INTRO Hello from a New UK Member

[Damo89]

Good Afternoon All,

Let me get the dull bit out of the way first — a little background on me. I'm 38 in a few months. My childhood was spent in poverty, eating cheap food that had no nutritional value. At school I was around 12st (77kg) while standing 6'1. After leaving school the weight started climbing even though my diet didn't really change. Back then I was doing 60-70 hours a week at work, kickboxing 1 day a week, rugby training 2 times a week plus 2 matches a week, and I cycled everywhere on my push bike.

At 18 everything shifted: I got a motorbike, switched jobs and started nights for better pay. That pretty much killed off my rugby and kickboxing, and in the end I quit both (REGRET!).

I spent 4.5 years on nights, 6 days a week. It was a physical job and my weight sat somewhere between 15.5 st (100kg) and 17.5st (110kg).

When I was 22 I moved to a different warehouse on days, and at 24 I became a transport manager (a desk job, no activity), still doing 60-70 hours a week.

I stayed a transport manager for 5 years, and by that point I was closing in on 19 stone (120kg).

While I was a transport manager I got the offer of a trainee mobile engineer role paying more than my transport manager wage.

I took the Trainee Engineer job and I'm still doing it now. It's physical, demanding, needs strength and plenty of walking, but there's no real cardio. For 6 months straight I worked 80-90 hours a week for the money, and it wrecked my physical health.

Jump forward 8 years to today: I'm on 60-70 hours a week just to cover my bills, and my weight has shot up to 22.5st (142kg).

I have one meal in the evening (a big one) and nothing during the day. Because I work mobile, sandwiches, salad or proper meals in my van aren't practical, so if I do eat during the day it's fast food (roughly once a month maybe). At home though we order fast food fairly often, 1-3 times per month.

On a work day I drink 3 coffees, plus 2- 5 Pepsi max cans a day (I'm actively cutting that back to 1-2 cans every 2 days, hopefully down to 0 eventually). Beyond that it's sparkling water. I don't smoke, I have severe asthma, I rarely drink alcohol — maybe 3 times per year. Sugar isn't a big part of my diet: a couple of biscuits / cookies or a bar of chocolate 2-3 times per week, 1 brown sugar in my coffees, and I take them black.

Right now my physical health is poor. My left shoulder is injured and I'm seeing physio for it but it isn't helping. My right elbow really struggles to bear weight, and both knees ache and are sore every day. My back is in near constant pain that the doctors cannot solve.

A gym membership is out of my budget, and honestly I doubt I'd use it — I don't leave the house except for work or walking my dogs.

Sleeping is a struggle and getting up in the morning is worse (I'm nearly always late for work). By the time I'm home I'm exhausted. I do occasionally use my exercise bike for 5 - 10 miles.

I gave the carnivore diet a go, but I actually like my greens, salads and veggies, so that was a nonstarter. My partner and I did Keto and lost around 7kg in a month, then a birthday meal that wasn't keto happened and we've never got the motivation back to restart it.

That's the boring part done — now the fun part where you can participate!!

I've done some research into weight loss, calorie control, exercise, peptides etc.

Because I eat one meal a day, I take in a large amount of food in the evening 3-4 hours before bed. I know my portion size is too much, but after starving myself all day, if I don't have a large meal I get hungry and then binge on a lot of junk food or sugary snacks.

My thinking is that a hunger suppression substance could help me reduce the food noise, cut back on the portion size, and lower the chance of me ending up with diabetes.

I understand majority of the members on here are not medical professionals and I will always check information given, with that being said what advice can you give to somebody in my circumstances ?

Bitcoin is something I know nothing about. I will find time to look into this, but I'm not sure this is a priority for me at the moment.

how easily accessible are grey market peptides to ship from China to the UK and how common are payment types other than bitcoin?

is there any information you would share with me before I begin my peptide journey?

my ultimate goal would be to reach 14 st (90kg), I know this won’t happen overnight and appreciate this will be a long journey that will require real effort.

once you have started on peptides, can you stop taking them ? will the food noise and weight pile back on once you stop ?

I appreciate any support and advice you can give, thank you!

Damo.

 

[Angelique]

A glp-1 could really change things for you. I use tirzepatide, and the constant food struggles simply vanish — honestly, it feels miraculous. Sticking to a diet becomes easy. That said, you still need to monitor your protein intake and get enough of it, otherwise you risk losing muscle. Once you reach the dose that works for you, big meals won't be possible, and you probably won't want to eat past the point of fullness. Strength training matters too, though even bodyweight exercises done at home can help. My advice: pick up 1 or 2 books on glp-1s and learn the fundamentals — titration, managing and reducing side effects, and so on.

When you stop a glp-1, the food noise returns. For maintenance, most people will need the medication long term. There are various approaches to maintenance, and a few people can taper off, but that takes enormous mental effort, and most end up regaining at least some weight. You don't need to figure everything out now — go step by step. I never expected to stay on it long term, but after experiencing how this medication feels and all the benefits it brings beyond weight loss, I never want to go back, and I intend to keep taking it for as long as I can.

Best of luck to you!

 

[Damo89]

Angelique said:

A glp-1 could really change things for you. I use tirzepatide, and the constant food struggles simply vanish — honestly, it feels miraculous. Sticking to a diet becomes easy. That said, you still need to monitor your protein intake and get enough of it, otherwise you risk losing muscle. Once you reach the dose that works for you, big meals won't be possible, and you probably won't want to eat past the point of fullness. Strength training matters too, though even bodyweight exercises done at home can help. My advice: pick up 1 or 2 books on glp-1s and learn the fundamentals — titration, managing and reducing side effects, and so on.

When you stop a glp-1, the food noise returns. For maintenance, most people will need the medication long term. There are various approaches to maintenance, and a few people can taper off, but that takes enormous mental effort, and most end up regaining at least some weight. You don't need to figure everything out now — go step by step. I never expected to stay on it long term, but after experiencing how this medication feels and all the benefits it brings beyond weight loss, I never want to go back, and I intend to keep taking it for as long as I can.

Best of luck to you!

Thanks for getting back to me!

How come you went with Tirzepatide instead of the other options? Right now the food noise seems to be what's tripping me up — I'm sure my portions are too large, yet if I don't eat that much, I'm hungry again pretty much right after, and then I end up bingeing.

I'll take a look at those GLP-1 books, I had no idea they existed, so thanks for mentioning them.

Do you use Bitcoin or paypal to pay? Thanks once more for your time! I really appreciate it.

 

[Angelique]

That resonates with me completely! Since I eat based on emotions, hunger wasn't really a factor — the food thoughts kept coming, I'd fixate on eating, go on binges, and so on. For me, all of that is gone now. When I stick to my diet plans, weight loss has never been an issue, yet roughly 1-2 months in, some distraction would knock me off track and I'd quit until I tried again. These days I feel healthy and as though my relationship with food is finally a good 1, something I'd never experienced before.

Tirzepatide was my pick because I began through a telehealth service, and at present the only choices available are this and semaglutide, as reta hasn't been approved yet. Side effects are more probable with semaglutide, and after looking at the research covered in the book I own, I thought tirz would suit me better. I actually have some reta on hand now, but I won't touch it for a good while because this is working really well for me.

I've bought a few things, though I'm still learning about all of this and haven't used crypto.

 

[Pubgrundy]

Ey up Damo!

Same here — the only stretches where I dropped meaningful pounds were on Keto and carnivore. Problem is, that kind of tight eating plan had me crashing off it spectacularly once 2-4months passed.

And climbing back on is brutal every single time.

Mounjaro worked brilliantly — food noise dropped to the same level as Keto/carnivore. Difference was I could still eat whatever I fancied (variety, not portions, obvs). Then September's massive price jump hit, I went cold turkey for 9 months, and roughly 30lbs of the 70 I'd lost has crept back.

Right now I'm 3 weeks into Reta and it's treating me well. Feels milder than Tirz (MJ), and at 2mg the food noise is handled just as well as Tirz at 10mg was for me, so I'm pleased. 3 weeks, 6 lbs gone so far.

At the moment I'm digging into everything I can before I buy Reta in bulk (a year or 2's worth) to stash in the freezer.

What I'm mainly after here is picking up grey market slang, joining a UK based testing Group so we can all chip in & get a batch tested together for endotoxins, and staying as safe as I can while acting as my own lab rat for research chemicals. That recent Jeep endotoxin world record scandal already has me annoyed at myself — I ordered a single vial off a UK based website and jabbed it without really grasping the risks beyond side effects.

So my advice: research. Loads of it!

Get into a testing group to be safer.

GLP-1's genuinely do work, and I also had a big drop in inflammation on them — sore knee's, rotator cuff and sprained ankle pain basically disappeared on MJ, so I hope the same benefits come your way.