Before we get started, I know weight loss content isn’t for everyone. It might not be for you! If that’s the case, but you’d like to keep reading the rest of my content, you can opt out by heading to the Anchor Baby newsletter home page, clicking on your avatar on the top right and hitting “manage subscription”. In there, you’ll see exactly what you’re getting emails and notifications for, and you can toggle those options on and off! Toggle off the “Ozempic etc” option to make sure you won’t get any posts related to injectable weight loss medications – from me, at least.
Let’s start with a little background, shall we? At the start of 2024, I decided –under the careful supervision of, and after great discussion with, my doctor – to try weight loss injections as a way to curb my appetite and, hopefully, lose some weight. It wasn’t an easy decision to come to; you can read all about it here.
It was and is a complex choice for myriad reasons; I am, and will always be, personally and politically, an advocate for fat positivity, radical fat acceptance and against the anti-fat bias that pervades our lives, cultures and societies. I believe all people, regardless of body shape, size or ability, should be entitled to the basics: respect, healthcare, love, and a seat on a plane that doesn’t cause them distress, discomfort or pain.
I recognise the harm that diet culture does to us, from an incredibly young age – my three-year-old recently remarked to me that, “if you eat that your belly will get big”. I was play-eating a piece of rocket, by the way, so I’m not sure he quite grasped the full concept of what he was saying, but somehow he has already picked up the idea that what we eat can make our tummies bigger, and that a bigger tummy is something to be wary of.
“I love my big tummy!” I told him, and then reached out to tickle his (very-not-big) tummy, too. “Don’t you love your big tummy?”
I will always advocate for the rights of fat people to dignity, respect, decent healthcare that evaluates their whole selves, and doesn’t just put every little niggle down to their being fat; I will always teach my children that people’s bodies are the least interesting things about them, that the term “fat” is neutral, that some people have bigger bodies and some people have smaller bodies, and that no foods are “good” or “bad”; and I will always want better for fat people.
But I’ve also spent 40 years living in this incredibly fatphobic world, and I’ve always felt as though my body was wrong, no matter how hard I worked, whether I was fighting against the constant messaging I was receiving about it, trying my hardest to be body positive and fat positive and not to feed into that messaging, or, truthfully, trying my hardest to lose weight and change that body.
And honestly? The last few years have been the hardest, as I’ve inched – quite literally – out of “straight” sizes and into “plus sizes” and found it increasingly difficult to find clothes that (a) fit me and which (b) I like and crucially (c) can afford. I’ve also gone through two pregnancies and two C-sections and turned 40, and none of these things has been easy, physically or psychologically, and I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult, too, to feel in any way positive about my body.
In fact, I would say I’ve been feeling increasingly negative about it: from feeling ugly and badly dressed (most of the time) to ashamed to be seen eating in front of people (a lot of the time) to embarrassed to talk to my doctor about certain ailments that I know are associated with (not necessarily caused by, but no one cares about that differentiation) fatness.
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It’s also been really hard to see the handful of once fat women in the public eye shrink down to a mere fraction of their previous size. That these body changes have happened at the same time as the development and rapid distribution of these weight loss drugs is, apparently, coincidental; Adele lost weight through diet and exercise. Mindy Kaling took up hiking. Kelly Clarkson started walking everywhere (and may or may not have started taking some weird homeopathic gummies).
Lizzo and Rebel Wilson decided to focus on their health. Serena Williams worked really hard to lose the post-baby weight. (I suppose Williams is an athlete, so this is plausible, even if it seems unlikely – at her beating-everyone-into-the-ground best, she was incredibly strong and solid.)
Alongside all of these noticeable A-list transformations, a tonne (if you’ll excuse the ponne) of formerly plus-sized influencers have visibly shrunk, too,. And look – no one owes us their bodies, whether that’s the size of their bodies or the health of their bodies or the wrinkles on their faces… Each and every one of us has (or should have) bodily autonomy, and is perfectly entitled to do what they want with those bodies.
But when the tide is turning all in one direction – smaller, smaller, smaller – it’s hard not to get swept up in that current, or to allow what you’re seeing to make you feel worse about yourself, now that your favourites are no longer as relatable as they once were.
And look: I could tell you a host of health-related niggles I’ve noticed in the past few years, things that some people would say are absolutely related to my weight (but on which, truly, the science is still out – did you know, for example, that some studies suggest that being at a higher weight actually improves your life expectancy?!). I could use these niggles as my reasons for wanting to try weight loss drugs again, but the God’s honest truth is that I am tired of being fat and I want to not be fat any more.
I’m very aware that, like many other methods of weight loss I’ve tried over my life, this might not work for me. Even if it does work, it might not work forever. These drugs’ efficacy has been known to taper off over time, and early indicators are that the vast majority of people will regain the weight (plus more) if and when they stop taking them.
And there are side effects! A lot of gross gastric stuff I think most of us would rather not deal with. People have experienced hair loss, muscle loss, insomnia, depression… all of the many, many negative side effects you might expect from a drug that does something as massive as trick you into thinking you’re full so that you’ll eat less.
As someone who’s a big comfort eater, and finds great joy in a great many foods, I’m worried about what will happen if and when that’s taken away. If eating delicious meals is one of the few activities I really enjoy, what will happen when I no longer enjoy it? Will I find something else to enjoy, or will I just… enjoy nothing?! (This seems like a joke question but I’m deadly serious.)
I’ll be documenting my experience here – but not my “weight loss journey”, whatever that means. I documented one of those before, and I have a lot of mostly negative feelings about my decision to do so; I think sharing before and after photographs is thoughtless, if not downright harmful, and I think weight, at least the specific number, is such an incredibly individual thing that there’s no point in sharing it – not to mention the fact that doing so has the potential to cause more harm than good.
If you have questions, ask them here and I’ll do my best to answer in the comments – or reply to this email with your question and I’ll answer in a future piece (along with questions I received anonymously on Instagram).
Like I said, I know this won’t be for everyone – and, if you’re one of those people, there are no hard feelings. We all – in what we consume, who we spend our time with and, yes, what medications we take – have to do what’s best for us, and us alone.
Related: this episode of Louise’s McSharry’s Catch Up, with comedian Alison Spittle, discussing weight loss medication and fatphobia and anti-fat bias and media (and more!) is brilliant and smart and funny and moving and I would highly recommend listening to it.
