Party season was wrecking my Mounjaro weight reduction. So I turned to the sneaky fats jab trick A-listers depend on… with astonishing outcomes, reveals NADINE DORRIES

The Stilton and crackers were always going to be my toughest test. Or possibly the yule log. The profiteroles. The Baileys… Coming off the weight-loss jab Mounjaro just before Christmas was surely inviting failure.

From August to October, I’d dropped two stone and achieved my target weight of 8st 12lbs. I could slip into a wisp of a cocktail dress and yet, as I wrote in this paper in December, I was dreading the start of the party season and, in truth, Christmas itself.

My diary was more full than usual and every engagement involved temptation: a gathering catered by two top chefs, post-carol-service wine and mince pies, lunch at the home of my favourite cookbook writer, canapes at a stately home, and our own traditional New Year’s Eve fondue and raclette party. On it went. Eat me, eat me, eat me. Did I have the strength to resist?

Meanwhile, in my fridge at home sat another form of temptation. I took my final dose of Mounjaro in October. But I still had one syringe pen left, in date until February 2025. It sat in my fridge calling to me just as much as the Stilton, for with one jab – indeed, one so-called ‘microdose’ – I knew I could make all this Christmas ‘food noise’ disappear.

Microdosing with weight- loss jabs like Mounjaro is an increasingly common tactic.

Some medics now recommend you spend up to a year on a weekly 2.5mg of the drug after coming off the full dose. (The full dose is different for everyone – I never went higher than 7.5mg.)

The theory here, in simple terms, is that your body has a ‘set point’ it strives to return to after any form of weight loss and, unless you stick rigidly to healthy eating and daily exercise, three out of four people pile the pounds back on.

It’s now thought that staying on a small maintenance dose for 12 months gives your body time to readjust to a new, slimmer ‘set point’, meaning you’re more likely to stick at it.

What’s more, there’s a huge amount of research currently under way into the additional benefits of microdosing, including whether or not it boosts cardiac health and prevents the onset of Alzheimer’s.

But I didn’t want to go down the microdosing route if I didn’t have to. Though I was thrilled by the results – and, believe me, watching that needle on the scales drop so rapidly every single week was nothing short of a miracle – I didn’t love the experience of taking Mounjaro.

It made me feel horribly nauseous and utterly exhausted: for three days after each weekly jab, just getting out of bed was a real effort.

Just as soon as my BMI was safely back in the healthy zone, I took my final dose with relief.

I knew that going cold turkey like this and eating a normal diet after months of very little food was bound to have some effect on my body – and it did. Within three weeks of finishing the jabs, I’d put on two pounds, hitting 9st.

Although expected, it was a warning shot. I’d have to be super-vigilant during an upcoming shopping break in Edinburgh, which included a few days of indulgence at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

I already knew about the set-point theory and what my body would be trying to do each time a chocolate truffle or glass of bubbly came within sniffing distance.

It was Oscar Wilde who famously said ‘I can resist everything except temptation’, and his words echoed in my brain as I stepped into the frenzy of the party season.

There were ways to mitigate the risks. I committed to taking a brisk 30-minute walk every day and forced myself to do it even when I found plausible excuses not to.

For motivation, I took my new size-ten party frocks out of their packaging and held them up against me in the mirror, marvelling at my flat tummy.

I dug out an old favourite, too – a slinky, red-sequinned dress which I hadn’t worn for 35 years. I’d never imagined being slender enough to get into it again, but here I was.

In order to beat the statistics, I believe it’s important to both love and be grateful for the new you. I resolved that whatever happened, I would not let myself down.

The first thing I noticed on the party circuit was how many people commented on how well I looked.

It was true – all traces of fat had disappeared from my face, taking my previously flabby Marge Simpson jawline with it and leaving me with lovely, pronounced cheekbones.

From Jeremy Clarkson, who was incredibly kind and complimentary, to Anne Robinson – a fellow Scouser who was supportive in the way that only good women can be – the people I encountered left me feeling positive and encouraged.

But as the parties came thick and fast, so, too, did the devils on horseback.

I lost count of the number of times I opened the fridge door and looked at that Mounjaro syringe. Just one tiny smidge to get me through to the other side of New Year, I’d think… But no. Each time I slammed the door shut. Surely I could do this alone?

The first time I slipped was after a charity carol concert. My intention had been not to drink any wine at the post-concert reception, nor to eat the inevitable mince pies. I failed on both counts.

Arriving home I opened the diary on my phone. Nine more social events to attend in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. If I fell at this first hurdle, how was I going to manage the rest of the month?

I made excuses to myself which sounded familiar. I wasn’t driving, so why shouldn’t I have had a drink? And they were exceptionally good mince pies. But even as those thoughts rattled around in my head, I knew they were feeble.

My diary also told me that one of the pre-Christmas parties I was attending was a barn dance at Daylesford Farm’s beautiful Heritage House in the Cotswolds, with food from renowned gastropub owner Phil Winser and chef Thomas Straker. Give me strength – how would I survive that one?

First, I had to get through the day after the carol concert: drinks from 12 with a local Cotswolds aristocrat followed by Sunday lunch at the house of a wonderful friend and fantastic hostess, who wrote the cookery book I use more than any other. Gulp.

The next morning I took myself off on my daily 30-minute march, having mapped out the route in advance using a series of trees as markers.

For 15 minutes, it was mostly uphill. I passed a grand old beech and then came to a pretty rowan, where I took a break before pushing myself on to the third marker, a stately oak.

If it hadn’t been for those trees and the fact that I set them as my targets, looming and watching over me, I could well have cut the walk short on any cold, wet day and returned home.

The scales told me it was working. They were moving neither up nor down, and I was happy with that.

I successfully navigated those early engagements, including the lunch – though the dessert with homemade blackberry ice cream served in a dish the hostess had carved herself from ice, with the freesias she had grown in her summer garden embedded within like a work of art… she had gone to so much trouble, it would have been rude to say no.

I was still balancing caution with enjoyment, and all that walking was clearly having an effect. I could do this!

Then Storm Darragh arrived. That night, I was due to attend three parties. The first was at the home of two well-known social-media influencers; the second thrown by an eminent TV producer; and the third at my neighbour’s house, where I’d pop in for a nightcap at the tail end of his party.

I made it to the first and, though the journey was precarious, managed to collect three good friends on the way. A minor success: I couldn’t drink because I was the designated driver. A minor fail: I munched my way through what felt like my body weight in nibbles and, yes, Stilton cheese before we began the journey home.

Parties two and three were aborted, given the weather.

The next morning, as I headed off on my walk, my friend the beech tree lay on the ground before me, felled by the storm. A rather pathetic root ball was still attached. It was an ominous sign. 

Was I, too, about to be brought down – not by a storm, but by a surfeit of salmon blinis and Snowballs? I resolved to march on past the oak to the cattle grid at the top of the hill, taking my walk to a rigorous 45 minutes despite the fact that I had an awful lot to do back at home.

A few days later, I travelled to London for a party at a beautiful home in Mayfair. There were carol singers and oysters, champagne and very special hors d’oeuvres.

Nothing was too much trouble for the cocktail waiters behind the glistening bar serving brightly coloured and delicious creations. It was a heady night filled with Christmas cheer and excitement. There were wall-to-wall celebrities and the conversation buzzed. I possibly over-indulged.

The next evening featured a very smart dinner, with me sitting between two well-known, and very skinny, TV personalities. When they said yes to the calorific dessert, how could I say no?

Afterwards, the dining room was turned into a dancefloor and I convinced myself I was burning off the pudding.

Christmas at home was as indulgent as always – you can’t hold back on the day itself. Then I was at my best friend’s house between Christmas and New Year and she didn’t skimp on the profiteroles, either.

When I stood on the scales the next morning, I saw the needle edging upwards to 9st 2lbs. I was now 4lbs heavier than I had been when I stopped taking the injections.

There was nothing else for it. I took the Mounjaro pen out of the fridge and, with a deep breath, took a microdose of 2.5mg. Surprisingly, I had no side effects at all this time. It was hardly a spectacular fall off the wagon, but it was very definitely giving in.

And yet, why not? Christmas is all about socialising and events. Even the most abstemious and self-disciplined find themselves a few pounds heavier at New Year. For them, the solution is Dry January and a new gym membership – but I was in a very different position.

My body was craving to get back those two stones I had been carrying for far too long, and I reminded myself that the reason I started on this journey in the first place was because of my health.

Pre-Mounjaro I had high cholesterol, was prediabetic and had non-alcohol fatty deposits on my liver. I don’t want to be in that place ever again.

It has been a week since I took the injection. My appetite has melted away and with it those four extra pounds, meaning I am back where I was. I have survived the party season – I just needed a little help from my friend, Mounjaro.

This was a one-off for me. That’s what I’m telling myself. However, it will only take the needle to move upwards once more for me to make the decision to microdose on a regular basis. If that’s what it takes, that is what I’ll do – without any hesitation.

Next year, fingers crossed, my ‘set point’ will have adjusted to a lower weight and I can join the hordes who slim down in January without medical means. And looking at myself in the mirror today, I don’t have a moment’s regret.