Sep
7
There is something I have been very hesitant to write about, but it has affected me so deeply it feels increasingly dishonest not to. And that is, as our actual United States president calls it, because we live in a timeline that is both deeply dark and troubling and also impossibly stupid, THE FAT SHOT.
So here we go into the topic of GLP-1s and body image and weight loss, and if that is not your jam, I get it. For a while there I was really trying to avoid all of the endless writeups on these drugs and it felt impossible. I donāt have any kind of Hot Take to share, I am just going to talk about my own experience in general terms.
I will say that as soon as I started hearing about these meds I knew it was only a matter of time and availability and cost until I would give them a go. Iāve only spent my entire adult LIFE in a state of mild to complete obsession with my weight and how much Iām eating. And I am hardly a hesitant person when it comes to, letās just say medications. Other folks might wisely consider things like side effects and long term repercussions, I myself do not treat my body like a temple unless we are talking about the gluttonous rat Templeton in Charlotteās Web.
Earlier this year I had read about someoneās experience with compound GLP-1s, which are the custom-mixed, non-FDA-approved alternatives to brand-name drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound. That was enough to spark my interest and I ended up acquiring a semaglutide prescription through a telehealth service (Hers, for the record). It was an easy if expensive process and there is some medical overview in the sense that you get a chat message from a doctor now and then, but largely youāre on your own with everything.
āNon-FDA approvedā is a term that no longer holds much sway for me (you mean the same FDA run by Trump Jrās hunting buddy with no medical or scientific credentials?) but of course itās a lot more sketchy to order drugs off the internet rather than getting them prescribed from your own doctor.
Itās also not easy to dose these compound meds. They donāt come with injector pens or any kind of mechanism that makes that part a no-brainer. You get little vials of liquid medication that has to live in the fridge, and a pack of syringes and rubbing alcohol pads. For each dose, you have to draw the correct amount out of the vial into the syringe ā weirdly difficult! ā then flick the needle like youāve seen in the movies to get the air bubble to float to the top, then inject your own self.
I was given a dosing schedule that starts you very low and gradually increases the amount, which I followed. Itās been a while but I would say I noticed an effect right away, a mild sort of nausea that reminded me a bit of early morning sickness. As time went on and my doses increased, I got to a point of familiarity with it: the strongest effects would be happening on maybe the third day after the shot, then waning back down until my next dose.
I did not have extreme side effects. The worst I have ever felt has been some nausea/food aversion and fatigue, nothing major. My dosing has remained pretty low, it seems like I respond to it really well and can get by with smaller amounts.
The big thing you hear about with these drugs is not having āfood noiseā, which I didnāt really understand until I experienced it. I would say it is like having food become ā¦ food. As opposed to a drug.
Food isnāt a DRUG lol, O RLY then why have I used it like a drug for as long as I can remember? Food can be euphoric, food can be comforting, food can numb and distract, food is the one addiction you canāt find the relief of abstinence from. I have struggled with food for so long and really dug myself into a bad habit during COVID of evening dissociation with food and TV. I remember the feeling of just giving myself permission, night after night, to have whatever the hell I wanted because god dammit everything was so fucked, and I have not been able to shake the chase of that full-body whew of permission + overconsumption.
Plus, menopause. Metabolic changes, body fat redistribution, pounds clinging stubbornly. I wasnāt problematically overweight but I was at a higher weight than Iād been since pregnancy and the scale kept inching upwards.
Once the meds reached a certain point, Iād say my relationship with food completely changed. I can still enjoy and appreciate food, to be clear. I was worried about that part, like yes I would love for food to not rule my life but I also donāt want to lose its appeal, right? Things taste good, things look good. But nothing is overwhelming in the way that it was. I can eat a thing and just ā¦ stop?!? I eat smaller portions overall, but the real switch is in the night eating.
OH, THE NIGHT EATING. Workinā on my night cheese ā¬ Oh my god the calorie intake that would happen after, say, 7 PM. The mornings I would wake up just steeped in regret from all the binge snacking. Well, I just plain donāt do that any more. I donāt want it and I donāt miss it. All I can say is food does not get me high any more.
Iāve lost about 30 pounds from my very highest to my lowest weight. I bounce around a little and Iām still tinkering with the dose to find a sweet spot where I have good appetite but no bingeing. I worry about muscle loss and getting enough protein, ugh the protein. I dislike the syringes and vials and am in the process of switching to the Wegovy pen (this was not available to me when I first started back in March). I just got my bloodwork done last week and everything looks fine. I donāt need to lose any more weight but I would like to take these meds forever if I can.
Itās been pretty life changing. I feel a LOT more confident about my body, which is vain but there it is, and thatās made a huge difference in how I feel on a daily basis. I also feel untethered from decades of cycling through various unhealthy relationships with food. Restricting, bingeing, endless scrutinizing and criticisms. I just ā¦ eat food now. For fuel and pleasure but never for intoxication or numbness.
I realize Iām not the target market for these medications. There are folks who need it more than me who canāt get it yet because of cost and that sucks. I hope it continues to become more available to those who want it. I hope we as a society can figure out how to view GLP-1s as an option and not something that should be praised or demonized. I wish we werenāt seeing such a backslide into extreme thinness happening hand in skeletal hand with the increasing availability of the meds.
I donāt want to promote using compound meds ā I know there have been issues, I know there is risk. It was something I was willing to contend with, and I was willing to pay the high cost of an out of pocket prescription. Itās not for everyone, but it worked very well with me and itās a big factor in my overall state of being these days. I feel generally positive and hugely relaxed about my weight and my eating, and I am not sure Iāve felt that way since I was a child.
Sep
3
I spent time with BOTH my boys yesterday, a glorious feeling to get caught up in their lives and just see their faces. They both have so much going on these days and of course I wish I could lovingly mom-blog all about them but they are grown adults (what! how?!) and I guess we are well past the generic revelation days of WHEW DIAPER RASH AMIRITE??
I was also very happy with the rains that came in and at one point started such a torrential downpour that I had to tromp through a giant parking lot puddle in my leather flats, dirty soaked feet aside I was glad for my parched yard. I did a fair amount of planting in the spring and several things are kind of juuuuuust hanging in there. One young dogwood tree looks like it hasnāt seen a drop of moisture since the day it was plunked in the ground despite my seemingly endless evenings of hands-on watering (next year: a soaking hose). On the other hand, the two banana plants I put in the sunny corner are going gangbusters. Boy do I love those things, a neighbor a street over has an enormous jungle-y collection of massive banana plants in their front yard and they are just so neat looking. Very interesting to see how they get cut back to nearly nothing and then re-grow each season.
I was asked how Mabel was doing on the potty training front and I absolutely jinxed myself by saying āGreat actually, itās been forever since we had an accident!ā That naturally sealed my fate and she pooped AND peed on the carpet not 5 hours later. I will say that for the most part she knows the drill and from what I can understand about dachshunds, they are rarely 100 percent reliable in the shit-outside department.
In other mildly tragic news my time with Little Joe the horse is winding to an end. His owner will be bringing him home to her property at the end of September and he will be a retired guy out there, which makes me happy for him and sad for me at the same time. Iām hopeful I can come to a similar arrangement with another owner (I havenāt been in a traditional lease situation with him, but rather pay monthly for access to him two days a week) but god I will miss LJ. A school horse with the most gentle and patient heart, aside from his tendency to get spooked by things that are most decidedly not spooky (itās a plastic BUCKET, Joe! It is just in a slightly different spot, it is not a horse-eating predator). I once heard a guy say āLittle Joe, a friend to allā about him, and itās true. I have learned and grown so much as a rider with Joe and it will be a little wrenching to say goodbye.
Nothing stays the same forever and thatās okay, or at least it has to be okay because that is the way it is.
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