This is Between the Pictures, my whole GLP-1 story told one chapter at a time, every Thursday. If you're new, start with the Prologue here, then read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.
239 | May to June 2023
That's me on May 1, 2023, standing in the doorway of my bathroom in a gray tank top and black bike shorts, with a suitcase behind me and towels hanging on the hooks. It became my before picture, the one that shows up next to every after I've ever posted. And here's the part almost nobody knows: by the time it was taken, I was already almost 20 pounds down.
When I look at it now, that's what gets me. The before picture isn't really a before. It's a woman one month into something that was finally working, and you would never know it from her face.
Nobody posts this part
May was the month the side effects showed up, and I'm not going to make them sound cute. The sulfur burps were terrible. If you know, you know, and if you don't, I hope you never do. I had diarrhea for days at a time, and I'm telling you that plainly because I wish someone had told me. The weight was falling off, and honestly, it was falling off because I felt like crap.
And I still had to go to work. School wasn't out yet, so I was struggling just to get myself there every morning, and then I went and taught a room full of kids anyway, because teachers don't exactly get to call out for burps.
It was working, and I felt terrible. Both were true at the same time.
I never made it past 0.75
Back then, it felt like most of the women I watched online were moving up a dose every four weeks, like that was just the schedule. That wasn't me. I only ever made it to 0.75mg, and then I would stop for a couple of weeks and go back on. I became really inconsistent, and the honest reason is that I didn't want to take my shot, because I felt so terrible.
But I didn't stop, because I was seeing results, and for me, it was worth it. That's not advice, and it's definitely not a dosing plan. Your dose is a conversation with your prescriber. It's just what those first months actually looked like for me.
Then June came, school let out, and I was home for summer break. I didn't have to push through it in front of a classroom anymore, and being home is what let me stick with it.
I sent her every update
Through all of it, I was updating my Nana. We had seen her in March, right when this was all starting, and when I told her I had started a GLP-1, she was so excited for me. After that, I kept her in the loop all spring. I told her it was working, and she was worried about me and excited for me at the exact same time.
She saw my pictures online, too, and she could see the difference. The person I most wanted to prove this to was watching it happen. For the first time in years, I had something good to show her.
She saw the beginning. I thought she'd get to see all of it.
On the night of June 16, I talked to her on the phone. She had fallen and hurt her hip, and she was going in for a routine surgery to fix it. She wasn't worried, so I wasn't worried.
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You don't have to keep it all in here.
The rest of this chapter is for members. It's the hardest thing I've written in this whole series, and I wanted to share it with the women who show up for each other every day. Girl Code Daily is where I'm still doing this out loud: my real Sunday Weigh In, a Monday Focus, the Wednesday Check In, Friday Wins, a printable every Saturday, and No Ghosting November, a daily check in with a chat full of women who notice when you go quiet. Here's a little of what members have been reading:
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