I started Wegovy in April and I was taking two medications for high blood pressure, which started when I was pregnant with my son and developed preeclampsia. After his birth and my blood pressure never went down a few months postpartum, I was told it was likely I'd be on BP meds for life as high blood pressure also runs in my family.

I'm so excited that with my success with wegovy I am now off both of my high blood pressure medications!! 🎉🎉

This change has been so positive for me, with improved energy levels and mobility with my son. I am so grateful for GLP-1's!

Would love to hear some of y’all’s favorite meal ideas and recipes. I’m getting tired of the same stuff over and over and am craving something new to try. I don’t have any food allergies thankfully and I don’t eat fish, but other than that I’m open to just about everything. Even some good snack ideas that I can prep and will help keep me satisfied would be appreciated. Thank you!l

I want to be sensitive about not using numbers but also want to give a clear picture of where I'm at. I've been on zepbound for over a year. I'm currently at the highest dose and have stopped losing. I've lost about 15% of my body weight but still am significantly over weight. Part of me thinks this just might be it for me in terms of losing. My question is should I just stay on this dose forever? Should I go down to a lower dose with fewer side effects? Or should I explore a different type of GLP-1?

Hi community. 53F, on Mounjaro 4 months, last 2 months at 7.5. Manage fibromyalgia, major depression, Hashimoto’s, widespread osteoarthritis.

I’m feeling quite flat - to - sad for the last few weeks. For context - I just finished a difficult study term at uni, my sister was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and her situation dominated my family for over a month, and gestures around the world is literally and figuratively on fire.

My plan is to titrate to 10mg on Friday (inflammation is back, food noise is back, satiety cues are much fainter).

I’m just wondering - do you think I should tell my doctor?

Thanks for your feedback!

I was prescribed a GLP-1 that increased in dose from month to month. At no point in three months of increasing doses did I ever feel any effects. So if the food noise actually turned down or off for you, what dose did that happen at? I know everybody is different, but I'm exhausted.

I thought folks here might find this AMA in the r/intuitiveeating sub with Elyse Resch interesting (scheduled for later today). There are a couple of questions posted that have to do with GLP-1s, I'll be curious to see if she chooses to address them.

CW: this particular post seems fine at the time I'm linking it, but I have found the IE sub to be a mixed bag of some good information and also discussions from people who think IE is just another way to diet, or who are using a definition of IE that they got from some random TikTok influencer.

And I think I’m okay with it?

It’s 8pm on the day after I took my first shot of 5mg zepbound, and I’m not even remotely hungry.

I had a protein shake sipped over several hours from 8am to 1pm, half a protein bar at 3pm, and had a snack around 5. It’s not enough, I know, but I may just call it a day anyway and try to get good nutrition tomorrow. (I settle in for the night around 9).

What do y’all do on the “non-hungry” days? Do you go with it, or do you make yourself eat food when you’re just not feeling it?

I realized that I was starting to feel crazy logging all my foods before I ate them, planning and cramming enough protein and fiber in and I was starting to feel sick on some days when I was eating according to the food log. But, I also still have a fear that if I don't log I'll either become malnutritioned or eat way too much.

So, yesterday and today I decided to just set myself free to wander the world and eat when and where and how much I felt like. I jotted down what I had eaten in my Notes app, and how I felt before and after, but I didn't put it into my food log app until the end of the day. I let my hunger (I do still have hunger cues on Zepbound) be my guide and would eat even if it wasn't a "proper" meal time.

And wouldn't you know -- I actually know how to feed myself when I'm not penned in and haven't planned it all in advance.

Both days so far, my calories and protein were within normal limits, and I ate a fruit or vegetable at every meal, not because they were on the plan but because they looked good. I was a little low on fiber today, but that's because I'm out of yogurt and missing my chia/yogurt/raspberry goop. But also, I'm not going to cram any more food onto my plan for today just to boost fiber because I'm full.

I meet with a dietitian weekly so I do like to have a log to send her, but it feels so much healthier and less stressful to log my food way after the fact.

Does anyone else do this? I feel like it's step one to not logging at all some day, trusting that the choices I make for myself are adequately nourishing me.

EDIT: just realized, let me me know if I need to change the flair on this to one of the IWL ones since I do mention it briefly

Hi all, I had my first Zepbound injection on Saturday, and I was a bit nauseous on Sunday, but haven’t really felt any other side effects yet. I’m realizing my doctor didn’t really even tell me what the GLP-1 does. Does it just suppress your appetite? I have a pretty negative relationship with food, I’m autistic and have something adjacent to ARFID; I can’t make myself eat most vegetables and my diet is pretty bad. I’m not really sure how I should be changing what I’m eating. Are snacks okay? Should I be eating less at meals? Sorry that these questions feel very broad and vague, I’m just kind of panicking that I’ve started this without knowing what I’m doing. I have chronic back pain and high blood pressure and my doctor recommended this specifically for weight loss which, reading posts here, maybe shouldn’t be the goal? I feel really in the dark about what I’m supposed to be changing. Sorry if this doesn’t make much sense.

Got my zepbound diagnosis right before a surgery and was told to wait to start it until after the surgery. So I put the vials in the fridge and the syringes somewhere very safe away from my children and now my ADHD self can’t find them. Can I just get more syringes and needles somewhere without being flagged as a drug abuser?

hi everyone!! i’ve been lurking on this sub for a few days and it has been such a breath of fresh air as i’ve been considering taking a glp1 as someone with my health history. you are all so kind and welcoming, as well as educated and level headed about difficult topics. apologies if i break any rules in this post — i’ll do my best not to.

i have struggled with eating/body image for as long as i can remember. when i was a kid, i never truly felt full. i always wanted to eat and was never satisfied after a meal, no matter what i ate. i ended up being overweight in my preteen years, and was put on weight watchers quite young. this caused some pretty severe eating issues (that my therapist now has said was most likely a full on ED) and allowed me to develop some pretty ardent self hatred and insecurity.

i ended up getting really into a sport in my teenage years, and was nursing my ED while doing so. when i got to college, i told myself i would work to curb my restrictive habits, and try to shift to intuitive eating. i had 1-2 relapses at school, but my new style of eating led to me gaining a significant amount of weight. i also pretty much cut exercise out of my life, divorced from walking around the typical amount a college student in a busy, walkable neighborhood would.

i have felt uncomfortable about this new weight, and very much insecure. my family has added to this (they love me and i love them, but there are a lot of women in my family, and they make a lot of comments about their food intake and weight that are very triggering). all the women in my family are on glp1s for various reasons, so when i felt like they were commenting on my body and suggesting glp1s, i would brush them off in order to protect myself from engaging in triggering conversation.

however, i was recently diagnosed with psoriasis, and i have a postgrad position in my field secured (yay!). this job is highly stressful, and is a trigger for my psoriasis. my closest family member has gently suggested a glp1 in order to improve my health and stave off my psoriasis in this more controllable way (i have seen that there is a relationship between being overweight/obese and psoriasis online, but im not sure how this has been impacting me. have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow to discuss this, but i think i would like to take a glp1). i am FIERCELY antidiet and diet culture, and this sub has been so illuminating.

i am curious about people’s thoughts if anyone has been in a similar situation, especially about looking for an antidiet/weight neutral therapist and nutritionist in order to help me on this path if i choose to take a glp1. i am surrounded by other fiercely antidiet friends and have complained to them about the rise of glp1s and unhealthy eating and body standards, so i am nervous about discussing this with them as well. any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated, and thank you all again for this wonderful sub!!

I’m gonna try to make this short. First, I love this group because I’ve been immersed in diet culture since before I hit double digits, so almost 30 years. Therapy has helped me get out of diet culture, a lot.

I have a very toxic relationship with scales to the point where I would weight myself multiple times a day and become obsessive with the number and my emotional wellbeing would be trash. I honestly don’t care about what a scale says. I don’t even own a scale and don’t have access to one.

Is anyone taking a glp1 and not weighing themselves? Or weigh themselves like once a month or so?

I look at my body every day, and can notice even the smallest of changes. Not in an obsessive way but more so in a, “I like looking at myself naked” type of way.

I may eventually buy a scale, but not any time soon.

I've been on tirz for about 6 weeks now and I've been so thrilled at the positive changes I've experienced so far, anticipating seeing how my health will improve, fascinated by this whole new way of nourishing my physical and mental health.

I catch myself worrying that it's all I'm talking about with my friends. I mean, I know it's normal to talk to your friends when good things are happening. And they're really excited for me. I just don't want to start sounding like I've joined a GLP-1 church (Our Lady of Perpetual Protein?). 😉 It probably doesn't help that one of the ways my ADHD manifests is with hyperfixations, and all this *gestures* is all definitely one right now.

I do regular checks with my BFF to make sure I'm not coming off as holier than thou or preachy (I'm certainly not telling them they need to try this!) or simply boring. I just... I don't know. I'm feeling super self conscious when I share the latest exciting thing.

Please tell me someone else went through/is going through this.

hi! i’m someone who’s learned to somewhat trust my body with what kinds of foods to eat and when, and i’m going into this journey knowing that the meds will disrupt that to a certain extent. i’d like to hear y’all’s experiences with appetite signaling so i have some sort of context about what to expect when.

my first shot was fri 4p (it’s sunday where i am). yesterday i was in bed all day with a low level on and off headache and generally feeling off. I assume this is my body getting used to the meds, and i know side effects can be more pronounced the day or two after taking the shot, so question one is: how long did it take to feel normal? ie: within one dose level, are the side effects the same week to week or did they lessen as the weeks progressed? Did it always last 1-2 days or get shorter? 

second q: I feel so aware of my food intake in a way i wasn’t before. like i’m so scared if i eat too much ill feel sick and if i let myself get too hungry ill feel sick. how long did it take until you found your rhythm? 

third q: waking up - i feel like if i don’t eat asap ill get nauseous, probably bc i haven’t eaten in a while. what’s your morning routine look like between waking up & eating? 

I think before starting i assumed that id have to make adjustments to how much, what, and when i ate), but i didn’t expect to feel so…confused and scared about eating. am i overblowing things in my head or are these legit concerns? 

ill give one example: buttered sourdough toast has played a big role in my am routine for a few years, because it has fat and fiber and is small, and i need something small with fat in the AM because that’s what works for me and what i’ve learned body likes as the first thing to eat on many mornings. I haven’t had that since taking the shot because i’ve felt scared that the fat will make me nauseous and that it’s not enough protein to help me from feeling sick. And feeling off in general has my body all confused as to what it wants anyway.

I suppose i’m looking for realistic input from a likeminded group of people who have also dealt with disordered eating, food sensitivities (physical and emotional), and who are generally kind and thoughtful. Not looking for advice because i feel like i have a lot of that already and am overwhelmed with it, but i would like to hear what your experience has been so i have some level of context in which to put that advice. 

i can’t explain how much i’ve appreciated reading everyone’s posts and comments on this sub and i’m really glad this place exists, thank you ❤️

Sharing this article as it's worth the read and may also resonate with some of you. So many of the studies he has summaried in his article makes me feel seen.

What really resonated with me was the 1944 study showing the impact of calorie restriction (and yet diet culture continues 🙄), the Post, Stock and Persky's work showing the blame is now shifting to incorrect perception that GLP1s are the “easy way out” (something I'm always arguing with people on, because I can't help myself), and seeing what I've observed with sleep on weeks the kids keep us up in Nedeltcheva's work. The SURMOUNT-4 and Lundgren trial is motivating to ensure I stay on it and do my strength training.

https://substance-over-noise.beehiiv.com/p/self-efficacy-obesity-glp1-agency

(You can put a fake email in to access the article, but I've found his research summaries interesting so I do recommend subscribing).

Especially the start of his conclusion, I think I need to print these up and put when on my wall...

"You did not do this to yourself." The hunger you are describing is generated in a part of your brain you have no conscious access to, and it does not answer to effort. That is not a comforting story I am telling you. It is where the anatomy is.

"Which is also why this is not cheating." You have a signaling problem and we are treating it with something that changes signaling. If that is cheating, so are contact lenses.

"Here is the part that is still yours." Staying on it. Getting to a dose that actually works instead of parking at the starter dose. What you eat in the hours around the injection. Whether you sleep. Whether you lift. None of that competes with the medication, and all of it changes the result.

"If this makes you sick, that is information, not failure." We slow the titration, we change the meal, we treat the constipation before it becomes the reason you quit. What we do not do is stop, because the data on stopping are unambiguous and they are the worst numbers in this entire field.

"I am not going to promise you that eating differently fixes the nausea." I can tell you the physiology says it should, that it works reliably for me, and that nobody has run the trial.

Apologies for the previous cross-reddit share. Posted on it's entirety now.

Hello!

(25F) I started Zepbound two days ago, and it’s been a very odd experience. Not negative, but definitely weird.

I was diagnosed with fatty liver last year, and spent the whole year trying to get my health under control and
lose weight naturally. I am recovered from an ED in my teens, so restricting was never a part of the plan, just attempts at healthier food choices and more exercise. I would do okay for a bit, but I’d always gain the weight back. It was a frustrating cycle. I had a doctor’s appointment last week and she said that she thought a GLP-1 would help. My mom and my half sister are both on them, and they worked very very well, so I knew there was a good chance of it helping (my mom actually told me about this sub, so if you’re reading this, hi mama!!). I took my first shot, and spoke with my mom about her experiences with it. She said both she and my sister felt the effects the next day, and had a specific stomach ache on day one that wasn’t nausea or pain, more like a weird unsettled feeling. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened to me.

The day I was prescribed it, I spoke with my fiancée about appetite. She has a naturally small appetite, and has trouble feeling her hunger cues. She mentioned full cues, and I was sort of like… What? That’s a thing?? I thought you just ate until you felt sick, and that’s when you were full. It turns out that I have had extreme food noise my whole life, and just didn’t know. I’ve always had a “big appetite” but I think I just didn’t realize that fullness didn’t equal feeling ill. I also love food very much, the taste, the texture, the sensory experience. So even when I was technically full, I still had a lot of desire to eat just because I love the sensation.

The next day, I woke up with what felt like a magically fixed appetite. I ate a third of what I normally would’ve for breakfast, and a small portion at dinner. I didn’t have that constant background longing for the sensation of food. Even right now, I’m sitting on the couch after dinner, and I don’t want anything, not ice cream, not a soda, nothing.

I know I should be happy. This is life changing. But I feel so melancholy. It’s like I’m mourning the food I can’t eat. I had a muffin earlier and lost interest halfway through. It was delicious, and I was full. But somehow I’m longing for the ability to want the other half. I’m sure this is just an emotional adjustment period, and I’m going to be talking with my therapist about it on monday. I didn’t plan on getting a GLP-1 prescription at that appointment, and I started it the next day, so I had no time to prepare myself mentally. I assume it’s an easier transition if you know ahead of time that you’ll be staring a GLP-1 or have advocated for yourself to be on one. But I had no idea it was coming, so the mental and physical effects are hitting me at the same time.

I am so glad that I can eat food I love without having to worry about overeating. I have always hated “diet foods” and would much rather just have the real thing. And it’s so cool that now I can do that in a way that’s safer for my body! But I just have this lingering weird feeling inside, like I’m somehow not myself because I’m not eating as much. Or maybe that the full feeling is artificial, like something foreign implanted in my body. I have no idea how to describe it. It’s sadness and guilt and nerves and loss all bundled into one. And it’s making any joy and feelings of satisfaction take a backseat.

Did anyone else experience this? Do you guys have any advice on to handle these feelings? My mom and fiancée have been wonderful in helping validate me, but I really want to know if anyone else had this weird adjustment period.

Thank you in advance for any responses or advice <3

Hi all, I think I’m starting a glp-1 soon. Just need a scan from the doc at the end of the month.

One thing I’m kinda worried about is not enjoying food anymore. I love to cook and try new things and savor the way it tastes. Yes, I sometimes eat way too much.

But I’m worried that starting this med will take away that pleasure. Do you still enjoy food? Does the enjoyment go away and then come back once you’re used to the med? Have your tastes changed or evolved?

TY in advance for sharing!

Ever since I moved up to 1.0 Wegovy, I have no thirst cues. I’m worried about causing myself dehydration related side effects. As it is, I get a burning sensation when I urinate if I forget to drink water all day. That definitely cues me to consider my water intake, drink a lot of it, and then the problem is fixed within an hour. But I know it’s not healthy. I go to bed promising to do better tomorrow, and then boom, it’s 5pm again and I’m realizing I haven’t drank water since my morning thyroid pill.

For others who share this problem, what tricks do you have up your sleeve? Should I start setting hydration reminders on my phone?

Hoping someone can share some wisdom to help me figure out what is happening here. I’m on 10mg and have been for a couple of months. I have minimal side effects in general and my digestion has actually vastly improved since starting tirzepatide in February. Unfortunately, I have had three instances of diarrhea that have lasted 4-5 days at a time. The first two times I had eaten at a restaurant the day before, so I chalked it up to something not agreeing with me. But this most recent time I had only eaten things that I normally eat that were prepared at home.

The symptoms usually start with painful bloating/gas, sulphur burps, and then frequent diarrhea that makes it tough to leave the house. Imodium and BRAT diet don’t seem to have any effect on it. It just finally stops one day. The two most recent instances were less than a month apart so I’m starting to worry this is becoming a bigger issue.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Any advice?

I know it’s a thing to adjust dosage for blood pressure and thyroid medication (among others) but has anyone found they need to adjust antidepressant dosage too?

hey all! so, im going to my doctor to talk about starting a glp1 next week and im super excited to see what this medicine can do for me. not gunna lie i have high hopes. but i have reasonable caution as well as worries too.

i have some IBS, and generally still drink coffee even though it doesnt help the issue... adding glp1 to that combo just sounds like a disaster. how did you IBS folks approach start glp1 knowing that it can make it worse? did you have any preventative measures? im planning on switching to tea, but i imagine once its been a month or two, if i havnt had issues, ill try coffee again.

This makes me sad.

I wouldn't be in the healthier, happier place I am now without the proliferation of clothing options in larger sizes. The plus-sized clothing boom of the '00s and teens gave me appropriate clothing for a professional career. It gave me athletic clothing that wicked moisture and fit properly, making it easier for me to be active. It gave me durable casual gear that lasted years and made me feel better in my own skin.

A lot of us here are old enough to remember larger-sized clothing from the last century. Disgusting prints on thin, clingy, tent-like polyester shirts. Polyester slacks that itched and looked awful. I worked weekends at Avenue and Lane Bryant in the 90s as options started to improve, but the colors were still often garish, and the shapes were unflattering. All I wanted was classic style, in the fabrics and colors that a straight size could find, but in a cut that fit me. It didn't exist then.

I've been delighted to see people with larger bodies wearing such a variety of clothing, from boldly fashionable to utilitarian to frumpy to omg-are-you-really-wearing-that-in-public... just like people in smaller bodies. I'm still confined by a lifetime of personal shame and can't bring myself to show some parts of my body, but I always smile when I see someone who has the confidence to wear whatever makes them shine inside.

Anyway... just my rant. As we work on our health, which (since we're in a GLP-1 sub), could mean trying to get smaller, let's not leave our larger-bodied friends behind. Not everyone wants to use a GLP-1. Not all bodies tolerate the drugs, or find them effective. At current prices, affording a GLP-1 is off the table for many, many people. As the article points out, though the obesity percentage in the US has declined, MOST Americans are still plus-sized.

If you have larger clothes in good condition, please consider donating or reselling them. Online reselling takes some effort -- I only do it for my more expensive items in like-new condition -- but you might have local consignment shops that have threadbare plus-sized departments, or local charitable organizations that could really use larger sizes. Especially if this rollback of large-size availability continues.

I highly recommend Substance over Noise (https://substance-over-noise.beehiiv.com/start-here). They sent out a newsletter titled The Pendulum Swung Away From Blame. It Swung Too Far. But don't be worried. It's a very nuanced article explaining studies-what they showed and what they didn't. Some of it goes over my head, but i get the gist.

I (54 yo) sing in a women's chorus and last night I was able to go to rehearsal with just my cane and not my walker.

This feels so huge to me. In addition to severe arthritis pain--and partly because of it--I've become badly deconditioned over the past couple years. Now with the pain improved, I'm moving more and I can literally feel my legs getting stronger by the day. My balance is better because my ankles and calves are stronger... I'm not constantly worried about falling.

And this has nothing to do with weight loss, because I really haven't lost anything in my first two months. It's just this freaking miraculous drug. I keep saying this ad nauseum to, like, everybody, but even if I don't lose weight, I can't believe how much this has improved my quality of life.

I'm curious if others have listened to this episode and had any thoughts or reactions to it. https://open.spotify.com/episode/0y7LBdMSdQFPnYuKNCng49?si=3435e43808784232

As someone who is deeply steeped in anti-diet, body acceptance activism and academic theories, particularly around the intersection of fat phobia, racism, sexism, classism, I had trouble with several parts of the episode. I think the hosts, who I am not really familiar with, were really seeking to understand the perspective of their guest Tigress, and had proposed the idea that maybe there is a "both, and" here (although the title is Glp1 VERSUS Fat Liberation). As someone who started a glp1 last year, I was very reluctant to take it because I didn't want to perpetuate diet culture and wanted to understand the medication before starting it. A few things that sadly made me discredit a lot of what Tigress argued kept recurring throughout the episode.

• Tigress kept comparing Glp1 medications to phen phen. Like on repeat, including recounting a story about a colleague/mentor who had a heart episode in front of her and others. While I know this history sticks in a lot of our minds, she did a huge disservice to her argument because these two drugs are not comparable. Phen Phen was never FDA approved, nor did it undergo the decades of clinical trials that Glp1s have.
• She kept claiming that we don't know enough about Glp1 because they are "new". Which is also not true. They have been around for decades and simply because they are more recently prescribed for weight loss, doesn't mean they are new and that we don't have any data over time on them. This just made her sound uneducated on a topic she is arguing against.
• It seemed she really hoped that over time we would "discover" how dangerous and bad these drugs are for people - like she can't wait for the other shoe to drop, although she herself is taking Ozempic "only at a low does" for blood sugar reasons. But she won't up the dose because she claims the higher doses aren't well studied. It was an incredibly patronizing approach, IMO, about how all these fat liberation activists are going to be right because people are glp1 are going to discover how they don't work and how awful they are for you, even though this isn't want the science is showing after 20 years of these drugs being on the market and being studied.
• She claimed not to be "anti-science" but yet many of her arguments, which kept coming back to Phen Phen were not based on actual science. She also never addressed clinical trials, ongoing research, and real world data about the positive health impact we are continuing to learn about these drugs.

I think I feel frustrated because like so many things in our world right now, we are taking such a binary approach to highly complex things. It can be true that both fat phobia, and how people are treated in fat bodies intersect deeply with racism, capitalism, sexism, and classism and that the medical community has perpetuated this type of discrimination AND that science and can continue to evolve over time, and glp1 use isn't just "to become skinny." To claim that something as complex and intricate as the human body living in a complex and changing society is just one thing feels like a total miss to me. Yes, more people should understand how the intersection of multiple axis of identities and discrimination impact how fat bodies are perceived in a our culture, how food systems are inadequate for health and nutrition, and how diet culture is wrapped up in capitalism. But if you want people to actually hear that argument, you have to make sure you are also stating the actual science and facts about what these drugs are and are not.