Calming the Elephant: How to Come Off Mounjaro or Wegovy Without the Rebound Terror
posted on: February 02, 2026. posted in: Weight loss, Health
I've had a message sent to me recently...
"I started Mounjaro October 2024 after the price hike I moved to Wegovy. I’m now 5 stone lighter, moving more and feeling so much better. However…I’m terrified!! I want to be able to come off the jabs because it’s so expensive! I don’t want to rebound and I don’t want to be ill. For the first time in 20 years I feel alive and well!! I have used calorie counting throughout my journey and I don’t mind that at all. But where do I go from here? I’m scared if I stop it my appetite will come back in droves and I won’t be able to stop myself and I worry if I stop the meds I won’t be able to get them again!! Please please can you help advise me?"
Ok, what follows is how I explain the situation to my clients. Take your time with it. Come back to this post a few times if necessary. This is the work that needs to be done if you want to come off GLP-1s.
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The Illusion Of Control
I'd like you to visualise a tiny ant for me 🐜
The ant decides where it wants to go, then sets off in that direction, sometimes with great gusto. Scurrying away. Applying its effort. Trying its hardest to get to wherever it wants to be.
But it never gets there.
Remember those times, before you started Mounjaro, when you decided that you wanted to lose weight. You tried your hardest. You scurried away. You applied your effort to eating less, exercising more, or doing whatever your latest diet / plan / approach told you to do to get to a lower weight...
But you never got there?
Now you know how the ant feels.
The confusion. The frustration. The sense of injustice that your hard work isn't paying off. Which leads the ant to do some deeper work, some deeper investigation. It stops trying. It stops scurrying. It starts paying attention and noticing what's really going on. Then as it looks around, it realises something game changing...
It exists on top of an elephant 🐘
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The Elephant Is In Control
You fully understand that no matter how hard an ant on top of an elephant tries to get somewhere, it will never get there if the elephant has plans to go in the opposite direction. If the ant wants to go south, towards eating less and a lower weight 📉, but the elephant wants to go north, towards eating more and a higher weight 📈, you're both heading north.
You're gaining weight.
Whether you want to or not.
If the ant wants to go south, towards a lower weight, trying harder won't help. Scurrying faster won't help. No amount of effort to head south will get it south, unless it convinces the elephant to head in that direction.
The elephant beneath the ant is always in control of the direction. So if the ant wants to change the direction, it has to "train the elephant" to go where the ant wants it to go.
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Conscious vs Unconscious
The ant is your conscious.
The elephant is your unconscious.
You can consciously try to eat less. You can consciously try to exercise more. You can consciously follow diets, stick to eating plans, go to slimming club, follow the rules. But if your unconscious wants to head in the opposite direction. If your "elephant" wants to eat more, binge more, gain weight and go the opposite way, that's where you're going to go.
What we call "food noise" is the unconscious, the elephant, making us obsess about food. Appetite. Cravings. Endless obsessive thoughts about food. These are all unconsciously driven, by the elephant that wants us to eat more, gain more, and move north towards a higher weight 📈 Meanwhile you, the ant, are left screaming...
"Why am I gaining weight when I want to be losing weight?! Why is my weight heading north when I want it to head south?! Why do I think about food all day long, when I'm trying my hardest to eat less?!"
It's at this very frustrating point in a person's life that they often decide to try a GLP-1.
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Medicating The Elephant
If you've followed and understood so far, what you realise is that GLP-1s are like the ant grabbing a syringe, sticking it into the elephant, then as the medication goes in, the elephant starts to behave itself.
Before injecting the elephant, it was charging towards food all the time. You, the ant on top, unable to control it, couldn't stop eating. But the moment you start injecting, the elephant slows down. The food noise turns down. Then the real magic my clients report is how much easier they find it to "turn the elephant", and steer it towards eating less and moving south, where they want to go.
Like you, my clients continue to inject the elephant for many months, and whilst the elephant is medicated, anaesthetised and behaving itself, the weight loss is both wonderful and sustainable. Health, movement and confidence improves. Like you, they feel "alive and well", because for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, they are living their life free from unwanted food noise and weight gain being triggered by their elephant.
And this is why for me as a coach, and an expert in obesity, I fully support GLP-1 use.
Very few people understand obesity, and its unconscious basis. Even fewer understand how GLP-1s aren't just about suppressing appetite. They have a widespread effect in calming, soothing and stopping that elephant charging around, that often extends to other areas of their life. I see clients drinking less. Stressing less. Finding more energy to exercise.
Many rebels on our missions are on GLP-1s...
And they're absolutely flying with their nutrition and strength training.
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Stopping The Medication
A lot of people, having lost the weight, make the decision to stop taking their GLP-1. Sometimes it's because they don't want to be on it long term. Other times it's purely financial, and they simply cannot afford to keep taking it.
The issue is this...
What do you think happens to that ant when it stops injecting that elephant? What do you think happens when the calming, soothing, food noise and appetite suppressing effect of the medication wears off?
The elephant very quickly returns to its previous, unmedicated state, of being unruly, being out of control, and charging towards food all the time, against the ant's wishes. Or in your words...
"If I stop it my appetite will come back in droves and I won’t be able to stop myself."
Science and research confirms this. Many people who stop using their GLP-1 regain, often very rapidly. So I understand why you're worried about stopping and regaining, as this is something happening all the time, and people aren't being offered the right support or advice to sustain their weight losses.
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The Solution
Here's an interesting question...
Why doesn't everyone need a GLP-1?
How is it that some people can maintain a lower appetite, lower food noise, and a lower weight, without needing medication to keep it there? Or to put it another way, why is it that some people don't need to inject their elephant all the time to maintain a lower weight?
And the answer is obvious when you think about it.
Their elephant is aligned with them. Their elephant is behaving itself.
A calm, safe, secure elephant, is an elephant that will happily be steered south, towards a lower weight, and it will go there with minimal fuss or effort. Weight loss feels easy, and effortless, without having to inject the elephant.
So the solution lies in understanding four key truths...
1) The elephant (unconscious) directs our weight
2) Medicating the elephant can help you to steer it south 📉
3) Stopping the medication results in it charging north again 📈
4) Calming the elephant can help you to steer it south again 📉
So the solution is a shift, from medicating your elephant, to calming your elephant.
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Calming Your Elephant
Go back to the analogy.
You are the ant, on top of the elephant. You want to go south, towards a lower weight. The elephant wants to go north, towards a higher weight. What's the one thing you can do to try and identify and resolve this issue?
Ask the elephant why it keeps heading north 📈
Speak to it. Gently. Kindly. Compassionately. And ask it...
"Why do you feel the need to keep increasing my appetite, food noise and weight, sending us north? What purpose does that increased appetite, food noise and weight serve?"
Now in each of my clients, the answer lies in some kind of sense of unsafety. Some kind of perceived threat. If you could imagine being the ant on the elephant, and the elephant is charging north, to get away from a very scary lion that is somewhere south, you're getting close to understanding the mechanics of weight gain.
People don't have high appetites, high food noise and high weights (obesity) because they're greedy. They have that "high set point weight" because their unconscious is scared of something, and a higher appetite, food noise and weight gain is their elephant's only known strategy for calming themselves down.
An elephant that sees a lion and only has "run away north!" in their list of strategies for finding safety and calmness will consistently run away north (producing a higher appetite, food noise and weight gain). But what if that elephant was armed with other strategies to feel safe and calm itself down, without running north?
• What if that elephant learned how to stand its ground in the face of lions? No longer running north, but able to face the lion head on, without feeling scared of it?
• What if that elephant was taught mental strategies, to make that very scary lion look a lot more like a fluffy kitty cat. Something there, but nowhere near as threatening?
• What if that elephant developed strength and confidence, at a level where it just knew it could crush that lion if it chose to, able to walk through a pride of lions without fear?
What I'm describing here is what I do day in, day out with my clients. Taking very scared people, with very threatened, unsafe, low in confidence elephants, that run north towards food the moment they see a lion and feel their emotions. Then train them to develop strong, confident, calm elephants, who can keep going south and maintain a lower weight, even when they're surrounded by lions.
Maintaining a lower weight after a GLP-1 isn't about a special diet. It's about no longer injecting your elephant to calm it down, and teaching your elephant how to cope with lions, or even better, crush them.
Liam x
Rebelfit
p.s. Ready to train your elephant to go south with you, no syringe required?
Join Rebel Physique Club™ and start building that calm, strong, confident version of yourself today: rebelfit.co.uk/mission/rebel-physique-club
Or drop me an email to chat about your specific situation, you can email me direct at liam@rebelfit.co.uk and I'll get back to you.
