The turkey had been a tad overcooked, the fine china was elegantly laid out, and my grandmother had brought out the special tablecloth reserved for either Christmas or somber occasions.

It was Christmas Day in 2024, and I found myself at my mother’s home, surrounded by 23 relatives. The air was filled with chatter, opinions flying freely even before everyone had taken their seats.

As the family’s sole vegan, I sat awkwardly, picking at a nut roast while enduring the curious stares from my family members.

“You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?” my mom inquired, scrutinizing me from across the table.

The mention of “weight” hushed the room instantly—a topic that always stirred tension in our family—as my grandmother paused with a Brussels sprout halfway to her mouth, lips tight as if anticipating a juicy piece of gossip.

Caught off guard by the sudden spotlight, I gave a nonchalant shrug, replying, “Have I? Maybe over the summer,” as though I hadn’t noticed the significant five-stone transformation.

It wasn’t technically a lie. In fact, I’d finally reached my pre-motherhood weight of seven stone two months before, down from 13 stone. 

It was the culmination of over a year of secret dieting and exercise, aided by Mounjaro.

Rebecca Tidy (pictured with her mother), from Cornwall, was tired of being treated differently by men because of her weight and so started Mounjaro

But I’d neglected to tell my family about my efforts, as – while they mean well – they’re extremely opinionated. I knew that they’d interrogate me, then offer a running commentary and endless unsolicited advice the moment I admitted I was dieting.

I eventually confessed to the weight loss, but was adamant I would not reveal the means by which I achieved it. I knew the judgement that would ensue the moment they knew I’d done so effortlessly with prescription drugs.

My mum’s side of the family are practical farmer types who think that willpower’s a virtue, shortcuts are a moral failing and that almost anything can be solved by hard work alone.

In their eyes, spending hundreds of pounds a month on weight loss would be disgustingly vain.

I still remember the trauma of my opinionated loved ones finding out that I’d had a tiny bit of lip filler. Almost forgetting who my family were, in June 2019, I made the mistake of admitting to my cousin that I’d had the tweakment.

My mum was also in the room at the time and was recovering from a hip operation. Dosed up on morphine and half-asleep, I assumed she wouldn’t remember a word of it.

But either she has an extraordinary memory while medicated, or my cousin told the entire family, because on my next visit, my mother and grandmother grilled me about why my top lip no longer disappeared when I smiled.

They told me it looked ‘ridiculous’ and bluntly informed me that I shouldn’t be wasting money on filler when I had a big mortgage and a child to feed.

However, she didn’t want her family to find out about her usage of Mounjaro. Pictured, Rebecca after using the weight loss jabs

It was a level of outrage that would make you think I’d taken up drug dealing rather than injecting 0.5ml of hyaluronic acid. The whole thing was so absurd that I realised I could never tell them about anything cosmetic again.

That Christmas, it was my mum who was the first to notice my weight loss. ‘You’re not starving yourself, are you?’ she questioned. She followed my polite denials with: ‘Well, you must be doing something.’

Someone else then chimed in with: ‘Is it that weightlifting rubbish again?’ Weightlifting, to them, is a pastime for people who don’t have ‘real work’ to do, like fencing fields or hauling feed sacks.

The grilling continued until my mum concluded, ‘Well, you did need to lose weight, but you don’t want to lose any more.’

It was upsetting that they saw it as their right to comment on my body. Yet I knew better than to say so, as it would descend into an argument.

Later, the conversation shifted from the monarchy to politics, then veered into weight-loss jabs.

There must have been something about them on TV around the same time as my mum and grandmother suddenly piped up, seemingly experts on the subject, to lament about society’s lack of willpower.

I sat in nervous silence, grateful that nobody knew about the £300-a-month pens in my fridge.

For most of my adult life, I’d taken for granted that I was thin and never thought that I would end up bigger. Then I hit my thirties and everything unravelled. 

My pre-eclampsia pregnancy left me exhausted and permanently starving, and I was still recovering from it when the next disaster arrived. The fifteen-year relationship I’d been in since university ended just in time for lockdown.

Rebecca pictured before her weight loss journey. She went from 13 stone to seven stone

The final nail in the coffin was a melanoma diagnosis that left me needing several shoulder operations and skin grafts.

The surgeries left me stuck on the sofa for months, and so, trapped indoors with only my toddler for company, I found myself making frequent trips to the fridge.

I was surviving on medjool dates, avocados, nuts and any food I could shove into my mouth with one hand, while sleep-deprived and questioning every life choice I’d made.

By December 2020, I weighed almost 13 stone. I could barely recognise my newly-rounded face and body. The actual bigness didn’t bother me, though.

Melanoma dramatically rearranged my life priorities, and suddenly, my physical appearance became laughingly trivial. I also wasn’t planning on being naked around a man for the foreseeable future, so the weight wasn’t worth worrying about.

Even the truly unhinged trolling after a work photoshoot in an unforgiving pink satin dress didn’t persuade me to diet.

One bloke was adamant that it should be ‘illegal’ for a woman of my size to wear such a frock, while another confidently declared that I was so arrogant that I probably believed I looked like a ‘cute little cupcake’ when, in reality, I was a ‘giant muffin top’.

I found the whole thing hilarious. The dress was pink and flowing, and he wasn’t exactly wrong, even if it was the kind of insult that only a six-year-old would find devastating.

I didn’t let any of their comments get under my skin, but I equally couldn’t help but notice how differently people treated me when I was overweight. Men in particular became far less helpful once I started gaining weight.

It’s rarely acknowledged, but being thin earns you any number of casual kindnesses from strangers. Men hold doors open, smile as they pass and offer help that you never asked for.

When I put on weight, all that evaporated. Men stopped being nice or helpful. They stopped seeing me at all. I hadn’t realised this before, but male chivalry most definitely has a BMI limit.

A ridiculous incident involving a bug the size of a toddler’s shoe noisily zooming around my hotel room made me realise I needed to slim down.

I ran to the reception in a panic, fervently hoping that someone would remove it. But the male receptionist looked me up and down, then said he was busy.

When I was thin, men practically vaulted over furniture to help me. Now I couldn’t even command enough respect to get a bug removed. Something had to change.

Days later, I bought Mounjaro after an e-consultation with a pharmacy. It did exactly as promised, instantly killing my appetite.

I found the first week utterly hideous, and was constantly plagued by fatigue. However, things became more straightforward over time, and I began to see the pounds slip off – all the while not feeling hungry.

By October 2024, I was back to seven stone. Not only did my clothes fit again – saving me from buying a whole new wardrobe – but men started being nice to me once more. It was as if shedding five stone had magically restored my social credit.

Nobody likes to admit it, but thin women move through the world differently.

In the end, the Mounjaro secret didn’t last. It was a different cousin that gave the game away this time. He spotted one mention of fat jabs on my X page last July, then promptly showed it to my mother and grandmother.

I was battling the tummy bug that was doing the rounds at school when my mum unexpectedly walked into my house demanding to know why I’d used ‘those fat pens.’

Instead of asking how I was, she announced that she was relieved I clearly had money to waste, since she’d been under the misapprehension that I was poor, which is why my home ‘has no proper kitchen or decent central heating.’

Apparently, the house is allowed a makeover, but I am not.

I’d been losing weight for over a year, and none of them noticed. Yet the moment they learned I was using Mounjaro, it was suddenly a problem.

At one point, my mother said that I wouldn’t be ill if I were eating enough, as if the virus circulating at school had decided to target only the underfed. It was an interesting theory considering that half the parents in my daughter’s class are on Mounjaro.

The brutal aftermath confirmed why I hadn’t told my family in the first place. They treat my life like it’s theirs to monitor and judge when, in reality, it’s none of their business.

I don’t regret my choice, though. I knew that I needed to do something for myself – and crucially, without the usual chorus of unsolicited wisdom.