GLP-1’s Expose the Lies about Weight Loss I’ve Heard My Entire Life

GLP-1’s Expose the Lies about Weight Loss I’ve Heard My Entire Life

Photo by Reno Laithienne on Unsplash

As a professional Bellydancer, I chose that genre reclaiming dance after years of studying Ballet, Humphrey-Weidman Modern and Afro-Jazz when my body at around 35 was more suited for an art form that embraced womanly curves than those that favored lines and angles.

Speaking to my dance teacher and colleague Oreet at the Art of the Belly Festival in Ocean City, Maryland, she noticed that I had lost weight. I shared that after my A1C went to 7% I was diagnosed as diabetic and put on metformin and Ozempic and lost 30 lbs. She then asked me how it felt and I said,” Ozempic is like attending an HBCU, it takes all the shit off the table.” Elaborating, I shared how I experienced isolation and racism my first year at Michigan State University being the only Black person in my major and transferred to Tuskegee Institute (and later attended Howard University) and was free to simply be a student and thrive in an environment that encouraged academic excellence.

“So it gets rid of the noise?” she asked, and reflecting I realized that it was more than just noise, it was all the emotions, hunger, mental obsessions, internal criticisms and guilt- in short all the SHIT I suffered for years dieting. It was the years of counting calories, carrying little booklets, writing down everything I ate and feeling guilty about that cookie. It was the 500 calorie diet at 22 that messed up my metabolism, the cabbage soup diet, the lemonade with cayenne pepper fast. Feeling like a failure at weigh ins at the Diet Center and Weight Watchers meetings. All the expensive packaged foods of various eating plans that were never made to be lifelong habits.

When I was diagnosed, I cried. Diabetes ran in my family. My uncle lost a toe, then a foot and died before he lost anything else. My Mother had myriad other conditions connected to her illnesses and I had a front row seat to what aging badly as a diabetic looked like. But my Black female Doctor was on top of it, telling me that I was prediabetic and to try to get the weight off year after year. She herself lamented that as a physician she couldn’t prescribe medications to assist with weight lost UNTIL the patient was diagnosed as diabetic. She also immediately referred my panicked tearful self to a nutritionist who calmly helped me shift my diet to one that would manage my blood sugar and assist me in losing weight.

So eating fruits and vegetables changed to mostly vegetables and partnering fruits with a protein. Fruit was now sugar, so was bread and carbs and other fun friends that made me feel good in the past. I had already been on South Beach and Whole 30 and No Carb diets to know the work arounds. So enter Ozempic and after figuring out what my dosage was, I noticed changes:

1. I got full faster and if I tried to eat more, I felt like throwing up. So I ate less and got more leftovers to eat later. Some meals were 2 additional servings. Kids meals became my friend portion-wise.
2. I didn’t have cravings for sweets (well sometimes) but if I got upset I didn’t run for the ice cream or cookies. I still eat sweets but a serving.
3. I don’t have to consciously try to figure out when I’m hungry. Geneen Roth wrote a book called Feeding the Hungry Heart that had the revolutionary idea of waiting until you were hungry to eat. Why was that so earth shattering? Because most diets I grew up with had times that you were supposed to eat to keep your metabolism up. So breakfast was before 8, snack at 10, lunch at 12–1, snack at 3, dinner at 6, snack at 7, nothing but water after 8. So lots of times I ate when I wasn’t actually hungry (or even awake) and starved all evening and night because I am a night person. With Ozempic, I waited until I was actually hungry and then I ate-hmmm sounds kinda like normal?
4. I consciously made good choices about my food, but I didn’t lose my mind if I ate something “fattening”. I usually balanced it with something green and protein. I haven’t had emotional guilt or any major emotions really around food. Food is now for nourishment and enjoyment.
5. I’m now picky about my treats. You know how you got the dessert if it was a special occasion even if it wasn’t your preference, but you WANTED something sweet because the occasion gave you permission? Now, if it’s really not what I want, I don’t eat it because I’m ok waiting until I can have what I REALLY want.

But I also reflect on the years I hated my body and internalized all those messages saying I lacked discipline and will power and was weak. All those messages projected onto plus sized men and women as excuses for fat shaming and job discrimination and not designing attractive large sized clothing, and not wanting to date or even befriend someone because of their size. All that shit and NONE of it is true.

All the noise in your head is brain chemistry linked to hormones and your digestive tract. I’m not going to give you the science of GLP-1’s you can look that up yourself, but the brain part of it is 100% real. It NEVER was about self control, my hunger was real, my lack of feeling full was real, my emotions tied to my being comforted by food were also real, as was the negative feelings I felt about myself, which made me want to eat because food made me feel good. I think you get the cycle now right?

But the drug for me, took this gerbil off the wheel, so now I get to focus on travel, learning, activism, writing, dancing and focusing on my health, but not so much on my weight. My A1C is now 5.5% which is normal, but I will always have to control my blood sugar. Like any medication, its not for everyone, it depends on your medical condition and history and your journey, so please work with your doctor.

So now it’s like being back at Tuskegee Institute and Howard University, where I can just learn and focus on being myself and yeah, I look and feel pretty damn good too.