Taking the Easy Way Out
sometimes you don't know what you want to be free from until you're free from it
So what’s it like for me on Zepbound?
I am a “super responder,” which means I immediately and easily lost weight on a relatively low dose without significant side-effects. The most notable side-effects so far:
a brief bout of mild constipation in the first month that was easily addressed with an over-the-counter medication (I now take a fiber supplement)
about five minutes of mild nausea one month in (when I moved from the 2.5 mg “starter” dose to the 5 mg dose)
a few uncomfortable, “overly full” moments where it felt like if I ate any more I’d be sorry
a dizzy/light headed spell one evening after a day when I didn’t drink enough water
some acid reflux/heart burn
feeling unusually cold/chilled (not all the time)
I sometimes go through what I call a “toddler” phase where I have odd food aversions and only want to sip on bone broth and eat saltines and cut-up fruit
What’s more profound is that within one day of taking my first dose is that “food noise," which I didn’t realize I had, stopped.
It wasn’t until it was gone that I became aware of just how much of time and energy I spent thinking about food, my body, and my weight, not to mention the chronic shame. I felt less stressed and anxious.
"It's almost as if we were asking our patients to hold their breath indefinitely in the same way we're asking them to to decide on every morsel food that they eat for the rest of their lives when their biology is telling them that they are incredibly hungry or craving foods.” ~ Ania Jastreboff MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology), Yale School of Medicine; Director, Yale Obesity Research Center
As well, within days of the first dose my joint pain diminished significantly, I stopped snoring and had a lot of energy…at one point my husband said I was kind of intense and “hyper” (which is saying something because I have always been rather intense!)
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I was raised to believe that fat women can’t and/or shouldn’t be happy, content, proud of themselves, successful, lovable, etc. and are lazy, slovenly, sloppy, sad, and stupid.
Shameful.
I will never forget the day my mother called me at college after I’d been home on break. I was sitting in the little phone booth in the dorm lounge and she said, “I’m concerned about the weight you’ve gained…you must not be very happy.”
(back then I didn’t know anything about projection)
I think that’s when I started to believe: “I am ashamed because I am fat and I am fat because I am ashamed.”
I spent the next 40 years in a mental roundabout with no exit: If I work hard and lose weight, then my life will be perfect and it will be a huge, virtuous accomplishment and I will no longer experience shame. But because I can’t seem to do that…because I can’t find the right formula of self-acceptance…because I can’t seem to think the “right” thoughts in the exact right way that will make the weight will fall off (and stay off)…and I’m obviously stupid and lazy and must not “want it” that badly because I’m not doing the work, I am doomed to a fat, shameful life.
~~~
Less than a week after injecting my first dose of Zepbound I had a profound realization:
All the self-love, self-acceptance, thought work, therapy, self-help, affirmations, and unshaming in the world can't overcome the damage done to my body by dieting on and off for 50+ years.
What those things DID do is bring me to a place where I could accept and receive the level of support I experience being on Zepbound.
Right now, this medication is the best way I know to take care of myself and my body. It’s a change I made out of love and dignity, rather than disgust, self-loathing, desperation, and fear.
After decades of doing it “the hard way,” I am here for what is the easiest (mentally, physically, and emotionally) and safest solution for ME.
The weight loss is secondary to the agency I feel in this part of my life, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever felt.
Sometimes you don't know what you want to be free from until you're free from it.
Next time I will be writing about breaking a generational cycle I didn’t think I could (or even wanted to) break.