Semaglutide

I’ve been calling it sem-EYE-glue-tide in my head for the last 5 weeks, but I heard it on a recent podcast it’s pronounced more like it’s spelled: seh-MAH-glue-tide. Much smoother.

Anyway: 258. Down from 270 the day I started Ozempic.

A decent 2lb-per-week slide down. Feels sustainable. 250 is a good goal for me. I’d love to blast right past it. But, long-term, drugs or no drugs, I want that to be a high-water mark that kicks me into gear if I go over.

The mental impact of Ozempic, for me, is revelatory. It reminds me of when I first read Quiet and learned a modern framework for thinking about introversion. Odd as it sounds, I thought I was mentally broken for a long time. Just for something as simple as a desire not to hang out as some friends did. I thought that wanting to go home and do nothing rather than go to an after-party was a crossed-wire in my brain. Maybe chemical depression like my grandma had? Nope, just introverted like half the damn world. Thanks, Susan Cain.

Introversion doesn’t need to be cured, and neither does being fat really, as a general rule. But I want to change. I feel better lighter. Like I wrote:

… any time in my life I’ve been able to rein in my eating and couple it with rigorous regular exercise, my body responds and I can get myself into what feels like a healthy place. Maybe a little fat still, but workable. Fat fit. Life full of possibilities.

The reason I’m not the weight I wanna be is because of … something inside me. Paul Ford’s latest in WIRED explains it in a way I relate to:

… it’s a side effect of what I am, which is insatiable. Literally: I never seem to feel full. In practice this means that at certain times of day, I watch in horror as my body reaches for the cheapest, easiest calories nearby—out of the pantry, out of a vending machine, at a party. I scream, “Stop!” But the hand keeps reaching. 

Too Big to Fail (all I can find is this Apple News link, sorry, I read the paper version like an old person)

The way I eat isn’t normal. I’ve never been normal so I can’t tell you normies how your brain works, but I imagine it’s something like: “I’m hungry so I think I’ll have a sandwich.” My brain goes something more like: “I have to drive across town at 2:30pm today. Kick ass. I’ll stop at Subway and get a footlong sub meal and jam it down my throat. It’s gonna be so good, I can’t frigging wait. Plus I need to get gas which is a killer opportunity to grab a huge bag of gummy bears.” Naturally, between a full lunch and a full dinner. If that sounds like I’m kidding, if anything, I’m understating it.

I don’t usually regret those choices and behavior. I have a little tiny “you probably shouldn’t do that” voice that’s easy to ignore. I don’t sit around feeling bad about it later. But I do have a wish: I wish I wasn’t like that. I wish my brain didn’t work like that. I wish I could just eat like a normie.

That’s the beauty of Ozempic for me, so far, here on week five. It changes my brain. That’s what happens to people like me on this drug.

Paul Ford again:

I went alone that night to a Chinese restaurant, the old-school kind with tables, and ordered General Tso’s. I ate the broccoli, a few pieces of chicken, and thought: too gloopy. I left it unfinished, went home in confusion, a different kind of sleepwalker. I passed bodegas and shrugged. At an office I observed the stack of candies and treats with no particular interest.

Decades of struggle—poof.

The drug doesn’t completely obliterate hunger or the ability to enjoy food though, which feels like a 2nd miracle balled into it. I can still eat a gummy bear and be like “hot damn that’s a good gummy bear” — like I always have — and yet not eat 250 of them in a row. Score.