My weight loss wins have all been tied to various medications for various reasons.
For context have been overweight my entire life, went from 85lbs in 5th grade to 250 in 7th, puberty hit my metabolism like a freight train. I also had a highly food addictive culture in my home growing up, food was comfort and love and attention and a bandaid and fun. To this day when we get together to do something it's ALWAYS food centered, never activity centered. Doesn't help that we were all unmedicated for depression and we're all now discovering we're ADHD and autistic so food was one of the few reliable sources of dopamine.
To sum up, depressed, unbalanced hormones, addictive personality and undiagnosed mental health issues combined with the worst environment for healthy living imaginable, paved the way for me being 345 lbs by 27. The most frustrating thing was I was active. I have a physically demanding job and would have solid chunks where I was actually going to the gym 3-4 times a week for months on end, but I NEVER lost anything significant. Maybe 10 lbs over the course of 2-3 months if I was lucky. But even going to the gym and eating strictly the weight would fluctuate all over the place. no matter what diet I was on, no matter how active I was there seemed to be no measurable tie between my behavior with food and exercise, to progress on the scale.
A combination of life events had me talking to my doctors about my mental health and I started taking low dose birth control non stop to halt my cycle because of pmdd, taking Wellbutrin and for mood, focus, and a more controlled sleep schedule, and naltrexone for addiction suppression. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol, just food.
With the halting of my cycle I stopped having the waves of uncontrollable anger, pain, or sadness that would make me seek comfort in food, but I still had the non-stop metronome of food noise in my brain at all times. When I added Wellbutrin and naltrexone to the birth control the RELIEF I felt when the base sound floor of food noise in my brain dropped to almost nothing was euphoric and also immensely validating. I finally understood that my brain had been actively sabotaging me for my entire life and that other people don't have to deal with their brains screaming at them that they need food 24/7, and wouldn't you fucking know it, when the addictive drill sergeant of snacks shuts the fuck up in your brain, you stop thinking about food all the time!
For the first time in my life I could think about literally anything else without intrusive thoughts about food cutting into my mind regularly. The shame of never being able to control my thoughts about food was instantly gone. That combo of Wellbutrin, naltrexone and non-stop birth control helped me lose 75 lbs and finally feel like I had some modicum of control over my body and mind, but then I got stuck again. Not being focused on eating all the time and not having a cycle that would sabotage any hope of keeping to an effective diet was immensely helpful but my body was still programmed to hold on to every single excess bit of fat it had with tooth and claw. Damn the genetics that survived the potato famine!
I won't be surprised if people come out of the woodwork to tell me that none of my success is real because of the next medication I used but it worked and it's been working for the past 3 years. My doctor gave me a sample of ozempic to try and I lost another 20 lbs in 6 weeks. To be fair I reacted very strongly to that medication, I was sick and tired and felt god-awful on the smallest possible dose for the first few months but every time I would get on the scale at the end of the week before I took the next shot I would be down a few more pounds. So I weighed the cost of the symptoms with the benefit of the weight loss and I decided the symptoms were worth it. That was 3.5 years ago ish and I've been on semaglutide (ozempic/wegovy are the name brands but I've been using a compounded version for the majority of that), or more recently tirzepatide, ever since. I still take the Wellbutrin and naltrexone and birth control, but adding the semaglutide/ tirzepatide has brought me down below 200lbs for the first time in my adult life. I'm very tall and quite strong so my healthy weight should be around 175 but we'll see. I've never been there so I have no idea what it'll look or feel like.
I know nobody likes to hear that medications are the way to go. "You should just be able to be strong enough to not need the help" but I tried my entire conscious life to not be overweight and was never able to accomplish it on my own. I always felt worthless because of it. The instant I had the help that my brain and body needed to be regulated, to be HEALTHY, I dropped almost all the excess weight I'd hated carrying my entire life and I finally feel unashamed about my eating habits and my body.
Like I said, I won't be surprised if people jump down my throat for using medication as help with my mental health and weight loss. But you know what? If other people think I'm a weak fake POS for needing help, they're welcome to think that. I could not give less of a fuck. They can go be miserable toxic human beings somewhere fucking else and take that purity testing bullshit with them because I'm finally happy with who I am and how I live and I will not be sorry for using medication to get there.
