I went from Ozempic to Mounjaro with this unexpected side effect

I know a lot of younger people are interested in prepping their beach body, but at 59 years old, I’ve recently got back into using weight-loss jabs to help with my pitch body.

Competing in a veterans’ football match on a full-size pitch against a team of 35-year-olds, it somehow felt unfair that our largely over-fifties team was getting whipped by a team who had yet to spend an extra 24 years parenting, drinking, eating and a metabolism hitting the brakes hard. So that was me in March – back on the weight-loss jabs again. But this time, I’ve been surprised by an unexpected side effect.

I first tried Ozempic after seeing a privately registered nurse in 2023 – only stopping when there was a national shortage, but not before I had lost over a stone. This time, though, I noticed that my local chemist offered weight-loss jabs – and at half the price. The proximity, lower cost and desire to be fitter for football lured me back in.

I started with a consultation with a pharmacist who took my waistline measurement and weight. In mid-January, I was weighing in at 14.8 stone after a Christmas of not caring what I ate, though I could tell I’d already come down a bit since then. At home, I use Renpho digital scales linked to an app on my phone – and frankly, they’re brilliant. Unkind, but brilliant. They tell me what each component of my physical make-up weighs – from protein to body water, skeletal mass, fat levels, and even my metabolic age (don’t ask).

About 20 years ago, I used a set of these for a Men’s Health magazine feature, and back then they cost close to a thousand pounds. Now, they’re just a tiny fraction of that. If you’re serious about losing weight, you need to be honest with yourself – and there’s nothing more horrifying than seeing your daily weight to a hundredth of a pound. I get on them once or twice a week, and as the comedian Jason Manford correctly points out, I never accept the first reading without another go – slightly shifting the scales left or right on the bathroom floor.

The last time I was serious about losing weight, I used Ozempic alongside jogging and 20-minute high-intensity training routines a few times a week. I lost about a stone and a half then. If I could drop from my Christmas weight to somewhere around 13 stone, I’d be happy. That was the lowest I got to last time, although Renpho recommended I lose another whole stone.

I only stopped taking medication 18 months ago because the Ozempic ran out, and then I sprained my meniscus while jogging across London Bridge for a bus. That put most of my normal exercise – like running around the park and amateur football – on hold for half the year. The UCH physios had me doing seated leg-strengthening exercises instead. My legs got bigger – but so did my stomach.

This time around, the chemist said she had Mounjaro. It sounds like French sweets or half a mountain, but I was happy to give it a go – and it’s been startlingly different from my experience with Ozempic.

Mounjaro is the third in a line of weight-loss injections available in the UK. They all work by affecting hunger hormones to reduce appetite; the drugs mimic a hormone called GLP-1, which helps control appetite and keep blood sugar stable. Mounjaro, however, also targets an additional hormone called GIP (gastric inhibitory peptide), enhancing the effects, and helping people eat less.

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The first month of jabs – administered by my girlfriend on the living room sofa – were negligible. The dose was so low, it barely registered. By the second month, I started to see a difference. I’m now on the third dosage and currently weigh 13.8 stone. But it’s not just my body noticing a change – what’s going on in my head has really changed too.

Ever since I was a kid – when I used to neck Haliborange straight from the bottle – people have made jokes or comments about my hyperactive state. At school, I was disruptive, more focused on making people laugh and distracting the teachers than working. At work, writing about music for NME, I found an environment where this behaviour was normal. The opportunity to constantly discover exciting new music and rave about it week after week was more important to me than sitting still and concentrating.

Long, long before ADHD became a buzzword, I was already familiar with the waves of behaviours now often associated with it. For some reason, everyone with ADHD – or whoever has read an article about it – wants to tell everyone else they have it too.

I’ve lived through this with my own mind running interference on itself, and friends (and more recently, my girlfriend) suggesting I get tested has become more frequent each year. But in reality, I’d got used to the noise and confusion in my head. I didn’t really want to go on any medication for it. And being 27 years clean and sober from drugs and alcohol, I wasn’t keen on going near the magic mushroom microdosing that’s now all over social media as helping people to focus, either.

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So, this unexpected consequence of a calmed mind while using Mounjaro has come as a very welcome surprise. Since starting the drug, I’ve had virtually no invasive, interrupting thoughts or ideas. If someone asks me to do something while I’m doing something else, I can actually prioritise properly.

I first noticed the change while walking through the park with my mate Geoff. I realised I could hear everything he was saying and stay focused on the conversation. I wasn’t constantly redirected by other thoughts triggered by something I’d seen. I wasn’t thinking about four or five things at once. Even when someone walked toward us, I could register them without losing track of what Geoff was saying. This was revelatory. Normally, any slight distraction is the start of a massive mental detour.

The more I’ve thought about it, the clearer my behavioural change has become. I don’t feel the need to stand up the moment I sit down. If I forget why I picked up my phone, I can quickly remember why. Before, I could pick up my phone to do something and end up three hours later scrolling, laughing at videos of people falling over drunk.

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I find the distance between thought and action is much shorter now. It’s literally like there are two people in the room, not 27. When I posted about this on Facebook, quite a few people pointed to evidence that some of these drugs reduce anxiety, addiction, and depression. A quick Google confirmed that numerous medical and scientific bodies have reported this as a clear, if unexpected, trend.

Mounjaro is a GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonist. It acts in the gut – where it regulates appetite and digestion – and in the brain’s reward centre, the dopamine hub that drives addiction, impulsivity, and compulsive behaviour. While these jabs are known to calm “food noise,” it feels like all the other noise in my head has now been quietened now too.

I haven’t had this confirmed by a doctor, and it’s important to understand that Mounjaro is not a standard treatment for ADHD. It should not be used as a substitute for conventional ADHD medications without consulting a medical professional. But in my experience, the noticeable improvement in my ability to focus has been more valuable than the weight I’ve lost.

James Brown’s memoir ‘Animal House’ is available now