Zep Bound

All aboard the GLP-1 Weight Loss Blimp

In late 2023, a family health crisis shook me to my bones. I was sitting in a hospital room, looking at someone I love lying in a bed, and thinking a thought that hit me like a freight train:

One day my son might have to do this for me.

Over my very much alive and well body.

That moment didn’t magically turn me into a health nut. It didn’t launch a heroic transformation montage. What it did was start a very slow, very messy process of reevaluating how I was living. And when I say slow, I mean S-L-O-W. New York City rush hour traffic moves faster than my weight loss process.

For two years I tried to lose weight. I started at 195 pounds. The lowest I got during that entire period was 189. Six pounds. In two years. That’s not exactly inspirational poster material.

Two Years of Doing Everything “Right”

Like most people who have spent their lives wrestling with weight, I tried every diet and exercise routine imaginable.

• Noom
• Low carb
• High protein
• “Eat intuitively”
• “The f*** it diet”
• Weight Watchers
• Vegetarian
• Keto
• The Subway Diet
• VLC (Very Low Calorie)
• Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred
• Jillian Michaels’ 2 week Shred
• HIIT
• Aerobics
• Yoga

Every version of “just eat less and move more.”

What every one of those approaches had in common was the same basic assumption: If you just stick to the plan hard enough, it will work.

But here’s the problem. For me, “sticking to a plan” almost always meant starving my body, triggering the same metabolic panic that had fueled years of yo-yo dieting.

I would restrict.

My body would revolt.

I would get hungrier.

Then I’d overeat.

Binge. Rinse. Repeat.

Meanwhile, my blood pressure was climbing, my blood sugar was a mess, and eventually I ended up on blood pressure medication because I couldn’t get it under control. In my defense, life was not exactly cooperating, in fact…

Life was a bit Complicated…

During this same stretch of time, my family went through multiple health crises, including, finally, losing my mom-in-law to cancer. I was also dealing with serious job stress, my son needed significant support, and I was in a car accident that, if not for the magic engineering of Subaru (those commercials are true), could have been fatal. My husband traveled for a month while our house had no heat. At one point in 2024, I was sitting in a hotel room in New Jersey, dealing with extreme hypertension and chest pain. There I was. Still trying to diet.

Still trying to exercise.

Still trying to behave — wait a minute, what? Me? Behave. Well, hell does freeze over.

Desperately trying not to fall apart.

The Course Corrections

What I started doing instead wasn’t dieting. It was changing small things. One of the biggest shifts came from reading about mindful eating. I stopped calling foods good or bad. If I wanted chocolate, I ate chocolate. Then I walked away from it. Turns out, when you remove the moral — or is it melo — drama from food, something interesting happens. You eat less of it.

Another shift was practical. I could never successfully meal prep. Every attempt lasted about three days before real life bulldozed it. So instead, I started doing something much simpler. I kept a ridiculous amount of fruit in the house. Fruit became the default snack. If I was hungry, I ate fruit first. Sometimes that was enough. Sometimes it wasn’t. But it was better than starting with chips or cookies.

I also started exercising at home. Not in a heroic way. In a “whatever is possible today” way.

Free weights.

Walking around the yard.

Random fitness gadgets.

The single most effective piece of equipment I own? A mini home trampoline. Nothing says “middle-aged health reboot” quite like bouncing in your living room like an overcaffeinated toddler.

The Scale Problem

Yes, I weighed myself every day. No, that is not what most experts recommend. But for me it was helpful. Not because the number mattered on any given day, but because it helped me understand something important:

Weight fluctuates constantly.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

Water. Stress. Hormones. Salt. Sleep.

Watching those patterns helped me stop panicking every time the scale moved.

Enter Zepbound

Eventually, my son started taking Wegovy and had tremendous success with it. I didn’t have health insurance at the time. So I did what many people in America end up doing: I went through one of the online telehealth services, paid the subscription fee, and started Zepbound, one in that overall class of cheats — ahem! GLPs.

Yes, once a week I stab myself with a tiny injection.

Not glamorous.

Not fun.

Necessary.

And contrary to popular belief, it did not immediately make the weight fall off. For the first four to six weeks, nothing happened. Then slowly the scale started moving. But the real turning point wasn’t the medication. It was activity.

The Retail Job Effect

Around that time I took a retail job. Which means I suddenly went from being very sedentary to spending eight hours a day walking, lifting, and moving. Essentially, five days a week of built-in cardio and strength training. That’s when the weight really started dropping. And something else happened.

I had more energy.

I was getting up earlier.

I wasn’t glued to a screen all day.

My mood improved dramatically.

Now, technically, this medication isn’t supposed to affect mood. But losing weight, being active, and feeling like I had some control over my body probably helped a lot.

The Real Benefit of Zepbound

The biggest benefit wasn’t appetite suppression. It was a pause. The medication gave me just enough distance between hunger and action to ask a question: Do I actually want this?

It also helped me stop when I was full.

Not in a heroic willpower way.

In a biological “yeah, we’re done now” way.

And that changed everything.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Test

Here’s an example. I used to love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Now? I can eat one whenever I want. And what I discovered is that to me, they taste like wax. Not because the medication changed my palate. But because I’m no longer eating them in a state of ravenous, emotional hunger.

When you slow down, some foods lose their magic.

The Things Nobody Tells You

There are a few realities people should understand about drugs like Zepbound.

1. GLPs are not magic. You can absolutely overeat on them. If you fill your diet with calorie-dense foods, you may maintain weight rather than lose it.
2. Hydration matters. The appetite suppression tapers off near the end of the week before the next injection. Drinking plenty of water helps control that rebound hunger.
3. This is a long-term commitment. When you stop taking it, appetite often returns and weight can come back. You have to decide whether you’re comfortable with that. For me, it wasn’t a huge leap. I already take medication for depression and anxiety and will likely take them for the rest of my life. Adding one weekly medication wasn’t a dealbreaker. But it’s a decision everyone has to make for themselves.

The Financial Reality

Weight-loss via medication isn’t cheap. Paying for Zepbound meant I had to cut back on other things. That was a conscious trade-off. For me, it was worth it. But again, it’s a personal decision.

The Weird Lifestyle Adjustments

Another change I made was supporting my husband’s diet. We eat very differently. So I try not to bring foods I know he shouldn’t eat into the house. I try to eat those foods “off-screen.” If I’m in New Jersey? Sure, I’ll grab a slice of pizza or a bagel. At home, unless it’s a special occasion, I try not to eat those things in front of him. Marriage is about compromise. And sometimes compromise means the pizza happens somewhere else.

So Is It Cheating?

A lot of people say drugs like Zepbound are cheating.

“You’re not actually dieting.”

“You’re losing weight because of drugs.”

Maybe. But here’s the reality. Even on Zepbound, I still had to:

• Change my eating habits
• Learn when to stop eating
• Stay active
• Track my health
• Manage stress
• Drink water
• Build new routines

The medication didn’t do those things for me. It simply gave me the biological breathing room to learn them.

The Zeppelin Analogy

That’s why I call this journey Zep Bound. Not because of the medication. Because losing weight feels a lot like flying a zeppelin.

It doesn’t move fast.

It doesn’t turn sharply.

It drifts.

It adjusts slowly.

And sometimes turbulence throws you off course.

But once you learn how to steer it, you can stay in the air. And after years of trying to crash-diet my way to health, that slow, steady flight is exactly what I needed.