I’ll admit I was overjoyed over the arrival of GLP-1 medications. Ozempic, Monjauro, no matter the brand, just the knowledge that a silver bullet had finally arrived was exciting.
It wasn’t until generic versions of these drugs became available that the price fell to a level where more people could afford them. You may know that these medications were created for diabetics but the side effect of weight loss was too good to ignore. I asked my physician to prescribe Ozempic, the granddaddy and probably best known of the bunch, for me. She refused, saying my BMI (body mass index) wasn’t high enough and that the medication probably wouldn’t be effective for me. I didn’t accept that.
Where There’s a Will
Several online medical portals/pharmacies will prescribe it and assign you a medical advisor. I found one based in Canada and signed up. There were thorough questionnaires about my medical history, and several hoops to jump through before they would give the green light. I even had to shoot a video of my body where I puffed out my stomach and made myself look as big as possible. I was getting this drug, there were no two ways about it.
An injection pen and a bunch of needles arrived by courier in a cold pack. The medication must be stored in the fridge. They start you off with a .25 mg dose once a week that you inject yourself. The needle is the width of a hair and you don’t even feel it. After four weeks, you move up to .50 mg. After another month, it’s 1 mg and if someone is diabetic and their sugar is difficult to control, they might go higher. One mg is a typical, full dose.
How It Started
In the first few days following my initial .25 mg injection, the food noise stopped. It was amazing to be suddenly free of the inner chatter that reminds me about that chocolate bar hidden up in the cupboard. Or the last serving of ice cream calling my name. But here’s the thing: the noise stops but you still need to work on the habit of snacking. It’s not a completely free ride but it sure helps.
Ozempic slows down your digestive system so you feel fuller longer. If you overeat you feel like garbage, which is also good for weight loss. You quickly learn to eat smaller meals. That’s how you lose weight. But I felt awful. Fatigue, another common symptom, was overwhelming, especially after I ate. I found myself crawling back into bed after having a piece of toast in the morning. It was ridiculous. I also felt overly medicated, even on the small dose. Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? When you can just feel that you’ve got a foreign substance in you? And I had a headache every day.
The Advice: Keep Going
I was in regular touch with my practitioner who suggested drinking more water. I put alerts in my phone and substantially increased my water intake. It did help a bit but the headaches and fatigue persisted. Still, the experts say side effects tend to subside after the body gets used to the drug. I felt like shit and had to lay down every chance I got. So, I carried on until I simply couldn’t anymore.
The week before I was supposed to increase my dose to 1 mg, I quit Ozempic. I couldn’t imagine what another doubling of the dose was going to do to me and I wasn’t willing to find out. The side effects hadn’t subsided like they were supposed to. I wasn’t eating much, true, but I hadn’t lost an ounce. My taste buds were strongly affected. I couldn’t drink my beloved flat whites anymore because they tasted awful. Old cheese, my favourite, was like cardboard. The joy was being sucked out of my life. I couldn’t bear to eat raw veggies for some reason and I normally have a salad every day. Dragging myself through every day and fighting thoughts of lying down was no way to live.
My practitioner says I’m on a “pause.” She suggested I hang onto the injection pens that I have in case I want to start up again. But why would I do that? Yes, I’m disappointed that the “silver bullet” that’s worked for so many people didn’t work for me. People say I should try another brand. But I’m the kind of person who gets drowsy when they take an aspirin. I’ve always been sensitive to medication of any kind. I just don’t think this is the right route for me.
I Saw the Light
Around the time I was quitting Ozempic, which by the way took a good week to get out of my system, I started reading a book by Alex Light. I’ve followed her on Instagram for a long time. She used to be a skinny little thing but to maintain a thin frame, she was starving and miserable. In her book (You Are Not A Before Picture) she writes about the many reasons why women are so determined to be supermodel thin and feel unworthy if they’re not.
Alex reminds us that food is neither good or bad, it’s just food. Some of it is healthier but we learn to attach values and emotions to it. Diet fads and trends come and go but the message is always the same: take up less space. Conform. Be what society says you should be at any cost. It’s not about getting as fat as you want and saying that’s fine. It’s about ending the cycle of self punishment and accepting that all bodies are not meant to be the same.
Healthy and Skinny are Not the Same
I’m so bored with myself and my own attitudes toward what I eat. I decided I am finished with counting this and analyzing that. It doesn’t mean I’ll unhinge my jaw and gorge on whatever I want. But I’ll tell you, eating a handful of chocolate covered almonds when I’m craving them is a lot better than eating seven other things just to avoid those chocolate covered almonds – and ending up eating them anyway. And maybe binging on them. So, I’m officially done. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know I’ve been on Weight Watchers, Keto, and everything else except the bird seed diet which I can only assume also exists. I will still check labels and choose healthy food most of the time but I’m not going to make it my life’s work.
No disrespect to anyone who has found one of these programs (or any other) works for them. You do you. I’m just weary of them all and need to go a different way. I really hoped I’d get past the side effects and think Ozempic was the best thing ever! Not so much. And something inside me snapped when it failed. When you live a life that centres on your weight you think everyone else does too. And when you discover that it’s not the most important thing in most peoples’ lives, it’s a revelation. Freeing.
How It’s Going
Have I put on weight eating regular food? Yup, some, but it’s not forever nor is it the end of the world. I’m adjusting. I understand portion control and I also, for the first time, don’t look in the mirror and compare myself to an unrealistic ideal. An ideal that I’ve never looked like, by the way, and simply can’t emulate. This is me. I’m imperfect. I feel more in control now that the world of food is open to me and I can make informed decisions instead of eating from one tiny portion of the food pyramid. And hating myself if I step off the path.
I’m sorry to everyone I ever annoyed with my long list of food rules. This doesn’t mean I’ll eat everything I see. It just means that I’m learning to listen to my body and find out what it wants before I pick up a fork. It’s the way people who haven’t had disordered eating habits behave. And it only took me (almost) 64 years to discover it.