Tag: Terzepatide

It’s all good

A photo from my friend’s stable. I wish I were this young girl, but I’m not.

I’m going to stop posting on this blog for a while, and publish a book of all these posts.

I’ve been making progress on my weight loss. I haven’t weighed myself lately, but I can tell I have lost all the weight I gained after I stopped the Semaglutide. All my clothes fit and some are loose. I’m confident I’ll continue to lose if I stay on the Terzepatide. So far, I haven’t had any side effects. I’m not motivated to increase the dosage either at this point. So, I’m optimistic I will keep going on this path.

I have changed so much about my relationship with food. My pattern is now to avoid heavy carbs, anything made with a lot of sugar, and essentially all processed foods that you’d find in the center aisles of the grocery store. My first post on this blog was August 8, 2008. I’ve been trying to get to a reasonable weight for 16 years, 5 months, and 13 days. Or approximately 6,026 days. That’s somewhat insane. Yet, over that period of time, as you can see on the pages of this blog, I’ve undergone a transformation. Not just physically too, as yes, I have lost a lot of weight. But mentally and maybe spiritually too.

This blog has helped me process my complicated relationship with food and the role of fat (extra weight) has played in my life. It’s served as a therapeutic device in that way. In 2011, I had explained my reasons for wanting to lose weight. I will relist them here and discuss the results so far.

Yet, there are some things I’d like to do in this world that my weight prevents me from doing.  I will list them in an order that matters most to me.

  • Riding horses
  • Wearing great clothes
  • Presenting to large audiences
  • Traveling
  • Being taken seriously professionally
  • Dating

On riding horses, I’m still hopeful. Yet, I do worry about falling off a horse and breaking a bone or a hip as I’m getting older now. I’ve never fallen off a horse, but that does give me some pause.

On wearing great clothes, this has probably been my greatest joy in my weight loss journey. I’m still not a size zero, so I can’t wear the very best clothes. But, I am able to buy normal sizes (vs. plus sizes), at least in sweaters, dresses and tops.

On presenting to large audiences, I haven’t done that yet and not sure I will. However, I have begun learning how to play guitar, and wouldn’t feel embarassed to play in front of an audience. Well, maybe about my guitar-playing, but not my size. I don’t think I would have even tried to learn to play guitar if I were still massively obese.

On traveling, that is definitely better. No more extended seat belts, and most seats are comfortable with arms that stay down. Not always, but most of the time. Plus, regardless of where I go, I have no trouble climbing stairs or walking long distances.

On being taken seriously professionally, well? Jury is still out on that one. I definitely look better, but I’m still big. I’m not sure my weight is preventing me from making progress professionally. I haven’t seen any evidence of it, but it could still be an impediment.

On dating, another maybe. I stopped dating in the summer of 2023. I still don’t feel confident enough in the way I look to have a serious relationship. But, I may start dating again in 2025. We’ll see.

Last week, I met a friend for happy hour. Afterwards, we asked the server to take our photo. You can see in this photo, I am quite happy and in a good place mentally and physically. I will keep working toward getting to my weight loss goal, but I know it’s going to be a lot easier from here.

And, the best outcome of this process is– I’m living my best life.

See you on the other side.

Human Reinvention

So, I have a new hobby and a new job. I’m going to tell you about both and how it applies to my weight loss journey. Where we left off, some six months ago, I was frustrated that I was gaining weight because I stopped the Semaglutide.

That frustration was justified. I (re)gained 29lbs in roughly 6 months (from Feb. 27 to Aug. 10). As I stated in my last post, I wasn’t binging or eating “bad” food. I was just eating like a normal person without weight issues. Again, I will make the claim that my fat cells are a product of my trauma. Almost like a camel, my body wants to store fat around my bones and my organs to protect me. It’s kind of its job. I respect that.

So my brain and my body are in constant battle for control. For my part, I am working towards a a two-state solution.

In August, I started the Terzepatide compound. So, far I haven’t had any real side effects. It’s working. I’ve lost 15lbs and I’m not hungry. I don’t have that food compulsion instinct. I’ve made the commitment to stay on it. If I have to, forever. I feel good again. I can fit into my smaller sized clothes, and I don’t hate how I look in the reflection of a store window when I walk by. I know I have a long way to go. But, I’ve realized the key to this trek is PATIENCE. Or, maybe the countervailing strategy is not succombing to impatience.

This is where the Impatiens flowers come in. (Stay with me).

My sweet neighbor, Victor, takes care of me and my cat, Zeke. He has a key to my apartment and he lets Zeke in late at night when Zeke is done wandering our apartment complex and is ready to settle down in his comfy cat bed. For my birthday, Victor bought me a small plant for my patio. It was an Impatiens plant. Over the summer, that plant was losing its will to live. But, I kept watering it.

Which brings me to my new hobby. I’ve taken up songwriting as a hobby. Via the extraordinary capabilities of brilliant professionals in my field, I am now able to “generate” songs from the lyrics I write. This new creative outlet has enabled me to excavate the skeletal remains of deep-seeded trauma that’s been stowed away in many closets of my past. I can create songs without knowing how to play an instrument or sing a song. It’s pretty (fucking) amazing.

One of the songs I thought about writing was focused on how my nature is inclined to water dead plants. Because, someone who’s been through the trauma I’ve been through, cannot afford to give up hope.

Sure enough, my hope imperative delivered results. Sometime this month (mid-October), this plant I wrote off for dead, blossomed a single flower. I was over the moon. I sent it to Victor, and his sister, my good friend, Stephanie. We all agreed I should write a “comeback” song. I will, for sure, in time.

Which brings me to my current employment situationship. I’m a contractor for a large Big 4 professional services firm. One of the key tenets in the consulting world is predicated on looking to Business Model Reinvention to survive. The (correct) thinking about this is that if large organizations don’t put the time into understanding how technology will impact their current business models, they may not make it. So many examples come to mind that validate this claim. When’s the last time you took your family to Blockbuster, for example?

Net, net– as businesses need to reinvent themselves, so do humans. I’ve absolutely done this. My weight loss journey is a part of my own human reinvention. In many ways, I burned myself to the ground, and rebuilt myself from the ground up. I created a better, more resilient model of myself to face the future, and hopefully, be an asset to my grandchildren.

The lesson learned so far, is this is not a sprint. You cannot rush reinvention. It starts as incremental continuous improvement, morphs into transmogrification, which is sometimes painful for humans. Yet, as the young’uns say: Keep Going.

Eventually, you will see the fruits of your labor and the blossoms will bloom on the plant you wouldn’t give up on.

#Onwards