When Digital Minimalism Meets GLP-1s

I am writing my GLP-1 Memoir. While I am only five months into maintenance, I have been on my GLP-1 Excursion for three years now. I started April 22, 2022 at 405 lbs. today, May 15, 2025, I weigh 121 lbs. (which is too little… working to gain at least 5 more lbs.). I started on Trulicity and was on that for a year and have now been on Mounjaro for two years. I’ve lost 280+/- lbs. Writing that, it seems impossible for me to be that small. I’m 5’1″ and have always been short, but now, I am also small. I have bones! Who knew?

So, yes, I am only five months into maintenance, but it will take quite a bit of time to finish this book. It’s exciting to write it, but also daunting knowing all that needs to be done.

Getting Published

In order to publish with one of the big publishing houses, there are a lot of hoops to jump through. One of the biggest things before an Agent or Editor will even look at a writer is their online presence. The writer must have a grand following on all the socials: TikTok, Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube, and whatever is out there or being created as we speak.

I quit Facebook in 2016. I put my account on pause, not sure if I would be going back once things settled down after the election. They did not, so I was off Facebook for a good long time. Every once in awhile, I would re-start the account and try to engage again.

My COVID Wake-Up Call

During COVID, I was so depressed and resigned I was going to die, I had a Do Not Rescusitate sign over my bed. I didn’t even think about being sociable. 

Once I’d had a couple of vaccinations, I felt like I could live again. 

It would be two more years before I got COVID and, in the aftermath, I ended up in the hospital with Diastolic Heart Failure and, unknown at the time, Lung Damage. It was then I met my Guardian Angel in the guise of an Electrophysiologist… a specific kind of cardiology specialist.

Dr. Shravan Ambati stood in the doorway with three other cardiologists, looking at me, at 405 lbs., barely fitting in the hospital bed, oxygen mask on, and feeling quite horrid. He took a step towards me and said, “You will either change your life, or you will live in a nursing home.” That was the turning point in my life. Dr. Ambati’s dire warning prompted me to seek help from my endocrinologist and to immediately quit eating Uber Eats.

GLP-1s Enter My World

I was put on Trulicity (dulaglutide) for my diabetes and was on it for a year. Because I was not on social media and had stopped my cable TV as well as most streaming services, I had never heard of GLP-1s. I never watched the news nor read about the horrible (or good) things that happened in the world. 

Yet, I began losing weight. The package insert for Trulicity said people might lose 3-5 lbs, but here I was,  losing almost 100 lbs. 

One random day, while visiting my pulmonologist, after discovering nodules of some kind in my lungs, my daughter Meghann called and told me she had started a medication called Mounjaro. It took me months to remember the name of this medication. I had to repeat “Mount Kilimanjaro” inside my head before I could pronounce the odd name correctly. I asked my endocrinologist about it and asked if I might be put on it. Insurance approved it and so my Mounjaro excursion began.

Now I wanted to know more.

I had begun watching YouTube a few months earlier, mostly Disney World and Queen-related videos, and had a thought that maybe Mounjaro was talked about somewhere. 

There still weren’t a lot of people talking about GLP-1s on YouTube. I didn’t know at the time, it was TikTok where I would have learned a lot about them. I never went on TikTok, therefore, my education was slow.

As my weight began melting off, I became more active in the GLP-1 world, specifically regarding Mounjaro. Zepbound had not come around yet, so it was Mounjaro, Ozempic, or Wegovy information available.

The Publishing Dilemma

As I said, one has to have an enormous social media presence in order to be considered for traditional publishing. Therefore, as the idea for a memoir began forming, then encouraged by those I met on YouTube, I knew I would have to up my social media game. 

I got a TikTok account, but, despite a lot of trying to learn it, I couldn’t figure it out. I gave up. I re-started my Facebook account for the umpteenth time and, when I started this blog, got a Health At Any Cost Facebook page. Even though I was motivated by the idea of making it big as an author, my book selling in airports and bookstores, I just couldn’t get my fingers to participate in the Facebook banter. I tried Instagram. Sucked at that, too. I left Twitter ages before it became X.

Looking around at my lack of a “social media presence,” I was never going to get a traditional agent or publisher. My only other choice is independent publishing (what used to be called “self-publishing”).

I deleted all of these sites, leaving only YouTube left.

Time Swells, and Contracts Again

Because I made that decision, my entire world opened up. I no longer have to think about or create Query Letters, Proposals, being rejected, and re-submitting until/if I am ever accepted. Instead, I can write at my own pace, edit, edit, edit, and edit before I pay an editor to edit again and then will be very close to publishing.

During this time, I read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and fell in love with the other ideas I had not yet considered. I’d already knocked all social media except YouTube off my plate, so that was a plus. I now have my phone on Do Not Disturb except for a very select few people, from 4am until 9pm. My time, once again, expanded beautifully. I inhaled deeply.

Not only do I have time for my GLP-1 memoir, but also for creating on here and on my YouTube channel, all of which are GLP-1-focused.

Oh, and time for all these medical procedures I’m dealing with.

But that’s another story.