stage light front of audience — Photo by Yvette de Wit on Unsplash

This is Between the Pictures, my whole GLP-1 story told one chapter at a time, every Thursday. If you missed it, start with the Prologue here.

258.6 | March 2023

In January of 2023, my husband and I drove to Las Vegas to see Bruno Mars, and I spent the weeks before that trip getting myself ready. Not my outfit, even though I bought something I never would have worn before. I mean me. I had this whole conversation with myself in my head, over and over, until I believed it. This is the way I'm going to look forever, so I might as well accept it, be happy, and try my best to be confident.

And by the time we walked out of the hotel that night, I honestly had myself convinced. I felt cute. It took a lot of convincing to get there, but I got there, and I was proud of myself for it.

Then we took pictures, and the second I looked at them, every bit of that confidence was gone. All of that work I had done to talk myself into feeling good, and one photo undid it in about two seconds.

That's the thing about convincing yourself. It only works until you see yourself the way everyone else does.

The rest of the night didn't help. Those concert seats were so uncomfortable, and I filled mine from one armrest to the other. I spent the whole show holding my arms in tight and trying to make myself smaller so I wouldn't spill into the space next to me. Bruno Mars was right there on that stage, and I couldn't stop thinking about how much room I was taking up.

I didn't feel bad because of how I looked that night. I felt bad because I had worked so hard to feel good, and it still wasn't enough.

The person who worried about me the most

To really understand that year, you have to know about my Nana.

My Nana is the person who showed me what a mother is supposed to be. She didn't say yes to everything. She said no to a lot of things, and she treated me like a kid instead of an equal, which is exactly what I needed. She took me in when I needed a mother figure, someone who would be there for me in a way my own mom just wasn't. And she was always there. She is the best person I have ever known in my entire life.

She was also always worried about my weight. As I got bigger and bigger, she would say things, and I'm not going to pretend they were always kind. But the way she said them was so different from the way my mom said them. I still don't totally know how to explain it, except that it never felt like she was comparing me to anyone or trying to make me feel less than. It was just worry. She loved me, she was scared for my health, and she didn't know what else to do with that except say it out loud.

And every time she said something, I brushed it off. But deep down, I wanted so badly to be able to show her that she didn't have to worry about me anymore.

The drive home from El Paso

By that spring, I had brought up the weight loss clinic near us more times than I could count. I would bring it up, my husband would listen, and then I would talk myself right back out of it because of the money. Over and over and over again.

We had just spent a few days in El Paso visiting my grandparents, and somewhere on that long drive home, I brought it up again. And this time, instead of listening and letting it drop, he finally said, fine, do it. Go. "We will do what we need to do to make you happy."

I want to be really clear about this part, because I know how it can sound. He was not asking me to change. He was tired of watching me be unhappy, and he wanted it to stop hurting me.

Spring break

So on the Friday of my spring break, I walked into that clinic, and that's where I heard the word semaglutide for the first time in my life. I didn't know what a GLP-1 was. Nobody I knew had ever mentioned one. They offered it as a sublingual, which is a tiny pill you put under your tongue every morning and let dissolve, and since I had no idea there were other options, that's just what it was to me.

I wasn't scared walking in. I was excited, and honestly a little desperate, because in my head this was the last thing I was going to try before surgery, and surgery terrified me. The only thing I was really worried about was money. I was so sure it was going to be too expensive, that I was going to fall in love with something we couldn't afford. I signed up anyway.

That night, I got on my phone and searched everything I could think of. I found this tiny corner of TikTok, so much smaller than it is now, full of women who were already doing it and already celebrating things I hadn't let myself want in years. I binged every single video I could find, and I went to bed with more hope than I'd felt in a really long time.

She was so excited for me

Nana knew I was starting, and she was so excited for me. After all those years of worrying, the person who wanted this for me the most finally got to watch me go after it.

I couldn't wait to show her. I thought I had all the time in the world to do it.

March 29, 2023

That was the day I put the first one under my tongue, and I still remember it.

What happened next honestly blew my mind. The food noise went away almost immediately. All that constant chatter about what I was eating next and what was in the pantry just went quiet, and I didn't even realize how loud it had been until it was gone. I stopped snacking at work. I was focused, I was on my game, and for the first time in years, food wasn't the thing running my day.

At the end of that first month, I was 249.8. That's 8.8 pounds in one month, which I'm pretty sure I had never done before in my entire life. I was on a high, and I was so freaking excited.

There was just one problem. Those tiny pills were costing us almost $600 a month, and I knew we couldn't keep doing that for long.

Next Thursday, Chapter 2: Everyone I was watching was using something different than me, and I had no idea what it was. I just knew I wanted it.

Who's the person you wanted to prove it to? Tell me about them in the comments. I read every single one.

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Always in your corner,
Nyk

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Chapter 1: If You've Ever Talked Yourself…