Have you been following the Ozempic or Wegovy weight loss drug trends that are skyrocketing in our culture? It seems like it may be the “miracle solution” every dieter has dreamed of. It’s not a pill, but a shot that you can take that seems to melt the weight right off. In today’s show we’re going to talk about what these drugs really do to the body, what the side effects are (and there are a lot of them), and how they may not actually address the real issues behind body image issues that connect to weight.
Here is what you need to know about Ozempic, Wegovy, and these weight Loss Drugs:
- Wegovy/Ozempic are semaglutide that mimic the GLP-1 Hormone to help lower your blood sugar and suppress your appetite and slows your digestion.
- You still have to diet and exercise to lose weight on these drugs.
- There are so many potentially dangerous or lifestyle devastating side effects of these drugs, it’s important to understand the physical costs of these drugs.
- There may also be a risk of all the side effects that come with calorie restriction, aside from and along with the side effects of the medication. Here are the episode I did with Tracy Brown on the effects of disordered eating and eating disorders on our bodies. Did Your Dieting Hurt Your Body? Feat. Tracy Brown and Stomach, GI Tract Issues That Connect to Dieting & Disordered Eating
- These drugs are also expensive, especially if you don’t have diabetes or another condition where insurance will help pay for it.
- Weight loss can’t fix eating disorders, trauma, or body image issues. Check out this USA Today article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/04/02/downside-weight-loss-medication-side-effects-big-pharma/11464954002/
- What “Ozempic Face” is and how it’s being “fixed” and how this proves that weight loss alone doesn’t fix our body image issues.
- From the USA Today piece linked above: “In the longest study, lasting 68 weeks – about 16 months – weight loss plateaued and started to climb again by the end, suggesting people’s bodies had acclimated to the drugs.”
- If what is most dangerous for most of us, health wise, is weight cycling, not necessarily having a higher weight, is Ozempic/Wegovy the healthiest option?
- How hard it is to watch people melt away the weight with weight loss drugs, but remembering that it costs something and may not last. It certainly can’t solve the issues of the heart around our body image issues, envy, or even struggles with our worth.
- **Updated 6-22: An Ozempic provider reached out to me to clarify that these drugs can be helpful for those who have truly struggled with health issues at higher weights. She’s seen the drugs inspire healthier habits and offer needed intervention and inspiration to pursue a different lifestyle. She has witnessed its effectiveness in these cases and believes the side effects may be more nuanced than presented on the pharmaceutical company’s website. Note: This podcast is not intended for medical advice, please consult your physician.
Transcript of today’s show:
So today we are talking all things Ozempic. Now, Ozempic has been big in the news the last couple of months. I think what triggered it to be a news item is actually probably not ozempic itself. It’s probably wegovy. Wegovy and Ozempic are similar drugs. They’re both prescription drugs that you inject. I think weekly is how you start or maybe a little slower than that, depending on what you can tolerate.
But both of these drugs will help you lose weight. Now, if you go to the Ozempic homepage, it will tell you that ozempic is a diabetes drug and not approved for weight loss. And so what’s happened is wegovy has actually gotten the FDA approval to be used exclusively for weight loss. So if you were going to go to your doctor and say, hey, I’m having losing weight, your doctor, I think, could prescribe either. But if you have diabetes or have been diagnosed with diabetes, they would probably prescribe you Ozempic. Whereas if you just have more of a general weight loss desire, they would prescribe you. Wegovey. At least that’s how I understand it.
Now, please note, I am not a medical doctor. I’m not a dietitian. So there’s no medical advice in the show at all. I also want you to hear loud and clear, there’s no judgment, friend. I titled this show why I want to try ozempic, because over the last week, as I’ve been researching and reading about it and talking to a family member who’s going to go on it soon, OOH, I’ve been wrestling, right? Because it’s so tempting. If there is something out there that could just melt the weight away, why not try it? This is like what every dieter has dreamed of, right? A way to melt the weight away without all of the pressures of food rules. Now, that’s not actually true. We’re going to get into that in a second, but that’s what it feels like.
And so if in your heart, you’ve seen maybe a friend or maybe a celebrity I saw that. Mindy Kaling has lost a lot of weight with Ozempic, though I don’t know if she’s confessed to that or not or if people are just accusing her of that. But there’s been several celebrities that are using it and now showing their after pictures. Right. And these things are so tempting to those of us who struggle with body image issues. So hear me, friend. If you’ve gone on Ozempic, if you started it already, if you’re thinking about it, if you have an appointment to talk to your doctor about it, don’t hear judgment here, don’t hear shame here. I simply today want to just present you with all the facts as I know it and then encourage you from my seat, from my standpoint, with some biblical truth about maybe a better way. I’m not going to say better because you know where you’re at in your struggle with food and body and better sounds judgmental, but some alternative ways of thinking about it and approaching these issues with weight and body that, pardon the pun, weight us down.
Okay, so here’s where we’re going. I want to first start by just talking about what Ozempic was. Let’s just go brass tacks. Let’s get down to the basics because I didn’t really even know what it was or how it worked. So Ozempic is actually the technical name for the medication is Semiglutide. And what Semiglutide does is it mimics the GLP, one hormone that is secreted in your stomach when you eat, and that is the hormone that tells your body to produce insulin. And so in the case of a diabetic, this would lower your blood sugar.
I mean, even if you’re not diabetic, producing insulin will always lower your blood sugar. And what it really does, the Semiglutide, is an appetite suppressant. It reduces your appetite and your cravings so that you eat less. It also slows your digestion. And so essentially what happens is you are losing weight. Why? Not because of magic, but because you’re eating less. Now, the thing you also need to understand and recognize is everything I researched, even on the Ozempic and Wagovy sites, said that you have to use their products in conjunction with a diet and exercise program. So it’s not just that you can eat whatever you want and not exercise and just use these shots and lose weight.
You’ll probably lose maybe a little bit of weight that way because your appetite will be suppressed. But the way it is recommended for use is that you actually follow some sort of diet or food plan and then use this to kind of, I guess, boost your efforts by suppressing your appetite. Now, an important thing to note, and we’re going to talk about side effects here in just a minute, but it may not be that it’s just like suggested that you go on a diet plan. From what I’ve read, it may be that you actually have to only eat certain foods because when you eat specific foods while on these medicines, you can feel really cruddy. So something I read said that fried foods and fatty foods such as fast food foods high in sugar tend to be the toughest for your body to digest and those are the most likely to cause nausea while taking a GLP one medication. So in other words, it might be that you won’t eat certain foods that have higher caloric value because you just get really sick when you do. Now, whether or not you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I’ll leave that up to you. I mean, I know when I was in the throes of my eating disorder, I probably would have said, oh, that would be a great thing.
Like if I knew I got really sick eating a certain food, then I wouldn’t eat that food and that would be really good. Now, I kind of recognize that as eating disorder thinking right is maybe not the healthiest way to have a relationship with food that’s healthy, but that’s kind of a reality of this medicine. We’re going to dig more into the heart stuff and really what the medicine does to your body and the side effects right after this quick break. So my question is thinking about this, and again, I’m not a registered dietitian, but I have been dieting my indictment mostly, and I have a lot of friends that are dietitians and I’ve done a lot of work with dietitians over the last few years since I’ve been doing this. And the question that comes to me immediately is why would this be any different than just going on a crash diet or restrictive diet, right? Because whenever you reduce calories, your body responds as if you are starving it. And just like the reason why we go on a diet and then go off a diet and we restrict and then we binge and we reduce calories and restrict certain foods and then we eat all those foods and all the calories, that’s a physiological response that your body has because your body wants to keep you alive. Imagine how rude, right? But that’s what your body is designed to do. Your body designed to try to make you look like a magazine cover.
Your body’s goal for you is to keep you alive. And that’s probably something we should be grateful for. But how is going on a medication that makes you starve your body and losing weight that way any different from just starving your body by taking in fewer calories or using a plan like Optavia where your calories are severely restricted? That’s a fundamental, I think, red flag that goes up for me. If you are eating too few calories, you are going to have side effects that come simply from eating too few calories. I did a few episodes with my friend Tracy Brown a few months back. I’ll link in the show notes where he talked about all of the different ways that eating too few calories or having an eating disorder or disordered eating affects our bodies from simple things like hair loss and your nails not growing and your skin kind of feeling yicky and dry and scratchy to digestive issues of all kinds. I have esophagus issues, I’ve had all kinds of digestive system issues, and that’s all related to my history of disordered eating and eating disorder. So I don’t see how taking a medicine that makes you eat less and take in fewer calories would not have the exact same negative impact on your body that that kind of restrictive eating or dieting would.
So that’s kind of a confusion point for me. And that seems to be part of the side effects that I haven’t seen talked about a lot. I tried to find an article on it and I found one thing from the USA Today which questioned some of that and basically said, are we creating a whole generation, new generation of eating disorders through this medicine? But I didn’t find a whole lot out there. But what I did find, is concerning in and of itself. Because the side effects for these medications the list is long and I feel like I’m going to be a pharmaceutical commercial here. And I wish I could show you pictures of people frolicking in the leaves, in the water and doing all kinds of fabulous things. But you’re not going to see those images to distract you from hearing this list of side effects on the podcast today. So, are you ready? Here are just some of the side effects.
Now, these are from the Wegovy website. Okay, so Ozempic and Wegovy, again are not the same medication, but just they’re the same type of medication, but Wegovy is the one most approved for just weight loss alone. Okay? Side effects, possible thyroid tumors, including cancer. And then it says Wegovy and medicines that work like Wegovy. And I’m reading straight from the website, we’re not making this stuff up. Y’all, caused thyroid tumors, including thyroid cancer in rodents. It is not known if Wegovy will cause thyroid tumors or a type of thyroid cancer called medullary, thyroid carcinoma, MTC in people. So they gave it to rats and they had thyroid cancer, thyroid issues.
Now, we already know that when you restrict calories, it is hard on your thyroid. And God made our bodies, it’s just amazing. Y’all, if you stop and think about how God made every system of our body just integrated with all the other systems, and how in some ways it’s so delicate, right? Because one thing gets off. I know for some of us, you take one medication and the side effects cause another problem and you have to take another medication for the side effects and it just becomes this long perpetual cycle of frustration. But God created our bodies in a way where different systems are dependent on each other. And our endocrine system especially, is so sensitive to things, disruptions, like not eating enough food. And that’s what hurts our thyroid just when we diet, oh, could you get thyroid cancer from this method of weight loss? Maybe. That’s what it says here.
Heather Creekmore [00:16:05]:
Okay, here’s some other side effects. If that didn’t scare you away, here’s some other ones Wegovy may cause serious side effects, including here’s the list. You ready? Inflammation of your pancreas or pancreatitis, gallbladder problems, increased risk of low blood sugar, hypoglycemia in patients with type two diabetes, especially those who already take medications for type two diabetes, kidney problems or kidney failure. Serious allergic reactions, change in vision in people with type two diabetes, increased heart rate while you’re at rest, depression or thoughts of suicide. And those aren’t even the most common ones. Okay, now here’s a list of the most common side effects of wegovy may include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, stomach, abdomen pain, headache, tiredness, fatigue, upset stomach, dizziness, feeling bloated, belching gas, stomach flu, heartburn, runny nose, or sore throat. So you may eat less, you may look better, but you may also be tied to your bathroom or still feel bloated or have heartburn or all these other symptoms.
Heather Creekmore [00:17:20]:
Friends? I don’t know. That was a big deterrent to me. That did not sound like the unicorn cure I was looking for after I read all the side effects.
Heather Creekmore [00:18:46]:
Again, I’m not here to judge you, but I want us all to recognize that it’s not free, right? Nothing is free. And I think that’s what we all want, right? We want an escape from our suffering that is free. We want freedom, right? But we want something that won’t cost us anything, but will give us the results we want. Now, the reality is, Ozempic, Wegovy are going to cost you something physically. They are you might get what you want. Maybe it will help you manage your diabetes. And that’s a wonderful thing, right? Are there other ways to manage your diabetes? Maybe.
Heather Creekmore [00:19:28]:
Again, I’m not in the position to tell you what the best way to do that is, but it will cost you something. It’s also going to cost you something financially. These medicines are really expensive, so everything I’ve read says they’re around $1100 to $1,400 a month. Now, if you have a condition, you may be able to get your insurance to chip in. My family member said the insurance might pay 70% if there was a diabetes diagnosis, but of course that depends on your insurance carrier as to what they will pay. My family member thought that they were going to have to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of month. But given the fact that a lot of the diets and other things that they’ve tried cost that much, that wasn’t that big of a deterrent. And some of you understand, like, you’ve paid that much money for other things, so why not pay for this? Like, I hear where you’re coming from, but it’s not free.
Heather Creekmore [00:20:28]:
And then the other really important thing to understand is that as soon as you stop, things go back to the way they were before. And so there’s some important data out here I just want to read for you. So the longest study of and I’m not sure if this is Ozempic or wegovy, so I apologize for not having that detail clear for you, but in the longest study lasting 68 weeks so 68 weeks is about 16 months. Weight loss had plateaued and started to climb again by the end, suggesting that people’s bodies had acclimated to the drug. So even if you can afford to keep doing it for years and money is not really a concern for you, there is a chance that just like with other diets, your body will get used to it and you will plateau. And so you will have spent, oh, I don’t know, 16 months, $1,000 a month, $16,000 to go right back to where you were. And the fact I just cited for you was from a USA Today article, which I will link in the show notes. But this article also suggested like, what is going to be the mental health repercussion of having a bunch of people go through? Really? It’s like, I don’t know, a diet on steroids, right? Like a hyper focused diet experience where you lose a bunch of weight rather quickly, perhaps, and you have this like, I don’t know, let’s say you lose it all in six months and you’ve got those like, six months of keeping it off and just feeling great about your body because you like your new thin body.
Heather Creekmore [00:22:14]:
And then the six months ends and you plateau and your weight starts climbing again just like it did with other diets you’ve been on. And now this isn’t even an option for you because you know it didn’t work like you hoped it would. And now you’re right back to where you started again and how hopeless that feels. The one quote from this article, which I thought was really helpful was it said something to the effect of weight loss does not cure eating disorders, trauma, or and I’m going to add body image issues, right? So Ozempic, Wegovy these things can’t fix it all. They may be able to help you lose some weight for a certain amount of time, but they’re not going to cure your heart issues. They’re just not. Now there’s this whole other side thing about using these drugs for weight loss when they really need to be used for people who have diabetes or other conditions that require them. And I’ve heard a bunch of buzz read, a bunch of buzz about how the weight loss people are so vain that they’re using it when there’s not enough for the diabetes patients.
Heather Creekmore [00:23:26]:
And I actually think that that was more of a headline just from the couple of people I’ve interviewed around this and the research I’ve done. It seemed like I could get it today if I wanted it. So I don’t think there is the shortage that the media made a story out of. I don’t know where that came from. I could be wrong, but it seemed like that shortage wasn’t actually there and maybe was just a headline to shame celebrities who can obviously afford to do this. They can afford it financially, but can they afford it physically and can they afford it mentally? That’s a different thing. Now, there’s also this one other thing I want to mention. It’s called Ozempic Face.
And so this is a condition, I don’t know, it might even be a hashtag, where the rapid weight loss that’s spurred by Ozempic changes your skin. It reduces your fat volume all over your body. So basically the fat in your face, which actually keeps you looking younger if you have a fatter face. If you have fat in your face, it’s kind of helpful. It makes you look more youthful, some people believe. So you lose fat in your face and you get this like shrunken, gaunt, dehydrated appearance. That’s called Ozempic face. And so here’s where it gets crazy, friends.
Heather Creekmore [00:24:39]:
This is why weight loss doesn’t solve it. This is why the body image idol is never satisfied. Okay? This is that treadmill. I’m telling you that you get on if you think that using these drugs, you’ll lose the weight and you’ll fix it. This is the treadmill, okay? So listen up. What people are doing is they are then going to the dermatologist or a plastic surgeon to get injectable facial fillers so their faces look more normal and don’t look so shrunken, and their faces look fuller and healthier. But this article suggested was like, the face can get full the way it used to be. Just regain the weight.
Heather Creekmore [00:25:20]:
That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to go get facial fillers. I thought that was kind of a very glib way to respond to that. But my point, friend, is that if you believe you will feel great about your body after you lose a certain amount of weight, just know this is my story. And I’ve talked to so many of you that have lost the weight. And even when you lost the weight, you weren’t free. In fact, I’ve talked to many of you, I’ve coached many of you who feel freer now at a heavier weight than you felt when you were following the plan, following the program, and as thin as you ever wanted to be, because then you had to be obsessed. Let me be really clear here.
Heather Creekmore [00:26:04]:
I mentioned this before, but using these drugs does not clear you from having to worry about food and exercise. All of them recommend that they be used with a diet plan, an exercise plan. And like I shared, if you have to really watch carefully what foods you eat. Otherwise you’re going to get nauseous and vomit and feel sick and be in the bathroom all the time. Because of being on this medicine, you are going to have to obsess about food at a different level, maybe even a different level than you’ve ever had to obsess about food. Right? Because it’s one thing to obsess about food and worry about it making you gain weight, right? That’s why most of us have obsessed over food. But it’s another thing to have to obsess over food if you’re like. Oh, no.
Heather Creekmore [00:26:49]:
If I eat what everyone else is eating for lunch today, I am going to be in the bathroom the rest of the day and miss half a day of work because I was so sick after that. That’s a different level of obsession. I would even say it’s a different level of stress on your body around food. Is that route taking you to a healthier place with your body and with food? I’d say probably not. Now, this USA Today article also talks about this reality that we know from the Health at Every Size studies, from the Health at Every Size data that what is most dangerous for most of us is weight cycling. The seesawing of your weight, when you gain weight, lose weight, gain weight, lose weight, gain weight, lose weight. And a lot of times when you gain the weight after losing the weight, you gain more weight than you had before. That is what is most dangerous for our bodies.
Heather Creekmore [00:27:45]:
And there are studies out there showing, okay, if you weigh more, then you’re more likely to have these issues and these health issues and these health issues. But the Health at Every Size data, folks, and there’s studies out there there’s a study from Chinese researchers that showed the association between weight cycling and a 40% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. So the question that the Hayes people, the health that every size people always bring up is does the data really show that it’s more dangerous to be heavier, that if you weigh more you are going to have heart issues and all these other issues? Or does that data not go far enough? Do we actually need to look at what the weight of these people have done over a period of decades? Are these people who have weight cycled? Is it necessarily the person that has always weighed more and has kept a consistent weight for most of their life? Is that person more at risk or is it the person that has lost the weight gain, the weight loss of weight gained the weight? Is that person more at risk? And that’s a really important distinction that I think a lot of the studies we see don’t do a good enough job of explaining for us. And again, this is in that USA Today piece. So friends, that’s the data, right? That’s the black and white. But what about the heart stuff, right? What about this desire? Maybe even a desperation. You have to just be free to just be done with it. Can’t Ozump just fix this for me once and for all? Can’t a weekly injection and okay, just by the way, I hate shots.
Heather Creekmore [00:29:30]:
So no matter how tempted I am, I don’t know that I’ll ever get to the point where I can do shots. Like, I pray that I never end up with some other kind of health issue that requires shots because my husband will have to do it for me. I will not be able to administer those for myself. Okay, but that aside, what is this desperation? What is behind this desperation? What do you believe weight loss will really do for you now? If it’s I believe weight loss will make me feel better, will give me more energy, that I’ll just feel freer in my body. If I’m in a smaller body, if my body is smaller, I’ll be able to do things like sit on an airplane more comfortably or chase after my children more comfortably. I’m not condemning you for that. I understand. I get that desire and I don’t think that’s a bad desire at all.
Neither do I think there’s anything sinful about that desire. I just wonder if this is the best way to get there, if there aren’t other ways you could pursue to feel healthier, to be healthier. And maybe we’re not talking diet and exercise anymore, right? There’s this interesting thing called the social determinants of health and it says that only 10% of our health is determined by food and exercise. There are so many factors to our health, but also to what we weight. So maybe if you are feeling desperate, maybe instead. Of paying for Ozempic $1,000 a month. Maybe it’s time to talk to a dietitian that’s a non diet dietitian and just get some guidance with your relationship with food. Just get some support and some help.
Heather Creekmore [00:31:23]:
If it’s your body image where you’re really struggling and it’s not about fitting into an airplane seat comfortably, then, hey, read my book Compared to who? Or grab a coaching session this summer and let’s talk. Let’s work on the body image issues that keep you feeling desperate if you’re thinking about your body, 24/7 if you’re obsessing over food all the time, if you just really feel trapped, friend, that’s a body image issue. And losing weight isn’t going to fix it. I know it’s hard to watch friends or celebrities look like all their dreams are coming true because they’ve lost the weight. Oh, there’s something so appealing about that, right? It’s like, oh, if I could just do that, I’ll just do that and I’ll be like her, and it’s going to unlock all these wonderful things in my life. But friend no, it costs something. It always costs something. Social media doesn’t tell us the whole story.
Heather Creekmore [00:32:23]:
It costs something. Maybe it’s costing their health. Maybe they’re spending a whole lot of time in the bathroom before they take those selfies. Or maybe their body’s responding just fine to it right now. But will those results last? We don’t know. Will there be long term consequences? We don’t know. Will the medicine remain available indefinitely at that price? We don’t know. And I guess I would encourage you, friend, like, if that’s where you’re stuck, you’re watching other people and you’re like, I want that, I want that.
Heather Creekmore [00:32:55]:
I want what she has. Friend, you might be caught up in envy and envy. Oh, Bible has a lot to say about envy, right? But envy isn’t something we need to indulge in order to make it better, right? I think that’s what comparison tells us. Just get what it is you like. It’s really lust get what it is. You lust after what it is you long for, and then you’ll feel satisfied. But it never works like that. Instead, envy is a sin, and it’s something we need to confess.
Heather Creekmore [00:33:25]:
And if you are daydreaming about weight loss medication because you are envying what someone else has done to their body or with their body, or envying someone else’s body, friend, just confess it. And I’ll tell you what, that’s going to lift the weight, no pun intended again. But that’s going to help you lose the weight of comparison and lose the weight of I must do something now more than actually losing weight will. Because here’s the truth. You can lose the weight, and it still might never be enough. Some of you have been there. Some of you want to be there just to try it for yourself, right? It’s like when people say money doesn’t solve everything. It’s like, well, let me just try it.
Heather Creekmore [00:34:05]:
Right, I get it. But friend, it’s not the answer you’re looking for. There is someone who does have the answer, though. It’s not me. It’s Jesus. And if you’re struggling with your health, if you’re just in a place where you just feel like you weight way too much, it’s time to do something. Let’s talk about what we could add that’s healthy for our lives. Weight.
Heather Creekmore [00:34:30]:
Like, I get this feeling and I’m going to do a show the next time. Actually, later this week, I’m going to do a show on just the ways I’ve been struggling with body image recently. And I’m just going to lay it all out there for you. But instead of restricting, instead of trying extreme measures, what can we add to feel healthier? What can we add to improve the way we feel in our bodies? There are things we can add things we can add that are a lot safer than Ozempic. Well, I hope today’s been informative and helpful for you. And I also hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye. The Compare to Show is proud to be part of the Life audio network of podcasts.
Heather Creekmore [00:35:12]:
For more great Christian podcasts on every topic you can think about, go to LifeAudio.com.
