Minus 50 kilograms

The biggest personal project I started in 2025 was to lose significant amounts of weight — consistently.

This was not the first time, in my life, that I had the idea and plan to do so. But as I turned 54 in 2025, it might be the last time to start such a project. We all know, that at growing ages it gets more and more complicated to do so.

I always had the desire to live a self-defined life until I die. This includes being able to care for yourself at 85+.

In 2024, I reached my all-time high in terms of weight: 185.4 kilograms. Far too much for a normal guy, even though I am 193 centimetres tall.

2024 was where my actual journey started, which ended in the project I started on the 15th of April 2025.

Late 2024

It started with a visit to a local hospital for minor surgery. Nothing big or dangerous. I had to stay over the weekend. Luckily, a very calm weekend at the hospital, actually.

On Saturday, my doctor visited me to check the wound, but he also was on a mission as I found out and had some time to spend. The department he worked for is on one hand a general purpose chirurgic department. In addition, they serve as the regional hub for addressing obesity at all levels and in all forms.

Long story short, he told me about the high-risk level of my minor surgery because of my weight. In a very polite way and long conversation, he told me that he doesn't know any old obese people, while he knows old people smoking. As I said, he was on a mission and tried to convince me to take action on my weight. The sentence that triggered me hard was: “You haven't survived cancer, to be killed by obesity.” So true.

I scheduled an appointment with a doctor from his team on Monday. As I said, they are a chirurgic department, so we quickly started to talk about bariatric surgery. A big topic, I don't even try to sum up here. But I started the process you have to undertake in Germany before you can even get an appointment for the surgery.

At that time, I was all in for bariatric surgery with all its consequences.

Early 2025

I had completed all necessary steps except: Get a prescription by your family doctor and visit a self-help group.

These two appointments changed everything.

So far, I had a good theoretical understanding of the consequences of bariatric surgery, but getting first-hand information from real people is an entirely different story. Don't get me wrong, the consequences are tough, but you can deal with them and it is worth the effort.

For me, as a person working in management that travels from time to time, there were some extra levels that people warned me about. Controlling your food, while being on the run, is an entirely different story than doing it at home. This made me nervous and I felt less certain.

Then I visited my family doctor, who shared some insights from other patients of him and their daily struggles. And this made me feel even more uneasy and uncertain. Of course, he mostly sees and hears the bad parts. But he always tried to convince me to do one last attempt with a different approach before picking bariatric surgery.

He won. He convinced me to start a multimodal therapy: nutritional therapy, behavioural therapy, and medication.

April 2025

On April 15th, I started with my first weekly dose of Mounjaro and the first session of nutritional and behavioural therapy. Now, 12 months later I can say, it was a total success so far. I lost 50 kilograms in the past 12 months, I established new eating habits and regularly workout at my home gym.

“What exactly, did you do?”

• Once a week, a dose of Mounjaro of 5 mg.
• I track my food with an app.
• I restricted my calories to 1800-2000 per day.
• My nutrition is based on a good mix of macronutrients now — fewer carbs, more protein and fibres.
• I work out 2–3 times a week. Mostly weightlifting and cycling.

This was by no means easy, but way easier than all my previous attempts. Before going into some details here, let me drop a word on the medication.

Medication buys time

As you have already read, I am using one of these weight loss medications. And it is natural if you ask or think that this is not sustainable and so on. We all have read the articles about it and also seen the hype videos of some social media starlet.

To get it clear: If you just use the medication and change nothing else, you will lose weight. But this is indeed by no means sustainable, and you will gain weight again, faster than you lost it. You just wasted a lot of money.

“How does medication work then?”

It slows down the traversal of your food through your digestive system. You'll feel full faster and for longer. You eat less. Mounjaro also more or less kills the desire for sweets. And you’ll also be spared that dreadful combination of carbohydrates and fat that we all love so much in the form of crisps and chips. Nothing more and nothing less. But this is an on/off effect — if you use the medication you get it, and if you stop using it, it stops.

Disappointing? Not at all. Because the thing you have to understand — the medication buys time.

• Time to relearn good eating habits.
• Time for sugar withdrawal.
• Time to establish a workout routine.
• Time to learn new strategies to fight stress. Strategies that don't involve food, sweets, or beverages.

I used the twelve months wisely for that so far. I still use the medication, but I can already see changes in phases of extreme stress.

My plan is to reach minus 65 kilograms in the upcoming months and then stop using the medication completely. Slowly lowering the doses under guidance of my doctor.

“Did you experience side effects?”

No. None so far, and I am confident that this won't change soon.

Why now and not before?

Why did all my previous attempts not work for me? I am not totally sure about it, but I was never able to keep up a streak of 12 months so far. I think the reason is, that I always tried extreme ways: Sports every day, 1500 calories max, low-carb, high protein, Weight Watchers, … You name it.

I think the game changer is the multimodal therapy and the stress relief the medication brings (no hunger, no food cravings). Even though it was challenging, I would at the same time say it was easy. The easiest so far.

Summer 2026

As I mentioned above. I plan to reach minus 65 kilograms by summer. Then I still weigh 120 kilograms, which is still overweight. But I also want to skip the skin surgery step, I would have to undertake if I tried to go further.

I am already satisfied with the results so far: I wear normal-sized clothes, which I last did in my early 30s. I don't need a seat belt extension on flights. I've almost stopped blood pressure medication. I feel fit again. I never aimed for a bikini figure anyway. My doctor told me he doesn't know any old obese people. I plan to prove him wrong — just without the obese part.

I celebrate my minus 50 kilograms.

And if you like to get some more details. Feel free to reach out.