# At 49, with a disastrous menopausal waistline, I lost 6st on Mounjaro. But the real miracle? I've not put a pound back on since I stopped jabbing. Here's how YOU can get the same result > Source: > Published: 2026-07-08 11:15:45+00:00 # At 49, with a disastrous menopausal waistline, I lost 6st on Mounjaro. But the real miracle? I've not put a pound back on since I stopped jabbing. Here's how YOU can get the same result **See more Daily Mail on Google -**[save us as a Preferred Source](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=dailymail.com) For years, I was the woman who ran everything and held it all together on the outside. A busy estate agent, I juggled a portfolio of 250 properties around [Brighton](/news/brighton/index.html) and managed five members of staff, all while solo parenting my daughter, now 10. Whatever happened, I just kept going. But inside? I was running on empty - battling stress and a brutal [menopause](/health/menopause/index.html), and using food and wine to fill the gap. It proved disastrous to my waistline. By January 2025, I tipped the scales at 16 stone and couldn’t imagine a day when I’d ever feel confident about my looks again. Yet just 18 months later, I’m a proud size 10-12... and have developed a foolproof system to stay that way. At 51, I look in the mirror now and see someone I actually recognise. I stand up straight and own the space I’m in. But before I tell you how I did it, let me explain how I got here, and why I feel strongly that any midlife woman can achieve the same results. For me, the problems really began when I split from my daughter’s father, when she was three. Stressed with work and heartbroken, something in me just... switched off. I stopped caring about myself. I’d grab whatever was quick - pastries, crisps, egg mayo sandwiches, curries, fish and chips, big comforting pies. Whatever got me through the day. And in the evenings? A bottle of wine and more crisps on the sofa. As for breakfast, I’d literally crack open a Diet Coke the moment I woke up. Then, at 49, the menopause hit out of nowhere - fast and furious. I suffered sweats, brain fog, anxiety and a complete loss of libido. And I began piling on weight at a rate I couldn’t understand or control. Within two years, I’d gone from proudly and efficiently losing the baby weight to being a size 20 mum. I felt so detached from who I was, I genuinely thought I’d gone mad. Louise said by January 2025, she tipped the scales at 16 stone and couldn’t imagine a day when she would ever feel confident again Louise tried to rise a horse but got told by a local stables that she couldn’t ride unless she was under 13 stone Clearly I had to do something, for my little girl’s sake if not my own. Eventually, I went to my GP and started HRT in the summer of 2023 - that helped lift the brain fog, but it didn’t touch the weight. And then came the real moment of reckoning. I was sitting in my estate agency office being asked to sign another ten-year lease and I just burst into tears. I thought: I cannot do this for another decade. Not like this. So I sold the business in August 2023 and I genuinely believe it’s the best decision I ever made. The money gave me the freedom to retrain as a health coach, and my sister Carolyn - a coach herself, ten years older than me - enrolled me on a course as a present. She says she did it deliberately, because she could see how unwell I was. I think she hoped it would spur me to make positive changes in my own life if I learned more about how diet and exercise can transform lives. The course involved a full year of intensive study - nutrition, psychology, behaviour change, the lot - and I did it all while selling the business, being a mum and completely falling apart. The turning point to lose weight that really got me was a moment I hadn’t expected. One evening, I thought: ‘I used to love riding. My daughter has two ponies so why don’t I get back in the saddle?’ I looked up a local stables but they told me I couldn’t ride unless I was under 13 stone. The knowledge that I was actually closer to 16 stone hit me like a wall. My own daughter had ponies yet I couldn’t even sit on one. It was my ‘enough is enough’ moment – I decided I wouldn’t let my weight define the life I could lead for a second longer. Last June, about halfway through my training course, I started using GLP-1 weight-loss injections. But I want to be very clear about how I used them — because it matters. I never went above 2.5mg of Mounjaro a week, the very lowest dose available. The companies will tell you to go higher and higher, but I refused. I was on the jabs for nine months, yet I only ever used them as a gentle nudge to build healthy eating habits. You see, at such a low dose, I hadn’t cancelled out all food noise. I still had to be mindful about what I ate and make active good choices. But that way, I not only spent a fraction of what most people do, I also never became reliant on the jabs. They were the handlebars, not the engine. What actually changed everything was what I learned through my training. For the first time in my life, I understood why I ate the way I did. Boredom. Loneliness. Stress. The habit of food as a social event, a reward, a comfort. I learned to ask myself: am I actually hungry, or just angry, lonely and tired? Once you can sit with those feelings instead of eating through them, everything shifts. Louise does not eat pasta, rice or bread because she genuinely doesn't want them anymore as they make her feel sluggish and bloated Louise said she was on the jabs for nine months, yet she only ever used them as a gentle nudge to build healthy eating habits The other question I asked myself constantly was: ‘What would a healthy person do right now?’ Not ‘I’m on a diet, I must exercise’ - that’s suffering. To me, it’s about reframing what you tell yourself, about making being healthy a hobby, and one you don’t waver from. Going for a walk. Batch cooking. Running a bath. Calling a friend. I set non-negotiables: 10,000 steps a day, no matter what. My daughter goes to bed at 8pm, so I got a walking machine and I pound it in the evenings. I bought some weights to do resistance training at home - vital for women in the menopause to maintain muscle. You don’t have to sweat away for hours though. I ensure I do just fifteen minutes a day - and that’s all I ask of my clients, too. I haven’t been on the injections since April. I don’t miss them, and if anything, I’ve lost weight since stopping. What I have instead is a completely different relationship with food. I don’t eat pasta, rice or bread - not because I’m banned from them, but because I genuinely don’t want them anymore. They make me feel sluggish and bloated, feelings I’m happy to leave behind in my past. Now, I eat chia seed pudding in the mornings and chicken salads for lunch. In the evening, I’ll make a spelt and cannellini bean stew, or use ancient grains like spelt. Importantly, I cook from scratch. My daughter and I do it together - we put music on, try new recipes, and always put the emphasis on making it fun. And the wins? Both large and small, they all matter. Last year, I dreaded flying as I was too big to put my tray table down in my seat. I’d spend the whole journey feeling like I was apologising for existing, for the space I was taking up. I would up in shame imagining what the person next to me must be thinking. Now I sit down, pull the table down, and don’t give it a second thought. I can sit cross-legged on the floor and get back up again. I can tie my shoelaces without a performance. I can wrap a hotel towel around me and it actually meets in the middle. Now, it thrills me to buy clothes I actually want to wear, not size 22 ‘tents’ I grab without trying on because I can’t bear to see myself in a mirror. A mum at the school gate called me ‘sexy mama’ recently and while my daughter was absolutely mortified, I loved every second. After all, I do feel sexy, which is an amazing thing to say at 51. Indeed, while I’d never have considered it before, I’m now open to dating again. But the moment that got me - really got me - was when my daughter put her arms around me properly for the first time ever. She gave me a hug and could reach all the way round my middle with her hands meeting on my back. She held on and told me she was proud of me, and I just held her back and cried. They were tears of pride, yes, but also of hope when I think about the future my daughter and I can build together. That’s what this is all really about. I took on my first clients in January this year, and I’m now building a business helping others do what I did - but properly. There is an 86 per cent chance of the weight coming back on when people stop GLP-1 injections without changing their lifestyle. Eighty-six per cent. People are using these jabs without understanding nutrition, muscle loss, emotional eating or what happens next. I want to close that gap. I call it my GLP-1 Success approach: use them at the lowest effective dose, build the habits alongside, and come off them slowly so the lifestyle does the heavy lifting. You hit the menopause and you can feel like it’s all over, like the version of you that felt good is gone forever. I’m here to tell you it’s not. I feel like me again - but a far better version than ever before. ## Louise's Diet ## Before Breakfast: Diet Coke the moment she woke up. ‘I lived off it.’ Morning: Pastries from the bakery Lunch: Egg mayo sandwich and a packet of crisps 3pm: Boredom snacking - more chocolate and crisps Dinner: Curries, fish and chips, pies and comfort food Evening: A bottle of wine, then more crisps on the sofa ## After Breakfast: Chia seed pudding or overnight oats Mid-morning: Fruit with high-protein additions to balance blood sugar Lunch: Chicken salad Dinner: Spelt and cannellini bean chicken stew, or dishes with ancient grains like quinoa. ‘I don’t eat pasta, rice or bread anymore - and I genuinely don’t want to.’ healthccoachesacademy.com As told to Matthew Barbour