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One Year of Normal: The Story of my Journey with GLP-1 drugs
By Stormy Fanning, RN, MSN
I have always eaten a lot. Not large quantities at one time, but a normal quantity every few hours. That was the way my dad ate and I thought it was normal. People would comment sometimes (“you eat more than anyone I’ve ever seen!”) but I was normal sized, so I just laughed it off.
But in my last year of college, I started gaining weight. I had taken a nutrition class that discussed calorie content, so I began my first foray into calorie tracking. I quickly realized that if I kept my calories under the limit, it meant I was hungry most of the time. I would struggle through a few days and then crumble and eat half a pizza.
I spent my twenties anywhere from 20 to 50 pounds overweight. I ate a healthy diet; in fact, that was the other thing people commented on (“I can’t believe you’re not skinny as a rail, you eat healthier than anyone I know”). But I was hungry every few hours and I had to struggle to keep a calorie deficit. Any time I stopped tracking calories on a regular basis, I gained weight.
It wasn’t just being hungry that was a problem. If I tried to tough it out and not eat, I would get lightheaded and shaky. When I had a meter to check my glucose, my level would be 50 (normal is 70-100). I didn’t have a choice about eating something, I was about to pass out. This happened frequently when I was trying to exercise. I loved being active outdoors but I learned to keep a snack in my pocket to eat about 10 minutes into my hike.
My inner critic would fat-shame me for that. ‘Look at the fat girl, she can’t even go for a walk without taking a snack.’ I had become self-conscious about how frequently I ate but I couldn’t figure out a way to feel full longer. I used all the tricks (high fiber, high protein, healthy fats, drink lots of water) and it didn’t seem to make a difference. If I wasn’t hungry for part of the day, then I knew I had gone over on calories. Weight loss was a never-ending and losing battle.
In 2022, my weight was 210 lbs. and I couldn’t get the scale to budge. I was in online grad school with lots of hours sitting in front of a computer so I was burning even less calories than usual. By this time, I had several friends and coworkers who had tried semaglutide for weight loss. They had varying degrees of success but everyone had lost some weight. My BMI was 31, which was obese, so I qualified for the prescription. My doctor agreed and my insurance covered the cost, so I was set.
It took a couple of weeks before I noticed any difference. And then, what a difference! I could eat breakfast and not even think about food until lunch. I didn’t wake up at 5 a.m. with my stomach growling. I could go for a long walk and my blood sugar stayed perfectly stable. Basically, I got to live like someone with a ‘normal’ metabolism.
I stayed on low dose semaglutide for a year. My weight loss was slow and steady; I had some minimal side effects, mostly bloating and belching. I had chronic digestive problems before that, so I didn’t even realize those were side effects until after I stopped semaglutide and they went away. I continued to make healthy food choices and I kept consistent with exercise. I lost 25 lbs, and I maintained that weight for 4 months by staying on semaglutide and just spacing my doses farther apart. I enjoyed the freedom of just eating and not having to count every bite of food I put in my mouth or stressing over feeling hungry but knowing I shouldn’t eat.
But all good things must come to an end. At the end of the year, my prescription expired and with a BMI of 27, I no longer qualified for the drug. (I hadn’t qualified since I lost the first ten pounds, but my doctor and pharmacist deliberately overlooked that and kept my refills coming). For a couple months, my weight stayed stable, and I thought- hoped, really- that my metabolism had permanently reset to normal.
Unfortunately, two months after I ended my injections, I started to regain weight. I kept trying to cut back on calories, but the same struggles surfaced. I was hungry all the time. I would wake up in the middle of the night with stomach pain from feeling so hungry. I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until I ate something. I was done with school by then and had plenty of time for exercise, but the same issue with low blood sugar returned, and I, once again, started carrying snacks in all my bags.
When my weight hit 199 lbs again, I flatly refused to go back over the 200-pound mark. I started calorie tracking diligently and was again frustrated by how hungry I was and how quickly my allowed calories for the day got used up. Was this how I was going to have to live the rest of my life?
There has been discussion that some people are just genetically deficient in GLP-1. I feel that is very true and that I am one of them. Eventually, it may become commonplace to supplement that, just like people with hypothyroidism take a thyroid supplement. Some people have switched to a compounded drug that mimics the GLP-1 agonists with success. Those supplements are cheaper than the prescription but still run $400-$700 per month.
I have hope that in the next ten years, the landscape will change and it will be an option for people like me to take continued GLP-1 supplements. It definitely improved my life and health when I was able to take it.
Published June 5, 2024
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