I am taking Ozempic. What is it? It is a drug created to manage blood sugar in diabetic people with a one-a-week shot instead of daily medications. During the development of the drug, an exciting benefit kept appearing. People trialing it were losing weight. Sometimes, losing the very weight that tipped them into being Type 2 diabetic in the first place. In Georgia in 2021, my doctor mentioned it as an option for me, but I held off as I was moving to Florida. My doctor here has prescribed it as my A1C had crept to 7.0.
I was waiting till I had enough time under my belt to discuss it publicly. I finally decided to talk about it because I was getting a lot of questions thrown at me. I am no doctor, so this is just my experience. Within a day of taking it, I was feeling full after eating. Full. Full for the first time in my life. I had not realized that I was never full. So many times, people would say to me, “You don't eat that much.” And that is true. I never ate what society deemed “too much” at a sitting. But what I was able to do was eat multiple meals a day. Think of Christmas day, and you go to your family’s party and have a full Christmas dinner, and then later in the day, you go to your inlaws and eat another full dinner with no difficulty. That is what life is like for me every single day.
I still have an appetite, and I still love cooking. What I now experience is being full and content after eating. I am not constantly thinking of what I am going to eat next. The food chatter has been silenced.
I feel that I am now being treated with the correct drug for my situation. I am sure many will think she has no willpower, or if she could just get to the underlying trauma, she could beat this.
I was sick and tired of being told that you must be unhappy, so that is why you eat. None of these are the truth about me and I know most of you would stand up for me and say- she is usually happy, and she does have great self-confidence.
So yes, I have lost a significant amount of weight in a relatively short time. I will continue to lose as I go about my life, staying busy and active. I hope that everyone who could benefit from this drug can receive it. I cannot help thinking of my late grandmother, Julia Mizla, the sharpest, most vivacious person I have ever met. I know about her weight struggles and followed right in her shoes. Back in her day, they would give you the equivalent of speed to lose weight. I like to think she looks out for me now and cheers me on.
( Julia M. Mizla)
