I have lost 70 pounds

And deserve exactly no congratulations

Weight loss shots are flooding the market but are still oddly hard to find in pharmacies. I have used all of the big hitters: Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, and have various feelings about them. I’m not a doctor. I know nothing about your health. These meds have not been tested long term. Blah Blah. There are new ones, including direct to consumer shots and maybe pills? Dunno. It is about to be overwhelming to choose. If you scroll down a bit I will write about these three.

You know the story. I mean hopefully you don’t know the story because the story is sort of painful, but I’m guessing some number of you know some part of the story. I was curvy in high school, fat by college, obese in my 20s and morbidly obese from my 30s on. I’ve written about this before.

I tried all the things. I did Keto back when it was called Atkins and I had to explain to everyone that yes, rice is a carb. I lost 30 pounds and gained 40. I did modern Keto. So fresh, so different, so many tiny dry fake peanut butter cups. The peanut butter cups were in fact the only dry thing in my diet. On Keto I felt like everything was slippery, sauces and eggs and meats. I dreamed of Saltines, something absorbent, I researched the carbs in cardboard. I lost 40 pounds and gained 50. I tried Intermittent Fasting with all of the timing combinations. This worked pretty well but it turns out lots of people in the world want to eat after 3:00pm including my family. Whole 30, paleo, weight watchers, noom, nutritionists. With each start and stop I felt worse about myself.

I read the Intuitive Eating book and did the worksheets. I believe them. I do. I just never got past the first step where you allow yourself to eat anything and everything. That was a good step. I had 25 Cane’s chicken fingers in a metal tin in the fridge. Until I didn’t have them. Step two: listening to hunger cues was not possible for me, at least in the time that I tried it. Which was an amount of time that I don’t remember but was, I’m sure, impressively long. You know what helps with Intuitive Eating? What allows you to tune in to your body and have food lose its power? A weight loss shot (or three)

This isn’t a post that has footnotes or links, but I’m pretty sure the science is with me. Go ahead and google on your own.

Ninety some odd percent of weight loss efforts fail and fail spectacularly. Here are some other things that fail over 90% of the time: Onsides kicks in football. Experimental medical treatments. Trying to get that dimpled guy in college to meet you for dinner. What do these things have in common? You are desperate.

Despite the almost certain failure of all of these interventions the weight loss industry is the third largest money maker in the country (I read somewhere and it seems plausible.) The math is with them. Fewer calories in than out results in weight loss. But, say it with me, I was told there would be no math. I am jealous of those of you that are nodding your head at the elegant simplicity of that equation. I am guessing that in the pie chart of your mind thoughts of eating take up less than 50%, maybe even less than 30%. Or 15…should I keep going?

Some of you can’t imagine the low hum, or loud shout, of the call of food. It is like someone who is afraid of spiders who knows there is one somewhere in the room. I feel the food lurking in the cabinets, fridge, maybe even in a bowl on the counter. Distracting sure, but beyond that is the results of endless eating. Physical pain: joints that ache, legs that reject that second flight of stairs, and lungs that convince you that cardio will actually kill you. Mental pain: the endless echo of “I’m lazy”, the feeling of powerlessness, the disgust over my own reflection.

Then came the shots.

Ozempic first. That was two summers ago. Surprising no one I was pre-diabetic with high blood pressure So my doc (curiously more obese than I was) begrudgingly wrote a script at my request. Insurance was all, “hell yes, we don’t want to pay for your heart attack stroke care go for it.” So I started Ozempic. I was whelmed (a word coined by my son to bridge the gap between overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but don’t start using it even if you want to because it is in his college essay and if any admissions officer actually reads it we want them to be more than whelmed.) My appetite went down some, my shakiness from uneven blood sugar abated, over a few months I lost some weight but the world continued its orbit exactly as it had. (I think, obviously I am no science expert.) It became more difficult to find my dose at the pharmacy and so I went up and down. On higher doses I felt sick. Lower doses I felt nothing. I was Ozempic goldilocks and I didn’t love her. So when I couldn’t find my dose at any pharmacy I stopped. I was used to weight loss efforts fading away or flaming out so it wasn’t a big deal.

About a year later I had gained another 5 pounds. So I went back to my doc. He had lost SO MUCH WEIGHT. I bet you think you know the punchline. This would be a more compelling post if it were true but when I asked “So, have you finally given those weight loss shots a try?” He said “No, I just ate less and exercised more.” Despite his obvious triumph he deigned to write me another script. This time for Mounjaro. It sounded better to me. In addition to appetite supression and digestion/absorbtion finesse (clearly I understand the mechanism) it WORKS ON THE CRAVING CENTER OF THE BRAIN. I’ve written about this before. When I went on Mounjaro I gave up caffeine and alcohol. I also stopped buying bags and cat accessories on Instagram. It was…magic. I feel OK saying that because even the pharmacologists don’t understand why it works. But it did. In a big big way.

I was free, lighter mentally as much as physically. I convinced (I think) my psychiatric nurse practitioner to look into the mental health benefits of Mounjaro. I got excited about the idea of there being an actual effective intervention for addiction. I starting thinking about how this shot was going to take down big-agriculture, the weight loss industry, and completely reshape the health care system. Perhaps I got a but ahead of myself.

It was too good I guess. My insurance stopped paying for Mounjaro. I bought one month out of pocket for $1600. Emphasis on the one, and also emphasis on the the $1600 and also emphasis on the out-of-pocket. So emphasize it all I guess. Now I have switched to Wegovy. I am on my third month and once again I am whelmed. I have lost a little weight which I attribute to having learned how to listen to hunger cues and taste food while I was on the Mounajro. Perhaps I am selling the Wegovy short. It certainly helps with my blood sugar changes. It costs me $15 a month.

I wasn’t sure why I was writing about this. It didn’t really tread new ground or make me laugh. And then I had to look up how to spell Mounjaro. Which is spelled Mounjaro (don’t take if you are allergic to Mounjaro) and I found this: Discount Mounjaro???

The world of weight loss shots is growing, perhaps enough to change the orbit of the earth. It feels like that to me. At least what is left of me.

Here are some after and before photos. I put the after first so that is the photo featured on the link (vanity is real). I am actually quite a bit thinner than that one looks. These are baggy pants. It is my first time wearing a belt in over 20 years. Clearly I need help figuring out how to have it cover the button. It’s closing mechanism (not a buckle) was also beyond my capibilites, it kept slipping back open. I was also quite a bit heavier than the other one looks. I never take full body shots. This one is from shovel guy and I was not at my heaviest then.

TLDR: Weight loss shot worked well. Helped with mental health as much as physical. My favorite one is expensive. Recommend but I am not a doctor.

I feel really weird about this post. I would like positive comments that don’t include congratulations.