Anyone taking Ozempic?

Diet and exercise and less junk food ?

I have alternating poop.issues haha.
I can deal with nausea
But somedays I can poop, other days I can't and some days it's diarrhea.
That's the part that I can't get behind.

 

FYI this thread is about semaglutide/medication for diabetes and/or weight loss. Other topics NOT related to medication can go in their own threads elsewhere. Thanks.

 

I started with semaglutides to try to lose a few pounds earlier this year due to vanity issues I lost 5 pounds just because of the misery of the side effects so I switched to tirzepatides and those just don't work either. I'm about to throw in the towel.

 

I was thinking of starting a thread for good-eating tips/recipes for those losing weight/dropping A1C/getting fit but just kinda thought since Rx needs don't exist in an Rx vacuum, they made sense here. Happy to do so, however.

 

Spouse started Wegovy about 3 years ago after struggling with the impacts of a pituitary tumor. Metformin wasn’t doing anything and gave her other side effects, and diet/exercise was not showing any results so doc assumed she was dealing with very stubborn insulin resistance. She felt absolutely miserable for the first few months as the nausea was essentially constant while ramping up the dose, but she had the motivation to stick with it because the weight was already flying off. Eventually she has gotten to the point where the 24hrs after she takes the shot don’t feel great, but after that no worries. It was so effective that I had to remind her to eat, it was like her brain literally didn’t even know food was a thing anymore. She got down into the healthy weight range, and has since tapered into a maintenance dose. Since the insurance is covering it and the doc likes her numbers, neither of them see a reason to risk a bounce back by fully going off it.

I have to say, I’m at the point where I’m likely going to talk to my doctor about it as my A1c has unfortunately tipped into the pre-range as of my last visit and diet/exercise aren’t working as well as they did in my 20s. Not as easy to flip the switch when your older, and the other responsibilities piling up certainly don’t make it any easier. The thought of being able to quiet the food noise in my brain and better set up my body to lose weight has a lot of appeal.

 

Question: If you “forget” to eat while taking ozempic, how do you make sure you are not malnourished? Eating less than what a normal human being would need to consume to be healthy, isn’t really healthy, right?

 

I go through days where I forget to eat, usually about the day after taking the dose
I weigh less and less everyday and I've been changing my habits. .today seems to be a good day as I ate about 2 hours ago and I'm feeling peckish now. Will probably have some frozen grapes.

Also, cottage cheese in scrambled eggs doesn't taste good.

 

In one study, patients regained 2/3 of the weight loss in just 1 year after they got off ozempic. So, it doesn’t really work if you stop taking it cold turkey. Now, i see some of you wanna take it forever on a “maintenance dose”, it seems it can be taken forever for diabetes so I don’t see why it can’t be taken forever, but i imagine there are side effects accumulating.

 

I'm on the road to bettering my choices while taking ozembic. Way less carbs. More protein

 

So what if you, oh I dunno, wanted to stop using it prior to a trip to a land known for overindulgence? A hypothetical land. Let's call it Vas Legas.

 

Your body still has some in your system so its not horrible to miss a few days. I try to time mine* so I don't have to take it with me to give myself a shot on vacation, then just have to deal with not being that hungry at the beginning of the trip.

*What I mean by timing it, your supposed to take it every 7 days, but due to shortages early on due to people getting Ozympic just for weight loss, I was stretching that out to 8 or 9 days so it would give my pharmacy time to get refills for me. I still do that before a week long trip to set it up so I either take the shot the night before or the morning of a trip.

 

Well, I'm pretty sure people were eating too much to begin with when they started on ozempic. While it's easy to forget to eat lunch, you will be hungry at some point if you skip all meals. And most people will remember to eat breakfast and dinner because of timing... It's easier to forget about lunch until it's mid afternoon or so. But it comes back to what your choices are, given the reduced eating capacity.

 

What I have found is that I get full much faster, when I’m on the medicine. I still get hungry I just can’t eat as much and don’t want to eat as often.

 

My problem wasn’t forgetting to eat. I was being unable to eat enough without getting nauseous. I literally could eat like 2 chicken McNuggets and feel over full.

 

Bingo. That’s the exact thing that I’ve noticed. The only time I eat when I’m not hungry is when I take my meds at breakfast, and then it’s only an apple or a mini Lara Bara or two. Ozempic has been a godsend for my diabetes but I wonder what happens to people’s blood sugar, who don’t have a high blood sugar problem, who only take it to lose weight?

 

Since I take it for weight loss my last glucose and A1c readings were slightly lower 80 for glucose and 4.8 a1c.

 

Thought I would share a data point relevant to ozempic that may be beneficial for some. I’m 6’2, I was at once 250lbs and talked to my doctor about ozempic for weight loss. Because my A1C was in the 4’s and my BMI was under 35(was 32 at the time), my insurance would not cover it. This could vary by your insurance carrier not really sure just thought it might be relevant information for someone.

 

Getting insurance to cover any GLP1s for weight loss is tough. I was originally rejected about a year ago. Then in November '23, both my wife and I switched jobs. We checked with both insurance plans and only one would cover it.

I've told my wife that she can never, ever quit that job.

And woe be tied to all of us if she gets fired...

 

I am Type1 (not going back to read everything I wrote - may have said that before). I’m on Zepbound - not Ozempic.

Large reduction in meal-time insulin since I’m not eating as much. It was hard at first since I still had a tendency to take ‘too much’& then I’d have to chug some juice. Finally adjusted.

A1C just came in at 6.1 a couple weeks ago.