Search Weight Loss Topics:




Jul 7

How I Made Peace With Hunger and Decided I’d (Probably) Never Go on Ozempic – Vogue

Lose Weight Comments Off on How I Made Peace With Hunger and Decided I’d (Probably) Never Go on Ozempic – Vogue

The February 27, 2023 issue of New York magazine is one whose cover I can still vividly recall. Bon Apptit, read a bold-typed white caption superimposed over an image of a fork stabbing the hollow plastic part of a syringe. Inside the issue was features writer Matthew Schneiers cover story on Ozempic, which featured a range of users least politically correct admissions about the various motives behind their use of a costly and side-effect-heavy drug that, as Schneier wrote, provided an effortless, near-instant fix. In Schneiers story, an actress on Ozempic testifies to surviving on one and a half meals a day, while another woman confesses shed maybe rather risk thyroid cancer than give up the injectable she now relies on to lose weight; if you live with an eating disorder like I do, or maybe even if you dont, its hard not to get triggered reading these pseudonymous interviewees casual admittances of everything theyre willing to give up in pursuit of thinness.

Heres what bothers me about the weight-loss-drug craze: If Ozempic had been approved by the FDA for bariatric use at any point in my teens or early 20s, when I was stuck in a punishing cycle of dieting and binge eating, Im confident that I would at least have tried to get my hands on it. Given the freedom with which the ZocDoc-sourced, mildly shady doctor I saw back then prescribed me Adderall I didnt really need, I probably would have succeeded, even during the periods where I weighed the least. Back then, I saw fat as the enemy, the villain waiting in the wings to condemn me to a life of insecurity and loneliness; if youd told me that there was a medication on the market that would simply zap my stubborn, persistent hunger, my oh-so-unsightly longing for food, I would have regarded it as a miracle cure for everything I perceived to be so very wrong with me, and I probably wouldnt have stopped until I found someone to provide me with it.

Making the move from objectively thin person terrified of fat to actually fat person living in the world hasnt always been easy; indeed, its necessitated years worth of therapy, endless searching for forms of exercise that would actually make me feel good in my body, enough cooking practice to begin to know how to nourish myself without the help of Postmates, andof courseboundless support from my friends and family, most of whom have been around to witness my growth and are always there to remind me of it when I wake up on a post-binge day and feel as rudderless and lost and failure-defined as I ever did.

The idea of trading everything Ive accumulated over the past few yearsmy fatness, yes, but also my taste for food, my interest in cooking, my ability to relish a good meal at least some of the timefor thinness now feels like the ultimate Faustian bargain, but I know that the Ozempic craze might have sucked me up into its wake if it had taken root even just a few years earlier, before Id had the benefit of enough time and regular therapy to begin to de-prioritize weight loss. I also know there are people for whom weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy provide a huge benefit, and I dont want to pass judgment on anyones health regimen or individual relationship with food, but I worry that drugs like these provide a quick fix to the messy and often lifelong problem of learning to live in a changeable and desirous human body. Where would I be now if Id gotten accustomed to spending $900 a monthessentially a second renton weight-loss drugs in 2017, instead of finding my way to food group and starting Abilify and moving to New York and reading Roxane Gay and initiating the process of learning to occupy space in my own body?

Its taken me years to be able to say this, but as I sound it out in my head, it feels true; I mostly like my hunger. Ive grown accustomed to it, and I learn its contours every day when I wake up and try to figure out whether cereal or a big, greasy breakfast burrito or a green juice or just coffee would feel best in my stomach. I try to take the advice I once got from writer and curve model Kendra Austin, who has written extensively about her own experiences living with disordered eating, to eat dessert every day; or, at least, to eat dessert whenever I want it, especially when Im feeling bad about the wanting itself. (When the old mental reflex to just stick some grapes in the freezer! or just pick up some Halo Top! goes off in my head, thats when I know I really need dessertas in, actual dessert, not diet ice cream that tastes like Splenda-sweetened snow.) I used to think of my hunger as something feral, out of controlan untamed animal who needed to be sedated as much as possible, lest it rise up and maul mebut now, Im trying to see it as more of a kindly invited guest, someone whose preferences and tastes I let guide me without overwhelming me entirely.

Continue reading here:
How I Made Peace With Hunger and Decided I'd (Probably) Never Go on Ozempic - Vogue

Related Posts

    Your Full Name

    Your Email

    Your Phone Number

    Select your age (30+ only)

    Select Your US State

    Program Choice

    Confirm over 30 years old

    Yes

    Confirm that you resident in USA

    Yes

    This is a Serious Inquiry

    Yes

    Message:



    matomo tracker