95 Pounds Down and Finally Trusting Herself
Elisa Sherman spent decades managing her weight. At 53, after lung cancer surgery and a lifetime of cycling, she found something that finally worked and it changed more than her body.
She Wasn’t Chasing a Number
Elisa Sherman has spent most of her life in a complicated relationship with her body.
From the 160s and 170s in high school to the 250s and beyond in adulthood, she knew how to lose weight. What she could never figure out was how to stay there. The cycle was exhausting and relentless. Lose it. Gain it back. Start over again.
By the end of 2024 she had reached her highest weight ever. 287 pounds. Possibly over 290 on some days. She had been hovering in and out of prediabetic A1C ranges for four years straight. And she had just come through one of the hardest seasons of her life, lung surgery in the summer of 2024 to remove stage 1 lung cancer.
She would have qualified for bariatric surgery. She never wanted it. But knowing she qualified told her everything she needed to know about how serious things had become.
This was not about the way she looked. It never was.
“It wasn’t about aesthetics. It was about health. I could feel my mobility declining and my energy dropping. After cancer, I knew I didn’t want to carry that forward.”
A Lifetime of Trying
Elisa’s history with her weight reads like a map of her life.
In her 20s she was in the 190s to 220s. Her 30s brought the 220s to 230s. By her 40s she was in the 250s. She got down to 226 for her wedding in 2016, then regained. By the end of 2018 she was around 235, then slowly gained through the pandemic.
In 2022 she tried Ideal Protein, a structured keto program, and got down to her lowest of around 239. She had a goal of losing 50 pounds by her 50th birthday. She didn’t get there.
She maintained in the mid 250s for a while, then gained again into the 270s by early 2024. She tried a very low calorie, time restricted plan and got back down to the mid 250s. Then she went to New Zealand, came home, had a CT scan, and ended up needing lung surgery that summer. She was around 260 at that point.
The pattern was undeniable. She could lose weight. She just could not sustain it.
“I could lose weight, but I couldn’t sustain it.”
There was also another barrier she had been carrying for years. Elisa had thyroid cancer in 2017 and had always assumed GLP-1 medications were not an option for her. When she finally asked her endocrinologist in early 2024, he confirmed that her type of thyroid cancer was not a contraindication.
That removed a barrier she had been holding onto for years. But even then, a question lingered.
Would this actually work? Or would it just be another cycle?
Deciding to Go All In
By mid fall 2024 Elisa had made her decision. She was going to pursue a GLP-1.
But she had a colonoscopy scheduled for the end of January and needed to wait. So she used the time wisely. On her birthday in January she started working with a nutritionist, about a month before she would take her first injection.
She was not going to half-heartedly try this. She describes her approach as a kitchen sink strategy, coaching, doctors, nutritional support, community, everything available to her working together at the same time.
“This time success wasn’t optional.”
The Moment Everything Shifted
Elisa is a photographer. She chases light and live music and fleeting moments through a lens. It is one of the things that makes her most herself.
So when she found herself at a live music show, struggling to kneel and get back up, unable to move the way she needed to get the shot, something cracked open inside her.
Her rock bottom was not a number on a scale. It was the feeling of her own body getting in the way of something she loved.
“It felt like my weight was holding me back from something I loved. Like it was taking something from me.”
That was the moment she knew.
Starting Zepbound
In February 2025, Elisa started Zepbound at 2.5mg. Her starting weight was 280.4 pounds, already down 6.6 pounds from her all time high. Insurance covered her first two months through telehealth. After that she used the manufacturer coupon.
The first few days were rough. Nausea hit hard, especially days one through three after each injection. But almost immediately she noticed something she had never experienced before in all her years of trying.
The food noise went quiet.
“The GLP-1 didn’t remove my appetite. It gave me space.”
By week three she had figured out that adjusting her fat and sugar intake helped significantly with the nausea. She stayed focused on making it work. Early on she was losing about two pounds per week.
She made a deliberate choice to stay at 2.5mg from February all the way through November 2025. No rushing. No pushing for faster results. Just steady intentional progress at the lowest effective dose her body responded to.
In December, after an injury slowed things down and she noticed unconscious snacking starting to creep back in, she increased to 5mg. That is where she is today.
Her lowest weight to date is 185.4 pounds.
That is 95 pounds gone from her starting weight. And she is still going.
The Kitchen Sink Approach
Elisa is emphatic that the medication alone did not get her here.
Before GLP-1 she describes herself as a counter and pantry surfer. A lot of unconscious snacking. Difficulty with portions. Food that felt hard to control.
The medication gave her space. But she still tracks everything. She still works with her coach to make adjustments when things shift. She still shows up with structure and intention every single day.
Her movement journey evolved alongside her weight loss. From February through August it was mostly about increasing her daily steps. After recovering from an injury she added Pilates and physical therapy, then resistance training in the fall. Now she averages 10 to 12 thousand steps a day, Pilates once a week, and lifts four times a week.
She also leaned heavily on support groups and social media throughout the process because feeling less alone and continuing to learn mattered just as much as the plan itself.
DEXA scans became a regular part of how she tracks real progress, giving her an honest picture of body composition that the scale alone could never show her.
“Having a plan and help made consistency possible.”
The Moment It All Clicked
The mindset shift did not happen all at once.
It built slowly through the fall when Elisa started going to the gym beyond just walking. Something settled in her that had not been there before. A quiet, steady recognition that this was not a diet with a finish line. This was her life now.
And instead of that feeling being terrifying, she leaned into it.
“It clicked that this is forever. And I leaned into it.”
The Hardest Part Nobody Talks About
Ask Elisa what the hardest part of this journey has been and she does not hesitate.
“That it’s forever. Not just losing weight, but maintaining changes long term. That realization is intimidating.”
That is the shift most people are not prepared for. It is not a before and after with a finish line. It is a complete reorientation of how you live, every single day, for the rest of your life.
She is also still navigating things that remain genuinely hard. Macros and sodium are still a work in progress. There are hard days. But a hard day for Elisa now looks different than it used to.
“Doing it anyway. But also knowing when to intentionally rest when needed.”
That distinction matters. Pushing through and knowing when to pause are both part of the work now.
The Surprise She Did Not See Coming
After a lifetime of trying and cycling and almost getting there and losing it again, Elisa did not fully believe this would be different.
She hoped. But hoping and believing are not the same thing.
“You hope, but you expect failure.”
The biggest surprise of this entire journey was simply that it worked. That she did not end up back where she started. That the cycle finally broke.
Who She Is Now
Elisa Sherman is 53 years old. She is a senior engineering manager. She is a photographer and a storyteller and a fashion lover and a woman who spent decades in a body she was fighting against.
She is also, somehow, a Pilates girl now. A gym girl. An active, strong, self aware woman who moves because she loves what her body can do.
“I’m an active, strong, self-aware woman. And somehow a Pilates and gym girl. Who knew?”
She feels more focused. More motivated. Excited about life in a way that feels new and also overdue.
“It feels like a new lease on life.”
And when you ask her what the biggest change has been, she does not talk about the 95 pounds. She does not talk about the clothing sizes or the before and after photos.
She talks about trust.
“I trust myself now. That’s the biggest change.”
What She Wants You to Know
If you are just starting out, Elisa’s message is simple.
It works. Start as soon as you can. Stay consistent and do not overreact to the normal fluctuations that are absolutely going to happen. Your body is doing more than the scale will ever show you.
If you are in the invisible phase, feeling like nothing is moving and quietly wondering if you are doing it wrong, know that progress slows and that is completely normal. Elisa has shifted her focus almost entirely to body composition now. The real change is happening whether you can see it or not. Stay consistent. Make small adjustments. Do not be dramatic about the hard days.
And if you have spent your whole life wondering why you could not figure this out? Why it never stuck? Why you could lose it but never keep it?
“It was never your fault.”
Elisa shares her journey openly here on Substack (Elisa) and on Instagram and YouTube at @foodnoisebegone. Go give her a follow and tell her Nyk sent you.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foodnoisebegone
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@foodnoisebegone
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Wow, our journeys are so similar, Elisa! Thanks for sharing yours! You look amazing but more importantly, you are amazing!!! Congrats on doing the hard work and making your health and fitness a priority! You are rocking life now with vitality and joy being your best self inside and out while sharing your journey to lift others up too! Kudos! Would love to have you as a guest sometime on my Anchor Moments YouTube channel! 😀