I lost 5 stone in 12 weeks without taking fat jabs like Mounjaro – I did it all with a genius app

Having battled with her weight her whole life, Lyn Fox admits she had ‘given up with diets’.

Heading into her 60s, the civil servant from Pontardawe in South Wales weighed over 16st and was booked in for scans at her local hospital for knee replacements.

Lyn, now 63, said: ‘I was constantly taking pain medication for my knees, and knew losing weight would have a massive positive effect, but I just felt like I was trapped in a horrific cycle of losing weight with yet another expensive, nonsense diet, then putting it all back on again, with interest.

‘I’d yo-yo up and down several stone so many times, I just didn’t have the energy left to try again, this was it, my life was over.’

Normally hiding from the camera, last April, Lyn attended a friend’s inauguration as High Sheriff in Bridgend where she was part of a group photograph that she says changed everything.

‘I looked like a blob, I just couldn’t believe what I’d become,’ she said. ‘Straight away I went back online trying to find an answer.’

It was while on Facebook that she first came across Slimpod – an app that promises to change the mindset of people struggling to diet.

Developed by Harley Street behavioural specialist Sandra Roycroft-Davis in 2010, the Slimpod programme uses daily audio recordings of positive reinforcement messages to help patients ignore so-called food noise – the urge to eat, often unhealthy food, that many people who struggle with their weight report experiencing.

‘I just had to listen to a recording of a therapist for ten minutes a day explaining how to listen to your body, to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full,’ Lyn says.

‘There was a money-back guarantee, and I felt I had nothing to lose – my husband, Freddie, thought it was mumbo-jumbo and laughed when I’d put it on the speaker in our bedroom every evening. But I didn’t care, I knew I had to give it a go.’

Today, against all the odds, Lyn is 5st lighter and says she never battles with food noise.

She also says she noticed a change ‘almost instantly’.

‘I’d wake up each morning just wanting to eat differently,’ she said. ‘Simple things like eating less sugar, a Mediterranean kind of approach where you’d eat unprocessed foods like nuts and seeds more, fruit and veg, less bread and pasta, it just felt like what I wanted, not what I should do.

‘I started to enjoy my food more. And without really meaning to, I wouldn’t eat until late morning each day, and I’d stop around 8pm – but there were no “rules”, it was just me doing what felt right.’

It sounds almost too good to be true – but more than 350,000 Britons have now tried Slimpod, which is backed up by medical research and endorsed by NHS doctors.

And, costing less than £100, it is now being recommended by some experts as a strategy to help those planning to come off weight-loss jabs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy.

An estimated 1.5million people in the UK are paying for these weekly appetite-suppressants. While highly effective – Mounjaro patients lose up to a fifth of their body weight – research shows that patients have to remain on them indefinitely or risk putting the kilos back on.

And, from today, the price of Mounjaro is going up. The largest dose, 15mg, is rising from £122 to £247.50 a month. Meanwhile patients taking a 5mg dose will see their monthly bill rise from £92 to £135.

Patients who get the jabs on the NHS – where it is currently restricted to only the most severely obese – are also offered diet and exercise coaching, so that they can improve their lifestyle, making it easier to eventually come off the jabs in the future. 

However, those who pay privately typically get no support.

‘There’s no doubt weight-loss jabs can have a massive positive impact in helping people lose a significant amount of weight, but you need strategies to keep the weight off once you stop,’ says Sandra Roycroft-Davies.

‘The food noise will come back when you stop using them and you’ll put the weight back on. That’s where something like Slimpod can be invaluable.’

So, what is Slimpod – and how does it work?

The creators of Slimpod say it is designed to retrain the subconscious mind in order to tackle food noise.

The programme involves listening to daily ten-minute recordings. These are designed to help users relax, feel more confident in themselves and, crucially, reduce cravings.

For example, in one ‘pod’, users might be guided through deep breathing exercises to reduce stress – something which research shows raises the risk of severe food noise.

The narrator will then use positive reinforcement techniques – for example, telling the user that they are going to feel more in control of their eating, they will feel better able to resist food noise and they will turn to healthier options when deciding on meals.

The pod may also involve visualisation – where the user is told to imagine themselves in the kitchen or sitting down for a meal and making sensible decisions about what they cook and eat.

Users are advised to listen to one of these recordings every day, usually before bed, and never while driving.

Clinical trials have shown that patients who use Slimpod lose, on average, nearly 10kg over 12 weeks. But experts say it is not unusual for some patients – like Lyn – to shed a much larger amount of weight.

‘Many thousands of people who have used Slimpod have lost a significant amount of weight and sustained that weight loss,’ says Dr Adrian Heald, a diabetes and weight loss expert at Salford Royal Hospital, who is set to lead a major UK clinical trial of the app.

‘It fits into people’s lives, and it’s not disruptive and expensive like weight-loss surgery.’

Dr Heald also argues that Slimpod could be offered to patients considering coming off weight-loss jabs.

‘The costs of long-term injectable therapies such as Mounjaro are unsustainable and we need to start looking for other options which address the root causes of weight gain, changing behaviours and attitudes around food – Slimpod is one potential option.’

Slimpod, which costs £99, paid over three months, also gives users exercise challenges – something that Lyn says was crucial for her weight loss.

For example, she started regularly climbing the equivalent amount of stairs to the height of the Eiffel Tower several times a week. She says she soon started noticing significant positive changes to her mobility.

Lyn also started Zumba – dance exercise classes – and goes on regular long walks with her husband, who is now also using Slimpod.

Recent hospital scans of her knees show that the weight loss has considerably strengthened her joints, meaning she will no longer need to undergo surgery to replace them.

And Lyn says the change has vastly improved her mental health and confidence.

‘We recently went on a cruise to the Caribbean where I wore a bikini for the first time since my 20s,’ she says.

‘But it’s less about losing the weight, the numbers, than feeling like I’m not in this constant battle with food any more, I’m free to eat what I want but make better choices.’