It was such a weird experience. After that I just decided I won’t drink.”

Ruth, 54, from the New Forest

Ruth was on a low maintenance dose of Mounjaro when we spoke. She said she went off alcohol completely when she started on a GLP-1 but regained her desire for it a few months later.

“The first three months, I didn’t really want any wine or chocolate. You read all that stuff about how Mounjaro interferes with addiction pathways and I totally got that, but mostly at the beginning. I don’t drink much anyway – maybe one or two glasses Friday and Saturday – and for the first one or two months, I just couldn’t go anywhere near it. I did not want it at all.

Now I still don’t fancy chocolate much, but I feel normal again about drinking wine. There’s a lot of talk about how things like Mounjaro could help alcoholics or help with cigarettes, and from my personal experience I would say no. It helps you for the first two or three months, but after that I quite liked drinking wine again.

Same with shopping. I didn’t feel like going online shopping during the first few months, but that’s back now.”

Jane, 52, from High Wycombe

Jane started taking Mounjaro in May 2024 and has since gone on to lose a total of 78kg. In the process, her taste for alcohol changed completely. Wine now tastes disgusting. Interestingly, Jane also told me she was a “hardened Diet Coke addict” and went off it entirely.

“I cannot drink wine. The taste has completely changed for me. It’s gone bitter and sour and I get no pleasure from it whatsoever. I’ve also gone off beer. I would love to sit and drink with my friends, but I can’t find anything I like particularly, apart from Bloody Marys it would seem.

To make me feel special when I’m out at a meal, I will perhaps have sparkling water just so I feel like I’m joining in. Because still water in a restaurant? ‘God, who brought her? Who’s the dull one in the corner? Oh yeah, that’ll be me.’ At least that way it feels like I’m doing something special. But, honestly, I’m quite happy with water.”

Sarah, 47, from Surrey

Sarah is a good example of someone whose tastes and preferences haven’t changed dramatically on a GLP-1. Five months into taking Mounjaro, she told me she’s moderated her intake across the board but still enjoys alcohol.

“Having read quite a lot about the theoretical impacts of Mounjaro before going into it, it has had much less of an impact than I expected. I expected to just not be very interested in food, to not want to have treats, for the pleasure of food to be gone and potentially to completely go off alcohol. And, actually, that really hasn’t been the case.

I try not to drink during the week anyway, but at the weekend, when we’re watching TV, I might have a glass of wine. And I still do. I thought that might have gone away, but it really hasn’t.”

Spotted in the wild

“Nutritionally complete” instant rice pots from Kanzen Meal, newly listed in Sainsbury’s. (They’re also on Ocado.) The pots contain 20g of protein, mostly from “minced wheat-based protein”. No overt reference to GLP-1s, but this is definitely an example of a ‘GLP-1 coded’ product. The brand, which is owned by Nissin and also does frozen meals in other markets, has talked about targeting GLP-1 users.

Quick links

• Scientist Giles Yeo and journalist Rose Stokes have a new podcast, called A Matter of Fat, about weight in the age of GLP-1s, informed partly by their own experience of taking the medication.

• People who consume 5+ servings of fruit and veg at least five days a week while on GLP-1s see better results, a US survey suggests.

• Interesting launch from Re:Nourish, which I’m filing under ‘GLP-1 coded’ groceries, especially with that collagen callout: microwaveable bottled bone broth.

• Wegovy pill is now available in Germany.

• An Italian healthcare startup has secured €2m in seed funding to expand its AI-driven obesity clinic, aimed at broadening access to GLP-1s in Italy.

• Brazil has a huge, and growing, problem with black-market weight-loss drugs, raising fears about an impending public health crisis.

• People with overweight or obesity feel growing pressure to explain themselves if they are not taking GLP-1s, reports the Boston Globe.

• GLP-1 users spend nearly four times as much on fitness (including gym memberships and supplements) as non-users, a US surveys has found.

• US meal kit brand Factor is targeting GLP-1 users with a new ad campaign fronted by tennis star Serena Williams, who takes the medication herself. Williams has also partnered with Factor on a range of high-protein dishes.

That’s why this recent CNN article caught my eye. It reports that many parents are unsure about how to talk to their children about changes to their appetite and body. Only about half of parents are currently open about their GLP-1 use with their children, a US study suggests.

I don’t have children myself, but I’ve interviewed several parents who are deliberately keeping their GLP-1 use from their children. Concern about the potential impact on their body image is a common reason. “I didn’t let on to the kids that I was on Mounjaro,” Jess, a 43-year-old sixth-form administrator from Sheffield and mother of two kids, told me. “I try not to talk about diets or calories or how you look in front of them, so they probably weren’t really aware. They just noticed I went to the gym a lot.”

It’s a similar story for Sarah, a 47-year-old marketing specialist from Surrey. While her husband knows she’s on a GLP-1, her two sons, aged 13 and 16, don’t. “Even though they’re boys and therefore perhaps a little less sensitive to it all, I am still conscious that I want them to have a healthy relationship with food,” Sarah said. “I don’t really want to open that can of worms with them. They’re hungry teenage boys and there’s still loads of food in our cupboards. I don’t think they’ve noticed any difference.”

Being ‘normal’ about food and treats

If the topic of GLP-1s does come up at home, for example if a child finds an injection pen in the fridge, it’s important to approach it carefully, experts say. Family nutrition specialists quoted in the CNN article recommend sticking to matter-of-fact statements about the medication, and avoiding commenting on body size or saying anything that could suggest certain foods are ‘bad’. As one expert put it:

“If they offer you a bite of their ice cream sandwich, and if you’re like, ‘Thank you,’ and you take a bite, that’s going to have a very different impact than if you say something like, ‘Oh, no, Mommy can’t have that’ and then comment on your body size.”

Some of the parents I’ve spoken to are also making a point of protecting family dinners and ensuring everyone can still enjoy a treat together. Anna, a 45-year-old from County Durham with a 13-year-old son, told me she’s eating far fewer snacks and treats on a day-to-day basis since starting on Mounjaro. Instead, her family now has a big weekly treat together. “Saturday night I’ve made into a treat night for us, so we will get a takeaway and I’ll got to Marks’s and get us a doughnut off the bakery, one each, or something like that,” she said.

Treats are also a big part of how Sarah keeps food feeling normal for her teenage boys. “Our version of healthy eating is basically healthy, balanced meals and then plenty of treats and snacks around it for them, which I’m super-relaxed about because they’re growing boys,” she said.

Keeping in mind the different nutritional needs of growing children and teenagers is something that’s also stressed in the CNN article. Parents on GLP-1s should be mindful that their own suppressed appetite could skew their view of how much a child should be eating, says Nicole Cruz, a registered dietitian from California quoted in the article.

“Our kids are growing, and they’re developing, and they actually need a lot of calories, a lot of fuel, a lot of energy to feed not only their daily activity levels but their growing and developing body,” Cruz added.

Ensuring kids have adequate access to food is important “especially in diet culture, where we’re constantly being told that our portions are too big and that we should be eating less, less calories, lower fat, lower carb, lower everything, we really want to be focusing on getting our kids enough,” Cruz said.

Reassessing childhood food lessons

For some parents, the experience of being on a GLP-1 is also prompting a fresh look at the food lessons they were taught as a child. Kellie, a 44-year-old administrator from Bishop Auckland, said she grew up having to clear her plate and instilled the same attitude in her 18-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. But once she started on a GLP-1, her outlook changed.

“I had such a bad relationship with food,” Kellie told me. “It’s because of that mindset of having to clear your plate. A child should never be told they can’t leave the table until they’ve finished their plate. It was etched in my brain. I was full and I would still continue eating – but not anymore. That feeling of being so full, I don’t want that ever again. That’s a massive mindset that’s changed for me and I now know not to push that onto my kids either.”

Spotted in the wild

A £35 supplements bundle from Boots to help with GLP-1 side effects. Products included are: creatine powder; hair strength gummies; hydration sachets; ‘nutrient top-up’ capsules; and a fibre supplement.

GLP-1 in the news

Cosy and nostalgic flavours

WSJ recently ran a super-interesting article about how US food companies are testing new ways to entice people with suppressed appetites, including by leaning into “cosy and nostalgic” flavours.

When Conagra’s vice president of culinary innovation Tom Frain first learned about growing adoption of GLP-1s, he envisioned being tasked with designing rabbit food made with kale and fiber supplements. Instead, he said that GLP-1 users seem to want foods they’re familiar with, just in smaller portions and with more protein.

This makes a lot of sense to me and even ties back into the point about protecting family dinners and eating ‘normal’ food in front of children. I was also impressed with how openly the various food companies talked to WSJ about their NPD challenges, especially as this approach is not without risk. Some of it can come across as Big Food trying to find sneaky ways to keep you eating despite the meds.

Ice cream in a GLP-1 world

The Guardian published a long-read on the future of ice cream over the weekend, based partly on a factory visit and interviews with the Magnum Ice Cream Company. It’s about all sorts of challenges to the ice cream business, but GLP-1s are touched on and (inevitably) take centre stage in the headline.

There’s lots of talk about adding protein and functionality to ice cream and launching bite-sized formats in response to people becoming more health-focused, whether they’re taking a GLP-1 or not. What’s missing for me is a comparison with other treats. I don’t doubt that GLP-1 users eat less ice cream and that’s potentially a problem for manufacturers, but compared with other treat categories, ice cream isn’t in a bad position. Many GLP-1 users crave refreshment. As a frozen treat, ice cream is inherently more refreshing than, say, a cake or crisps. (Even if it’s still an indulgent flavour like chocolate. The temperature alone brings refreshment.)

Ice cream is also comparatively low-bulk. When I was at my most suppressed, a scoop of ice cream felt far more doable than a doughnut.

Is talking about food noise tantamount to promoting weight-loss drugs?

Interesting roundup from LBB on how GLP-1 marketing rules vary around the world. It includes some commentary from Chris Banks, VP of brand at Voy, one of the UK’s most prominent online pharmacies. (Voy is the company behind those ‘The Weight is Over’ bus adverts.)

He says strict UK advertising rules mean Voy and its agency partners have to think laterally. And that references to food noise are pretty much a no-go now:

“You do end up becoming incredibly restricted. For example, you can’t really talk about food noise anymore. Even hinting towards food noise because that is such a strong association with the benefits of a GLP-1. You really have to go very abstract.”

The piece also mentions a recent TV advert by another online pharmacy, Numan, which depicts someone’s struggle with food noise but doesn’t use the term - and only refers to over-the-counter weight-loss treatments, not GLP-1s. (Because you can advertise OTCs but not prescription products.)

Quick links

• Foundayo, Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill, is now available in the UK. At the time of writing, prices at Boots range from £99 to £199 depending on dose.

• A roundup of industry voices from the UK bakery sector on the likely impact of GLP-1s. Lots of focus on potential opportunities, including through smaller formats and added fibre.

• Growing use of GLP-1s is said to be one of the factors behind the boom in demand for whey products, which has resulted in higher prices.

• US clothing brands are scaling back their plus-size lines because of falling demand due to GLP-1s.

• A survey of Indian GLP-1 users found that 74% see hydration as “a daily wellness goal” and 69% include coconut water in their hydration routine.

• Novo Nordisk has launched a study to find the lowest effective dose for its Wegovy pill, partly in response to people microdosing. Lower doses could also become an option for long-term weight maintenance.

• Concern about teenagers being bombarded with GLP-1-related content could unleash a new wave of regulatory action against social media platforms.

• As patents for current GLP-1s near expiry, pharma companies look to develop new meds that consumers will be prepared to pay a premium for. High on the list of priorities: weight-loss drugs with fewer side effects.

• Pharma giant Roche has secured the rights to a new, non-GLP-1 obesity drug under development in South Korea. Its USP is that it promotes weight loss while preserving muscle mass.

• Is a drop in violent crime in the US partly down to GLP-1s? Some people seem to think so, given the drugs’ impact on alcohol consumption and impulse control.

“They are the perfect snack when you’re on Mounjaro,” Michéal said. “They’re vegan, they’re high protein, they have the right amount of saturated fat and they’re the right portion size. As a once-a-month, on-the-go snack, they’re absolutely perfect.”

As a food professional himself, Michéal thought it was interesting that the industry’s response to GLP-1s often focused on creating new products instead of considering if existing options might work. “When I see people in the food industry talking about changing menus or launching new products for GLP-1 users, I think: you’re not nailing what I’m looking for,” he said. “You’re talking about doing healthier versions of this and that, when you may have a perfectly great product on the shelf already; you’re just not targeting it at people like me.”

Which made me wonder: which “normal” grocery products do I think are well positioned for the GLP-1 age? What doesn’t look GLP-1 friendly in any obvious ways but works surprisingly well for users? In other words, which products are accidentally GLP-1 friendly?

My (highly subjective and non-exhaustive) list follows.

1. Dash sparkling water

There are a few things that make Dash drinks well-suited to the GLP-1 era. The drinks have enough flavour to be interesting, but they’re not sweet or overpowering. They fundamentally still feel like you’re drinking water, which is great because drinking more water is a priority for many GLP-1 users.

Crucially, there are no sweeteners or sugar. I’ve definitely become more sensitive to sweetness since taking a GLP-1. Artificial as well as some natural sweeteners taste off to me now. I’m not alone in this. Kellie, a 44-year-old administrator from Bishop Auckland, told me she was “a Diet Coke addict” but stopped drinking it within days of starting Mounjaro. “The taste changed for me, it tasted really weird and I found it very gassy,” she said.

Sarah, a 47-year-old marketing specialist and Mounjaro user from Surrey, also talked about not wanting sweet drinks. “I […] really like the new breed of sparkling waters that don’t have any sugar or sweetness, like Dash,” she told me. “I’m feeling like I’m buying more of those. They’re constantly in the fridge.”

Carbonation can be a problem for some GLP-1 users, but I find Dash’s carbonation levels to be well judged. The drinks are bubbly, but not aggressively so.

Finally, I like that Dash drinks aren’t ‘functional’. No added fibre, hallelujah! I know received wisdom is that GLP-1 users are functionality-obsessed and want as much benefit-stacking as possible, but I think this gets overplayed. Digestive comfort is far more important than functionality, in my experience, and added fibre in particular has to be approached with caution.

2. Gü fruit crème

The classic Gü cheesecake is a great portion size for GLP-1 users, but I struggle with the product these days. Even in small amounts, it’s too sweet and cloying for me.

That’s why I was interested to see Gü recently launch a new range of fruit crèmes. There’s a lot here that appeals to me and that I can see appealing to other GLP-1 users. The flavours are fruity and refreshing rather than sweet and creamy, and you’re getting a light mousse instead of a dense filling. I’m especially pleased that the biscuit base has given way to a layer of curd, which makes the whole thing taste less sickly to me.

Of course, this is still a sweet dessert: there’s plenty of sugar and cream, so I wouldn’t be able to eat a lot of it. But given the 85g portion size, I don’t have to.

All in all, this feels like a GLP-1 friendly upgrade that gives me a viable option in an aisle that I would otherwise avoid completely.

3. Holy Moly guacamole minis

Not every product needs to be mini-fied to make it suitable for GLP-1 users. (More on the dynamics around small packs in the news section below.) But in certain categories, a mini format can be the difference between staying in people’s routines and falling out of favour.

Highly perishable items like guacamole and hummus are good examples. I have stopped buying them completely unless I can buy mini pots. There’s simply no point. I’m the only person in my household who eats them and I can no longer make it through a standard-sized pot quickly enough, so the waste was getting ridiculous.

These mini packs from Holy Moly solve that problem. The 57g size is small enough that I’m confident I can finish it all. And while there’s a slight premium on them, I don’t feel like I’m being ripped off. I obviously also like the product, but it’s the format that clinches the deal for me.

4. Premium cherries

I think there’s a lot to be excited about if you’re in fresh produce right now, especially fruit. As GLP-1 users’ appetites change, fruit is a popular replacement for traditional sweet treats. It still provides that hit of sweetness but in a healthier way. It also helps affirm a new identity: you’re now the kind of person who eats fruit as a treat.

“I eat a lot more fruits,” James, a 32-year-old IT professional from Cramlington, told me. “I’ve always been funny with fruit – it’s that touchy-feely thing – but now I want to swap all the sugary stuff for nice bits of fruit. I’m having passionfruit with yoghurt, which I never had before. Or I’ll have mango. I’m more up for trying new fruits, and the sweetness from the fruit has replaced that sugary hit I used to get from chocolate and biscuits.”

I could have chosen any number of fruit products as my example, but I picked these premium cherries from M&S partly because buying “nice fruit from M&S” is something that’s explicitly come up in my conversations with GLP-1 users. And because cherries appear to be an especially popular choice.

“Before Mounjaro I loved chocolate cake, anything chocolatey,” Keeley, a 42-year-old A&E nurse from Sheffield, told me. “I might still have some now but only a very small bit and then I’m done. Even after an hour or so, when it’s settled, I wouldn’t want any more. Now I would prefer to have things like cherries, which are obviously more expensive to buy, but I’d enjoy them more and I wouldn’t feel gross after them.”

5. Bonne Maman madeleines

As I’ve written previously, ‘relatively plain treats’ are a category to watch in the GLP-1 era. Many people on GLP-1s still want treats, but a lot of the products available at the moment are either crazily indulgent (triple chocolate, lashings of cream, intense sweetness) or healthified versions marketed as ‘better for you’.

This creates an opportunity for products that are clearly a treat but not so over-the-top they makes some GLP-1 users feel queasy. (I say “some” because what happens to perceptions of sweetness when you take GLP-1s is a bit unresolved at the moment. Some people find their palate dulled, which means they want more, not less sweetness to get the same hit. So this isn’t an approach that would work for everyone.)

Along with the Gü fruit crèmes mentioned above, these Bonne Maman madeleines fit the bill. They’re a treat, but without being excessively indulgent. Bonus points for the individually wrapped portions, which help preserve freshness if it takes you weeks to make it through a pack.

6. Old El Paso extra mild fajita dinner kit

Extra-mild flavour profile to reassure GLP-1 users who’ve been told be careful with spiciness? Tick. Simple delivery mechanism for your protein of choice? Tick. Family-friendly format that makes it easy to eat together without drawing attention to variations in portion size and new food preferences? Tick.

There’s a lot to commend the humble fajita kit for the GLP-1 era. The point about eating together as a family is especially important and doesn’t currently get the attention it deserves. (This recent article by Mintel’s Ayisha Koyenikan is a notable exception.) People still want meals that can be cooked and eaten together. A perfectly calibrated, single-portion nutrient-dense product may work at breakfast or lunchtime, but it’s not a good fit for family dinners.

This is where flexible formats like fajitas, tacos, small plates and ‘picky tea’ options come in. You get to customise and control what you eat and how much, without feeling left out.

GLP-1 in the news

Do GLP-1 users really want smaller packs?

GlobalData’s Packaging Gateway has published an interesting article that challenges assumptions about GLP-1 users’ packaging preferences. Although GLP-1 users eat smaller portions, many continue to prefer standard-size packaging for food and drink, its research suggests. This means manufacturers shouldn’t rush to shrink packs, GlobalData argues. Resealability, multipacks and internal portioning may be better strategies.

—> This article shows why broad-brushstroke responses to GLP-1s are risky. What’s right for one product or category may not be right for another. If food is meant to be eaten in one sitting, smaller packs probably are the way forward, the article points out. In other cases, however, miniature formats could undermine value perceptions.

The sustainability impacts are also thorny. While smaller and/or resealable packs can help prevent food waste, they may also increase the “packaging-to-product ratio”, the article says, for example by requiring additional seals, lids or secondary packaging.

‘A tax on being thin’

GLP-1 drugs are so expensive that only high earners end up saving money on their grocery purchases from eating less, analysis from Baringa covered in The Guardian suggests. The consultancy described the high cost of the medication as a “regressive tax on being thin” and said GLP-1s risked exacerbating inequality. Baringa also warns people could go into debt to keep affording their GLP-1s and calls on government to ensure lower-income households aren’t priced out of them.

—> I really hope GLP-1s will become more affordable and therefore more widely accessible. But god, I wish we could stop talking so much about thinness in this context. Of course some people take GLP-1s for purely aesthetic reasons. But for many, GLP-1s are vital medication that addresses very real health problems. So, instead of a tax on being thin, why are we not framing this as a tax on being healthy?

First-hand experience from a UK Wegovy pill user

Online beauty publication Get the Gloss has published a Q&A with one of its contributing editors, Louise Atkinson, who recently switched from Mounjaro to the Wegovy pill.

—> Given how new the pills are, there aren’t a lot of first-hand accounts available, so this is a really interesting read. It’s worth knowing that the circumstances here are quite specific: Louise was on a low dose of Mounjaro, her weight loss had stalled and instead of paying even more for a higher dose of Mounjaro, she wanted to see if switching to the pill could kick-start their weight loss again (it has). This wouldn’t necessarily work if someone was on a higher dose of Mounjaro or injectable Wegovy already.

I was especially interested to read Louise’s account of the realities of taking a daily pill with fasting requirements. Although she says she’s happier taking a pill than injecting, she describes her pill-taking routine as “a proper faff” and says it took her weeks to get it dialled in. As I’ve written previously, I think this is an area to watch closely. Not everyone who rushed to get the pills in the first month will want to continue with them once they understand how they must be taken. (The new Foundayo pill doesn’t have fasting restrictions, so the dynamics will be slightly different.)

Good, better, best for GLP-1s

As the market for GLP-1 drugs develops, differentiation will become increasingly important, Novo Nordisk’s CEO has told Reuters. There will be lots of different drugs offering slightly different benefits to consumers.

“As you foresee the future of GLP-1s and obesity and weight-loss drugs, it will not be Coke versus Pepsi. It will be Coke and Pepsi and Fanta and Dr Pepper and Red Bull. People are ​thirsty, and they can make their choices,” he said.

--> Today, we think of GLP-1s mainly in terms of how much weight loss they produce, how much they cost and whether they’re pills or injectables. This is likely to change. Pharma companies are already developing multipurpose GLP-1s that help not just with weight loss but also other health conditions such as high blood pressure. AstraZeneca is one of the companies moving in this direction.

I expect we’ll also see more tiering in the GLP-1 market, akin to a ‘good, better, best’ approach. The emergence of slightly cheaper, slightly less effective pills already speaks to this, while retatrutide is being hailed as new ‘premium’ GLP-1. I can also see opportunities for ‘gentle’ GLP-1s optimised to minimise side effects; GLP-1s that help preserve muscle mass; and GLP-1s offering additional health and longevity benefits.

Quick links

• Nestlé is using AI to develop new products for GLP-1 users, including some designed to counteract muscle loss and help people manage their appetite once they come off the drugs.

• Boots temporarily stopped delivering weight-loss jabs during last week’s heatwave because it couldn’t guarantee they’d be kept at the required temperature.

• Doping experts are struggling to decide whether GLP-1s should be considered performance-enhancing and therefore banned for athletes. In some cases, the drugs appear to impede rather than boost performance.

• Prescriptions for oral Wegovy in the US seem to have hit a ceiling, new analysis suggests.

• Several Dutch newspapers have been fined for their reporting on GLP-1s. Health regulators suggested the articles amounted to advertising for prescription medication, which is prohibited in the Netherlands.

• Turkish plastic surgeons are reporting increased demand for facial fat grafting procedures to deal with “Ozempic face”.

• As GLP-1s and other injectables become mainstream, bin workers are picking up more injuries from improperly disposed needles. In NYC, the sanitation department reported 46 needle injuries in 2025, nearly twice as many as in 2019.

• Please stop trying to make ‘Wegonomy’ (Wegovy + economy) happen.

This is a lot of uptake in less than a month. In the US, 170,000 people bought the Wegovy pill within the first four weeks.

I wrote about GLP-1 pills recently, but given how important oral treatments are to GLP-1 growth forecasts – and, by extension, the impact on the food industry – I think this is worth a another look. Especially as we’re about to have another GLP-1 pill in the UK, now that Eli Lilly has received the green light for Foundayo.

Novo announced its Q2 results last week. I had a look at the presentation and listened to the earnings call. Here’s what stood out to me.

Lots of pent-up demand in the UK

Asked to explain the strong start of oral Wegovy in the UK, Emil Kongshøj Larsen, Novo’s EVP for international operations, said there had been “pent-up demand” for the pill, which showed “the injection barrier is very real”. Oral Wegovy had also proved popular because it could be used without restriction alongside other drugs, including contraceptives and statins, Larsen suggested. (That’s partly a swipe at Foundayo, which can interact with some medicines.)

Larsen added that Novo was “super encouraged” by uptake of the Wegovy pill so far and the room for market expansion in the UK was “tremendous”. About 20 million adults in the UK live with obesity, but prior to the launch of Wegovy pill only about 1.6 million people were treated with obesity medication, according to Novo.

How many pill users are new to GLP-1s?

This is a key question to determine if the pills are expanding the market or merely cannibalising sales of injectables. I have to say, I find the various figures, claims and media reports on this issue hard to make sense of.

Novo says most UK users of its Wegovy pill are new to GLP-1s. “While it’s early days, it appears that the majority of the new patients are GLP-1 treatment-naïve, suggesting a market expansion,” Larsen said on the earnings call.

In the US, which has had the pill since January, about 80% of Wegovy pill users are new to GLP-1s, Jamey Millar, Novo’s EVP for the US, suggested. “We also find people are coming to Wegovy pill from competitor products and limited cannibalisation on injectable Wegovy, which is encouraging,” Millar said.

It makes sense to me that the pills would appeal mostly to new users and not those already on the jabs. Unless you hate injecting yourself, there’s little reason to make the switch, especially as the pills aren’t meaningfully cheaper than injectables in the UK.

But different prescribers appear to have very different experiences. One UK online retailer quoted in The Times said 67% of its patients had switched over from injectables.

News from the US on the issue has also been confusing at times. Early analysis from Truveta suggested 36% of users were new to GLP-1 medications (ie a much smaller percentage than the 80% claimed by Novo).

30% of pill prescriptions are for the two highest doses

This stat is for the US, not the UK, but it points to something important.

The reason Novo highlighted this figure is because they’re keen to counter suggestions that people drop out of treatment because they find the pills less convenient or effective than anticipated. (Drop-out rates are something I’ve wondered about myself, as I’ve written here.)

But Millar said higher-dose prescriptions for Wegovy pill are increasing steadily week on week. “This suggests people are progressing through titration and continuing treatment.”

This is worth noting in and of itself. But the 30% figure also tells us something important about affordability. I find it slightly maddening when I see people claim GLP-1 pills cost something like £69 or £79 a month, with the implication that they are much more affordable than the jabs.

They really aren’t. You can get a starter dose at a very low price, especially with a new customer discount, but that is not what you pay on an ongoing basis. Once you’re a couple of months into treatment and going up in dose, you’re paying a lot more.

If the 30% figure applied here, and using Boots list prices as a guide, a third of UK users would be paying at least £149 a month (for the 9mg dose) and potentially as much as £229 a month for the highest (25mg) dose. For comparison, I pay about £175 a month for my 5mg Mounjaro injections.

There’s also the fact that there’s no pill equivalent for the higher injection doses, but that’s by the by. The affordability point alone here is critical. As uptake continues to grow in the US and in the UK, I will be very, very interested to see what percentage of pill users end up being on the 25mg dose – and how many people will find it’s worth paying £200+ for the results they can get from pills.

What’s the upshot?

I think that 300,000 figure is impressive. I’ve seen some quite negative media coverage about the pills recently, including one GP describing the launch of oral GLP-1s as “a damp squib” and suggesting most people prefer injections over tablets. Based on Novo’s figures, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

Having said that, global sales of GLP-1 pills – both oral Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Foundayo - have fallen a little short of expectations. (Here’s Hargreave Lansdown’s take on the Novo results and Fierce Pharma on “disappointing” results for Foundayo.)

While not exactly a damp squib, US reports also suggest that a surprising number of patients continue to opt for injections over pills.

I think we’ll know a lot more about the true impact of GLP-1 pills in a few months’ time, when the initial hype has calmed down and people have outgrown their starter doses. Pricing for Foundayo will, of course, also be key, so watch this space.

What I eat on a GLP-1

For the latest interview in my ‘What I eat on a GLP-1’ series, I spoke to Sarah, a 47-year-old marketing specialist and mother of two from Surrey, who has been on Mounjaro since March.

“I’m like the most boring interviewee ever!” Sarah told me at one point during our conversation. I always ask about how people’s shopping habits have changed, how their family’s eating habits have been affected, whether their palate has changed or if they have developed new likes and dislikes.

Time and again, Sarah’s answer was: no. Nothing dramatic has happened to her on Mounjaro. She still likes food, she still enjoys a glass of wine, she still has a good time eating out. She just has less of everything.

Conversations like the one I had with Sarah are one of the reasons I started doing these interviews. There’s so much focus on extreme change and edge cases when we talk about GLP-1s. Such cases are real (I’ve interviewed people who’ve made huge changes to their lives and diets!) but they are not the only GLP-1 stories we should be paying attention to.

You can read my full interview with Sarah here:

GLP-1 in the news

‘Carb-centric’ items take a hit: US households with at least one GLP-1 user spend 3.8% less on grocery purchases, new data from Numerator shows. “Carb-centric” items like pasta and bread are among the categories hit hard.

—> We talk a lot about GLP-1s’ impact on snacking, alcohol and unhealthy foods, but the latest Numerator data is a useful reminder that core grocery categories are also vulnerable – especially anything that adds cheap bulk to meals.

Rob, a 42-year-old consultant from London, told me as much when I interviewed him a few weeks ago. “I now eat something like pasta once every few months in a high-end Italian restaurant as a special treat, which would have seemed ridiculous if you had said that to me a few years ago,” Rob said. “Pasta, bread and rice were staple parts of my diet and they’re not really featuring at all now. I had already tried to move in this direction before the GLP-1s, but they helped significantly.”

Long-term use of GLP-1s: A survey of Scottish GLP-1 users by The Knowledge Bank found that 42% had been on the medication for 18 months or longer. The researchers said this could point to longer-term changes people’s food and drink habits.

—> The survey also explored changes to eating habits, which are broadly as you’d expect: a lot less snacking, much reduced purchases of biscuits, chocolate etc. But it was the stat pointing at longer-term usage that stood out to me.

It’s still so hard to get a read on the long-term GLP-1 picture, and the stats are often confusing and contradictory. While the Knowledge Bank findings align with what I’m hearing in a lot of my interviews with GLP-1 users (ie they’d be happy to stay on them if it weren’t for the cost), the Numerator survey from the US mentioned above suggests two-thirds of people stop taking the drugs within six months. But then a lot also restart. Definitely an area to keep paying attention to.

Age of the GLP-1 startup: The growing popularity of GLP-1 medications is resulting in a wave of new startups offering companion products and services to users, reports Inc. These include nutrition coaching and body scans to monitor muscle loss.

—> This article is US-focused, but I could see those body scans working in the UK too. (You can already get private Dexa scans, but they’re expensive. The opportunity is in making them more accessible and GLP-1 specific.) I also expect we’ll see more food startups and challenger brands founded by GLP-1 users. Lived experience counts for a lot when developing products for people on GLP-1s. A founder story tied to a personal GLP-1 experience could be a powerful point of difference.

GLP-1s’ impact on young people: Constant references to GLP-1s and weight loss on social media are warping Gen Alpha and Gen Z’s attitudes to health and body image, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. The platforms say they don’t allow prescription medication to be advertised to teens, but it’s easy to find workarounds:

They quickly learn what to search to discover harder-to-find content, using ever-evolving “algospeak” lingo like “zemp,” “z3mp,” “sk!nnyt0k” and “D00p” — the last one a misspelling of “dupe,” meaning knockoffs or counterfeits, intended to get around restrictions. Some written AI summaries pulled up on TikTok’s popular search function, which young people use like Google or ChatGPT, offer tips on what to say to a doctor to try to get a prescription for a GLP-1 and how to push back when a doctor says no. Queries for GLP-1 transformations and peptide injections were among the top searches in July among all TikTok users, according to its in-app insights hub for creators.

—> This article is largely about the pressure that comes from social media. There’s clearly so much more social platforms could and should be doing to protect young people from seeing GLP-1 and weight-loss related content. But I also think there’s more to be done in regulating telehealth companies and pharmacies themselves, including here in the UK.

Why have we decided it’s okay to offer new customer discounts on prescription drugs? Why do we allow GLP-1s to be bought using ‘buy now, pay later’? As a user myself, I want a degree of competition and I want people to get a good deal, but I find such marketing tactics very uncomfortable. How can we complain that too many people - including young people - see these drugs as lifestyle products when we allow them to be marketed like that?

Quick links

• SlimFast has launched a range of functional nutrition products targeted in part at people taking GLP-1s.

• Brazil’s retailers are overhauling grocery ranges to cater to the country’s fast-growing number of GLP-1 users. Fresh and chilled items are a focus, as is anything high-protein.

• Abuse of GLP-1s in elite sports is rife, a new study suggests. 1 in 10 doctors who work with athletes competing at national level and above know of cases where weight-loss drugs are being taken without medical need.

• GLP-1 users are being urged to disclose their medication when taking out travel insurance or risk not being covered.

• Researchers at Yale have discovered a new mechanism in the brain that challenges existing ideas about how GLP-1s affect hunger signals.

• Swedish public health officials have warned GLP-1 users against microdosing or ‘counting the clicks’ on their injection pens. Doing so could result in incorrect dosing and pens being used for longer than intended.

• Bank of America says it’s spending $250 million a year covering the cost of GLP-1 medications for its employees.

• A Korean beauty firm is developing an injectable skin booster made with human fat as a treatment for “Ozempic face”.

Many thanks to Sarah for sharing her experience.

Sarah*, 47, is a marketing specialist working within the food industry, with a particular interest in health-focused brands. She lives in Surrey with her husband and two sons, aged 13 and 16. Sarah has been taking Mounjaro since March 2026.

*Sarah’s name and appearance have been changed to protect her anonymity. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. Everything in moderation

2. Rich restaurant meals can be a challenge

3. Avoiding fatty red meat

4. Freedom from calorie counting and tracking

5. Yes to more protein, but not if it’s UPF

6. A thirst for unsweetened sparkling waters

7. Family eating habits have remained the same

8. The food industry’s response has been ‘intense’

9. ‘I’d take it forever if it weren’t for the cost’

Everything in moderation

You’ve been on Mounjaro for several months now. How have your eating habits changed in that time?

Having read quite a lot about the theoretical impacts of Mounjaro before going into it, it has had much less of an impact than I expected. I expected to just not be very interested in food, to not want to have treats, for the pleasure of food to be gone and potentially to completely go off alcohol. And, actually, that really hasn’t been the case.

For me, the biggest impact is I simply get fuller more quickly and I don’t feel like snacking. I want to eat a smaller portion with a main meal and I find myself not reaching for so many snacks between meals.

Has anything surprised you?

I have to say, the whole process has in many ways felt very mysterious to me. I already had what I would consider to be really healthy eating habits. I’m really conscious of what I eat. I know a lot about nutrition. I do make an effort to eat healthy, balanced meals. I was already prioritising protein. When I first started, I didn’t feel like I had really changed anything, but the weight was just coming off.

Did your habits change once you started going up in dose?

I took it very slowly. I was on 2.5mg for four weeks before going up to 5mg, which I then took for several cycles before moving up to 7.5mg. I haven’t had any acceleration of symptoms each time I’ve gone up. It’s just been the same. I’ve had a few side effects, but I don’t feel like they’ve been dose-dependent.

Rich restaurant meals can be a challenge

What side effects have you experienced?

Overall, I feel like I’ve been really lucky because I’ve not had many side effects at all. But there have been a handful of instances where I’ve thought, ‘Okay, this doesn’t feel quite like what I would normally experience’. There’s this one weird ongoing thing, where it’s not indigestion but a feeling of almost indigestion. It’s a bit of a constant, but it’s not troubling. It’s just kind of there.

Aside from that, I’ve only had problems when I’ve eaten very rich food. The other month I went out with friends and it was a very indulgent kind of evening – lots of wine, lots of food. We had seafood paella with lobster and on the way home in the taxi I suddenly thought, ‘God, I feel terrible.’ I was getting a bit motion-sick and we basically had to stop the taxi at the end of my road so I could be sick in the gutter.

On another occasion we went out for a really lovely meal and it was a set menu of three courses, which I would not necessarily choose at the moment but I haven’t told any of my friends I’m taking Mounjaro. It wasn’t huge portions, but the food was really, really rich. I felt really uncomfortably full at the end of the evening and the next morning I had a dodgy tummy.

Eating out can be tricky if you haven’t told people you’re on a GLP-1. Tell me about that decision.

I didn’t really make a solid decision about who I was going to tell and not tell. I did tell a few people at work because we were doing a project on GLP-1s at the time. I did think I would tell my friends, but then I just haven’t felt like I’ve wanted to. I just feel like it’s my own thing that I’ve got going on.

There’s so much judgement and assumptions and people thinking that being on the jabs is cheating. It’s not – for me, it just feels like a bit of a helping hand to support me in making choices that I want to make.

But to be honest, aside from those couple of instances, eating out actually hasn’t been a problem for me. I feel like I can always choose something that is a bit lighter. Or if I knew I was going out for dinner, I would not eat loads for lunch, that kind of thing. I feel like I’ve been able to manage it fairly well.

Do you find you’re doing more research before you go out now? Do you check out the menu beforehand to ensure there’s something suitable?

No, I haven’t done that. I mean, I probably wouldn’t choose to go to something like a Five Guys, but aside from that I’m not fussy. In general, I can always find something on the menu that’s right for me. It doesn’t worry me.

Avoiding fatty red meat

Are you avoiding any specific foods?

I am definitely more careful with rich foods now, and also with certain kinds of red meat.

One time, quite early on, we had smash burgers as a family and I literally had one burger. They’re obviously a very thin kind of patty, so you’re not getting loads of red meat, although it is a high-fat mince. I felt sick the whole of the next day, just nauseous. Since then I’ve avoided higher-fat red meat. I’ve just not wanted to go there. Though, interestingly, I have still eaten lean red meat, like in a spaghetti bolognese, and that’s not been a problem.

Other than that, I’m not really avoiding anything. I do still have lots of snack foods in my cupboards because I have two teenage boys in the house, but I’m not reaching for crisps or biscuits myself. They’re just not calling me.

I’ve always liked a glass of wine and I still like that, and I’m a big coffee drinker and I still like coffee.

I did wonder if I might have less of a sweet tooth being on Mounjaro, but that hasn’t been the case. I was already a massive Greek yoghurt eater and I still will want some Greek yoghurt with berries and honey in it. That hasn’t gone away, which is interesting. Or the other day we had some Magnum Bon Bons, but one now totally hits the spot instead of needing two or three. It’s still delicious, but I don’t need as much.

Is there anything you’re eating more of?

I am more thirsty, so I feel like I’m drinking more. Other than that, not really. I am definitely eating more fresh fruit at the moment, but that’s mainly seasonal.

I think it’s because I had already established a healthy diet. I’d made quite a lot of changes in recent years to my diet to eat in a more balanced way, with more whole foods. But despite that, and despite regularly exercising, my weight just kind of crept up. Given my age, maybe there’s a bit of hormonal stuff in that as well and also this time last year I went onto antidepressants. And I just thought: why shouldn’t I have a bit of help?

What’s been your experience with food noise? Do you find you’re thinking less about food?

It’s very interesting: no one was talking about food noise before GLP-1s. I feel like I’ve had a bit of a revelation, having seen various insight reports and hearing about people’s experiences, that food noise is so variable from person to person.

I reckon my base level of food noise is fairly moderate. I don’t think it’s super, super high. I’m not constantly thinking about food by any means. But I guess the Mounjaro must have dampened it on some level because I’m not having that thing where you’re bored and so you’re reaching for something. It’s not been that noticeable for me, though. It’s not like I was obsessing about food before and now I’m not.

Has your palate changed in any way? Do certain foods taste more or less intense now?

No. Again, that’s been really interesting because when you read all these research reports, they’re like ‘Oh, people on GLP-1s have a preference for this and that.’ And I’m like: no.

Freedom from calorie counting and tracking

Are you counting calories or do you find Mounjaro is automatically putting you in a deficit?

At the moment I’m not counting. Around 2020 I lost about two stone using the Noom app. At that point, I did full-on food tracking and all the various psychological tools they offer, which was an absolute game-changer for me.

I did that for a long time, so I kind of know tracking food and counting calories is really effective. But, oh my God, it’s time-consuming and it’s not something I particularly enjoy. So I have chosen not to do that.

That’s the thing, though: if you have done a period of intensive food tracking and weighting and checking, you have some rules of thumb in your head. I’m quite cognisant of the choices I make, and the portion sizes. I do kind of read labels, but I’ve also internalised a fair amount of that stuff.

Have you at any point struggled to get enough calories?

I don’t think so. I’m sure there’s been days where the macros probably weren’t what should be, but eating enough hasn’t been a problem.

Speaking of macros, how important is protein to you and how do you ensure you get enough?

I’m quite a regular exerciser anyway. I go to a thing called F45, which is a bit like Crossfit, so it’s a mix of strength training and cardio. I’ve definitely had in mind that I don’t want to have any kind of muscle degradation while taking a GLP-1, but I’ve not been going all-out with protein. I’ve just been making sure to have protein at every meal.

My gym offers one of those body composition scales and I’ve not used it since I’ve been on Mounjaro and lost some weight, but I would expect to have lost some muscle mass because that’s normal when you lose weight. That’s one of the things that makes me a bit cross about the headlines where they’re like, ‘Oh no, people are losing muscle mass!’ And I’m like: yes, you always will if you’re losing weight.

But I feel like I’m in a decent place. I don’t think I’ve got muscle wastage going on.

Yes to more protein, but not if it’s UPF

I find it interesting that there’s so much focus on protein and yet some people on GLP-1s really struggle to consume enough. Why do you think that is?

It’s definitely the one message that’s really cut through. For me, to get the amount of protein that’s sometimes recommended, I would have to get a portion of protein at every main meal and then a couple of protein-forward snacks as well. And I don’t want those snacks. If I want a snack, I don’t want ultra-processed stuff. I look at the protein bars and powders and I just don’t want to be ingesting what feels like crap. I want a whole food.

Do you have a go-to protein?

Chicken, definitely. It’s a real crowd pleaser in our household as well, so it’s an easy choice. I eat a lot of fish as well.

How about plant-based proteins?

I do try to add beans to meals where it makes sense. I’m definitely a Bold Beans fan and have various things like that in the cupboard. Merchant Gourmet sachets as well.

A classic family meal for us would be something like wraps or tacos with all sorts of different bits. There’s probably some chicken and cheese and veg in there and also some black beans on the table. My kids won’t eat them, but I will add some. I might have one wrap that’s just beans and veg and then another that’s got chicken, guacamole and a spoonful of beans in it.

I’ve never been a tofu eater and I’ve dabbled with things like Plant Kitchen over the years but always found them disappointing.

Are you watching your fibre intake at all?

I’m not tracking it, but I am aware of it. I find making sure you get your 5 A Day helps a lot with fibre. I don’t eat loads of bread, but we’re a wholemeal bread family and I actually also love crisp bread, which is a good one from a fibre perspective.

I’m sure if I sat down and worked out the numbers I’d find I’m not eating enough fibre because none of us are, but I feel like I get a decent amount.

A thirst for unsweetened sparkling waters

How have your hydration and drinking habits changed since starting on Mounjaro?

I was always someone who had to treat water a bit like medicine. I’m not someone who just remembers to sip water all day. I would have to tell myself to down a glass of water at various points, whereas now I do find myself naturally a bit more thirsty and reaching for a drink.

I still drink plenty of coffee, but I also really like the new breed of sparkling waters that don’t have any sugar or sweetness, like Dash. I feeling like I’m buying more of those. They’re constantly in the fridge.

What about alcohol?

It’s broadly stayed the same. I try not to drink during the week anyway, but at the weekend, when we’re watching TV, I might have a glass of wine. And I still do. I thought that might have gone away, but it really hasn’t.

Have your grocery shopping habits changed?

No. I’m still shopping at Tesco and doing my shop online. Nothing’s changed there. I’m like the most boring interviewee ever!

No, I think it’s really important for people to hear this. Some GLP-1 users’ habits change a lot, but not everyone’s. Do you spend more time planning your shop or looking at labels?

Not really. I try and plan evening meals out for the week because it does really help in terms of waste, balance, variety, cost, everything. But I was doing that anyway. I’m not approaching my shop differently.

Have you traded up to more premium products?

Probably not in grocery, but maybe a bit out of home. I don’t necessarily want to have three courses, so it makes more sense to me to go somewhere nicer and just have one course. But our overall shopping basket hasn’t materially changed.

Do you think you’re spending more or less on food as a household now, or the same?

The same.

Family eating habits have remained the same

Do you think your being on a GLP-1 has changed your family’s eating habits at all?

I honestly don’t think it has. I know some people who are on GLP-1s don’t want to cook or think about food, but I don’t mind. I’m not saying cooking family meals is the most exciting thing in the world, but I’m not any more or less excited than I ever was about that.

Also, my husband knows I’m on a GLP-1, but my kids don’t. Even though they’re boys and therefore perhaps a little less sensitive to it all, I am still conscious that I want them to have a healthy relationship with food. I don’t really want to open that can of worms with them. They’re hungry teenage boys and there’s still loads of food in our cupboards. I don’t think they’ve noticed any difference.

Our version of healthy eating is basically healthy, balanced meals and then plenty of treats and snacks around it for them, which I’m super-relaxed about because they’re growing boys.

You work in the food industry, so you’ll know that many retailers now offer ranges targeted at GLP-1 users. Have you tried any and what do you make of them?

For me, these ranges would be mainly of interest for that lunchtime food-to-go occasion. There are a number of products in the Marks & Spencer Nutrient Dense range that have essentially just been rebranded with a bit of a tweak that I was buying already anyway. I think they’re really good, tasty products.

Other than that, I feel everything that’s been coming out from the supermarkets so far is very much in that ready meals or prepared meals kind of category. Of course, sometimes you need to fall back on those solutions, but in general it’s not how I’m trying to eat, particularly for evening meals.

The food industry’s response has been ‘intense’

What do you make of the food industry’s response to GLP-1s overall?

It’s been kind of mad in its intensity. It sometimes feels like the food industry can only focus on one issue at a time. This time last year it was ultra-processed food, and now you cannot get through a conversation without GLP-1s coming up. A few years ago it probably would have been plant-based. But it does feel like we have to have a big, shiny thing that we’re obsessed with.

I think that’s significant because it can lead to a very reductive mindset. With GLP-1s, I don’t think we’ve started to appreciate the nuance of different lived experiences. I think we’re relying a lot on predictions based on the behaviour of early adopters.

The path forward will be quite messy and muddy, I expect. Personally, I think there will be a shakedown similar to what we saw in the plant-based world. A lot of stuff that’s been launched at pace won’t stick.

Marks & Spencer’s nutrient-dense approach strikes me as a good one because it’s got that breadth of appeal. They’re not labelling anything as GLP-1 friendly, which I’m glad of because I don’t think it’s the way forward.

Are there any opportunities you think the industry should pursue more?

Instead of trying to whack a load of protein in everything, I think we need to look more at potential intersections with other trends. There’s a lot of interest in small plates, picky bits, tapas and dips. A lot of retailers are upping their game in these areas and doing multi-buy offers. Those types of concepts would work really well for GLP-1 users because they give you that flexibility. Somebody in the household might want slightly less than somebody else, but it doesn’t feel like a big deal. And you’re marketing it as small plates instead of something GLP-1 specific.

Which is so important for family meals, especially with young children.

Totally. The idea that I would want a situation where my family are eating one thing and I’m going to sit there eating a GLP-1 ready meal is just ridiculous. It’s the last thing I’d want.

‘I’d take it forever if it weren’t for the cost’

What are your plans for long-term maintenance? How long do you expect to keep taking a GLP-1?

When I set out, I did have a target weight in mind. I’ve got another 3kg to lose, but I haven’t really worked out where I go from there, if I’m honest. Do I titrate down from 7.5mg? I wouldn’t just want to go cold turkey.

So, I don’t know. I’ll probably ask my good friend Claude or ChatGPT and see what their recommendation is, or I’ll have a look on Reddit.

I don’t want to stay on it forever, purely because of the cost. Otherwise I would stay on this forever, I really would. But I can’t justify the cost given I can manage my weight if I grit my teeth. It’s not easy, but I can do it.

Are you following the developments around GLP-1 pills? Are they of interest to you at all?

I’m totally following all of that. I have zero problem with the injections now that I’m in the flow of that. It does not faze me for a second. In that sense, there’s no benefit switching the format. But if the pill was markedly better value, I would perhaps consider it.

Also, the pill right now is Wegovy rather than Mounjaro, isn’t it? That would put me off a switch because Mounjaro’s been working for me with not a lot of side effects. And the reason I chose Mounjaro at the outset was that the curves looked more appealing in terms of effectiveness.

Overall, how would you say being on Mounjaro has changed your relationship with food?

It comes back to moderation. I’ve basically moderated everything rather than removed anything. That’s the bit I’m really pleased with because I do love food. I just want to eat a bit less of it.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

Earlier this week, Food Navigator published an interesting article about the future of indulgence, which argues we’re seeing a shift from “excess to experience”.

Instead of “traditional” high-calorie treats like cakes, growing numbers of consumers are opting for “aspirational” indulgences that tap into wellness culture or provide a valuable experience, such as learning a new cooking skill, the article reports.

Although not solely down to GLP-1s, this shift is at least partly attributable to them, it suggests. It concludes by saying:

In short, then, indulgence has shifted away from an association with unhealthy foods, and instead towards high-quality or well-sourced ingredients that provide an antidote to the fast-paced world consumers are living in.

A giant cake will no longer cut it.

There’s a lot here I agree with, but I want to offer an additional possibility for the future of indulgence from a GLP-1 perspective. Let’s call it reasonable indulgence.

The case for reasonable indulgence

As someone who takes a GLP-1, I actually still want cake. My definition of indulgence hasn’t changed so much that it’s all collagen smoothies, organic nuts and carefully curated cooking experiences for me now. I’ve always liked cake and I still do.

But two things have changed since I went on Mounjaro two years ago: 1) I want cake much less frequently and smaller portions of it; and 2) most of the cakes (and wider dessert options) available in supermarkets and coffee shops are now far too sweet and over the top for my liking.

To be clear, I don’t expect cake to be healthy. I’m not after some nutrient-dense, fibre-rich, protein-enhanced concoction. I want cake to be a treat. I just don’t want something that will make me feel queasy from mountains of cream, caramel, chocolate, frosting or icing. In other words, I want a reasonable cake.

Finding a reasonably indulgent cake that isn’t either boring or made for children’s lunchboxes is surprisingly difficult. There’s seemingly a lot of choice available, but many products hit very similar notes. Large parts of the chilled desserts fixture are basically run by the cheesecake industrial complex. Speculoos is everywhere. I also think some in the food industry never quite moved on from the freakshake era of the 2010s, when the most important thing was that a cake or dessert look CRAZY. Hence the continued reliance on ‘loaded’ this and ‘triple chocolate’ that.

Now, this stuff is clearly very popular. But if we’re talking about evolving indulgence for the GLP-1 era, an alternative approach may be needed. Not healthy, wellness-focused fare but treats that have had the indulgence dialled down to more reasonable levels. Cake but not crazy cake.

Fruit flavours could be one option. Many GLP-1 users seem to prefer lighter, more refreshing flavours. Laura, a 41-year-old writer from Norwich, told me:

“If you took me to an ice cream shop previously, I would always have chocolate or caramel – sweet flavours. Now I can see the appeal of a sorbet or something fruity and light, whereas previously I couldn’t understand why people like fruit-flavoured ice cream. I went from craving sugar to craving refreshment.”

I also suspect something like Bonne Maman’s madeleines and even parts of the Mr Kipling range are closer to the sort of indulgence levels that might work for GLP-1 users than many premium desserts. The challenge is, how do you make plainer options feel interesting and special if you can’t resort to the usual playbook of cream, caramel, chocolate etc? Perhaps the global flavours and high-quality ingredients the Food Navigator article refers to are one way forward.

Incidentally, while smaller portions are important, I don’t think simply reducing portion size is enough to recalibrate indulgence. I would choose a reasonably sized portion of a reasonably indulgent cake over a tiny morsel of something super-indulgent. That’s because even relatively small quantities of caramel, chocolate or frosting taste cloying to me now, ruining my enjoyment.

Granted, not everyone feels the same. There have been studies showing that some people’s taste buds get dulled down so much by GLP-1s that they actually want things to be sweeter, spicier and generally more intense than usual. So it’s definitely a tricky area for food companies to navigate.

But we shouldn’t assume GLP-1 friendly indulgence means functional and wellness-focused or mini portions of premium intensity. If flavour profiles can be tweaked, I can see a lot of opportunity for the stuff in the middle. Makers of reasonable treats may just be one of the unexpected winners of the GLP-1 era.

Spotted in the wild

Boots has added shelf barkers in various aisles to encourage shoppers to seek support for GLP-1 side effects and to highlight suitable wellness and beauty products. It’s also announced it’s rolling out ‘GLP-1 support zones’ to more than 220 stores. (Does the presence of a shelf barker alone create a support zone or will this be something bigger? TBC.)

GLP-1 in the news

Men flock to weight-loss pills: Roughly a month after oral Wegovy launched in the UK, pharmacies are reporting that older men in particular are drawn to the pills, says The Times, possibly because they’re more discreet than injectables. Data shared by one online prescriber also suggests that two-thirds of pill users have switched over from jabs.

—> As someone who has reservations about how much of a game-changer the pills are, I’m very interested to see what happens with demand over the coming weeks. It’s so hard to gauge right now because there’s a lot of hype and it’s easy to make the early numbers sound impressive (up 350% week on week!) The idea that disproportionate numbers of men are drawn to pills and about a third of patients are new to GLP-1s tracks broadly with what’s happening in the US, as per IGD.

Pills vs injectables: New research suggests GLP-1 pills may reduce food noise and cravings in different ways from injectables, Food Navigator reports.

—> It’s early days and more studies are needed, but the research points to an interesting possibility: that an oral Wegovy user may have different food needs and preferences to an injectable Wegovy or Mounjaro user. As the GLP-1 market develops and more drugs come to market, will there be a case for segmenting people not just based on their motivation for taking medication and the treatment phase they’re in (eg weight loss vs maintenance) but also based on which meds they’re taking?

Magnum allays GLP-1 fears: It’s reported strong ice cream sales in Q2, thanks in part to the recent heatwaves in Europe. The FT says there’s been some investor concern about GLP-1s curbing demand for sweet treats, but Magnum is responding by releasing more bite-sized products and higher-protein options like frozen yoghurt.

—> Any company making snacks is going to get grilled about GLP-1s, but I reckon ice cream is better positioned than most. Food volume and bulk really matter when you’re on a GLP-1, a nuance that is lost when we talk generically about “sweet treats”. Even leaving aside mini portions, ice cream is much easier to eat without feeling stuffed than something like a doughnut. If recipes can be tweaked to make them less intensely sweet, even better.

A boost to in-store shopping? Because they want to try on clothes to ensure they fit their slimmed-down frames, GLP-1 users are contributing to a resurgence in in-store shopping, says Reuters. More than two-thirds of GLP-1 users say they are more likely to shop in-store, according to a US survey. Interest in in-store styling services is also strong.

—> As people’s appetites change, I wonder if something similar could play out in grocery. We talk a lot about how GLP-1 users become terribly functional in their food choices, but I think that’s only part of the story. People whose food preferences and habits have been disrupted may be very interested in sampling new things to work out what they now like. The removal of guilt also plays into this: now that you no longer have to worry about overeating, what might you like to try? What cooking skills might you like to learn? (Fun fact: I’ve started baking since being on a GLP-1.)

Quick links

• The term ‘food noise’ is everywhere, but there’s no agreement about what it means or whether it’s a good idea to suppress it, a new paper argues.

• GLP-1s – as well as fancy skincare – are driving up sales of mini fridges.

• A Chinese pharma company is recruiting participants for a clinical trial of a new GLP-1 drug in Bradford.

• Eli Lilly is giving early access to retatrutide, its powerful new GLP-1 drug, to a limited number of US patients meeting specific criteria.

• Despite soaring uptake, scientists warn we know remarkably little about how GLP-1s affect the brain and mental health.

• Researchers are investigating whether GLP-1s could be used to treat a wider range of impulse-control issues, including violent tendencies and sexual urges.

• The mainstream availability of GLP-1s is eroding boundaries in the workplace, leading to people facing intrusive questions about weight, diet and bodies.

• Germany is considering changing its stance on health insurance coverage for GLP-1s. This could make them affordable to more people.

• A Danish study suggests workers who use GLP-1s take less long-term sick leave, benefiting the wider economy.

• Because of GLP-1s, fewer big and hairy men are turning up to Bear Week, an annual celebration of gay culture in Provincetown, USA.

What I eat on a GLP-1

For the most recent interview in my ‘What I eat on a GLP-1’ series, I spoke to Michéal, a 44-year-old chef from London who’s been on GLP-1s since December 2023.

GLP-1 users who work in food often have a very interesting perspective on the topic, and Michéal was no exception. I particularly enjoyed what he had to say about Greggs vegan sausage rolls and what food companies get wrong about innovating for GLP-1 users:

“They are the perfect snack when you’re on Mounjaro. They’re vegan, they’re high protein, they have the right amount of saturated fat and they’re the right portion size. As a once-a-month, on-the-go snack, they’re absolutely perfect.

And so when I see people in the food industry talking about changing menus or launching new products for GLP-1 users, I think: you’re not nailing what I’m looking for. You’re talking about doing healthier versions of this and that, when you may have a perfectly great product on the shelf already; you’re just not targeting it at people like me.”

This really resonated with me and I suppose today’s blog about reasonable indulgence raises a similar point: you don’t necessarily need specialist products and solutions to appeal to GLP-1 users.

You can read my full conversation with Michéal here:

Many thanks to Michéal for sharing his experience.

Michéal, 44, is a chef based in South East London. He lives by himself. Michéal started his GLP-1 journey with Wegovy, in December 2023, but switched to Mounjaro shortly after and has stayed on it ever since.

Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

In this interview

1. Small portions, big enjoyment

2. Alcohol consumption is down to zero

3. Building meals around protein and fibre

4. Having more energy at work

5. The food industry is missing a trick

6. Supermarket GLP-1 ranges fall down on price

7. Knocking 30% off an average food bill

8. Weighing up pros and cons of GLP-1 pills

9. At a stable weight for the first time ever

Small portions, big enjoyment

You’ve been on a GLP-1 for more than two years now. How have your eating habits and appetite changed during that time?

The biggest change is I’m now satiated with just a normal portion. I was always an overeater. Even though I tried to eat really well and I would consider myself very knowledgeable about nutrition, I did always struggle with portion control. My portions were one-and-half or twice the size of everyone else’s. Now, I can eat a 300g meal and I’m full and I don’t feel hungry an hour later.

Have your food preferences changed at all?

Not as much. With the overeating, I was overeating sugary foods as well and that’s stopped. I was previously a big ice cream fan, but now I probably eat 90% less. But I was never a massive snacker or somebody who ate lots of things like crisps. For me, the biggest change really was portion sizes.

When you do have something like ice cream these days, do you still enjoy it?

That’s it: I can eat it and enjoy it and it’s a treat. I suppose I’m a lot more present with what I eat now. I can have two scoops and it’s a delicious treat instead of needing to have half a tub.

The same is true of something like chocolate. I was never the type of person that could break three squares off a chocolate bar and put the rest back. Now I can happily leave an opened bar in the fridge for two months and only eat it if I really want a treat.

It’s so interesting to hear you talk about enjoyment because there’s a perception that GLP-1 users become very functional in their approach to food. It sounds like this isn’t the case with you.

Definitely not. In many ways, I’m enjoying food more than before. I’d been overweight since I was eight years old and food was a constant battle for me. I was constantly yoyo dieting, trying this fad, trying some other fad.

Now I’m a lot more consistent with cooking and I’m just enjoying it more. Even as a chef, it’s the first time that my store cupboard is full of spices and seasonings and all that kind of stuff because I actually want to cook at home.

Are you buying more premium versions of products now because you’re eating so much less?

No, I’m buying the same stuff as before. Especially with the price of food being so high, I don’t want to spend more. If it’s not on a special offer, it’s not going in the basket.

Alcohol consumption is down to zero

Are there any foods you don’t enjoy at all or have stopped buying completely?

For me, it really has been mainly portion size reduction rather than cutting anything out. Although the one thing I would say is alcohol. When I first started on a GLP-1, it immediately cut my alcohol intake by 50% and now over the last year it’s gone down to zero.

Tell me more about what happened with your alcohol consumption.

I wasn’t much of a drinker anyway. About 10 years ago I stopped drinking for a period, before later returning to occasional social drinking. Since starting Mounjaro, my interest in alcohol has gradually faded again and over the past year I’ve stopped completely. I just can’t. The hangover isn’t worth it and I have just no taste for it.

What about non-alcoholic drinks?

No change there. I’ve never had a taste for soft drinks. I make my own kombucha and my own prebiotic sodas, but generally it’s water and coffee during the day.

Were you given any diet advice when you first got your Mounjaro prescription?

It was available, but I didn’t actively engage with it or seek it out. I knew protein was important and fibre, and I still build my meals around them.

Building meals around protein and fibre

What do your three main meals of the day look like these days?

My breakfast now is Greek yoghurt with a protein granola. I then have a protein shake for lunch, made with blueberries, banana, protein, creatine and matcha. I have that every day because it hits all the markers. And then dinner will be built around a protein.

In my fridge and freezer I now have different proteins like chicken and salmon, plus frozen veg as well sauces and seasonings. They all go into the air-fryer at the same time, done. I am definitely eating a lot less carbohydrates than I was previously.

At the weekend, I will have pizza, something like Crosta Mollica. But whereas before I would be finishing a full one, now I have three slices and I’m done. But I do enjoy it!

Sometimes when I’m out and about I’ll also have something like an egg bap or a pastry with coffee at the weekend. If I have a snack, it will be nuts or a Kind bar or something like that, but again that’s mainly at weekends these days.

It sounds like protein is very important to you. How do ensure you get enough?

It’s always been important to me. Back in 2017 I actually tried to launch a high-protein breakfast cereal for kids into retail, but then Brexit came and Covid and it didn’t work out. But I’ve always had a keen interest in protein. I try to have 20-30g of protein at each meal occasion.

Do you have a go-to protein?

I’ve gone through the full spectrum over the last 10 years: being vegan, then eating all types of meat and now I’m back to chicken and salmon and some of the less processed vegan meat alternatives.

What about fibre?

Fibre is extremely important to me. Although, ironically, I was probably eating more fibre before Mounjaro, just because it’s harder now to eat enough food. A lot of fibre-rich foods are things like wholegrain products and they’re quite bulky, which is hard when you’re on a GLP-1. That’s why I use little hacks like the prebiotic sodas to get a bit more fibre in.

I make my own Irish soda bread and put stoneground oatmeal and seeds and stuff in that as well, which helps me get my fibre up. Veggies help as well. But overall it’s probably fair to say I’m a bit more focused on the protein these days.

Do you count calories these days?

I’ve completely stopped looking at calories. They don’t exist for me. I think about how I feel and when I’ve eaten enough I stop. It’s been eye-opening. You think, ‘Oh, this is what people who can eat a normal dinner feel like all their lives.’

Do you pay attention to labels in other ways?

The three things I look for are protein, fibre and oils. I want to make sure there’s no over-processed oils. Those are the three big markers for me.

Having more energy at work

How has being on a GLP-1 affected your work as a chef?

I’ve worked in different parts of the catering industry over the past few years and right now I’m in education. There haven’t been any kind of real challenges on Mounjaro. On Wegovy, it was a different story. I felt very nauseous and I couldn’t deal with cooking smells at all. My first week, when I was working in the kitchen, I did think I would not make it through the day. It was the smells, it was the cooking, it was everything to do with being around food. It all became very off-putting.

But on Mounjaro, no problem. If anything, losing all the weight has given me more energy, which means I’m more productive. Being a chef is a physically demanding job, you’re on your feet all day, you work in a hot kitchen, and now I feel I can get through the day much more easily. It’s definitely made my working day easier.

The food industry is missing a trick

What have you made of how the food industry is grappling with GLP-1s so far?

I think you’ve nailed it there: they are grappling with it, aren’t they? I think a lot of people in the food industry are really lost. They can’t keep abreast of everything that’s happening and they don’t really understand how and what people are eating.

How do you mean?

For example, I saw the CEO of Gregg’s saying how they’d noticed a dip because of GLP-1s. One unexpected change is that Greggs’ vegan sausage roll has become one of my go-to convenience foods when I’m out and about. They are the perfect snack when you’re on Mounjaro. They’re vegan, they’re high protein, they have the right amount of saturated fat and they’re the right portion size. As a once-a-month, on-the-go snack, they’re absolutely perfect.

And so when I see people in the food industry talking about changing menus or launching new products for GLP-1 users, I think: you’re not nailing what I’m looking for. You’re talking about doing healthier versions of this and that, when you may have a perfectly great product on the shelf already; you’re just not targeting it at people like me.

What made you try a Gregg’s vegan sausage roll in the first place?

Previously, I would have gone into a Gregg’s maybe once a year. But when I started on Mounjaro, at the beginning there were times when I was conscious I wasn’t getting enough calories. I needed something high-calorie, something high-protein, and the sausage roll fit the bill, especially if you have it with a bit of mayonnaise. You don’t want to be eating it every day, but it ticks all the boxes for me in certain situations.

Supermarket GLP-1 ranges fall down on price

You touched on supermarkets doing GLP-1 friendly ranges a moment ago. Tell me more about what you make of them.

Straight away as a chef, I split out the individual ingredients, so I know how much of a premium they’re charging for something that’s actually quite easy to assemble yourself. Having said that, I did use some of them. I went things like Field Doctor, which I used quite a lot at the beginning, and I’ve also tried some of the Marks & Spencer meals, especially the protein meals. But after a while I was just getting bored.

It’s definitely interesting to see all the different supermarkets coming out with stuff because they all seem to have their different take on it.

Do you see a gap in the market? What need are the current ranges failing to address?

I think it’s price. I live in London and the last time I looked some of them are like £6.50 a meal. I know I can make that for under £2. If I’m out and about and I need something with some protein in, I think they do a job, but otherwise it’s hard to justify paying that kind of money.

Have your grocery shopping habits changed at all?

It’s a bit different for me because I eat a lot at work. But I used to be someone who would just kind of wander into the supermarket every evening and figure things out there and then. Now I pretty much have a 14-day shopping list with proteins and veggies and condiments that I work off. I know exactly what I’m having and the food noise is gone. I’ve mostly switched to online shopping as well, which has helped.

Is there still an element of discovery, inspiration and excitement for you when you shop?

There is, but it’s probably more from the perspective of being a chef. I like seeing what innovations people come up with, but as far as my own food is concerned I just think about what’s in my protein drawer and my vegetable drawer.

It’s nice not having to think about food so much. It was constant. What am I going to have for dinner today? How can I make it taste nice? Will I buy an extra sauce to go with it? Will I have dessert? What will I have tomorrow? It’s just going through your head constantly.

It’s been enlightening to not have that all the time. I’m envious of people who’ve never had to deal with it.

Knocking 30% off an average food bill

Would you say you’re spending less money on food these days?

Definitely. I’ve probably knocked 30% off my food bill, just from not buying alcohol, sweets or chocolate. That’s partly why I’ve stayed on Mounjaro as well. I obviously don’t want to put weight back on, but I’m also saving money.

What about takeaways and going to restaurants?

I don’t really go to restaurants anymore, but it’s not because of Mounjaro. I think it’s just too expensive in London and, having worked across the industry, I just feel hospitality pays too little. I don’t think anyone is winning at the moment – certainly not the consumers who are getting poor product on the plate because the margins aren’t there and it’s been prepared by some very disengaged agency workers, even at the top hotels. Or the chefs are just taking something out of a big packet and putting it on the grill or reheating it. I don’t want to contribute to that.

I did go out a couple of times after starting Mounjaro, but I wasn’t able to finish the meal, so it just seemed pointless. Spending that amount of money and then not even finishing.

Takeaways have never been much of a factor for me. I’d maybe have a Domino’s pizza once a year, which I couldn’t imagine having now.

Weighing up pros and cons of GLP-1 pills

What’s your view on long-term maintenance? How long do you expect to be on a GLP-1?

That was a big consideration for me before I started. I knew I’d probably stay on this forever or until the next big thing comes along. I know some people dip in and out, but that’s not for me. I like the consistency.

Obviously, you do sometimes wonder what would happen if they doubled or tripled the price and have you hooked in. But I have lost the weight and it’s effective, so I just have to put up with it. There are definitely pros and cons, but I do think I’m as informed as I can be and I’m comfortable staying on it.

GLP-1 pills are now available in the UK. Are you tempted to switch at all?

I don’t mind the injections, but it would be nice to have something that’s a little less hassle. But I didn’t have a good experience with Wegovy injections, so I’ll probably wait for Foundayo to come out instead of trying the Wegovy pills. I’ll see.

There’s obviously retatrutide coming as well, which has three peptides and is meant to be even more effective than Mounjaro. It’ll be interesting to see what other benefits that has as well. I’ll keep my options open, but for now I’m happy staying as I am.

At a stable weight for the first time ever

Overall, how has being on a GLP-1 changed your relationship with food?

It’s been life-changing. About 10 years ago, I went on a big health and fitness kick where I went from 90kg down to 68kg. But that was with me jogging 5k to work every day, doing an hour in the gym after work and an hour yoga later in the evening. It was constant. I was literally on a treadmill. And once I’d lost the weight, I could barely eat anything without putting it back on. The body just began to fight back, and if I ate over 1,000 calories I was gaining weight. You can’t win.

Now, for the first time in my life, I’m at a stable weight. I’m at 67 or 68kg and there’s basically no variance. For me, it’s been transformative.

I did a full medical recently and the results suggested I’m 10 years healthier than someone my age. Everything – weight, muscle mass, cholesterol etc – is trending in the right direction and I’ve never felt healthier. When I go to the gym now, I really enjoy it. It’s not a chore; I’m there because I want to be. And I can do things like push-ups properly for the first time.

What’s interesting is that my reaction to the drugs still changes. Every six months or so, something in my relationship with food will change. Most recently it was alcohol, which I’ve gone off completely now. I feel like I’m still not done tweaking my habits.

But overall, I would say I just feel normal now. I always felt like I was on the sidelines or at the bottom of the hill, trying to be that healthy person who can just eat two squares of chocolate. And now I’m finally here and I’m delighted.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

Fancy a nutrient-rich mini meal, perfect for when you’re less hungry but still want to meet your health goals? Or how about a small and balanced option that’s big on taste and packed with protein and fibre?

As GLP-1 use continues to increase but stigma remains, retailers and brands are finding new ways to discreetly let people on weight-loss medication know they have products to suit their needs. This has created a new lexicon of ‘GLP-1 coded’ product names and marketing claims, replete with coy references to smaller appetites and nutrient density. The words “packed”, “mighty” and “balanced” come up a lot. If you know, you know.

Food companies have good reason to be circumspect when selling to GLP-1 users. “I’m not picking something up that says GLP-1 on it,” Ruth, a 54-year-old Mounjaro user from the New Forest, told me recently. “I’m not telling anybody I’m on a GLP-1. My husband knows, my two friends, and that’s it. Even my mum doesn’t know.”

As weight-loss medications become more mainstream – something new pill formats are likely to accelerate – such fears may subside. Already, some users are relaxed about GLP-1 labelling and some would actively welcome more overt signposting. “90% of the time I will just buy normal products, but if I’m in a rush somewhere or I go to work and I haven’t had time to do my meal prep, it would be great just to grab something and know it’s good,” Kellie, a 44-year-old Mounjaro user from Bishop Auckland, said.

In time, there may well be a sizeable market for specific GLP-1 companion products. However, given overt references to GLP-1s can be a dealbreaker for a certain subset of users and there’s uncertainty about the legal status of ‘GLP-1 friendly’ claims, it makes sense to avoid them for now.

Labelling products as ‘GLP-1 friendly’ also risks putting off other shoppers. Research from Vypr suggests 41% of non-users say they would be less likely to buy a food product if it were advertised as ‘GLP-1 friendly’. 42% feel neutral about it, but why take the risk? Especially as GLP-1 users seem to be very good at decoding the food industry’s oblique references to weight-loss drugs. “I think the Gym Kitchen stuff I buy is probably targeted at GLP-1 users, but not overtly,” Steve, a 57-year-old Mounjaro users from Wiltshire, told me.

M&S’s Nutrient Dense range in particular has remarkable cut-through with its target demographic despite not making any reference to GLP-1s on pack or in store. Indeed, GLP-1 users often tell me they understand terms like ‘nutrient-dense’ to be euphemisms for ‘GLP-1 friendly’. No wonder we’re starting to see variations on the theme from other brands, with products being described as ‘nutrient-rich’, ‘nutrient-packed’ or ‘nutritiously balanced’.

“I think the ‘nutrient dense’ claim is quite a helpful framing: it focuses on what’s in the product rather than being exclusionary or talking about its particular suitability for a medication,” Rob, a 42-year-old Mounjaro user and food industry consultant from South East London, told me during our conversation.

I’m also keeping an eye on ‘fuel’ in various forms. Co-op’s ‘GLP-1 friendly’ products sit under its Good Fuel brand and Tesco recently applied to trademark the brand Plentifuel, which feels very ‘GLP-1 coded’ to me.

Tweaked recipes and formulations

Smaller pack and portion sizes (think Ocado’s 100g steak) and tweaks to recipes and product formulations can also boost a product’s appeal to weight-loss drugs users without using the term GLP-1.

Nestlé recently told the Wall Street Journal it’s looking to change some of its US recipes to make them more suitable for GLP-1 users, for example by increasing the spice level to compensate for duller taste buds. (Which I find fascinating because in my experience some GLP-1 users are quite nervous about spicy foods and would prefer plainer recipes. One to watch!) It also talked about implicitly targeting GLP-1 users by changing portion sizes and including clear nutrition labels on pack.

I also suspect some of the growing number of products making dual protein and fibre claims are being launched with at least one eye on the GLP-1 market. Though – as I’ve written previously – I am not convinced that’s always a great idea.

Of course, the challenge in all this is there is no a single GLP-1 user. People take weight-loss medication for different reasons and experience different results and side effects. Some stay on the drugs long term; some come off once they’ve hit their goal weight; some cycle on and off. What might appeal to someone during the early weeks and months of treatment may not be suitable for them once they’ve hit maintenance.

By using slightly woolly language and avoiding explicit GLP-1 claims, food companies and retailers are giving themselves room for manoeuvre and the chance to refine their positioning as the market continues to evolve.

Many thanks to Maya for sharing her experience.

Maya, 50, is a marketing manager. She lives with her husband in Oxfordshire and has been on a low dose of Mounjaro since February 2026.

Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

In this interview

1. Microdosing Mounjaro

2. Tracking health metrics

3. Getting serious about new habits

4. Dialling down the food noise

5. Prioritising protein for healthy ageing

6. Feeling dehydrated after drinking alcohol

7. No more cheese and nibbly bits

8. Restaurant visits have become more complicated

9. Learning that hunger is bearable

Microdosing Mounjaro

You’ve been taking Mounjaro for several months now and stayed on the 2.5mg starter dose throughout, essentially microdosing. How come?

I really believe you have to change your habits and I don’t want to rely on the medication to do everything for me. It’s like with a mental illness: you can get some medication to get you out of depression, but then you need talk therapy as well to really get better. That’s how I feel about GLP-1s. I think they’re a great way to kick-start things and they make it easier to get healthy, but I don’t want to rely on them without also doing the work.

This means I still have to be very careful about how I organise my food and recognise when I’ve had enough, but I’m fine with that. For me, moving to a higher dose would be a sign that I’ve done something wrong.

Would you say you’re quite conflicted about taking a GLP-1 in the first place?

I spent a long time researching. I read a lot – what’s the difference between Ozempic and Mounjaro; which one is better for weight loss and which one for diabetes control; which had better results; which had worse side effects – and I followed several doctors who specialise in weight loss. In the end I decided I’m willing to take the risk because I just haven’t been able to lose the weight any other way.

I think because I have endometriosis, I always have inflammation in my body and so the cortisol is high and I can’t lose weight. I also get migraines and when I get migraines it’s really, really hard to be good. It was so frustrating. I always thought: I’m good at my job, I have great relationships, a beautiful house, a great marriage. Why can’t I control myself around food? Taking Mounjaro made me realise I have a lot of food noise – more than most people – and that’s why I’ve been struggling.

Tracking health metrics

Was there a specific moment or incident that made you decide to look into GLP-1s?

Two years ago, my blood pressure went really, really high and it took months to come down again. That really scared me. My mum died of a stroke and my dad had high blood pressure, so I knew there was no way around it: I had to lose the weight, especially the fat around my middle.

If you’d have looked at me, you wouldn’t have realised I was obese because I’m tall and well-proportioned and I have a lot of muscle. But, Julia, I got on the scale and it said I was 40% fat. Do you know what’s 40% fat? A walrus has 40% fat. I was really upset about that. It was so disappointing to know that I have the fat content of a walrus, so I thought I have to do something. My internal organs must be strangled by all this fat.

That’s why I’ve always looked at this from a health point of view. It’s great that I’ve lost weight and I get to wear a size medium, but what really matters to me is that I’ve been able to halve the amount of blood pressure medication I have to take. And for a long time, I didn’t get migraines. That really, really helped me.

I’m very happy to see that I’m creeping towards much healthier markers all round. I have one of those smart scales with an app on the phone, so I get to see the trend going down and that’s a beautiful thing. It makes me very happy and it motivates me.

Getting serious about learning new habits

Building new habits is clearly important to you. How did you approach this?

Around the time I started on Mounjaro, I joined a programme called Beezee. It’s a 10-week course, funded by the government, to help people get active and build healthier habits.

We used to meet at half six in the evening on a Monday and for the first hour we would talk about food: how to read labels, how to make healthy swaps, processed foods and so on. A lot of it was things I already knew, but I never sat down and went through it in an organised way. And then for the second hour we did a workout, which was really good.

In the group were people of all sizes and ages and what was really great was that we got to talk. It’s one thing seeing information, but when you get to talk to someone who has experienced what you have, it’s so much better.

In the past, I’ve had personal trainers and I was part of a business club for seven years where we always talked about mindset and setting realistic goals and breaking them down into small steps. Which is clearly very important, but what it lacked is human connection. It was such a good experience sharing with other people and learning together.

What’s the main thing you learned, would you say?

It really made me aware of my choices. One thing I realised is that I was mindlessly eating nuts. That was my thing. Also, I used to come home from work and cook from scratch – all healthy stuff – but what I used to do was eat my ‘cooking cheese’ alongside it. That was my snack during cooking and by the time I finished cooking I was pretty much full of cheese.

Being aware of those little things really, really helped. I think the GLP-1 stuff by itself is great, but you have to change your habits. Doing that course really helped me with that. I just don’t buy cheese anymore, for example. It’s great as a treat once a month, but I won’t have it in the house otherwise.

Dialling down the food noise

What else changed for you once you started taking Mounjaro?

I don’t really drink anymore – maybe one or two glasses of wine a month – and if I have something like potatoes I will give half of them to my husband.

But the biggest change overall is that the food noise went down, especially in the first month. It was amazing. I suddenly felt like I was in an isolated room with no noise. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, but my food noise always felt like having 25 tabs open. When my mind suddenly went quiet, I thought: ‘Oh, is this how normal people go through life? They don’t think about food all the time?’ Because it was all I thought about. I would wake up in the morning and think about food. What will I have for lunch? What will I have for dinner? I’m married to a skinny guy who couldn’t understand why my life revolved around food, but it did.

The food noise has come back a bit since I first started, but not at the same level. I’m more in control of it. I don’t give in as easily.

Is there anything that surprised you about being on a GLP-1?

I was surprised that it didn’t just quiet down the food cravings; it also quieted my mind and it helped me focus. I didn’t expect that. Social media scrolling, that went down. My desire for a quick dopamine hit seems to have been curbed a little bit, which has helped me at work because I can concentrate for longer periods, without needing instant gratification.

Given you’ve stayed on the 2.5mg dose, how much smaller is your appetite these days?

Definitely not as small as in the beginning. At the start, I used to get injected and within eight hours I couldn’t even think about food. The idea of putting something in my mouth – no, thank you.

Now I have to work harder. It still helps in the sense that I had something for lunch and I feel full now and I probably won’t get any cravings until half five. But it’s not as strong as in the beginning.

People think it’s this magical thing: you get injected and you don’t have to think about food anymore. But no, it’s work in progress and you still have to put the effort in and be very conscious of your choices, especially if you want to stay on a low dose. The kilogrammes don’t just miraculously fall off. Maybe in the first month, but after that you can’t cheat.

Protein for healthy ageing

How important is protein to you and what do you do to ensure you get enough?

I am following Dr Vonda Wright. She’s an American orthopaedic surgery and she wrote a book called Unbreakable. She talks a lot about how getting older doesn’t mean you need to get weaker, and she encourages women to lift heavy and to jump. Reading her book made me realise how important it is to eat the right amount of protein and also fibre. That’s what I prioritise now. Today, I had chicken thigh with raw carrots.

We get dinners from Gousto and I’m definitely looking more for protein now when I’m picking the recipes. I pick different things.

In the beginning, I also had protein shakes and Huel and some fibre supplements, but I realised you really need to eat proper food. There’s an amazing book by one of the van Tulleken brothers about ultra-processed food, which I thought was so inspirational. The rule is very simple: would my grandmother recognise this food? If the answer is no, I won’t eat it. That’s made everything so much easier because I can go into a shop and come out without any chocolates, snacks or crisps. They don’t exist for me anymore, so I don’t have to worry about them.

Would you have had crisps and chocolate before taking Mounjaro?

I wouldn’t have bought them, but my husband would bring them home and that was it. I had absolutely no power. If the food was in front of me, I would eat it.

What do you drink throughout the day and how has this changed?

It hasn’t really changed. I drink black decaf coffee because of my migraines, and water. We don’t really do soft drinks. I don’t drink Coke, none of that. I don’t know who said it, but I’d rather get my calories from food, not from drink. That’s stayed with me.

Dehydrated after drinking alcohol

What about alcohol?

I used to drink wine, but even before Mounjaro I started to feel like I couldn’t metabolise alcohol anymore. It might be a menopause thing. So whereas I used to drink two or three glasses, I cut down to one and now I can’t even do that anymore. Even after a glass, I get really dehydrated and I feel really bad the next day. I lose a whole day because of a glass of wine, so I’ve decided it’s not worth it anymore.

What’s happened to your snacking habits? Do you still have snacks and treats?

At work I try to be very, very good. I’ll maybe have a handful of nuts throughout the day. At home it’s another story. My downfall is pumpkin seeds, mixed with dark Belgian chocolate buttons. They come in bags of 2.5kg and get ordered every three to four months.

The ingredients are fine, it’s just the quantity. At the beginning, this was something I could control, but now I need to be very careful with it.

Have you had to work around any side effects at all?

The only problem is heartburn. I still enjoy cooking and I get the same pleasure from food, but I need to be careful with my portions. If you eat too much close to your sleeping time, you need to sleep really upright.

I’ve also had to be careful with how rich the food is. I can’t have anything that is deep-fried, for example. That would make me feel really bad later at night. Anything that is too rich or creamy – no. I’m very careful with the recipes I choose now. And if there’s a burger on the menu, I will leave the bun out.

No more cheese and nibbly bits

Tell me about your grocery shopping habits these days. How have they changed?

We get a Gousto delivery every Monday and what I do when I get back from work is I set up five Tupperware boxes with all the ingredients and the recipe on top. We have a really small fridge under the counter, so there’s not much room for much else. Maybe some vegetables in the bottom, some milk, butter or mustard. We generally decide on a Saturday what to have for the weekend – maybe a roast chicken – and then we buy that on the day.

That’s not really changed because of Mounjaro, though. We already did that before. What has changed is that we also used to buy five types of cheese with that and crackers and olives and all sorts of nibbly bits. We don’t do that anymore, which has really helped me. I can’t snack because there’s nothing to snack on.

Restaurant visits have become more complicated

How are you finding eating out these days? Both as a couple and with other people?

It’s actually really difficult when I eat out with people other than my husband because there’s an expectation that you eat more when you’re in a group. A couple of months ago we took out another couple and I ate like a normal person would eat and it took me a month to get rid of the kilo that I put on. I realised I just can’t do that, I can’t control myself in that situation.

It was easier at the beginning because I just didn’t want to touch food. If we were invited, I would tell people, ‘Look, I’m trying a new thing, so if I don’t eat, don’t take it the wrong way. I literally cannot eat.’ I was open with them and that made it easy.

It’s definitely much harder now because I don’t have the same control when I eat out as I have at home.

Do you think your husband’s eating habits have changed as a result of your being on a GLP-1?

I would say he ate the same, but I did try to talk to him more about the dangers of putting on a lot of fat around your organs. I’m a woman, so with me the fat goes everywhere, but it’s more dangerous for men. So I told him, the days of toast and marmalade every morning, they’re gone. You need to eat protein.

Learning that hunger is bearable

Overall, how do you think being on Mounjaro has changed your relationship with food?

I grew up in Romania and in the 80s there was famine. We had the same situation you probably had after the war: food was rationed, we had our little ration book and we always had to queue for food. My mother always said, ‘The worst thing is to be hungry’ and I realise now that I went through life thinking being hungry is bad.

Being hungry and not having hot water, those were the two big things for me. If I want to take a bath every day, I will take a bath every day because I did not take a bath when I was young because we didn’t have hot water. It was the same with food – I wanted that comfort and nothing ever made me feel full.

My husband is skinny by nature and he makes really smart choices in the sense that he has a full plate of food and he stops at about 80%. Whereas I used to have a whole plate of roast chicken and vegetables and then I could have eaten the same again. That satiety signal was never getting to my brain. I would stop when I was sick. That was my level.

I was always so disappointed in myself. Why did I not have control over that? And my husband, because he never had to deal with that, he would look at me and say, ‘Well, why can’t you just stop?’ And I would say, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, but the voice in my head that makes me want to eat is bigger than anything else.

What Mounjaro has helped with is it’s made me realise that sometimes I am hungry, but it’s not that bad. It’s bearable. Before, any hunger was painful. Being hungry was pain. I couldn’t have gone to bed being hungry because of my childhood. Now I know it’s not so bad.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

Many thanks to Steve for sharing his experience.

Steve, 57, is a company director. He is single and lives in Wiltshire. Steve first took Mounjaro in September 2025 and has been on it consistently since then, except for a six-week break.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. Soaring heart rate and sulphur burps

2. Huel meals for breakfast

3. Gym Kitchen lunches and Simmer dinners

4. No more steaks

5. More water, much less wine and beer

6. Virtually no treats

7. Different choices in M&S

8. Looking for lighter, healthier restaurant menus

9. Excited about GLP-1 pills

10. No longer clearing every plate

Soaring heart rate and sulphur burps

Tell me about your experience of taking Mounjaro so far.

To be honest, I wasn’t massively overweight when I started; I just wanted to lose a few kilos. I was lazy and wanted to do it quickly. And when I first went onto MJ, it was like magic. I just didn’t want to eat. I went down four or five kilos pretty quickly, but then my heart rate went up. I had a couple of dizzy spells and I looked at my heart rate on my watch and it was 124. So I went to the doctor’s and came off Mounjaro.

And within six weeks, the weight started coming back on and I was probably eating more than I was eating before. So I went back on it again and this time it’s not had as profound an effect on me. I’m losing weight at a slower rate, which I’m glad about. My heart rate has gone up a bit, but not as much as the first time.

Have you experienced any other side effects?

2.5mg was fine. Once I moved to 5mg, I had a few sulphur burps and bits of indigestion. But now on 7.5mg? My God, I’ve got to be really careful with how much I eat. Because if I overeat, it just sticks in my stomach and it’s horrible. I’m being quite careful now.

One time I went to India in business class and had a bit too much to eat, so I sat there trying to hold in my sulphur burps on the plane, putting a blanket over my head, thinking everyone’s going to be looking at me. It was terrible. Really embarrassing.

Were you given any advice on what to eat when you first got your prescription?

To be fair, I did. I went with Voy and they have a lot of information available and you can have check-ups with their practitioners.

Do you remember what the advice was?

It was mainly about making sure you were getting protein in. And eating smaller meals.

Huel meals for breakfast

How have your eating habits changed on Mounjaro?

I eat a lot less junk food. Myself and my boys, we’ve always had quite an appetite – I loved things like crisps, pasties, pork pies and all that sort of stuff – and I don’t eat those things at all anymore, really.

To manage the sulphur burps, I’ve found it helpful to have one of those Huel meals instead of breakfast. You can get some vitamins and goodness into you, if you believe what they write on the bottle, and it’s a lot easier to digest.

Because I have to be a lot more careful with what I eat, it’s teaching me new habits. I was silly before. I’d get up in the morning, work, work, work, work, work, and then be absolutely starving come 5 o’clock and eat all of my calories in one sitting. I don’t do that anymore. I’m eating throughout the day and when I stay at a hotel, I don’t eat in the hotel. I’ll have a sandwich and maybe some fruit and that’s probably enough. In fact, I have to think about eating now rather than not eating.

Is there anything you avoid completely?

Pastry is a big no-no. I used to be a smoker and got a lot of indigestion from things like pastry, which stopped when I stopped smoking. But when I started taking Mounjaro, the indigestion came back, so I have to be really careful now.

Also, drinking bitter or cider is an absolute killer for me. Lager is fine, but not bitter or cider. I also try to stay away from spicy foods. Not because I don’t like them, but I know they’re going to have an impact on me.

Overall, I don’t think my preferences have changed, but I am definitely more careful with what I eat to avoid indigestion and sulphur burps.

Gym Kitchen lunches and Simmer dinners

What’s a typical lunch now and how has this changed?

Before, I would not have had lunch. Or if I did, I’d have grabbed a Ginsters pasty or what have you. Now I try and buy some mango or some strawberries and grapes. And I try to buy a meal with it for protein, something like the Gym Kitchen ones. I’ll also eat things like sushi, salmon poké bowls and all those sorts of things. I try to stay away from the pre-packaged lasagnes and that sort of stuff. I’m trying to go for things that are labelled as more healthy and less processed.

And what do you do for dinner?

My lifestyle has changed quite a bit since my wife and I divorced. For the last 18 months, I’ve been working away and so I haven’t got any food in the fridge because there’s no point. I was buying stuff and throwing it away. Now I’ll buy pre-prepared meals like Simmer, which are supposed to be quite healthy. They’re sat in the fridge, so if I come home and want something to eat, I’ll have one of those. The good thing about them is they’re measured and you know what calories you’re eating.

Would you have cooked at home previously?

No, I wasn’t cooking anyways. I stopped cooking when I started working away so much.

Does your appetite change depending on how recently you’ve injected?

Definitely. The impact of the injection tends to start the whole sulphur burping process for me, so I eat hardly anything that day because I don’t feel like it and I don’t want to make it worse. Then it just wanes and your appetite comes back.

No more steaks

How important is protein to you and what’s your go-to?

I do pay more attention to it than before. I make sure I’ve got meals with protein in. But the funny thing is, you’ve actually got to be careful not to eat too much protein because that’s the thing that gets stuck in your stomach and can cause sulphur burps. You have to be sensible and spread it out over the day.

I eat a lot of chicken, prawns and salmon or I go for something with beans. I’m not a red meat eater anymore, I stay away from that.

Do you simply not fancy red meat?

Not really. I would say I’m almost at a stage where I find it a bit off-putting. A big thick steak? No, that’s not for me. I wouldn’t go looking for that now. I went out for a roast recently and had a roast chicken in a pub. I’ve never done that before. It was always roast beef for me.

What about dairy?

That’s a good point. I was a massive cheese eater. If I had a block of cheese in the fridge, it would be gone that night. Now I don’t eat cheese anymore. Not because I don’t love it, but it doesn’t occur to me to eat it.

Have you at any point struggled to get enough protein?

I did initially. I was measuring my protein and getting enough was a real problem. I’d have to go and get some chicken breast from the supermarket and eat that, which isn’t great. Now I’ve learned how to do it and make sure I get protein with all my meals.

Do you watch your fibre intake?

I did before. I had MyFitnessPal and was measuring everything, but I don’t do that anymore. I think you probably should do it when you start because it’s all about education, isn’t it? You have to re-educate yourself.

More water, much less wine and beer

How has Mounjaro changed your drinking habits during the day?

Probably not that much other than that I make more of an effort to drink water. I try to drink two litres of water a day. I’m in the car a lot and I make sure I’ve always got a water bottle in my car that I keep full up.

In terms of coffee, I’ll probably have a couple of cups a day, but that’s not really changed.

What about alcohol?

That really changed from the first to the second time of being on Mounjaro. The first time, I wasn’t bothered about it at all, to the point where I almost stopped drinking alcohol completely. Even when I went to golf and all the other blokes were drinking pints, I was drinking lime and soda.

It’s not quite the same this time, but I no longer drink during the week if I’m at a hotel. Before Mounjaro, I would have had a couple of glasses of wine. I’m a diamond member at Hilton because I stay there so much and I get vouchers for free wine and I don’t even drink it.

I will have a bottle of wine on a Friday night, but I think that’s more because it’s a ritual that’s ingrained in me. I could probably quite easily let go of it.

How about beer and spirits?

I was never much of a beer drinker anyway, but I can’t have more than a couple of pints now. It’s a volume thing – it makes me feel completely stuffed. I won’t buy beer to have in the house anymore.

With spirits it’s the other way around. I wouldn’t drink spirits beforehand, but I would now. Just because of the volume. I don’t go out very often down the pub, but if I did I would probably have a spiced rum and Coke or something like that.

Virtually no treats

Do you still have treats? If so, what would you have?

Not really. Very rarely I might have bag of crisps or Pringles or something like that. But it’s very rare.

Now that you’re eating less, are you finding you are deliberately choosing nicer or more expensive versions of treats and other foods?

To be honest, since the divorce there is not as much of a hold on me to spend less money. I spend what I spend now – it’s like I’ve been released a bit. But that’s not the Mounjaro. Also, my company pays for a lot of my food, so it’s a bit hard to gauge.

But if I was home every night and paying for all my food, I do think I would be spending more on food. I would be buying a lot of prawns and salmon.

Different choices in M&S

Where do you buy groceries and has this changed at all?

Not really. When I do buy something, I mostly buy from Marks & Spencer.

Do you look for different things in store now?

I definitely don’t choose the same food. If I was to go into Marks & Spencer’s before, I would be looking for a steak or a spaghetti Bolognese or a lasagne. Now I look for things with prawns or salmon. And I’ll always buy some vegetables to go with it to make sure I get some vegetables as well.

I think I’ve realised this is what you have to do to maintain a healthy diet, and Mounjaro makes it easier for me to do that.

Do you pay more attention to what’s on packs and labels?

I’ve always looked at calories. Even when I was overweight, I’d be looking at the calories and thinking, ‘God, why am I eating this?’, but I’d eat it anyway. I still look at calories, just to have a rough idea, but I don’t record calories anymore. If you buy a sandwich, that’s probably going to be between 400 and 500 calories and a ready meal will be between 400 and 600 calories, so you can just add it up as you go along. You can do the same with fruit.

I don’t look at protein as much as I used to, but I do consider the ingredients. If I buy a sandwich now, I’ll stay away from chicken and bacon because I don’t want processed food and I might buy something with chicken and avocado instead. Whereas before I’d have had an all-day breakfast sandwich.

Some supermarkets now sell products for GLP-1 users. Are you aware of these and have you tried any?

I think the Gym Kitchen stuff I buy is probably targeted at GLP-1 users, but not overtly. I know Marks & Spencer do some products, but I haven’t tried any of them. And I’ve seen that Morrisons are now bringing out a GLP-1 range. I haven’t tried them yet, but I would do. I’m eating Simmer meals anyway and if you look at the content of them versus those GLP-1 meals, there’s not a lot of difference.

How do you feel about products being labelled explicitly as ‘GLP-1 friendly’?

I don’t really care, but that’s more about my character than anything else. But am I open about my Mounjaro use? No. Because it’s frowned upon. You hear people talking about that ‘fat drug’, so I don’t talk about it.

Looking for lighter, healthier restaurant menus

What happens when you eat out at restaurants now? Do you order different things?

I definitely order different things. I wouldn’t order a steak anymore, for example. I want things that are a bit lighter now and won’t sit so heavy.

The one problem with eating out is, the last time I went out for a meal for my birthday I didn’t really want a starter. I only wanted a main course, but I felt I had to have a starter because otherwise people will think it’s weird.

Do you eat out less as a result?

No, I don’t think so. But I would probably be a bit more choosy about the restaurant I went to. If the menu has a lot of cheese, gammon, steak pies and that sort of thing, I would not go there.

That isn’t to say that I wouldn’t occasionally have a burger – I have done that – but generally I will be looking for a menu that appeared to be lighter and healthier.

How about fast-food restaurants?

I never go to McDonald’s anymore. I would have occasionally popped in if I was hungry, but I wouldn’t now. I’m more likely to stop at the services and buy a pot of fruit.

Excited about GLP-1 pills

What are your plans for long-term maintenance? How long do you expect to stay on a GLP-1?

I’ve not really made any plans. I don’t think about how long I will be on them. I’ll lose the rest of the weight nice and slowly and I’ll worry about what happens after that when I get there.

For now, I’ll stay on 7.5mg until I’ve reached my goal and hopefully by that time they’ve brought out these tablets that you can take to suppress your appetite and I don’t have to inject anymore.

What appeals to you about pills versus injections?

I think people are less judgmental of people that are popping pills. If I had a headache and took a pill, nobody would say anything. Or if I get indigestion and take a Rennie, no one’s going to say, ‘What are you doing taking Rennie?’ With injections there’s a lot of stigma.

I think you’ll see a massive acceleration in the number of people taking these drugs once the tablets are out. And I hope they’re going to be cheaper as well. Taking these drugs is a huge financial commitment at the moment and it’s a big barrier for a lot of people. If you can get the cost down, everybody should be on a rip. It will save the country a fortune. There’ll be less requirement for bringing in food from abroad because we won’t need as much; we’d need less land; we’d probably stop eating meat and farming cows and that would help the environment. And maybe what we’d do is eat less but eat better food.

No longer clearing every plate

Overall, do you feel you get less enjoyment from food now?

I definitely feel more curtailed, but I can’t say I don’t enjoy it as much. I know some people do, but not me.

And how do you think being on a GLP-1 has changed your relationship with food?

When I was a child, we were always encouraged to clear our plate. Before Mounjaro, I would never leave food on my plate, even if I was full up. That’s what was ingrained in me. I’m not doing that now. If I don’t want it, I don’t eat it.

I really want to hold on to that habit. I know there’s lots of research on why some people eat more than other people and why some people might be more predisposed to be hungry and therefore eat more, but I do think a lot of it is about habit.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about the hype around GLP-1 pills.

They’ve been hailed as a watershed moment for both obesity treatment and UK the food and drink industry. More than 70,000 Brits have already registered their interest in oral Wegovy, which was approved by regulators earlier this month. PwC predicts GLP-1 pills “could potentially increase UK users by two and a half times, from c.3 million to c.7 million by 2027”.

As someone who takes a GLP-1, interviews people on GLP-1s and generally writes a lot about GLP-1s, I’m fully bought into the idea that these medications are a big deal. I also agree the launch of pill formats marks an important new phase for the GLP-1 market. I wrote a whole blog about it a couple of months ago. But an extra four million users over the next year or so? That seems like a lot.

Granted, GLP-1 usage has already doubled in less than a year. Plus, 39% of UK adults are put off by needles and injections, according to IGD, and 61% of non-GLP-1 users say they’d prefer a daily pill to a weekly injection. That’s a sizeable pool of people who could be converted into GLP-1s users now that tablets are available.

So why does my gut instinct go against the notion that pills (or, more specifically, these pills) will open the floodgates to even more widespread GLP-1 use?

One possibility is I’m simply underestimating how quickly uptake is growing anyway, with our without pills. But my doubts mostly come down to three factors: I don’t believe the pills are cheap enough to bring in new users in their droves; they’re less convenient than many people seem to realise; and they’re less effective than injections.

A recent report from Simple Online Pharmacy (SOP), an online prescriber of weight-loss medication, helped pull this into focus for me. After polling 2,000 UK adults and analysing responses from nearly 3,500 GLP-1 users, its conclusion is that although pills have the potential to broaden interest in GLP-1s, they are “unlikely to transform uptake on their own”.

Not all that convenient

One of the most interesting bits in SOP’s report is that they measured people’s interest in GLP-1 pills before and after they were told about the strict usage protocols involved. With oral Wegovy (the pill that’s about to launch in the UK), tablets must be taken daily, on an empty stomach after at least eight hours of fasting, and with no more than 120ml of water. You then have to wait at least 30 minutes before eating, drinking or taking any other oral medication.

That’s quite a lot of faff compared with a weekly injection. Of course, if needles are an absolute no for you, you’ll find a way to make it work regardless. It’s also true that the pills are more convenient in other important ways: they’re more discreet, they don’t need to be refrigerated, there’s no need for a sharps box and you can easily take them with you when you travel.

These are genuinely compelling benefits which online pharmacies have started to highlight in their consumer comms, but they need to be balanced against the realities of how the pills must be taken day to day. In fact, when SOP gave people more information about the practicalities involved, their enthusiasm for pills plummeted. Its report says:

After respondents were shown publicly available information about pill-based GLP‑1s, preference for a daily pill fell substantially among both non‑users (61% to 27%) and current GLP‑1 users (49% to 23%). The drop is pronounced regardless of journey stage: for patients on treatment fewer than six months, pill preference halves (52% to 26%), and for those on treatment longer than six months it falls slightly more sharply (48% to 22%). Initial preference seems driven by assumed simplicity but becomes more cautious when requirements and trade-offs are made explicit.

It’s worth pointing out that Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy, has previously challenged the idea that the fasting requirements on oral Wegovy are an issue for patients. And so far, the pill appears to have a lot of positive momentum in the US, with more than three million prescriptions for oral Wegovy issued since the start of the year. I can also see how oral GLP-1s could be a genuine gamechanger in parts of the world that would struggle with the cold chain requirements for injection pens.

But in a country like the UK you’re looking at a fairly nuanced balance of costs versus benefits, especially considering that GLP-1 pills are slightly less effective than injections and still relatively expensive (the 25mg ‘maintenance dose’ of oral Wegovy is listed at nearly £190 a month through Asda’s online pharmacy).

An initial rush of interest

Reading the SOP report made me wonder if we’ll see an initial rush of interest in GLP-1 pills, temporarily spiking user numbers, followed by a steadier rate of growth as people come to fully appreciate what the ongoing monthly cost is, what results they’re likely to see and how easily (or not) the pills fit into their daily routines.

The dynamic could shift again as and when oral Wegovy gets competition from Foundayo, Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 pill, not least because it doesn’t come with fasting requirements. We might also see a bit more price competition then, although I don’t expect either Eli Lilly or Novo Nordisk to do anything to undermine the money they currently make from injectables. Significantly cheaper GLP-1s are also unlikely while the Trump administration’s ‘most favourited nation’ pricing policy remains in place.

None of this is to suggest the launch of oral GLP-1s isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal! I’m sure the pills will increase the number of GLP-1 users in this country, perhaps even substantially. I also remain convinced they could have an interesting role to play in maintenance.

But are they a watershed moment for GLP-1 use and therefore the UK food and drink industry? I’m not so sure. For that, I suspect we’ll have to wait until patents run out, generics become available and the cost of treatment drops dramatically.

Many thanks to Jane for sharing her experience.

Jane, 52, is an NPD manager working in the food industry. She lives in High Wycombe with her husband, 21-year-old son and 24-year-old daughter. Jane has been on Mounjaro since May 2024.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. A life-changing experience

2. The food industry is still treating GLP-1 like a trend

3. A Michelin restaurant diet: small and really tasty

4. No more calorie counting or heartbreaking weigh-ins

5. Changing protein requirements

6. Ditching the Diet Coke habit

7. Confectionery is gone from the house

8. Family meals have become more difficult

9. Finally feeling at ease in restaurants

10. ‘Terrified’ of coming off GLP-1s

A life-changing experience

You’ve been on an amazing journey over the last two years. Tell me a bit about what’s happened since you started taking a GLP-1.

My life is very different now. I have lost 78kg in total. 12.5 stone. That never gets boring to say – 12.5 stone! Having been obese for most of my life and bullied throughout for the sheer audacity of carrying some extra weight, I feel this is now my time. This drug is life-changing.

How would you describe your experience of being on Mounjaro?

It’s probably changed over the two years. When I first started, there were very few people taking it. When I told my friends and family, it was met with, ‘Have you done your research? Are you sure you need to do that? Just eat less, do more.’ Oh wow, why didn’t I think of that?!?

Their minds were full of misinformation and I felt kind of offended because I’m not an idiot. I’m actually quite an intelligent person. Of course, I’ve done my research. I’ve read papers, I’ve spoken to doctors, I’ve done all sorts of things. But, equally, I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t desperate.

Weight loss consumed me for years. I was basically on a perma-diet my entire adult life and I used to get snide, derogatory comments all the time. One time, in the summer, I was out with friends and we were all lying by the river. All my skinny friends were in little bikinis, which I wouldn’t have been, but I would have been wearing something summery. And I can remember two lads shouting ‘There she blows’ as I got up. You don’t forget things like that. People think they’re being funny, but actually it’s incredibly hurtful.

Now that more people are taking GLP-1s, I think attitudes towards me and towards the drug have changed. I find I’m talking about it less and having to explain myself less. This is just my life now, these are the foods I eat now and these are the portions I have now.

The food industry is still treating GLP-1 like a trend

You have a particularly interesting perspective because you work in the food industry. What do you make of how the industry has responded to GLP-1s so far?

I’d say a lot of the commentary I’ve seen from the food industry so far can be summarised as, ‘Oh god, the fatties are eating less.’

It feels like fat people were keeping the whole food industry afloat and then you have some commentators going, ‘Well, they shouldn’t have been eating all that stuff in the first place, blah blah blah.’ I find it very hard to swallow that we’re seeing declines in categories that were being bolstered by overweight people and those overweight people are now funding their own remedy to the situation – and they still can’t do right for it.

The industry is still treating GLP-1 like a trend, but I truly don’t think it’s a trend. What we’re seeing at the moment with Mounjaro is just the tip of the iceberg. The pharmaceutical industry is going to keep us wanting to maintain the weight we’ve lost. I mean, there are already conversations about how there’s a new drug that will help people maintain the weight they’ve lost.

Eli Lilly’s new Foundayo pill, for example.

Yes. I might want a bit of that because I don’t want to put weight on. So there’s always going to be something. GLP-1s are not just going to be a 2026 trend and come 2027 people will have moved on to something else.

What do you make of the supermarket ranges targeting GLP-1 users?

I’ve not tried any of the products because I do a lot of cooking myself. For some people, they may work. What I will say is, I suspect these ranges were not developed by people that have experienced being obese and being on a GLP-1.

I develop products myself and I know you can step back and see the commercial opportunity even if you’re not the target consumer. I mean, I don’t eat pet food, but that wouldn’t stop me developing a good pet food product. But with something new and specialist like GLP-1, I think you really do need people who understand what it feels like.

Some people also feel very different at different stages of taking a GLP-1.

Exactly. My first year was pretty rocky and I felt sick a lot of the time. This year I mostly feel fine, I just don’t feel as hungry as I did before. I haven’t got the sickness, although I’ve still got constipation. And my palate has changed, too. So, how are they going to create a range for me that delivers at all stages?

I also think these products aren’t really practical. Buying one ready meal would be fine if I lived on my own, but I’ve got a household that I still need to cook for. I’m not going to spend a lot of money on one meal and then cook a completely different meal for everyone else. That’s not really solving my problem.

I don’t think they’ve really tapped into the side effects of GLP-1s either. I felt like I had morning sickness for probably the first year of taking Mounjaro. That makes food really difficult to get down, no matter how hungry you are. Constipation as well. How do we, as an industry, help people with that? Because I need foods that are easy to get in but also easy to get out. So don’t just give me another ready meal that you’ve slightly tweaked.

A lot of it feels like another marketing exercise. ‘Let’s just create a range that ticks boxes.’ It frustrates me. I find it quite offensive that some suppliers are just slapping ‘GLP-1’ on products without really thinking about the consumer. Because we’re intelligent people. Don’t dismiss us as people that aren’t in control of their lives just because they’re overweight or obese or morbidly obese, as in my case. Don’t dismiss me as being stupid or thick or incompetent because that’s absolutely not the case. I have a very successful career and I wasn’t fat because I’m lazy. I’m fat because of the genes I was given.

So, yes, overall, I’d sum up the food industry’s efforts on this as: C+, try harder.

A Michelin restaurant diet: small and really tasty

Let’s talk a bit about your own habits and how they’ve changed over the last two years. What’s the biggest change?

Obviously, portion control was the big one for me. I’m no longer looking for large bowls of pasta to fill me up. And I don’t really look for carbs anymore. It’s more protein and fibre and really small portions. I like to think of it as having a Michelin restaurant diet now: I just go for really small portions of really tasty things.

I will not use my calories on something that is substandard. I’d much rather have a nice but expensive steak with some nicely cooked vegetables than pesto pasta, which is just tasteless fodder.

Have your palate and food preferences changed at all?

Before, I would have given anything for a massive milky pudding – something like rice pudding. ‘Don’t give me summer pudding or a meringue; don’t give me fruit. I want cream. I want chocolate. I want something really stodgy.’ Whereas now, a nice Greek yoghurt with a drizzle of honey and some nice fresh fruit sounds lovely. The stodgy stuff is quite a turn-off now.

Also, I’ve really got into things like a Bloody Mary. The old Jane would never have gone for a Bloody Mary! She would have had a bottle of Pinot and not even thought about it.

In general I’m far more about flavour than before. I can get filled up on a couple of mouthfuls now, so I’m going to make sure whatever I eat is really tasty. I want lots of seasoning, nice sauces, accompaniments, really nicely cooked vegetables. It has to be something I really want rather than something that is just going to fill me up.

No more calorie counting or heartbreaking weigh-ins

Are you counting calories or are you finding the jabs automatically put you in a caloric deficit?

I’m pretty much in an automatic deficit. On previous diets, I would have scanned every packet and tracked everything in MyFitnessPal. Now I’m like, blow that. I’ve got enough to deal with. So I haven’t tracked calories, but I am very mindful of the calories I’m eating. I generally have a sense of how much I’ve had, but it will be very rough. And if I go over or under, it doesn’t matter. I know I’m still losing weight. I’m not as stringent as I used to be.

Tracking calories used to be heartbreaking. There’s nothing worse than knowing you’ve followed your Weight Watchers plan to the letter and then you stand on the scales and they go, ‘Oh sorry, you’ve put on three pounds this week. Let’s talk about what you did during the week.’ I just wanted to throttle them. ‘No, I have followed your plan to the letter! There isn’t a day that I haven’t systematically measured everything in cups or whatever the bloody hell it is. I’ve done exactly what you’ve told me to do and here I am, three pounds heavier. So don’t be coming at me telling me that I’ve done it wrong because I know for a fact that I haven’t.’

I knew, on Mounjaro, I wasn’t going to do that. That doesn’t mean I’ll order a 1,700-calorie dish covered in creamy sauce because I do still want to lose weight, but I’m I’m not giving myself a hard time over calories. I’m just looking to make an informed decision.

Changing protein requirements

How important is protein to you and what do you do to ensure you get enough?

To begin with, it wasn’t important to me at all. I was just trying to deal with the absolute seismic changes to my eating habits and everything else that goes along with taking a GLP-1. I basically had mild nausea all the time – I’d liken it to morning sickness – so I was just trying to make sure I ate and didn’t pass out. Protein wasn’t really a priority for me.

Over time, once that morning sickness feeling went away, I’ve been more considered in what I’m putting in my body. I’ll have a protein yoghurt now rather than a normal yoghurt. I would never reach for a something like a Müller Corner. I would go for a protein yoghurt – anything to help build up my protein count for the day.

I used to have a massive bowl of Frosties in the morning, but now I don’t have hunger at all in the morning. I usually go straight through to lunch and then have what I would normally put in a sandwich, just without the sandwich bit. I’ll have tuna or some ham with vegetables and tomatoes – kind of like a deconstructed sandwich without the bread. That way, I know I’m getting protein at lunchtime. And then I’ll have a sensible, protein-filled, high-fibre meal in the evening.

What about meat and poultry? Are you eating more or less of that?

I would say, proportionately, it’s probably the same amount. But because I’ve cut out all the bad stuff, as a percentage of my total intake it’s probably a lot higher now.

I eat a lot of fish and a lot of chicken. I don’t eat a huge amount of red meat, but that’s more a cost thing than anything else. It’s not because I don’t want it because, frankly, I could eat a steak every night very happily. But I’m already spending more than £280 a month on a jab. I’m certainly not going to be spending the same again on red meat.

How about cottage cheese?

I find it a hard one to eat. I eat it because I know it’s filling and it’s good for protein and so on, but I have to have it with something. I chop up apple because I find it a little bit sour just on its own.

The good thing is, it’s not the necessarily the sloppy stuff that your mum had in the 70s. It’s evolved into a much thicker, creamier offering now, which is actually more palatable. But it’s still got that slight acidity, which I need to balance with something sweet.

Have you tried protein shakes at all?

I’ve really struggled with shakes. I’ve tried all sorts of different powders, but a lot of them are gritty or have that really weird synthetic flavour. They just don’t taste very healthy.

Ditching the Diet Coke habit

What do you drink during the day and how has this changed?

It’s changed radically. I was a hardened Diet Coke addict. I’d buy them in the 30-pack from Costco because it’s cheaper there and that would last me a few days. I’d have one for breakfast, one for a mid-morning snack, one at lunch, probably one in the afternoon and maybe even one in the evening as well. I only drank Diet Coke.

That’s stopped completely. It was as though my body went, ‘You don’t need that now’. You need to hydrate, for sure, but you do not need that. So, now I drink a lot of water and a little bit of tea. I also drink kombucha because I like the fizz and the strong taste and I know it’s doing me good, but I’ll have no more than one a day. Mostly it’s water – sparkling, still, I don’t mind.

I find things like juices and smoothies are quite heavy and they fill me up too much, so I wouldn’t drink those. I would much rather have a nice meal than a glass of squash or juice. I reserve my tummy space for fuelling and keeping me healthy.

What about alcohol?

I cannot drink wine. The taste has completely changed for me. It’s gone bitter and sour and I get no pleasure from it whatsoever. I’ve also gone off beer. I would love to sit and drink with my friends, but I can’t find anything I like particularly, apart from Bloody Marys it would seem.

To make me feel special when I’m out at a meal, I will perhaps have sparkling water just so I feel like I’m joining in. Because still water in a restaurant? ‘God, who brought her? Who’s the dull one in the corner? Oh yeah, that’ll be me.’ At least that way it feels like I’m doing something special. But, honestly, I’m quite happy with water.

Confectionery is gone from the house

How have your snacking habits changed?

I eat a lot of fruit, a lot of apples. And if I’m snacky, I will have something like Medjool dates or dried apricots. Something that’s calorie-packed or nutritionally packed. I want something that’s still giving me the sugar boost, because I’ve got low blood sugar, but from things that aren’t sugar.

Do you still have conventional treats at all?

Really, really not. I had a low blood sugar episode a few weeks ago and needed something sugary, and I couldn’t find anything with sugar in the house. The only thing I could find was a packet of Rich Tea biscuits lurking somewhere in a cupboard. I just don’t have sugary things around the house now.

I suppose it’s taking temptation out of the way, but I don’t even get tempted in the first place. I just don’t. I have my emergency chocolate, which is in my handbag should my blood sugars drop, but that one bar of chocolate could last me months.

What would have been your go-to treat before Mounjaro?

Definitely confectionery. And I’d have loved a cream cake. I was never really a savoury snacker. Crisps and stuff like that wouldn’t have excited me. But if somebody had said, ‘Here’s a slice of cake, do you fancy it?’, I’d have said ‘Hell yeah’. Now I’d be quite happy to have an apple. I’m now that person that will go, ‘What’s in the fruit bowl? I’ll have a banana. Lovely.’ God, that sounds so boring, doesn’t it? But it’s boring in a good way.

Family meals have become more difficult

Have your grocery shopping habits changed?

I typically shop on Ocado and my searches are probably very different now. Now I’m looking for protein and I want to see what’s new. ‘Come on, show me some different protein things.’ If I’ve had the same yoghurt for two or three weeks, I want something different or new. I’m a foodie, I develop new products – show me something I haven’t seen before.

I’m also shopping specifically for meal occasions now. I was wasting a lot of food for the first few weeks, stuff I bought that I thought I’d eat but didn’t, and I hate throwing away food. So I just buy a lot less now. I think shopping online really helps with that because you can have a shopping list and also look for inspiration.

Are you cooking at home more or less these days?

I’m definitely cooking from scratch a lot more, for sure. I find that’s really the only way of being able to get to exactly what it is that I want to eat. But what I’m finding is that what I’m wanting to cook for me isn’t what everybody else is wanting to eat. My kids are old enough now to cook for themselves, but for my husband, I’ll do a Jane version of the meal and then I’ll do an adult male version for him.

Or I’ll just go, ‘You know what, I’m not actually going to eat that much tonight. I took my jab yesterday. I’m really not hungry today.’ So he’ll then go and make himself something. I’m finding that we’re not eating together as much because what I want to cook and eat is very different to what the general household wants.

Do you think your family’s eating habits have changed because you’re on Mounjaro?

Probably a bit, just by inertia. I’m not buying all the stuff that they would have been nibbling on as well. Before, you’d open our fridge and it would be packed. Now that’s not the case. But I don’t think they’ve changed anything consciously.

Finally feeling at ease in restaurants

What about eating out at restaurants? How has that changed for you?

I used to hate eating out of the house because I was always worried about people watching me. I’ve had people shout at me ‘Put that food down!’ So, if I went out with friends, I’d have a meal at home just so I’d be able to have a salad or something really small at the restaurant. I changed the way I lived my life to accommodate all the dickheads who felt they had to comment.

Or I can remember on holidays looking at plastic chairs going, ‘I can’t eat in that restaurant because that plastic chair is just not going to cut the mustard.’

Now, I am eating out confidently and I’m eating what I want to eat. I’m not really considering it too much. I mean, if it was something swimming in oil, I probably wouldn’t have it, but generally if want to eat something I will eat it. And that includes pudding, by the way. If there’s cheesecake and I fancy cheesecake, I’ll flipping have the cheesecake.

Are you eating out more frequently because you’re more confident now?

That’s a really good question. I probably am. I’m eating out and enjoying it. And I am probably going to nicer places than before. I know that I can go to a really nice restaurant now and still feel full. Whereas before, if you went to a really nice restaurant and had the Michelin portions, you were going home via the chippy. That’s not the case now. I am quite satisfied with whatever it is they provide.

‘Terrified’ of coming off GLP-1s

You’ve been on Mounjaro for two years now. What are your plans for maintenance?

I’m on 15mg of Mounjaro [the highest dose] and I’ve been on it for about a year. I would say in the last four months my weight has been static, if not going up slightly, even though I’m still taking it and I’m still in a calorie deficit. So I’m at the point now where I’m wondering: do I come off it? But then, do I put all the weight back on?

I’m frankly terrified of coming off because I’m still probably a good two or three stone away from where I’d like to be. It’s a tough one. I’m staying on it for the time being until probably something alternative like retatrutide comes on the market.

Do you see yourself staying on a GLP-1 long term?

I think so. I’ve done every diet and I could just drink water all day and put weight on. I don’t see how I can come off it, realistically, and still maintain the weight that I am. My body naturally wants to put weight on.

I have lipedema as well, so that’s not helpful. I’ve got quite a lot of loose skin now because I’ve lost so much weight and that’s not going anywhere unless I have surgery. But, you know, you’ve got to be realistic about where this weight loss journey can take you. If I stay at this weight forever, even if I don’t lose any more, I’ll be delighted. What I don’t want to do is to put weight back on.

So my future probably does look like it’ll be GLP-1 dependent. Thankfully I can afford it because I do have to pay for it – I don’t meet the NHS prescription criteria because I don’t have the comorbidities they require. What that looks like when I’m old and grey I don’t know, but at the moment I can afford it, so I will continue with it.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

I’m seeing a lot of GLP-1-related commentary that talks about protein and fibre in the same breath. ‘GLP-1 users want nutrient-rich foods high in protein and fibre’, that kind of stuff. The more people I interview for my Q&A series, the less convinced I am by this approach.

The level of detail and enthusiasm I hear when I ask GLP-1 users about protein versus fibre is completely different. Everyone has something to say about protein. People tell me they make sure to eat protein before anything else. They tell me about their go-to protein. They say they scour social media for protein hacks and recipes. They say they are willing to chug shakes they can barely stomach, all in the name of getting enough protein.

In terms of what I would eat more of, it would probably be more protein, particularly more animal protein. My appetite is so much lower, so I’m keen to make sure I don’t get full before I’ve consumed enough protein to avoid muscle wastage and that kind of thing. - Rob from South East London

This simply doesn’t happen with fibre. Most GLP-1 users I interview have virtually nothing to say on fibre. Even those who tell me fibre is important to them talk about it in ways that are relatively top-line and unemotional. I’ll hear about “high-fibre meals” and swapping white bread for brown instead of “there’s a chicken in the oven as we speak!”

I watch a lot of people on Instagram doing different recipes and that gives me ideas for things to try. If I have the ingredients at home already and I like the thought and taste of it, I’ll consider it. And then, at the end, if they say, ‘There’s Xg of protein in that’, I’ll go: ‘Bingo!’ Because I know it’ll fill me up for longer. - Anna from County Durham

When fibre does come up unprompted, it’s often in the context of side effects. People care about fibre if they struggle with constipation, but the preferred approach seems to be taking supplements like psyllium husk or linseed rather than consuming more high-fibre foods and snacks.

Constipation was definitely a problem at points, so I bought some linseed and tried that, but I don’t think I was really focused on fibre. - Laura from Norwich

Completely different levels of interest and demand

These differences shouldn’t be all that surprising. Protein and fibre are not subject to anywhere near the same level of demand or interest. It’s why there’s a potential whey shortage on the one hand and campaigns to bridge the ‘fibre gap’ on the other. But while we are very aware of these differences for the general population, they seem to get much less attention in a GLP-1 context.

The framing around users wanting ‘nutritious meals high in protein and fibre’ is part of the problem. I agree it’s what they should want, but research shows it’s not necessarily the reality.

Several factors explain why. Having a heavily suppressed appetite means it can be hard to eat enough, full stop – especially in the early days of treatment. On top of that, the pressure to prioritise protein is huge. As a GLP-1 user, you constantly hear about the dangers of muscle loss, ‘Ozempic butt’ and a potential frailty epidemic. Online pharmacies have protein calculators on their websites and provide nutrition advice that hammers home the importance of protein.

By comparison, fibre feels much less urgent. Whereas protein is held up as non-negotiable and requiring active effort by all GLP-1 users, fibre is almost seen as something that takes care of itself. ‘If you’ve cleaned up your diet, you’re probably doing all right on fibre.’

One of my friends was also on Mounjaro and she’d say things like, ‘I don’t feel very well, I need to up my fibre’. But I felt I had a good balance of stuff already, so that wasn’t something I needed to focus on. - Jess from Sheffield

Food volume also has a big impact on GLP-1 users’ relationship with fibre. Foods naturally high in fibre are often bulky and slow to digest. Great news if you’re looking to feel fuller for longer without weight-loss drugs; not so great if you’re taking medication that slows gastric emptying and already makes you feel very full. Even with the best of intentions, it can be difficult to stomach high-fibre foods when you’re on a GLP-1, especially in the early weeks and months. It’s partly why supplements like psyllium husk are proving popular – they provide a fibre fix with less volume than broccoli, beans or bran.

How should the food industry respond?

If we’re serious about helping GLP-1 users consume more fibre, I think it’s worth paying attention to three areas:

1. Unbundling protein and fibre: We should be more specific when talking about protein and fibre, and avoid grouping them together in ways that suggest GLP-1 users care about them equally. The motivations, needs and barriers around fibre strike me as quite different from protein and requiring different strategies. Bundling protein and fibre makes this harder to see and discuss.

2. Creating rather than meeting demand: I believe the food industry’s main task around fibre and GLP-1s is one of creating demand, not meeting existing demand. People don’t develop a passion for fibre just because they take a GLP-1. Instead of assuming a baseline interest, there should be more focus on making GLP-1 users as motivated around fibre as they are around protein. What would it take for people to rave about their go-to source of fibre the way they rave about chicken or cottage cheese?

3. Prioritising ease of digestion: Digestibility is incredibly important to GLP-1 users and should be an equally important consideration for industry. How much volume are we asking people to eat? And how will it feel sitting in their stomachs? I think it’s very easy to come up with products and recipes that tick all the right nutrient boxes but make people feel stuffed, bloated and sick. This is partly why I’m sceptical of adding fibre to protein products. I see the logic and they may work for some people, but a load of inulin in a protein shake doesn’t exactly scream ‘easily digestible’ to me. Instead of trying to smuggle fibre into protein products, I wonder if there’s more mileage in products that emphasise ‘gentle’ fibre and help GLP-1 users build up their tolerance of fibre-rich foods over time.

Given how important fibre is to good health, there’s every reason to try to help GLP-1 users incorporate more of it into their diets. But doing so requires being clear-eyed about people’s motivations, challenges and concerns around fibre, and how those interact – and potentially conflict – with their desire to eat more protein. Making a point of considering fibre more on its own terms, and not always in the same breath as protein, would be a useful first step.

Many thanks to Rob for sharing his experience.

Rob, 42, is a food industry consultant based in South East London. He is single. Rob started taking GLP-1 medication in the mid-2020s, first Ozempic and Wegovy and later Mounjaro. He has cycled between Wegovy and Mounjaro at times and most recently went back on Mounjaro in March 2026.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. True enjoyment vs dopamine hits

2. An opportunity to change the food environment

3. Animal protein takes centre stage

4. Pasta as a once-a-month treat

5. No urge to snack and virtually zero treats

6. Enjoying M&S’s Nutrient Dense range

7. Navigating a traditional Italian menu can be a struggle

8. Calorie counting and side effects

9. Staying on GLP-1s ‘forever’

10. The miracle of experiencing life as a thin person

True enjoyment vs dopamine hits

You’ve taken GLP-1s for several years now. How would you describe what it feels like to take this medication?

I would characterise it in two ways. It’s partly a very physical appetite suppression. I never used to feel genuinely full and this is the first time that I’ve ever got to a point where there’s been food on the plate and I thought I just can’t eat anymore.

Then there’s also a more psychological effect, which is the food noise suppression. It’s that feeling of being at home and wanting to fill a gap with food. It just dials that right down.

Food noise is not a term I had come across until I read about it in relation to GLP-1s and I found it really useful for characterising the obesogenic food environment, which is something I have written and talked about a lot professionally and academically.

Has anything surprised you about how the medication makes you feel?

I don’t think I had realised how problematic my relationship with food was. I was significantly overweight – I’ve lost 33kg over the time I’ve been on it, so it’s a sizeable difference – and taking a GLP-1 has made me realise the amount of headspace food took up. You know, thinking about food, worrying about food, feeling guilty about food afterwards. That sort of doom cycle.

It’s a cliché, but I just feel so much lighter now, in the sense of being unburdened.

Do you think you enjoy food less than you did before GLP-1s?

Yes, but in a good way. I would compare it to giving up smoking. It’s true that I no longer get the pleasure that I got from smoking cigarettes, but the pleasure you get from smoking is just the alleviation of an addiction. It’s not bringing extra pleasure.

The genuine pleasure I get from food, which is around culture, flavour and spending time with friends and family, that’s still there and hasn’t diminished. What I’m not getting is the dopamine hit of satisfying a craving, and I’m quite pleased to not have that.

You don’t miss the way food used to make you feel?

No. It’s lovely to not have that craving. It’s something I find quite worrying about scaling back or not being able to access the medication in future. When I’ve had a gap in treatment, it wasn’t a catastrophe, but the weight loss was much harder to sustain.

An opportunity to change the food environment

You’re a food industry consultant. What have you made of how the industry has responded to GLP-1s so far?

I have felt a lot of the media coverage has been either far too alarmist or not alarmist enough. Some of the more polemic articles have said this is the end of grocery and it’s going to be this massive impact. Certainly from my own perspective, I don’t think retailers and the food industry have reason to be concerned.

If you look at the cost of the drugs and the income level you need to sustain your use of them, they are still fairly elitist. I imagine that will change. They will be vastly democratised when they come off patent protection and I imagine the NHS is almost certainly going to prescribe more of them to more people. Perhaps there will be more of an impact then, but it’s too soon to say exactly what that will look like.

I’m more excited by the possibility of the drugs reshaping the food environment. I think there’s been a lot of commentary by often very wealthy, white, thin people who have said, ‘These drugs are a terrible thing, we really ought to be fixing the food environment’. And my response has always been: ‘You crack on. Definitely fix the food environment. I would love that. But until you do, I’m just going to keep taking the life-saving medication, if that’s all right.’

What I do hope is that these drugs are potentially the thing that will stop food companies marketing so much junk food so irresponsibly. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but simply because people don’t have the appetite for it, so they need to find another way to sustain their businesses. I love the idea that there could be this great reckoning.

It might be too soon to call it, but I think any food company would be mad not to acknowledge GLP-1 as a trend. At the same time, we also need to acknowledge that a lot of the food industry is already very unhealthy, and this is just one more reason to fix that.

Animal protein takes centre stage

Let’s talk about how your own food habits have changed. Are there any foods you eat a lot more of now than before?

Yes, protein. Around the same time as starting GLP-1s, I’d read about the protein leverage hypothesis, which is about trying to make sure that protein makes up a certain proportion of your diet. That was a really helpful yardstick for me in trying to plan what I’m eating and using it as a framework for decision-making.

So in terms of what I would eat more of, it would probably be more protein, particularly more animal protein. My appetite is so much lower, so I’m keen to make sure I don’t get full before I’ve consumed enough protein to avoid muscle wastage and that kind of thing.

What’s your go-to protein?

Chicken. Not really for the love of it but because it’s very available and seems to form the basis of a lot of the healthier end of the market, whether it’s grab-and-go or restaurant dishes. I’m quite keen to diversify. I would love to say that there is more plant protein in my diet, but I find pulses and legumes often don’t agree with me. They’re quite bulky. That’s a bit of a source of guilt from a sustainability perspective.

Have you generally found it easy to get enough protein?

I think I’ve achieved the protein I’ve needed. I’m concerned about losing muscle mass, so I’m trying to lean into exercising and I do quite a lot of exercise. I’ve sometimes found it hard to sustain the energy levels to do the exercise I’ve wanted to do, but not due to protein.

Some people get turned off by meat or struggle to digest it while on a GLP-1. Has this been a problem for you?

No, not at all.

What about dairy?

No change in that.

You’re not one of those people who become obsessed with Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese?

I already ate a lot of Greek yoghurt anyway, but I’ve never really understood cottage cheese. I’m a bit fussy about cheese generally, which is a source of great shame and annoyance because I know I’m missing out on a world of wonderful cheese flavours. But that’s not something related to GLP-1s. It’s something I’ve always had.

Pasta as a once-a-month treat

Is there anything you eat a lot less now?

Broadly, carbohydrates. I now eat something like pasta once every few months in a high-end Italian restaurant as a special treat, which would have seemed ridiculous if you had said that to me a few years ago. Pasta, bread and rice were staple parts of my diet and they’re not really featuring at all now. I had already tried to move in this direction before the GLP-1s, but they helped significantly.

Also, I eat a lot less candy, chocolate, pastry and things like that. If I went out for a coffee before, I would tend to default to buying something to eat to go with it. Now I just have the coffee on its own.

Describe your three main meals for me. What do you typically have and how’s that different to before?

Breakfast is the easy one because I basically eat what I was eating before, but a smaller portion. I almost always start the day with Greek yoghurt, honey, berries, overnight oats, nuts and seeds.

The other meals are a bit more variable, not because of GLP-1s but because of recent lifestyle changes. I’m cooking less at home, eating out more and relying on grab-and-go a bit more. On the whole, I would say the differences are predominately the portions and the proportion of carbohydrates. Even if you allow for eating in and eating out, that’s probably the main difference.

Are you cooking less at home because you don’t enjoy it as much?

I don’t think so. I was still with my husband when I first started taking GLP-1s, so I can kind of compare and contrast and I’d say I still have the same desire to cook. It’s something I enjoy and find quite grounding.

However, I will say I found it harder and harder to make something that worked for us both. My ex wanted a much higher-carb diet than I wanted. It became quite difficult to square that circle and cook something that met both our needs.

Have you developed any food aversions?

Not aversions, but I find it much easier to look at a counter display or an in-store bakery and feel…not repulsed by it, but averse on some level. I don’t know how much of this is GLP-1s and how much this is professional knowledge, but I am much more aware of food marketing and presentation and things being piled up and the smell of food being pumped into the store. I sometimes feel slightly queasy looking at it.

Have your palate and sense of taste changed at all? Do some foods now taste different to you?

I’m really only thinking about it now that you’ve asked the question, but I wonder if the reward receptors for eating things that brought me joy before have changed. Things like pastries and croissants used to be my weakness and I’m not sure the last time I ate one of those and thought, ‘Well, that was genuinely magnificent’.

I work with bakeries and have access to lots of very high-quality pastry, but I tend to not be as excited by it now and if I do eat it, the reward isn’t there. Not universally, but it is certainly diminished.

Do you generally prefer plain and bland foods now, do you want foods that are more intense or has there been no change?

I’m not sure I would say I’m drawn more to more intense foods, but I’m certainly enjoying things that are strongly flavoured. That’s probably the best way to characterise it.

No urge to snack and virtually zero treats

How have your snacking habits changed?

I think my urge to snack has diminished, particularly on Mounjaro. I’m on quite a high dose at the moment and I’ve seen a very pronounced difference in terms of snacking. If I do snack, I would eat something like a handful of nuts and raisins or a crispbread with seeds and stuff on it.

As for treats, Mounjaro has basically switched that off altogether. I haven’t needed treats for the last few weeks, partly because the desire hasn’t been there and partly because I’ve been out of the home a lot.

What do you drink throughout the day, and how has this changed?

It’s mostly stayed the same, which is water or very diluted fruit squash at home and probably a weekly Diet Coke away from home. Soon after I started taking GLP-1s I had really dry lips. I was probably dehydrated at the time and, reading about it, I found that people often said that your hunger and thirst can get a bit confused and I probably wasn’t drinking enough. Now I’m a bit more mindful of it.

Plus, two or three coffees a day, either black at home or a flat white out.

Are you going to coffee shops less or buying fewer coffees out of the home?

I would say that’s stayed the same because of the industry I work in. It all happens over coffee, really.

What about alcohol?

I don’t drink alcohol at all, so that hasn’t changed.

Enjoying M&S’s Nutrient Dense range

Have you changed where you shop for groceries at all?

No, I still use Ocado.

When you buy things on Ocado now, what is different?

The overall volume is different. For example, I used to eat quite a big bowl of fruit salad that I would make every day. Now I just eat a pear or an apple. It’s probably half the volume of fruit that I would have eaten before.

And a lot less carbohydrate than I ever would have had previously. I had hoped that my grocery spend might go down a bit, but it hasn’t so far from what I can tell. All the reports about the end of grocery because of GLP-1s are vastly overstated, if my receipts are anything to go by.

Are you browsing or searching for products in different ways?

No, I do it exactly the way I did before.

What about going to convenience stores? Were you someone who would pop out to a corner shop to buy things, and has that changed at all?

I tend to go mostly to an M&S Simply Food, just because it’s convenient and it’s quality and a brand I trust. They’ve also got a particularly good range of GLP-1 targeted grab and go and ready meal products at the moment, which I’m getting quite a lot of joy from.

You’ve anticipated my next question! Some supermarkets now sell products for GLP-1 users. What have you tried and what do you make of what’s on offer?

I know that quite a few supermarkets are jumping on the bandwagon at the moment. The only ones I’ve tried are from Marks & Spencer. They have a ready meals range, which I think is called Nutrient Dense. I’ve tried four or five of those meals over the last few weeks.

In the context of a ready meal - which is to say, I could cook a nicer meal but not in three minutes – I was pretty pleasantly surprised. I think they have just about delivered on flavour and definitely in terms of satisfaction. I’m as happy as I feel I need to be with the protein content and calories and stuff like that. They seem pretty well judged and the portion size is about right as well.

Are you aware of any other GLP-1 ranges and have you tried any?

I haven’t tried any other, but I’m aware that Asda and Morrisons have ranges as well. I would associate neither with a strong GLP-1-using customer base, just from a demographic perspective, so it’s interesting that’s where they’ve gone. I imagine other supermarkets are doing products as well, I just haven’t looked for them.

Some products are labelled as ‘GLP-1 friendly’, whereas the M&S approach has been to talk about nutrient density. What would be your preference?

I’m extremely food literate and I would tend to almost reject any health claim on a packaged food. I think it was Michael Pollan’s advice that if you want to eat healthy food, don’t buy anything that says it’s healthy food. That’s served me quite well.

I think the nutrient dense claim is quite a helpful framing: it focuses on what’s in the product rather than being exclusionary or talking about its particular suitability for a medication.

But overall I’m quite relaxed about it. I’m not someone looking for a GLP-1 logo, but I can see that it would be useful for some circumstances.

Navigating a traditional Italian menu can be a struggle

What about takeaways and eating out in restaurants?

I would get a takeaway maybe annually, so that hasn’t really changed. But I eat out a lot and I have found it a bit disappointing recently. I think that might be saying more about the current state of London’s hospitality industry, though.

For a time, I genuinely thought perhaps my palate had become jaded as a result of the drugs. But it turned out it was just because I’d been to some really shit restaurants. So when I had a really good one, it was like: thank god. I have had some spectacular meals since being on GLP-1s, which was a relief. They haven’t impacted my enjoyment.

Do you order different types of dishes when you eat out now?

I find it easier to make healthier choices with the food noise dialled down, but I am also quite keenly aware now of when those healthy choices are much more limited. Italian food is a good example. Navigating a traditional Italian food menu can be quite challenging. Very often, what you can get is either a bowl of pasta or chicken Milanese, and there’s only so many chicken Milaneses I can eat in a week.

I might also have fewer courses: a starter or two starters instead of a starter and a main, that kind of thing. I would definitely leave food on the plate and I would be much more comfortable skipping dessert. I still want to try things, I still want the enjoyment and the flavours, but I don’t feel like I need to finish all of it.

Calorie counting and side effects

Have you had to work around any side effects while being on a GLP-1?

Not really. Certainly, they haven’t been pronounced enough to be burdensome. I’ve had the occasional upset stomach, but I had that anyway due to stress and IBS and it’s definitely no worse than it had been before.

When you first got your prescription, were you given any advice on what to eat?

One of the providers I used offers coaching and they are quite keen for you to take that up, but I don’t think I ever did. Partly because of their availability and partly because it didn’t really feel like something I needed. I had done my own research around what to expect and I’m quite well informed about diet. I probably knew most of what I needed to know.

Based on your own research, what was your understanding of how you were supposed to eat to maximise results and minimise side effects?

Small portions and a ‘little and often’ approach. So, not necessarily eating three square meals a day but maybe four or five smaller meals.

And recognising the importance of not just protein but micronutrients as well. Recognising that if you start with carbs, you might not have enough time and space for the broccoli and then you’re going to get scurvy.

Do you count calories or did you count calories at any point of your GLP-1 journey?

I haven’t counted calories for a long time. It became quite a problematic behaviour for me and it didn’t actually cause me to eat less, it just made me feel worse. I will sometimes use calorie counts on a menu to guide and inform the choices I make, but I don’t count calories as such.

Have you at any point struggled to get enough calories?

No, I don’t think so.

Do you take any supplements?

I take a fibre supplement, psyllium husk, which I used to take anyway to manage IBS.

Do you do anything else to ensure you get enough fibre?

Just taking the fibre supplements. I try as much as I can to have a plant-rich diet and eat as much fruit and veg as I can. But not in any kind of measured way.

Do your food habits and appetite change throughout the week, depending on how recently you’ve injected?

A bit. I typically inject on a Sunday morning and by Friday or Saturday I feel like my appetite is more pronounced. It’s still vastly diminished, but I could go out for dinner later in the week and eat more than I could earlier in the week. I don’t know how much of that is psychological, but that’s definitely the broad trend.

Do you plan meals and treats around your injection schedule?

I don’t, partly because I don’t want to reinforce that pattern. I don’t want to think of a day as ‘special treat day’. I’m keen to really lean into how my body is feeling.

On Tuesday night, I found that I was genuinely hungry at 10 o’clock at night, having been out for the evening. So I ate something later than I would normally and I tried not to stress about it too much because that was my body telling me to eat rather than the food noise brain.

Staying on GLP-1s ‘forever’

You’ve been on GLP-1s for a few years now. How long do you expect to stay on them?

I’m not sure. I think probably forever. I’m kind of resolved to that. For me, it’s like needing statins, insulin or an asthma inhaler. Obesity is a long-term condition and the weight loss is something I need long-term help sustaining. So, for as long as I can access the medication, I will.

How do you feel about maintenance more generally?

I probably haven’t yet found a maintenance dose for me. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over the past few months. The differences between providers are very pronounced in terms of pricing – sometimes £100 or so difference – so I’ve been switching to save money.

You know, it’s a big chunk of money – money I would happily spend on other things. But would I continue paying £200 a month to live in the body that I live in now? Yes. There’s a lot I would give up in order to sustain that.

But I’m hopeful the costs will continue to decrease. There’s a bit more competition now, pills are coming soon and I do hope at some point access to GLP-1s will be more like statins. So I’m kind of relaxed. I wouldn’t want them to become more expensive, but I don’t think that’s likely. And as long as they are the price they are now, I would just imagine staying on them forever.

The miracle of experiencing life as a thin person

In summary, how would you describe the impact GLP-1s have had on your life?

Miraculous. That’s not an overstatement. I am now able to experience life as a relatively thin person, which has been beneficial on lots of different levels. I have stopped snoring, for example. The way people interact with me has also changed, whether I’m choosing to see that differently or I just have a different level of confidence. It just feels like things are within my grasp.

For example, I belong to a social club for gay men that’s not on the scene, so it’s not drink-focused or bar-focused. They do regular yoga and Pilates classes and one of them involved doing a handstand. Someone told me about it and I said, ‘Obviously, that’s not something I would ever do’. And they looked at me and said, ‘Why?’

I thought, a couple of years ago it would have been obvious why and they wouldn’t have asked. Because I was really overweight and a handstand requires quite an advanced level of fitness. But now there’s no reason for me not to do a handstand.

Or, someone offered to lend me a suit for something and previously that would have been not just ridiculous but kind of insulting. Whereas now it’s like, ‘Oh, you imagine that you and I have got a similar body shape, and you’re not wrong.’

It’s those kinds of things that have been fascinating. So, when I hear this level of concern by mostly rich, white, thin people about the widespread uptake of GLP-1s, I just think: You’ve had this unfair advantage for a really, really long time and you just don’t want to give it up. It’s like men giving up unequal pay.

It does feel like a real societal redress, and one that I would be very keen to maintain and extend to more people. Because yes, taking this medication has just been completely transformative.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

Whether it’s their potential to curb addiction to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and gambling or the growing conversation about anhedonia and ‘Ozempic personality’, there’s a lot of interest at the moment in how GLP-1s are changing people’s desires.

Researchers studying brain scans of GLP-1 users recently found evidence to suggest the drugs are reshaping parts of the brain, with potential implications for all sorts of addictions and compulsive behaviours as well as cognitive function, motivation and desire. Some commentators have suggested the GLP-1 era could herald ‘the end of desire’ altogether.

I think these are interesting and important questions, but I’m not convinced ‘the end of desire’ is a particularly useful way to frame the conversation. Because when I interview GLP-1 users, I’m not encountering people who have no desire. What they have is new and different desires.

Instead of worrying how to sell food to people who are never hungry and don’t want anything (as the issue is often framed in industry discussions), I think a more urgent question for food companies is what happens when people no longer consume food they don’t actually enjoy and stop eating more than they intended.

Not so much the end of desire but the end of regret.

Lack of desire is real, but mostly at the beginning

Let me start by saying I definitely recognise the feeling of having no desire for anything while on weight-loss medication. I’ve experienced it personally and it does come up in my interviews with GLP-1 users. This comment from James is a good example:

Before Mounjaro I’d look at the sweet aisle and biscuit aisle and think, ‘I want all of this’. It was always ‘What do I pick?’ rather than ‘I want this thing’. Now it’s like, ‘I don’t want any of this’, which is really surprising because I’ve always had a sweet tooth. - James from Cramlington

But James was just six weeks into taking Mounjaro when I interviewed him and, as I’ve written previously, how long someone has been on a GLP-1 really matters. There’s often a big difference between how people feel during the first few weeks and months versus later on. This was certainly Ruth’s experience. She told me:

The first three months, I didn’t really want any wine or chocolate. […] Now I still don’t fancy chocolate much, but I feel normal again about drinking wine. There’s a lot of talk about how things like Mounjaro could help alcoholics or help with cigarettes, and from my personal experience I would say no. It helps you for the first two or three months, but after that I quite liked drinking wine again. - Ruth from the New Forest

Of course, this is just one person. I’ve interviewed other GLP-1 users who went off alcohol as soon as they started and never regained their desire for it, even many months down the line. But it’s worth taking seriously the question of how permanent changes to desire might be. Some doctors and researchers investigating GLP-1s’ potential role in treating addicts have warned it’s possible a person’s desire for alcohol and drugs could come back after a while, even if they continue taking GLP-1s.

Clinical trials have generally observed patients for weeks or months; addiction is a chronic disease that can last a lifetime. […] “We’re in this phase right now where some people think these drugs cure everything,” Seeley said. “The hypothesis is that they target food, and then they have all these great spillover effects all over the place. My view is that the spillover is temporary. When the weight loss stops, the spillover stops.” If so, the medications could loosen the grip of an addiction temporarily, without inducing any kind of sustained sobriety. - Can Ozempic cure addiction?, Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker

Not lack of desire, but different desires

When I talk to people who’ve been on the drugs for longer, especially those who’ve reached the maintenance phase of their GLP-1 journey, I’m not hearing about a total lack of desire for food or an inability to enjoy it. Far from it. In fact, some GLP-1 users become very particular about what they eat and prioritise enjoyment, albeit in smaller amounts. Take Jane, who told me about her Michelin-style approach to eating (“small portions of really tasty things”):

I will not use my calories on something that is substandard. I’d much rather have a nice but expensive steak with some nicely cooked vegetables than pesto pasta, which is just tasteless fodder. - Jane from High Wycombe

Or how about Laura, who craved fruit and refreshment while taking a GLP-1? Yes, her food preferences and desires changed, but that’s not the same as having no desires at all.

If you took me to an ice cream shop previously, I would always have chocolate or caramel – sweet flavours. Now I can see the appeal of a sorbet or something fruity and light, whereas previously I couldn’t understand why people like fruit-flavoured ice cream. I went from craving sugar to craving refreshment. - Laura from Norwich

The extreme focus on functionality and almost mechanical approach to eating that can characterise the early months of GLP-1 use also seem to wear off. Kellie told me she did “everything to the letter” during the early months but later took a more relaxed stance.

When I first started on Mounjaro, I made sure I got all my water intake. That has tapered off, if I’m honest. Because you do get tired of it, but I was really focused on it at the start and it really helped.

You see all this stuff on social about side effects and I was really worried, so I did everything to the letter to start with. But then you do tweak it to suit yourself, don’t you? - Kellie from Bishop Auckland

No longer eating past the point of regret

Rather than removing desire, I think it’s more useful to think of GLP-1s as removing people’s ability to consume to the point of regret. Many users tell me they used to eat and drink almost on autopilot. They’d feel an irresistible pull towards certain foods, often long past any enjoyment. Or they’d eat out of a sense of obligation, because they were brought up to clear their plate or because they might upset someone if they said no to a piece of cake.

Sometimes someone would offer you a piece of cake and I don’t really like cake, but I’d eat it anyway. That stopped. I would no longer eat things I didn’t really want because I knew they would fill me up and I’d be wasting space on something I didn’t particularly like. - Jess from Sheffield

This is what disappears when you take a GLP-1. You essentially become incapable of consuming so much you end up regretting it. If you don’t really want it, you won’t have it. And when you’re done, you’re done.

Before I started Mounjaro, I was starting to realise that I was eating certain things just because it had become a habit and I wasn’t really enjoying it. I’d eat the big sharing bag of crisps and think, ‘I didn’t enjoy any of that’. Now I am enjoying the foods I am eating, including foods I would not have enjoyed before, like fruits. - James from Cramlington

And look, I can see how some of this feels like splitting hairs. Fine, maybe it’s not the end of all desire, but we’re still talking about GLP-1s blunting the desire for food or certain foods. So what’s the difference?

But I believe how we think and talk about desire is a critical part of the GLP-1 jigsaw. If food companies think they’re making products for, and selling to, people who are dead on the inside, they’ll veer towards the clinical. They’re going to want to hit us over the head with protein and fibre content and not pay nearly enough attention to taste and enjoyment. They might assume there’s no place for impulsivity, spontaneity or inspiration.

By focusing so much on how GLP-1s change desire, food companies might also avoid confronting an important-but-uncomfortable question: how much of your current sales are tainted by regret? Everyone likes to imagine consumers relishing every single bite, but just because it was eaten doesn’t mean it was enjoyed. Just because someone desires something in the moment doesn’t mean they won’t regret it later.

I’d argue that’s the real change to desire in the GLP-1 era. Instead of a rush of dopamine followed by overconsumption and regret, people want sustained gratification: food they can feel good buying, eating and having eaten.

Many thanks to Ruth for sharing her experience.

Ruth*, 54, is a master’s student. She lives in the New Forest with her husband and two sons, aged 16 and 17. Ruth has been taking Mounjaro since September 2025 and is currently on a low maintenance dose. She also had a gastric bypass 13 years ago.

*Ruth’s name and appearance have been changed. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. Finally feeling normal

2. Active weight loss vs maintenance phase

3. Completely off wine for a while

4. Obsessed with Babybel

5. No more fizzy drinks or Vimto

6. Crisps remain a firm favourite

7. Buying much less ‘crap’ in convenience stores

8. Foodie-friendly GLP-1 products

9. More cautious about eating out

10. ‘I know I’ll be on this for life’

Finally feeling normal

You have an interesting perspective because you had a gastric bypass and now take Mounjaro. What’s the difference?

Ten grand! My gastric bypass was ten grand and this is obviously not. Also, the change in my brain is different because I’m not bothered about food. My life is not being run by food anymore. With the gastric bypass, it was a physical barrier. This is more like a mental silencing. I feel normal.

Tell me more about that.

Mounjaro makes me feel how normal, thin people feel. It makes me furious whenever anybody says you’re cheating because that to me is like saying chemotherapy is cheating or insulin is cheating. I’m taking a drug that is making me feel normal, which is not thinking about food all the time.

Before, I would be on a car journey and all I could think about is crisps and then I’d just have to eat some. Now I don’t think about them so much, and when I do eat something I’m satisfied quite quickly.

You’ve been on Mounjaro for eight months now. How have your eating habits changed in that time?

I don’t really have hunger anymore, but I still have a compulsion to snack. What I’ve noticed – and this is in my maintenance phase because it was different before – is I want to eat snacks like crisps for compulsion, hand to mouth reasons, not because I ever feel hungry. If I’m really busy and I’m out and about, I forget to eat because my body is not telling me to eat anymore, but my brain is kind of telling me to carry on with my addiction.

The difference is I’ll have a lot less now. I went for a big walk on Sunday and I had a little bit of this snacking, addiction thing going on my head, so I thought I’m going to go into the café on the beach and have some chips. I ordered myself some chips and they came and I ate about half of them. I could never, ever leave anything before.

Do your appetite and habits change depending on how recently you’ve injected?

I don’t think there’s a huge difference in how much I eat throughout the week. I’ve definitely spoken to some people who say they essentially have different diets depending on where they are in the week because they just can’t eat certain things or don’t have an appetite, but not me.

I am currently jabbing on Sunday. Today is Wednesday and I’ve been a bit nauseous. Just sort of faintly in the background, like morning sickness, and I’ve not really fancied anything for the last two or three days. That will have gone by the weekend.

When you first got your prescription, were you given any advice on what to eat?

No, none. Nobody has ever said anything to me about what I should and shouldn’t eat.

Did you do your own research?

I am on one of the Facebook groups that’s got thousands of people and I get loads of advice from there, but you’ve got to be careful because there’s a real spectrum of people on there. Some quite educated and some really not.

I also read some academic papers, just because I was really interested and I wanted to make sure I was properly educated on how it works and what it does. I was totally fascinated by the part about how they check the reabsorption by giving you paracetamol. They give you paracetamol and then they look at the level of paracetamol in your blood, and that’s how they know it’s being reabsorbed slowly. I thought that was amazing because it explains why oral contraceptives and other oral drugs don’t get absorbed in the same way when you’re on a GLP-1. I thought that was fascinating.

Do you count calories?

I did during the weight loss phase but not anymore. When I started on Mounjaro, I wanted to do it properly and really healthily, so I calculated my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and worked out what I should be eating based off that, including how much protein and fibre. I tracked all of that on an app, which is what I’ve done every time I’ve been on a diet in my life. So it was the same from that point of view, but it was just easier to stick to those calories because I didn’t have the compulsion to eat.

I’m not fussed about calories anymore, but I’ve been on diets my whole life. I’ve done everything - Dukan, Atkins, all of it - so I’m really familiar with calorie counting and I kind of know what calories are in everything anyway.

Did you at any point struggle to get enough calories?

Occasionally, mainly because of the volume I could manage to eat at the time.

Active weight loss vs maintenance phase

You’re on a low dose now and trying to maintain your weight. What’s changed compared with when you were actively pursuing weight loss?

When I was in weight loss phase before Christmas, I was tracking everything: calories but also protein, fibre and how much I was drinking. Then after Christmas, I thought, ‘Do you know what? I’m pretty happy with where I’ve got to. I’m just going to maintain.’

So, I stopped all the tracking and counting, but at the moment I’m not eating terribly well and that’s not great because I don’t feel like I’m fuelling my body anymore.

What do you typically eat now?

During the day, I just kind of pick. I’m faintly nauseous quite a lot of the time, which means I don’t want to eat. Today, for example, I’ll probably have a piece of toast with cream cheese on top, and then I’ll have a couple of Babybel. Because I should probably be eating protein, shouldn’t I?

And then I’ll eat crisps because I just love crisps, and I probably won’t eat properly for the rest of the day. I’ll just pick at stuff. I cook proper dinner every night - home-cooked, proper food with proper veg – and I’ll eat with everybody and that’ll be my proper meal of the day.

Are there any foods you eat a lot more of now?

I was obsessed with fibre during the weight loss phase because I had bad constipation. I’m less obsessed with it now. I’m still focused on protein a bit. That’s the Babybel thing. When I’m snacking, I try to have a bit more protein, but you’ve heard me talk about crisps, so I’m contradicting myself a little bit.

Completely off wine for a while

Is there anything you have a lot less now than before?

Lunch, generally. Sandwiches and stuff like that for lunch. In general, I’m not buying much out of home at the moment. I don’t know if that’s Mounjaro or lifestyle-related because I’m a student and I’m not earning, so I’m home much more. But I certainly don’t have that compulsion to buy so much out of home.

The first three months, I also didn’t really want any wine or chocolate. You read all that stuff about how Mounjaro interferes with addiction pathways and I totally got that, but mostly at the beginning. I don’t drink much anyway – maybe one or two glasses Friday and Saturday – and for the first one or two months, I just couldn’t go anywhere near it. I did not want it at all.

Now I still don’t fancy chocolate much, but I feel normal again about drinking wine. There’s a lot of talk about how things like Mounjaro could help alcoholics or help with cigarettes, and from my personal experience I would say no. It helps you for the first two or three months, but after that I quite liked drinking wine again.

Same with shopping. I didn’t feel like going online shopping during the first few months, but that’s back now.

Have your food preferences or sense of taste changed at all?

I don’t think there’s been any change in what I like. I don’t eat sweets and cakes at all and I never have. That hasn’t changed. I’ve always been the sort of person that likes the taste of fat and fatty foods. Chips, cheese, ice cream, crisps, lots of butter, those kind of things. I still love those; I just can’t eat quite as much.

I don’t feel like dark chocolate most of the time now. And if I did, I’d want better dark chocolate. Maybe that is a taste thing.

Have you developed any aversions?

I once threw up because I ate too much and it was the wrong thing. I went to the pub and had a pie. I think pastry is Mounjaro users’ nemesis. I’ve heard a lot of people say pastry is really bad.

Obsessed with Babybel

How important is protein to you and what’s your go-to protein?

I probably have two Babybel a day, which is partly protein. I might be lying to myself a little bit about that because I like cheese, but it’s cheese with protein, so all’s good. I also tend to have those little packs of chicken mini fillets in the fridge and if I just want to pick at something, I’ll have a chicken mini fillet out of the pack.

I wouldn’t have fussed about protein before. I would have just had a regular evening meal with some form of protein and for snacks I would have had something a bit more carb-y.

At the beginning, I was drinking quite a lot protein shakes because that was a good way of getting protein and something in you first thing in the morning. And then at some point, I’m going to say around Christmas, I couldn’t tolerate them anymore. I don’t think that’s a taste thing. I take a sip and think they taste nice, but if I were to drink a whole protein shake now, I think I would feel really sick for ages. They make me feel nauseous now.

Have you had any trouble tolerating meat or poultry while on Mounjaro?

No, not at all.

What about things like Greek yoghurt and cottage cheese?

I started with cottage cheese, but it kept going off and didn’t really eat it. I thought it was a good idea but it wasn’t.

I’ve never really eaten yoghurts very much, but in the last week I’ve started eating Greek yogurt. I was going to make tzatziki, so I had a little pack of four Greek yoghurts and I only needed one for the recipe. I had the other one and thought, ‘Oh, that’s really nice’ and bought some more. But that’s only in the last week. I don’t know if that’s a trend.

Other than that, I drink milk in tea and I sometimes put a little bit of cream in my tea because I really like the fatty mouthfeel. I’ve always done that and I still do that.

No more fizzy drinks or Vimto

What do you drink now and how has that changed?

I am so off fizzy drinks and I have been off fizzy drinks since I started Mounjaro. I used to be a two or three Diet Cokes a day person pre-gastric bypass. After the gastric bypass, I went down to one a day, whereas now I barely drink one or two a week. I just don’t ever fancy a fizzy drink.

Is it the taste or the carbonation?

I think it’s the carbonation. Although I’ve also gone off Vimto. I used to drink Vimto a lot and now I don’t drink it at all. Maybe it’s a bit too sweet for me now. All I’m drinking is tea in the morning and then flavoured still water for the rest of the day. I also started drinking herbal tea a bit, and miso. I make up a little pack of miso and drink it to have something savoury. I wasn’t doing that before.

What about alcohol?

As I said earlier, I didn’t really fancy wine the first few months but that’s back to normal now. But I used to like gin and tonic and have it every so often instead of a glass of wine, and I have not touched gin for six months. I do not fancy a gin at all. I think it’s the tonic – too sweet now.

Crisps remain a firm favourite

How have your snacking habits changed during your time on Mounjaro?

I wasn’t snacking at all in the weight loss phase and it was easy not to. Now, sometimes I’ve forgotten to eat and I think, ‘Oh, well, I need some calories. I’ll just have some crisps, then.’ I tend to be snacking rather than eating meals during the day, but I’m not having anything after dinner.

I’m also snacking on prunes quite a lot. That started doing the constipation thing and I just grew to quite like them. I know they’re quite healthy from a fibre point of view, so I’ve generally got a bag of prunes in the car and one on the coffee table.

If you fancied a treat, what would you have?

I’ve always liked crisps and I still do. If you offered me some really good dark chocolate, I would probably eat it. My husband bought me a Lindt Easter egg and that was very good and I ate it quite quickly. But, overall, I’m probably eating the same snack foods I was eating before, but I’m snacking less often.

How have your grocery shopping habits changed?

I do shopping online every week and the occasional top-up shop, usually for fruit, and that’s still the same. I don’t think the shopping has changed much at all other than buying more chicken, Babybel and protein shakes, and I don’t even drink those anymore. My 17-year-old gym bunny son has them now.

Buying much less ‘crap’ in convenience stores

What about convenience stores?

I’m definitely not buying crap in convenience stores. My university is two hours away, so when I’m driving home after a lecture, previously the food noise would be saying, ‘Get some crisps. It’s really boring sitting in the car, stop at a garage and get some crisps.’ Now, it’s easy to not do that and then eat something when I get home.

When you shop online or in store, are you paying more attention to what’s on the label?

I was always pretty engaged in that, but I probably pay a bit more attention to protein and fibre.

How have your family’s eating habits have changed as a result of your being on Mounjaro, if at all?

My eldest son steals my protein shakes and my younger son steals those chicken things out of the fridge, but that’s about it. I’m still cooking in the evening what I was cooking before.

We maybe eat a bit more vegetarian and beans – I’m a bit obsessed with Bold Beans and all the things she’s doing – but I don’t think that’s Mounjaro-related. It’s general learning about health and sustainability.

As a household, do you think you spend more on food now, less or the same?

The same. I’ve got three men in this household. My contribution to the household spend has always been fairly minimal compared to those three.

Foodie-friendly GLP-1 products

Some supermarkets have started selling products targeted at GLP-1 users. Are you aware of them and have you tried any?

Yes, I’m very aware of them and very interested in them. I’ve tried a salad from the M&S Nutrient Dense range and I thought that was a mastery of miscommunication because it was surprisingly delicious. The most important thing about it was it was really tasty and I wasn’t expecting it to be because they labour the nutrient density so much. I also tried the chia pudding from that range, but I didn’t like it at all. That chia texture is disgusting.

I tried some Applied Nutrition product in Morrisons, but I didn’t like them. Also, Applied Nutrition is a terrible name – it sounds like a chemistry lab; it’s all focusing so much on science.

When you create a product for people like us, don’t forget we’re in this situation because we love food. Sell me something that is for a food lover. I don’t mind the whole nutrient-dense thing, but I don’t want something in a white packet that looks like it’s some kind of medical product.

Some products are labelled ‘GLP-1 friendly’. Is that helpful or would you rather they weren’t labelled?

I’m not telling anybody I’m on a GLP-1. There’s so much judgement. My husband knows, two friends, and that’s it. Even my mum doesn’t know. I keep my pen in a little bag at the back of the vegetable drawer because I know nobody will find it in there. My boys aren’t going to look in there, are they?

So, no: I’m not picking something up that says GLP-1 on it.

More cautious about eating out

Tell me about takeaways. How have those changed for you?

We live in the sticks, so we can’t really get takeaways. I have bought fish and chips for the family maybe once or twice and had a small amount of it, and that was fine.

What about eating out?

I probably avoid it a little bit more than I did before. It’s harder to choose something. If I chose a main course, I know I wouldn’t be able to eat it all and I can’t bear the waste when I’ve paid for it. I might choose a starter instead, but I probably just wouldn’t go.

Do you think you get less enjoyment from food now? If so, do you miss the way food used to make you feel?

Yes, I enjoy it less and no, I don’t miss it. I used to get too much enjoyment from food and couldn’t stop. Now I’m slightly nauseous all the time and people talk about that as a side effect, but for me it’s the point because that’s why I’m not obsessing about food. I don’t miss it – I’ve not lost something.

For 54 years, food was guilt. If I had guests and I put a bowl of crisps on the table, I was always really conscious that I’m eating the most crisps. I’d be sitting there thinking about how I shouldn’t be eating so many crisps because we’re sharing and I’ve had the lion’s share. Now I’ll have a few crisps and everyone else will have some as well, and that’s it.

‘I know I’ll be on this for life’

You now take a low dose of Mounjaro to maintain your weight. What are your plans for long-term maintenance?

All this stuff everybody says about how it’s about training yourself into good habits, it’s utter bullshit. I always knew what I was supposed to do. I haven’t learned anything new. I always knew how it was meant to work, but my body didn’t allow me to do that.

So, when people say, ‘Oh, I’m going to stop when I’m at the weight I want to be’, I never thought that. I always thought I’m going on this and I will be on it for life, and I still think that.

New GLP-1 pills are coming out. Will you be tempted to switch from injections?

Yes, because it would be easier. I was quite nervous about the needles, but I’m over it now and don’t care too much, but a pill would still be easier because you don’t have to keep it in a fridge and there are no needles and a sharps box to get rid of.

Finally, how would you sum up your experience of being on a GLP-1?

It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s made me normal. I would recommend it to anybody.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

One of the most interesting things I’ve learned interviewing GLP-1 users for this newsletter is how much people’s habits and preferences change depending on how long they’ve been on the medication. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to told me they felt very different during the first few months of taking a GLP-1 versus later on.

This matches my own experience. If you had surveyed me about my eating habits three, six and 12 months after I started taking Mounjaro, you’d have got very different answers each time.

As GLP-1 use continues to increase, I believe we’ll need to start paying more attention to these nuances. Understanding GLP-1 users and developing products for them will require understanding not just who they are and what motivated them to start taking medication, but also where they are in their GLP-1 journey:

• Are you making products for people who are actively pursuing weight loss or those in maintenance?

• Are you interested in the behaviour of people who are still getting used to how the drugs make them feel or those who’ve settled into new routines?

• And are you talking about people who are in the process of titration or those who take the same dose every month?

A strange and volatile first few months

If you haven’t taken a GLP-1, it’s hard to imagine how strange and volatile the first few months can feel. Appetite suppression hits some people very hard, even on very low doses of the medication. It is not unusual for GLP-1 users to report having to force themselves to eat initially, before getting used to the drugs and settling into more normal eating patterns.

“The first few weeks it felt like I just had this blocker, I just couldn’t eat. […] I found I could manage to eat a rice cake with some cottage cheese and a king prawn, and it gradually built up from that.” - Anna from County Durham

For some, food preferences shift and food aversions wax and wane. I’ve written before about how I struggled to get enough protein in the early months of being on Mounjaro because I could no longer eat meat, poultry, eggs or most whey products. (I was mostly back to normal a few months later.) One person I interviewed said she suddenly felt grossed out by handling raw chicken. Other GLP-1 users told me they lost their taste for fizzy drinks, alcohol, milk or chocolate – sometimes permanently, sometimes just for short periods of time.

“I found that one day I could eat something – maybe salmon and rice – and then the next day I would be like, ‘Oh god, that makes me feel sick. I can’t eat it.’ It would change day by day.” - Jess from Sheffield

Side effects can be equally unpredictable. You’re fine – and then you aren’t. While side effects such as constipation, nausea and diarrhoea can strike at any point, my conversations with GLP-1 users suggest they’re more common in the early months, when people perhaps haven’t got their fibre and hydration dialled in or are still getting used to what they can and can’t handle.

“I was obsessed with fibre during the weight-loss phase because I had bad constipation. I’m less obsessed with it now.” - Ruth from the New Forest

Fear of side effects also causes some people to be extremely cautious with their food intake when they first start taking GLP-1s. If you keep reading horror stories on Facebook about curries and takeaway pizzas causing explosive diarrhoea or sulphur burps, you’re going to be a bit gun-shy. A few months down the line, when you better understand how your body responds to the medication, those foods may well be reintroduced.

Then there’s titration, ie the process of gradually increasing your dose of medication in order to lose weight. While some people feel the same no matter what dose they’re on, others notice big changes in appetite suppression, preferences or side effects whenever they go up.

“After I went up from 2.5mg to 5mg, I was on holiday in a resort where they had an all-you-can-eat buffet and there would be days when I’d be like, ‘I have to drink full-fat Coke because I can barely eat anything and I need some calories’.” - Laura from Norwich

Making sense of erratic eating habits

Because the first few weeks and months of taking a GLP-1 can feel so disruptive, you’re going to see eating and buying patterns that may not be indicative of how people behave once they’re used to being on the medication.

Someone struggling with constipation may be very receptive to products with high-fibre claims early on but lose interest once their symptoms ease. Conversely, someone with bad side effects may not have the energy and mental bandwidth to overhaul their diet until later. Several people told me they weren’t able to start focusing on things like protein and fruit & veg until they had been on a GLP-1 for several months.

“To begin with, protein wasn’t important to me at all. I was just trying to deal with the absolute seismic changes to my eating habits and everything else that goes along with taking a GLP-1.” - Jane from High Wycombe

The difference between weight-loss phase and maintenance also comes up a lot in the interviews I’ve done. People who have stopped titrating and found a dose they’re comfortable with report more predictable eating habits than those changing dose on a regular basis. GLP-1 users also tend to lower their dose once they reach maintenance, leading to more normal appetite.

For food companies looking to develop products for GLP-1 users, figuring out precisely who you are targeting, and at what stage of the GLP-1 journey, is therefore critical. People in active weight loss vs maintenance have potentially very different needs in terms of calorie density, digestibility, palatability and mitigation of side effects.

Granular data is also key. If you are trying to understand GLP-1’s impact on your business and category, surveys with “1,000 GLP-1 users” may be of limited use. Knowing whether the people you’re surveying are in weight loss or maintenance, and whether they’ve been on GLP-1s for more or less than six months, could minimise the noise from the chaotic early days of GLP-1 use and help crystallise longer-term shifts in consumption and behaviour.

The medication can take a while to get used to. New eating habits and routines don’t form overnight. Just as there isn’t one ‘GLP-1 user’, there is no simple ‘before’ and ‘after’ with GLP-1 use.

Food Noise roundup

A selection of interesting news, analysis and commentary about GLP-1 medication, often with a food industry bent.

Chocolate and ice cream: In an article about The Magnum Ice Cream Company, Food Navigator reports comments from an equity analyst suggesting that although many food sectors will be affected by GLP-1s, “ice cream and chocolate are among the least impacted by the drugs”.

Potato problems: The New York Times reports that potato growers in countries like Belgium are struggling to shift their spuds. Several factors are at play, including changing consumer preferences due to GLP-1s in countries like the US. “These medicines often lead people to significantly cut back not just their caloric intake but also their desire for processed and fried foods, like potato chips and fries.”

GLP-1 marketing: Instead of slapping a ‘GLP-1 friendly’ label on products, US marketing experts interviewed by Beverage Daily argue food companies are better off highlighting benefits that appeal to both GLP-1 users and non-users. Terms such as ‘balanced’ and ‘nutrient-rich’ can get the point across without referring directly to GLP-1s.

Boost for physical retail: Clothing retailers and shopping malls could be in for a GLP-1-related boost, as newly slimmed-down consumers rediscover the joy of clothes shopping, an article in the FT suggests. It says: “While the increased sales ought to benefit apparel groups across the board, the joyful hunt for new clothes that can accompany weight loss presents a particular opportunity for real-life shopping. GLP-1-driven shoppers are rethinking their entire wardrobes, so they may be especially inclined to go to places where it is easy to find lots of different kinds of clothing and compare sizes and brands.”

GLP-1s meet wearables: Oura rings can now be used to track GLP-1 doses, weight changes, side effects and bloodwork results. A new GLP-1 Insights feature inside the Oura app will initially be available in the US, India and UAE.

Reddit analysis reveals new side effects: Researchers analysed 400,000 Reddit posts about GLP-1s and found several potential side effects not previously picked up in clinical trials, including irregular periods and fatigue.

EU approval for GLP-1 pill moves closer: The European Medicines Agency has recommended that the tablet version of Wegovy, developed by Novo Nordisk, be given the regulatory green light.

More reta hype: Eli Lilly’s latest GLP-1 drug, called retatrutide, made headlines after the company announced results from clinical trials showing patients lose an average of 28.3% of their body weight – much higher than Mounjaro or Wegovy and rivalling the results seen with bariatric surgery.

Many thanks to James for sharing his experience.

James, 32, is a software engineer from Cramlington. He lives on his own and started taking Mounjaro in April 2026.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. ‘I’m in total control of what I eat now’

2. A new-found love of fruit

3. The air-fryer is collecting dust

4. Much less processed meat

5. No big value packs of chocolate

6. Fewer hot drinks, and hold the milk

7. Checking labels for sugar content

8. Sceptical of high-protein products

9. Researching menus before going out

10. Learning you don’t have to clear every plate

11. Considering staying on a GLP-1 longer-term

‘I’m in total control of what I eat now’

You’re about six weeks into taking a GLP-1. What’s the biggest change so far?

Probably the lack of cravings. I was always someone who needed to eat something or needed to know what I’d be eating next. If I was doing something, I’d have to plan what food I would have with it. If I was on the computer or meeting friends, I’d be eating a snack. If I had a long meeting at work, I’d need a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits or maybe even a packet of biscuits. All of that’s gone.

When I do my food shop now, I just go in and buy what I need to buy. I still see the crisps and the biscuits and the shit food, but I don’t care about it anymore. I might buy a bar of chocolate, but I won’t buy the four-pack.

Has anything surprised you about your experience?

It’s nowhere near as bad as what I was expecting it to be. I thought it would be like a brick wall and you’d have to force yourself to eat. I heard some horror stories from the internet and social media, but I still want to eat food; it’s just that I’m in total control of what I eat now.

Being able to plan what I eat and actually stick to it is so much easier now. Before, I’d have all the good intentions and then I’d think, ‘I’ve had a good day today, I’m going to treat myself’.

I expected it to cost loads of money, but I’m saving way more just not buying all the shit. All those £3 meal deals and bars of chocolates quickly add up and it’s far more than I’m now spending on Mounjaro.

Have you had to work around any side effects?

No. The first week I had no desire to eat at all, but I think that was more of a psychological or placebo effect. Once I was into it, I was able to eat normally, albeit a lot less.

Does your appetite fluctuate depending on how recently you’ve had your jab?

I always inject myself Tuesday evening. Probably Wednesday, Thursday I feel the biggest hit to my appetite. I can still eat, but I don’t really want to eat. From Friday to the following Monday it’s okay and by the Tuesday morning I could eat whatever I wanted.

When you first got your prescription, were you given any advice on what to eat?

There was advice available, but I’d already spoken to family members who’ve done Mounjaro and people at the gym who gave me some tips for what to eat: higher protein, lower carbs and cutting out the fatty foods. I also saw a lot of advice saying to watch out for things like curry and rich foods.

Do you count or keep an eye on calories?

No, I’m more making sure I eat enough because there can be days when I’m quite busy and on a couple of occasions I’ve thought, ‘Shit, I’ve not eaten anything today’. Or I’ve only had some porridge or cereal for breakfast and nothing for lunch and then it’s late evening and I realise I need to eat something.

Do you take any supplements?

I initially took a fibre supplement and I tried some vitamins for a few days, but because I’m eating so much new, healthy food I’ve stopped taking them. I’d rather do it with food.

A new-found love of fruit

Are there any foods or food groups you eat a lot more of now?

I eat a lot more fruits. I’ve always been funny with fruit – it’s that touchy-feely thing – but now I want to swap all the sugary stuff for nice bits of fruit. I’m having passionfruit with yoghurt, which I never had before. Or I’ll have mango. I’m more up for trying new fruits, and the sweetness from the fruit has replaced that sugary hit I used to get from chocolate and biscuits.

I also eat a lot more wholemeal bread, for the fibre.

What do you eat less of?

I find dairy will fill us up too much. I won’t necessarily feel sick, but I’m bloated afterwards. I’ve never been one for milky coffees anyway, but I’ll now have an Americano or a black coffee. I also used to be a big fan of fancy yoghurts and would have at least two for a treat, whereas now I might have some plain yoghurt with some fruit and that’s more than enough.

What about cottage cheese? Some people on GLP-1s eat a lot of that.

It doesn’t appeal. I’ve never really tried it, so it might be really good and it’s just the fear of the unknown, but lumpy cheese – urgh.

Have your food preferences or palate changed at all or have you developed any aversions?

No, I’ve not noticed any changes.

The air-fryer is collecting dust

Tell me about your main three meals of the day. How have they changed?

They are probably more substantial because I’m snacking so much less. I’ll have meat or fish and some salad or a sandwich that’s full of the good stuff. I used to just have four slices of white bread with ham and cheese, whereas now I’ll have two slices of wholemeal bread, a good chunk of meat and then cucumbers, tomatoes and salad.

If I’m busy in the morning I might skip breakfast, but I’ll have a bigger lunch to make up for it and then probably a smaller dinner.

Are you doing more or less cooking now?

I still do the same amount of cooking, but I probably cook more similar meals now. Meat or fish and some steamed veg, typically, whereas before I might have made something like spaghetti bolognese. I’ve swapped the big side dishes for microwave-steamed veg because it’s really convenient and there’s not a lot of crap in there.

I’ve not used my air-fryer at all since starting Mounjaro, whereas before my air-fryer was my main oven. I’d have chicken Kyiv and some potato-y thing, whereas now I’ve got the meat in the frying pan and the steamed veg in the microwave.

Much less processed meat

How important is protein to you and what do you do to ensure you get enough?

I eat quite a lot of meat. But whereas before I’d eat a lot of processed meat – chicken burgers and the stuff dipped in bread or batter – now it’s good, unprocessed meats like pork chops or fillets of fish. I bought some protein shakes, but because they have lots of dairy in them I just feel sick afterwards. They’re an emergency meal replacement rather than a snack or meal in themselves.

I once had one of those protein microwave meals because I needed something quick and I’ve seen a lot more protein stuff in the shops – things like protein Mars bars – but mostly I try to have good food. I also have nuts, the plain unsalted ones, rather than the really tasty ones.

What’s your go-to protein?

My main meat source would be either pork or chicken. I’ll have mince once a week and I don’t buy a lot of steak. I’ve had one burger since being on Mounjaro – one of those shop-bought fresh patties – and that was fine. But whereas before I could have two of them and chips, this was just a burger. Still in the bun and with all the salad-y bits, but one was enough now which it wouldn’t have been previously.

Do you keep an eye on fibre?

It’s definitely something I pay more attention to now. I’ve swapped white bread for wholemeal bread and I will check the label to make sure it’s not just brown bread but proper wholemeal bread. I do a lot more fruit and that obviously has fibre, and a lot of fresh veg. And as a backup I still have those fibre supplements.

No big value packs of chocolate

How have your snacking habits changed?

I snack a lot less and when I do it’s much healthier snacks.

I used to snack on crisps, chocolate or biscuits. Or, and I know this sounds stupid, but a classic snack for me used to be a meal deal. If I was doing my big food shop, I’d buy a meal deal because it’s good value for money and I’d have the biggest sandwich and the biggest bar of chocolate and the biggest drink. That was basically a day’s calories, which is terrifying, and I could have two of those sometimes.

I would do a lot of late-night snacking. I’d be watching the telly and I’d need something – it could be a sandwich or a big bowl of cereal. That’s pretty much stopped. I’ll still have a bit of toast, but instead of having two slices full of butter and jam I’ll have a single slice with much less butter and a banana with it.

Do you still have a desire for treats?

Before Mounjaro I’d look at the sweet aisle and biscuit aisle and think, ‘I want all of this’. It was always ‘What do I pick?’ rather than ‘I want this thing’. Now it’s like, ‘I don’t want any of this’, which is really surprising because I’ve always had a sweet tooth. I’ve always been the guy with chocolate on the brain, whereas now a square of dark chocolate would do.

A friend gave me some raspberries with dark chocolate on recently and they were amazing, but the two I had were more than enough whereas before I’d have needed the bag.

If I did want a treat, I’d probably buy a single bar of chocolate now, a nice fancy one like one of the Marks & Spencer cappuccino ones. Before, I would always buy the best-value stuff, so I would buy a four-pack of Mars bars instead of a single one and eat all four.

I’m buying a lot less, but I’m buying nicer stuff now.

Just for treats or would you say that’s true of what you buy in general?

In general. I buy nicer fruit and nicer meat as well. I buy the top-shelf meat now – the Tesco Finest stuff – whereas before I would buy a three-pack of something that wasn’t quite as nice.

Fewer hot drinks, and hold the milk

What do you drink throughout the day and how has this changed?

Already before Mounjaro I realised I drink a lot of fizzy drinks. I could easily finish four or five tins of pop in a sitting, so I tried to fix that and replaced it with filtered water in the fridge, which is just the best thing ever. Now I mostly drink filtered water, tea and coffee and a bit of squash if I need something to taste.

I always used to have a cuppa on the go and now I’ll have like one or two nice cuppas a day. It’s no longer that constant need for hot drinks.

I’ve always preferred the less milky coffees and even more so now. When I used to do the Costa drive-through I would get a cappuccino, whereas now it’s just an Americano with a splash of milk. A few times they’ve forgotten the milk and I don’t mind at all.

And before Mounjaro I could have killed a McDonald’s milkshake without any hesitation, whereas now I couldn’t think of anything worse.

What about alcohol?

I’ve never been a big drinker anyway. I’ve had one pint with my dad since Mounjaro and it was fine, but I don’t really want to drink because of the liver issues I’ve had. If someone asked me to go to the pub, I probably would still go and have a soft drink or an alcohol-free beer to keep my liver in check. I don’t mind telling people I’m on Mounjaro and that’s why I can’t drink.

Checking labels for sugar content

Have you changed where you do your food shop since starting Mounjaro?

I still shop in the same places, but I might go to Marks’s or Waitrose now to get a few more nice things.

Shopping takes so much less time now because I’m going in, buying the meat and buying the veg and maybe some milk and then I’m done. Whereas before I’d look around the aisles for something I might want. I’d go in wanting to buy milk and I’d walk out with some biscuits or a cake or some sugary stuff. All the stuff they advertise at you, I don’t see that anymore. I mean, I see it, but it’s not going in.

Do you pay more attention to what’s on the packets and labels?

Because I’m buying far less processed food, there isn’t a lot of stuff on the labels to look at anymore. I look at how much sugar is in stuff, especially drinks, whereas before I wouldn’t have looked at that. I would have just thought, ‘That looks tasty, I’ll have that.’ I’ve definitely put stuff back thinking, ‘Oh shit, that’s a lot more sugar than I thought’. I quite like iced tea and that’s got more sugar than I realised.

I went to a friend’s birthday party a few weeks ago and if I’m driving I’d usually buy all the nice, fancy adult soft drinks. The rhubarb presses and that sort of stuff. I checked how much sugar was in that and I decided to swap some of the drinks I was going to buy for some sparkling water with fruit in.

Do you find you’re buying less from convenience stores?

I do most of my food shopping at the big supermarket, but I might pop in to get milk and bread during the week. Before, if I did buy milk and bread, I might look to see what else is on a good offer. Now I don’t even look anymore.

Sceptical of high-protein products

Some supermarkets now sell products targeted at GLP-1 users. Have you seen or tried any?

I’ve not seen anything specific around the GLP-1 stuff. I’ve seen a lot of high-protein ready meals, drinks and snacks. I’ve looked at them and thought about them, but I don’t mind cooking and I’d rather just have the meat and steamed veg. I’d rather eat natural, healthy food. There’s also that question of, ‘Where is this protein coming from?’

Is there anything that would appeal to you?

I’ve tried a few protein chocolate bars and I’d love one of those that doesn’t taste like crap. I’ve tried three or four of them. One was just oats compacted, so it was mess everywhere. One was like a block of fudge, but not nice fudge. One was like someone had described what a chocolate bar is and they’d made it based off what they’d heard, not a recipe.

But generally I’m not super-trendy on things. I’m aware of some food trends that are out there – I’ve seen matcha doing the rounds, though I don’t know why one would drink matcha – and I’ve seen things like Starbucks doing the protein foams. I’ve tried them once and thought it’s all right, but it’s no different to milk and I’d rather just have that.

I’ve seen a lot more of the big chocolate brands like Mars and Snickers doing high-protein bars and I’ve been tempted, but for £3 or £4 a bar I’d rather just have a banana.

Researching menus before going out

Tell me about things like takeaways and eating out of the home. How has that changed for you?

If I was driving late in the evening, maybe after I’d been to the gym or seen a friend, I’d drop off at McDonald’s. That glow of the golden arches would have drawn us in. And that’s all stopped, even though I thought that would be a really hard habit to shake. I just don’t think to go in there now.

There’s a kebab shop around the corner where I used to go for a big chicken doner kebab wrap, and that has stopped as well. I’m aware now that I was eating it more for the emotional satisfaction than for sustenance.

What about eating out at restaurants?

I’ll still go out to eat, but I’m much more conscious of what I’m picking. I used to always choose whatever was biggest and fanciest on the menu, but now I’ll have something much smaller and if it comes with chips I’ll give them to someone else.

I’m also more likely to do a bit of research beforehand, check the menu, so I have a rough idea of what I can pick. I don’t want to be sitting in the restaurant analysing everything and needing five minutes to weigh up the pros and cons of every dish.

What would you order now?

Lighter stuff. I’ll have meat with salad. I would avoid potatoes, especially roast potatoes and wedges. I’d probably avoid pasta too because that’s quite heavy, stodgy and very filling. Before, if I had a Sunday dinner, I would have the biggest plate - three meats and everything – whereas now I’ll have a regular person’s portion.

I’ve always liked big portions. I used to be like the family bin – if we went out and someone left something, I’d finish it. I’d eat all the scraps. Now I’m very good at saying to people, ‘No, thank you’. People have definitely noticed a change in me.

I go fishing quite a lot and before I’d have a packet of biscuits in one pocket and some rustly things in the other, and that’s all gone. I now take a salad. My friend thought I was mad.

Learning you don’t have to clear every plate

How has being on Mounjaro changed your relationship with friends and family more generally?

My mum is on Mounjaro and my sister is on Mounjaro, and food was probably our love language. If I went to their house, I would take something. And if they came round, they’d bring something. We’ve stopped doing that. I might take something to my parents’ house once a month now, whereas before every single visit I’d have some nice Marks & Spencer’s biscuits or some cakey thing I’d seen.

With your mum, your sister and now you on Mounjaro, how has this affected your dad?

My parents will share a big meal, something like a big fancy lasagne, and it used to be that they had half and half and a big garlic bread. Now my dad gets less garlic bread because they don’t buy garlic bread anymore, but he’ll have two-thirds or three-quarters of the lasagne and my mum will have a small portion. I think he’s put weight on, actually, just eating whatever my mum doesn’t want.

He’s definitely grazing a lot more because he needs something to tickle that fancy, or he’ll go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea and have a quick biscuit with it because I don’t think he wants to eat in front of us.

My dad is from that generation right after World War II where you didn’t waste food. Even if you didn’t like it, you finished it. And me and my sister, we both have that attitude as well. If you’re given something, you will eat it.

In my second week of being on a GLP-1, I was given a cake and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t say no to this. I can’t upset the person.’ But now I can say, ‘No, thank you. I’m good.’ Being open about being on a GLP-1 helps because it makes it clear I’m not rejecting the person.

Planning to stay on a GLP-1 longer-term

You’ve only been on Mounjaro for a few weeks, but do you have any plans for long-term maintenance? How long do you expect to stay on it?

My main inspiration for going on a GLP-1 was I had a blood test and the results weren’t great. I had high cholesterol and fatty liver, and with my family’s medical history I thought I need to sort this out quickly. So, the initial plan was to lose the weight as quickly as possible and stay on Mounjaro as short as possible. I thought I would step up to the maximum dose I could stomach, lose all the weight and then come off it as fast as I can.

Now, I will probably stay on it longer term. My results have been amazing – I lost nearly two stone in six weeks, which is mental – but I’ve read more into it now and if you just stop the Mounjaro without a phase-out period, you’ll just put the weight back on. So I think I’ll want to do a longer phase-out period to reinforce these new behaviours and eating habits.

Previously, I’ve done Slimming World, calorie counting, keto and other fad diets, and I would have a short burst of amazing success and then I’d put it all back on. Now I’m more focused on changing behaviours and I want to keep those behaviours alongside a healthy lifestyle where I can lift lots of weights and go for walks. I wouldn’t want to go back to how I was before. I would take that maintenance, that phase-out phase, a lot more seriously now than I did before.

Overall, how has your relationship with food changed?

Before I started Mounjaro, I was starting to realise that I was eating certain things just because it had become a habit and I wasn’t really enjoying it. I’d eat the big sharing bag of crisps and think, ‘I didn’t enjoy any of that’. Now I am enjoying the foods I am eating, including foods I would not have enjoyed before, like fruits.

But the biggest change is that I’m so much more in control of what I eat. I can still choose to have treats, but I mostly choose to eat healthy stuff, whereas before if I had a salad, I’d have needed a chocolate bar as a reward afterwards.

I don’t have that big desire to snack and I eat to live rather than live to eat, which sounds really cheesy but is true.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

Many thanks to Laura for sharing her experience.

Laura, 41, is a writer and novelist. She lives in Norwich with her husband, nine-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. Laura took Mounjaro from April 2025 until early April 2026.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In this interview

1. From craving sugar to craving refreshment

2. Protein comes first

3. A thirst for water and clearer teas

4. Drinking alcohol felt ‘like I’d been drugged’

5. No more ‘nice little things to eat’ while watching a boxset

6. A huge drop in takeaway spend

7. Being comfortable just ordering a starter

8. Life after Mounjaro

From craving sugar to craving refreshment

How would you describe your experience of being on Mounjaro?

Hugely positive. Not just because of the weight loss, but to have that food noise switched off for the first time in my life was absolutely revelatory. That was a big deal.

Was there anything that surprised you about the experience?

I was expecting more side effects. I’d read lots of horror stories and convinced myself I’d be really nauseous, I wouldn’t be able to look after the children and it would be a lot of pain for perhaps not very much gain. And, actually, I was really lucky and had barely any side effects, and the gains were very significant straight away.

How did your eating habits change?

I didn’t feel hungry a lot of the time and I would eat much smaller meals. I wouldn’t be able to finish a portion of the size I had previously been eating quite happily.

At various points, I’d have to remind myself to eat. After I went up from 2.5mg to 5mg, I was on holiday in a resort where they had an all-you-can-eat buffet and there would be days when I’d be like, ‘I have to drink full-fat Coke because I can barely eat anything and I need some calories’. That was so weird because if I had been there a year before, I would have thought, ‘Brilliant, so much lovely food. I’ll put on some weight, but I’ll lose it again when I get home.’ That was totally gone.

There are were also really weird things. If you took me to an ice cream shop previously, I would always have chocolate or caramel – sweet flavours. Now I can see the appeal of a sorbet or something fruity and light, whereas previously I couldn’t understand why people like fruit-flavoured ice cream. I went from craving sugar to craving refreshment.

Were your early months on Mounjaro different or did you feel pretty much the same throughout?

Some of the changes were more pronounced at the beginning. I had a real aversion to sweet things for a while, but over time I managed to push through that and came to like cake again.

I never got back the same desire to sit and eat a massive bar of chocolate, but later I could have a pudding if we went out. At the beginning, I couldn’t have stomached it.

Was there anything you ate more of?

I had a lot more fruit and veg. I did used to eat those a lot anyway, but I wouldn’t previously have thought, ‘Oh, I’m really looking forward to eating some mango’.

Protein comes first

How important was protein and what did you do to ensure you got enough?

I was very conscious of my protein intake, partly because of what I knew from having worked with PTs and lifting weights. I wouldn’t say I was craving protein, but from early on I was trying to get most of my calories from protein. It would be protein first and then fruit and veg to get my vitamins, and carbs would take a massive backseat because I couldn’t fit them in. I would have a chicken breast and salad, and that was the meal.

What was your go-to protein while on Mounjaro?

I make my own protein shakes and have those in the morning. I sometimes found those easier when I wasn’t feeling hungry. I would also eat quite a lot of chicken because it’s such a good protein source, although there are some frustrations with that because I want to buy as ethically as I can, but that is very expensive.

Some people struggle to eat and handle meat on GLP-1s or they suddenly find cooking smells off-putting. Did you experience this?

Thankfully not because that sounds really annoying.

What about dairy products?

I have a weird relationship with dairy anyway. I try not to eat too much of it because it doesn’t agree with me very well, but at the same time I was eating more cottage cheese – because protein.

Overall, I was probably trying to cut back a bit because I was conscious of the digestive problems that can come with dairy, combined with the Mounjaro. I try to have oat milk some of the time, but it’s difficult because I don’t love any kind of milk alternatives. There is a very ultra-processed element to them and some are better than others.

Did you do anything in particular around fibre?

Constipation was definitely a problem at points, so I bought some linseed and tried that, but I don’t think I was really focused on fibre.

Did you take any supplements?

The place I bought Mounjaro through sent out a care package at the beginning which included something for wind, something for nausea and something for constipation.

A thirst for water and clearer teas

How did your hydration and drinking habits change?

I did a lot of reading before I started and really did try to drink a lot of water and use electrolytes. That might be why I didn’t have many side effects, because a lot of the nausea comes from dehydration.

I probably drank more coffee and tea while on Mounjaro because I would almost be drinking it instead of snacking. And I would have clearer teas. I would have something called genmaicha, which is a green tea with rice. I would drink that a lot more.

Previously, I would drink more soft drinks sometimes of an evening or when I was out, and my taste for that went away. I would rather have sparkling water. I think that’s to do with the sweetness and the fact that it didn’t feel as refreshing. A lot of the time, what I wanted was to be refreshed.

Drinking alcohol felt ‘like I’d been drugged’

What about alcohol?

I did try to drink on Mounjaro and that didn’t work very well. I don’t drink very much anyway, but towards the turn of last year I went to the pub with friends. I thought I’d be very sensible and have vodka and tonic because that is the cleanest drink I could possibly think of.

So, I had a single vodka and tonic and I started to feel so weird. It was like I’d been drugged. I went through all the stages of drunkenness: I drank half of it and immediately felt so wasted I thought I’d fall over. Then I felt very hot and had to go outside, then I thought I might be sick, then the room was spinning around and then I’d be fine again for five minutes. It would cycle through this. It was like living your drunkenness in fast-forward mode. It was such a weird experience. After that I just decided I won’t drink.

No more nice little things to eat while watching a boxset

How did your grocery shopping habits change?

The aisles I’d go down to buy nice little things to eat while watching a boxset – crisps, chocolate, sweets – I just wouldn’t really go down those aisles at all. I wouldn’t buy desserts most of the time. I would buy more meat. I wouldn’t buy things like fizzy drinks. And what little alcohol I was buying before I’d be buying even less.

Would you still buy and eat treats?

For a while I almost felt like I ought to be having treats even though I didn’t want them. If I had to do a really difficult piece of writing, in the past I would have had chocolate and crisps. At the beginning I sometimes wondered if I should be having something like a bowl of blueberries, just to have that hand-to-mouth thing. You’re so wired to get that reward loop going. But after a while, I’d get that treat feeling from having a herbal tea. Which is a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Did you pay more attention to packets and labels while shopping?

I don’t think I did, except perhaps for protein. I have been trying to avoid ultra-processed foods for a long time and make a lot of stuff myself, so it’s less of an issue really.

Some supermarkets now sell products targeted at GLP-1 users. Were you aware of them and did they appeal to you?

I think a certain subset of those products probably would appeal to me. If I’m having a really busy week and I just want to get the children to bed, sit down, watch the TV and have a really quick meal, I would be looking for something that was as minimally processed as possible. Something like those M&S protein ranges, where they have some chicken and edamame beans – that sort of stuff. I would occasionally buy something like that, but it was more about the protein than about the portion size for me.

A huge drop in takeaway spend

How did your being on Mounjaro change your family’s eating habits?

We eat separately a lot of the time anyway because the children want to eat when they get back from school. I would say the main change is probably to do with what my husband and I would eat of an evening. We might previously have got a takeaway or something like a Bigham’s meal, which would have been too much for me to have on Mounjaro. I was much more likely to say, ‘Let’s just have a stir-fry’ or I’d buy some soup, so we’d have soup for dinner like some Dickensian orphans.

The perfect Friday night in.

I know! I should say that my husband was also trying to lose weight at the same time but without taking Mounjaro. So it wasn’t that he really wanted a takeaway but wasn’t allowed to. But I think my habits changing gave him the impetus to also change what he’s doing.

Tell me more about what happened with takeaways.

Our takeaway spend dropped significantly, to barely anything. Before I was on Mounjaro we would have a takeaway once or twice a week and on Mounjaro maybe twice over a year. It was a huge decrease.

Being comfortable just ordering a starter

What about going to restaurants and pubs?

It costs so much money now that we don’t do it very often anyway. I would say it probably stayed the same, but we wouldn’t have a bottle of wine when we went out and I’d be comfortable saying, ‘I’ll just order a starter’.

My own perception is that places are becoming slightly more aware of people needing to eat smaller meals. I don’t know if they mind you just ordering a starter, but I certainly wouldn’t worry about doing that now in the way I might have once done. I felt like I had a medical reason for it, so it felt more legitimate.

Life after Mounjaro

You’ve now come off Mounjaro. What prompted that?

I got down to pretty much where I wanted to be. I take the BMI with a massive pinch of salt, but I was basically in the healthy BMI bracket. I did initially try to come off from 5mg and just go cold turkey, but I could really feel my blood sugar drop and I would get faint and dizzy. So, instead, I tried to come off more gradually. It was definitely a cost consideration as well. I thought, ‘It’s such a lot of money, I’ll see if I can do it without the jabs now’.

But I’m still not sure I’m going to stay off. Once they become more widely available when the licence runs out, which I think is only a few years away, and they’re cheap and perhaps in pill form – although I don’t mind jabbing – I would absolutely take them again because it’s just an easy way to not have to worry about food. I have no qualms about taking them, but I do have qualms about paying through the nose for it.

How are you finding maintenance?

I do have to watch what I eat more now and it’s quite a hard thing to balance because I don’t want to become obsessed. At the same time, I have put on a couple of kilos over the last four to five weeks and I don’t want my weight to creep up and up and up. If it keeps going up, I’ll go back on Mounjaro again.

But I can feel that the food noise is less than it used to be. It’s much quieter. Previously, if I wanted a croissant I would think about going to the bakery all morning. That’s gone. However, the appetite suppression Mounjaro was giving me is no longer happening and so I’m becoming aware of how few calories you actually need to maintain weight. It feels like a period of adjustment.

Looking back, do you think you enjoyed food less while on Mounjaro?

At points I did enjoy it less. I think what I missed was having an easy thing to do to self-soothe or reward myself. Because food is such a shortcut: you’re having a bad day, so you eat a piece of chocolate and you feel better.

But I also now know how much better I feel at a lighter weight. Before, I thought, ‘I’m me regardless, it doesn’t matter if it’s at a lower or higher weight’. Having got to a lower weight and feeling so much better in myself – I can walk uphill without getting out of breath – I now want to reward myself less with food because being a lower weight is the bigger reward.

If you take a GLP-1 and would be willing to talk to me about how your eating and food shopping habits have changed, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at julia@juliaglotz.com

We often hear that ‘every bite counts’ in the GLP-1 era, but calories seem to be missing from the equation. Many supermarket meals targeted at GLP-1 users are relatively high in protein, fibre and micronutrients but surprisingly low in energy density: barely more than 100 calories per 100g in some cases.

As someone who takes a GLP-1 and speaks to a lot of GLP-1 users, I find this intriguing. Are we sure people on weight-loss medication want such aggressive calorie control? Who are these products really targeted at? And if I bought a ready meal described as ‘GLP-1 friendly’, what sort of calorie density should I expect?

It’s easy to assume people who take a GLP-1 want lower-calorie foods. After all, they’re looking to lose weight, which requires a caloric deficit. But the appetite-suppressing effects of the drugs, and the fact they affect different people in different ways, mean things are a little more complicated.

There are definitely GLP-1 users who want and need calorie control. The medication gives them a helping hand, but they must still keep a close eye on calories to lose weight. The GLP-1 friendly ranges currently on offer in UK supermarkets make a lot of sense in this case. They come in smaller portions, are calorie-controlled and tick a few key boxes on nutrition.

But not everyone is in the same boat. For some people, the drugs essentially take care of the caloric deficit, no calorie counting required. In fact, some GLP-1 users experience such strong appetite suppression that they struggle to consume enough calories and end up losing too much weight too quickly, especially when they first start on the drugs or go up in dose. Here’s how some of the people I’ve interviewed describe the experience:

If that’s the situation you find yourself in, a 300g ready meal that gives you fewer than 300 calories isn’t helpful. If anything, you want foods that are low in volume and high in calorie density, so you can get away with eating a tiny amount and still take in enough energy to function. A 300g ready meal providing 600 calories would be closer to the mark, so long as it also offered good overall nutrition, including protein and fibre, and limited fat, salt and sugar.

I don’t see any of the current lineup of GLP-1 friendly products in UK supermarkets meeting this need. They simply don’t contain enough calories in my view and seem to be targeted overwhelmingly at people who want high-protein, lower-calorie options, even though there are already plenty of existing products on the market that fit that bill.

Where are the products that are both calorie-dense and nutritious?

I can think of a few reasons why current GLP-1 ranges are big on calorie control. It could be that’s what the majority of GLP-1 users want and there simply aren’t enough people struggling with calorie intake in the way I’ve described. (I haven’t seen data on what percentage of GLP-1 users count calories, but I’d love to know.) Or perhaps that struggle is temporary, so it doesn’t make sense to develop specific products.

Scale – or lack thereof – is likely a challenge more generally. Although GLP-1 injections are becoming more common in the UK, the total number of users is still small. I imagine what’s commercially viable right now is products that appeal to both GLP-1 users and people who aren’t taking medication, and your average health-conscious shopper doesn’t want tiny portions that are unexpectedly high in calories.

All of which means there is a genuine health need that’s going unaddressed. Rapid weight loss caused by excessive caloric deficits is a risk factor in several side effects and health complications, including muscle loss and gallstones. It’s important that people on weight-loss medication lose weight at a reasonable rate, and it would be good to have products that support them in that effort, mainly by making it easier to consume enough calories in the face of strong appetite suppression.

Perhaps it’s just a question of time. If GLP-1 use continues to increase and economies of scale improve, we may see more nutritious, calorie-dense options that cater to the subset of GLP-1 users who are struggling to eat enough. This could potentially require a shift – or greater specificity – in what gets labelled as ‘GLP-1 friendly’: nutritious foods that are calorie controlled or nutritious foods that are calorie dense? Because for users it’s quite important to understand if the product they’re buying will help them keep their energy up – or leave them feeling full with only 280 calories to show for it.

In the meantime, I think it’s worth remembering that portion control and calorie control aren’t the same thing; not every person on a GLP-1 is counting calories; and while there is plenty of overlap with existing health trends, there are areas where the needs of GLP-1 users and non-users genuinely diverge. Calories is one of them.

Food Noise roundup

A selection of interesting news, analysis and commentary about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, often with a food industry bent.

GLP-1 and meat: 43% of UK GLP-1 users report eating more high-protein foods such as meat and fish, according to a YouGov/AHDB poll. AHDB says weight-loss medication will create opportunities for red meat but also potential challenges, especially if users cut down on processed meats and takeaways.

Impact on snacking: 64% of GLP-1 users in the UK snack less than they did before taking weight-loss medication, reports The Grocer citing data from Worldpanel. To stay relevant, snack brands need to provide clear nutritional benefits and sensory excitement.

GLP-1 friendly aisles: In the US, some retailers are considering creating dedicated aisles for GLP-1 friendly products, reports Bloomberg in an article that also explores how frozen TV dinners are being reinvented for people who take weight-loss medication.

A pill for maintenance: Foundayo, Eli Lilly’s new oral GLP-1, has been making plenty of headlines after research suggested it could help people maintain weight loss after stopping GLP-1 injections. (I wrote about the potential role of GLP-1 pills in maintenance a few weeks ago, here.) One thing that struck me reading the media coverage: some articles make it sound as if moving onto Foundayo means people are “coming off the drugs”. They’re still on a GLP-1; it’s just a pill instead of a jab.

Dental care gets a boost: Partly thanks to GLP-1 users, sales of toothbrushes, toothpaste and mouthwash are doing well in the US, Circana reports. It says weight-loss medication is increasingly having an impact on non-food categories, including oral care, apparel and wearable tech.

For your watch list: The New York Times’s Ezra Klein Show did a super-interesting episode on the science behind GLP-1s, the weird ways they seem to work (and what we still don’t understand about them) as well as their cultural impact.

Nutrition support: Nourish, a US nutrition startup, has raised $100m in funding. Part of its proposition involves providing nutrition guidance and support to GLP-1 users to maximise healthy weight loss and make results easier to maintain.

Spotted online: An advert from Biotiful (pictured below) that gestures towards GLP-1 use without being explicit about it.