My Changing Body
I spent years of my life trying to change my body by dieting (or, as I call it, medically advisable anorexia). In 2003, at about 300 lbs, I enrolled in the clinical trial for the adjustable lap band. It worked, but only because instead of giving me anorexia, it basically made me throw up constantly. I lost 50 pounds the first few years, enduring multiple pokes with giant needles under Xray to get the right fill amount in the band.
After a decade with the band, and finding that I just could not tolerate it any longer, I had all the fluid removed and gained all the weight back, plus an additional 25. I had a psychologist say that there was no way I didn’t have an eating disorder, so I had to postpone surgery, and I enrolled in an eating disorder clinic to find out “what was wrong with me!” It turns out, I did not have an eating disorder, but my metabolism was so messed up by the years of dieting and the lap band. I had to fight my insurance to have the band removed and the gastric sleeve performed. I appealed all the way up to the “peer and doctor review panel,” where I had to go in front of 15 strangers, as large as I have ever been, and tell them why I thought I deserved to have insurance pay for my surgery.
It was the lowest and the highest point of my life. I will never be intimidated by anything ever again.
In 2013, I weighed 325 pounds, had the band removed, and had the sleeve performed. When the Doctor who performed the surgery came to visit me in recovery, he told me that the band had left a lot of scar tissue, so he couldn’t make the sleeve very small. I lost about 40 pounds with the sleeve surgery, still being classified as morbidly obese.
About five years ago, I decided I was done with trying to hang on to every pound lost by my fingernails. I studied Intuitive Eating principles and found peace with my body and my relationship with food, finally. This was me. I had so many people who loved me, a husband who supported me, and a life I loved…having a larger body wouldn’t stop me from living a big life. I hung up the scale and lived my life.
And then, in October of 2022, my friend was prescribed Mounjaro after learning about it on TikTok, and she told me about how it made her feel so much better, and she had started losing weight. I spent the next two weeks learning everything I could about GLP-1 medications and met with my Doctor to go over my options. I was one of the lucky ones with a coupon that worked for almost ten months. I’ve lost 88 pounds in the past year. And I always say,
It’s a damn miracle.
While I know it’s a newer drug, and there could be long-term side effects, I also know that I feel better in my body than I ever have. And I am willing to risk the current known health benefits for the unknown future. This drug has made my body feel better, and not just because of the weight loss. I used to think about food all day long, planning the next meal before I had even finished my current one. I was hungry ALL THE TIME. I very rarely felt satisfied after eating. I had cravings. All of this is gone on this medication, and I am learning that all this time, I thought it was MY FAULT, MY LACK OF WILLPOWER, MY WEAKNESS that I was overweight…it was actually my unregulated blood sugar…or some other physical response that my body was trying to tell me.
I’ve felt like a failure about my body for decades…but now I understand what it feels like to live without those physical responses. I even understand now when people who did not struggle with their weight in the way I did would say, “Eating is kind of annoying. I just eat until the feeling of hunger goes away, and I get on with my life.”
It’s a damn miracle for me. And I am so grateful for this time in my life when I can experience this.
Are there side effects? I can feel a little like I have the flu on the second day after taking the medicine. I have gotten good about scheduling a lighter day and resting, and I take an over-the-counter mint pill called IBGuard that does a good job of settling my stomach. All of this feels like a very small price to pay to feel as good as I do in my body most days.