15.
“When I began trying to get healthier in 2022, my starting weight was 300.6 pounds (47.8 BMI, 5 feet 6 inches). I lost around 30 pounds on my own through diet alone, then started Ozempic in June 2023 at 270 pounds. I never went above 0.5 mg. I maintained a caloric deficit of 350 calories below maintenance and started exercising to get as much bang for my buck as I could — hour-long, three-mile walks daily and a weight-lifting routine three times a week. By the time I stopped taking Ozempic, I had reached 226.2 pounds. Since then, I hit 210 pounds in August, but I’m now, very happily, 22 weeks pregnant, so I’ve scaled back my workout routine to walking four times a week. I’m not dieting anymore, but I’m continuing to eat mindfully and healthily. I should mention that I was specifically taking Ozempic to lose weight because I was diagnosed with NAFLD, on top of dealing with PCOS since I was a young teen, which had made weight loss incredibly difficult and slow.”
“Stopping Ozempic, for me, wasn’t the end of the world because of all the good habits I’ve developed over the past two years and four months. I also learned how to control and combat the food noise that I never even knew I was experiencing. Overall, my relationship with food and exercise is worlds better than it was before, and my liver levels are back within a healthy range, as if I never had NAFLD at all.”