My year with Mounjaro

The good, the bad, the ugly.

This post is difficult for me to write. At my core, I am a fairly private person. I don’t tend to share deeply personal things, and this feels about as deep as it gets: Like so many people, I have always struggled with weight and nutrition and overall health. If my experience can enlighten and inspire, then I’m willing to share my year with Mounjaro.

I am 6 feet tall, and I have weighed over 200 pounds since high school. That number has been MUCH higher in different times in my life, but usually it’d hover anywhere between 220 and 250 pounds. Honestly, those numbers never mattered much to me; as long as I was feeling good emotionally and wasn’t having any physical issues, I barely thought about my weight. I honestly don’t think I stepped on a scale in my 20s- What a novel notion! What a time to be alive! Ah, the folly of youth!

As my 30s passed me by and once my 40s arrived, I was starting to have aches and pains. I was starting to wonder and dream about what losing weight and focusing more on fitness would do to my mood and my body. It wasn't really ever about the number on a scale, but it was certainly about chronic hip/back pain, mood, and overall lethargy.

Privately, several times over the last decade, sometime in the summer, I would set a goal to weigh 200 pounds by my birthday in November. I came close a couple times using the tried and true diet and exercise- I’d work hard, I’d eat right, but it would never last too long. I’ve never really expressed this, but those shortcomings would crush me emotionally. I felt broken. I felt like something was wrong with me. The emotional aspects of weight were as crushing as the physical aspects.

I needed to change, but I just somehow couldn’t get it done.

It truly wasn’t for a lack of trying- I’ve had long stretches of time where I have been on different diets with varying levels of success. Recently, Basecamp Pasadena has recently been a great lighthouse for my fitness efforts. Getting a dog has me walking daily. Maybe most importantly, the older I get, the more I know that no one will do these things for me and I have to care about these problems more than anyone else. I am solely responsible for my physical and mental health. This may seem like a silly notion, but these issues were just never top of mind for me, and that lightbulb coming on has really changed my mentality about overall health. But, even knowing that, I would always struggle and always find my way back to old habits and ultimately, apathy. The older I got, the harder it was to stay on a plan and for that plan to be effective.

Here’s a photo from late October 2023, trying on some athleisure, in the final days before I made the one of the best decisions I’ve ever made:

Last year, on October 26th, 2023, I asked for serious professional help. Most of my clothes didn't fit any more. My BMI was over 30, my weight was in a range considered medically obese, my body fat and visceral fat levels were sky high, and at the age of 45, I had the metabolism of someone at least ten years older. Earlier in 2023, after a physical, just like the commercials tell you to do, I asked my doctor about GLP-1s as a treatment for my ongoing struggles and dangerous metrics… My doctor suggested diet and exercise, not understanding that I’d been trying that very suggestion off and on for about 30 years.

I knew I had to go elsewhere. I don't think of myself as stubborn or macho, but the idea of asking for help was tough for me initially. I thought I could just get back on the horse and try to stay on, but I also knew the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I had to surrender and slough off any pride or ego. I needed and craved a new approach.

I walked into a nutritionist’s office, had a consultation, and signed up for their program, which includes a high protein diet, nutritional supplements, ongoing counseling, and a drug called Mounjaro. The clinicians helped me understand that this program might just be the key to all of the efforts of the past gaining some traction.

They were right.

The villification and demonization of GLP-1s is baffling to me. Mounjaro changed my life. It has changed the way I think about food, about nutrition, and the thing about it that is the most important to me is that it has bolstered my willpower. Any and all of the efforts of the past suddenly were actually effective.

If you feel the need to call these drugs “cheating” or if you want to assume that I’m spineless and unable to muster up the will to make lasting change, I guess I wish you well and goodbye. I know full well that there is stigma about these drugs. Being on this medication does have a unnecessary shroud of secrecy for me, and it is amplified by traditional as well as social media. Multiple award shows over the last year opened with Ozempic jokes. It’s a staple of late show monologues, seemingly always punching down. There are social media accounts hellbent on exposing anyone and everyone who might be on these medications for whatever reason they might be on them. It is easy to disparage that which we don’t understand, but the older I get, the more I crave understanding. I think that’s why I’m sharing all of this.

I refuse to be ashamed about my experience and I won’t hide it any longer. My health was approaching a dangerous place and I made a choice to change. It is important to share my experience with people who are curious about GLP-1 medications in order to try to de-stigmatize and give a firsthand account. So, here we go.

My basic understanding and experience is this: drugs like Mounjaro mimic the hormone in your body that tells your brain that you are full. Letting the brain know that the body has enough nutrients has changed how I eat, how I approach meal planning, and how I avoid eating things that are not part of my nutritional plan. I am able to focus on foods that will help me with my goals and deny the foods that won’t. I’m not always perfect and there are plenty of social situations in my life that are a challenge, but the difference now is that if I do slip up, I can start anew the next day without too much guilt. In the past, a slip up on a strict diet would send me on a food bender. That just doesn’t happen anymore. I might be the most thankful about this aspect of Mounjaro.

I was warned about side effects. I guess I’m lucky in this regard- very few of the side effects have reared up, and when they have, it’s almost always because I chose to indulge in something that wasn’t part of the nutritional plan. Occasional blood work is the new norm, and any signs of serious long-term physical side effects haven’t arrived. Mental health is also a part of this experience, but my emotions are relatively the same as they were a year ago. It’s all a work in progress. If anything, the time I used to use to think about food or think about how to muster up the will not to eat food or think about where I could get food is now gone. It’s hard to explain, but if my mind is a hard drive, the food partition has been cleaned up and cleared out. There’s more memory available for other tasks.

If you’ve read anything about GLP-1s, you may have encountered the phrase “food noise” in your research. I didn’t know anything personally about food noise until it went away. The mental and dare I say psychological benefits are astounding.

In the past, I have been POWERLESS around free food. In my 20s, I’d do comedy shows until 1am, and if the group ordered pizza, I’d be eating 4-5 servings of pizza in the middle of the night without hesitation. Or, I’d end up at a 24 hour diner well after bedtime with my friends and eat, let’s just say… not lean protein and vegetables. I was young! I was invincible! The weight didn’t matter! But those habits caught up to me- Throughout my life at events, passed appetizers or an open buffet have been the kiss of death for any personal nutritional aspirations. I just couldn’t let any of that food go to waste. Craft service tables were a pit of snack quicksand from which there’d be no escape. A client ordering lunch suddenly gave me license to order nonsense meals that I knew I shouldn’t be eating but would happily devour.

With the help of a nutritionist and Mounjaro, those situations are much more manageable now. I can recognize them for what they are and navigate. I can plan ahead and it works. I can have a taste of something without desperately wanting to have 37 tastes of something. Cravings still exist, but they’re not so pervasive that they have to be answered. Imagine seeing a bunch of pizza at a party and knowing that you don’t need to eat it and then just walking away. That was virtually impossible for me a year ago.

As much as this medication seems like a magic wand, there is more to it for me. This is my nurse practitioner Nisha on her last day of work at this office. She and the other folks at the clinic changed my life. There’s just no other way to say it. (Also, door decor that reads “RUDE THAT YOU’RE LEAVING BUT OK” is proof positive that your co-workers love you.) Nisha’s guidance helped me set a goal, and reach it. Obviously, the medication I’m taking has been a game changer, but without the help and support that I was hesitant to ask for, I don’t think I’d be where I am today. Guidance has been a crucial element of this process and I'm so glad I asked for help.

I am happy to tell you that I am under 200 pounds for the first time since age 16. I’m not saying it to brag or boast. It’s just fact and a testament to the effectiveness of this overall approach to diet, exercise, and nutrition. All of my metrics that were creeping toward Type 2 Diabetes are in check. I still have aches and pains. I still have cravings. I still have muscle to build. I still have work to do and I always will. But I also know that something that once seemed impossible is now my reality.

This November, I’ll have finally reached that birthday goal that I’ve missed so many times before.

Thanks for reading.