I think one of the most frustrating things for me is when people start on a GLP-1 (Ozempic & Wegovy) or a GIP/GLP-1 (Mounjaro & Zepbound) and quit within a week or a month because they think it isn’t working. I recognize that behavior because I have done it for 50 years. It’s called “Going on a Diet.”
The people that hype up diets, and/or diet products, through commercials, talk shows, news shows, books, magazines, and now social media, all promise immediate weight loss. So many of us fell for this as we promised ourselves, “This is the one I will stick with. This is the one I will lose weight on finally.” Then, when we do not lose the weight we were promised, we stuff the book onto the bookshelf, along with all the other diet books that promised the same thing. You had said the exact same thing about those books, too, didn’t you? You knew they were going to be The Ones you succeeded with.
Did we ever succeed? If we did, we wouldn’t be sitting here reading about GLP-1s and how I feel so many people treat them as if they were a diet that is finally going to be The Answer to their weight loss issues. If GLP-1s fit on a bookshelf, the empty pens would be piled on them next to all those diet books that also offered empty promises.
GLP-1s Are Not Empty Promises!
The reality is people are not giving the medications long enough to take effect. It can take 8 to 10 weeks to even get to a level amount into your body. Most of the time, that is during the titrating up period, from the loading doses to a stable dose that will take effect in your body. That is called the “Onset of Action.”
Sure, we are hearing about microdosing working for people. We know some people lost 50 lbs. on 2.5 mg. of Mounjaro. But these are the outliers, just like I am having lost 240 lbs. There is no test (yet) to see if the medications are going to work or not, although companies are trying to make one. It would make it so much easier if we knew we were on the right medication or now, but for now, it is trial and error.
I want to take the common analogy of having high blood pressure or even diabetes. You are given medications to lower each of those diseases, often diseases of obesity. If you took either the BP medication or the diabetes meds and/or insulin, it is ludicrous to think a week or four is going to make any difference in your body’s workings to lower the problems.
“It may take a month to six weeks to bring your blood pressure down by slowly raising your medication doses,”
Metformin will usually start lowering your blood sugar (glucose) levels in the first week of treatment, but it may take 2 to 3 months to see its full effect.
It is the same with GLP-1s.
Change of Mindset
I am really hoping that putting this in a different context can help those considering or on GLP-1s believing this is the fix of their lifetime, better than any diet, that the weight just falls off… is able to see things in a different light.
Sure, the weight seems to slide off some people, but most of us have to work hard to get to where we want to go. And even then, our bodies might have a different idea of what our “goal weight” will be.
And the reality, again, is this is not a diet.
There are not many choices for those of us with Type 2 Diabetes or Clinical Obesity except these medications. There certainly will be more down the line, but for now, this is what we have. Folks need to take gung-ho advantage of what they are able to use to save their lives.
Living with Side Effects
Many have to deal with annoying side effects, but that can come with the territory. I understand if they are unbearable, but most medications have crappy side effects. With everyday medications you might take, just because you don’t have outward side effects, plenty that might be happening on the inside. They could be tearing up your liver (acetaminophen) or your kidneys and stomach (ibuprofen).
I have taken psych meds continually since 1995 for Bipolar 1 and I have had many really-not-fun reactions: gaining 80 lbs. in 4 months on risperidone, Tardive Dyskenia (which I still have), narcoleptic-like fatigue that kept me from driving until I was off that medication, skin rashes, and the list goes on. When you need a medication to keep you alive, you suck it up and keep living even when it is a pain in the patootey.
Mounjaro, my GIP/GLP-1, for all intents and purposes, is a medication I will take for life. Even as my labs have become pristine or as I am now able to walk miles after being bedridden for over a decade, I will remain on these medications.
I cannot regain this weight. I have so many consequences to being fat again, it would, quite literally, crush me and my spirit. I can’t help thinking that the people who go on and off the medications willy nilly are just not sick enough yet, have not tried enough diets, would rather eat what they want instead of having discipline injected into them. I wonder if they will ever get to the desperation I did when I put that Do Not Resuscitate paper above my bed during COVID-19.
Strategies for life must be considered when taking, or not taking, GLP-1s. Whether you choose to go down in dosages to maintain your new life and body, go off and back on again if you regain some/a lot of weight, quit soon after starting, or, like me, stay on them continually forever. Thinking ahead is crucial.
These medications are Life for me. They represent an unrealized freedom from my fat, my fat-related illnesses, my fat immobility, and so much more. I have a life now and I plan on keeping it as long as possible.
I hope you do, too.
