three years on a glp-1. here’s what actually happened.
I didn’t follow the rules. I lost 73 pounds anyway. And then I got stuck. This is the full story.
before we get into it
One week from tomorrow, Back to Day One starts.
It’s a 30-day GLP-1 reset for women who are ready to stop spinning and actually feel like themselves again. If you’ve been thinking about joining - this is your sign. It kicks off May 1st and you can join below.
Okay. Now the story.
everybody told me I was doing it wrong
When I started a GLP-1 in March of 2023, I was 258 pounds.
I was also eating fast food almost every single day. Ordering lunch to school. Not going to the gym. Not tracking anything. Not drinking my water. Not doing any of the things you’re supposed to do when you start a medication that’s supposed to change your life.
And yet.
In the first year and a half, I lost 73 pounds.
I want to sit with that for a second because I think it matters. Not because I’m telling you to eat fast food. Not because I’m saying the rules don’t apply. But because I was told over and over again that what I was doing wasn’t going to work. That I needed to overhaul everything. That I had to earn the weight loss.
And the scale just... kept going down.
Watch HERE:
the part nobody talks about
Here’s what was actually happening during those 73 pounds.
I wasn’t eating less healthy food. I was just eating less of it. The GLP-1 was doing what it was supposed to do - cutting the noise, quieting the part of my brain that couldn’t stop. I wasn’t white knuckling anything. I wasn’t in restriction. I was just... less hungry. So I ate less. Even if what I was eating was a cheeseburger.
That’s it. That’s the whole secret I’m not supposed to tell you.
The medication worked. Without me doing everything right.
Now before you close this tab - I’m not saying that’s the end of the story. Because it’s not.
the plateau nobody prepared me for
April 24th, 2024. I hit 199.5 pounds. Onderland. A year and a month in, down 60 pounds, and I genuinely thought I was about to run through the finish line.
I did not run through the finish line.
In the two years since that day, I have lost about 15 more pounds. I am currently sitting at 186. My goal is 140. The math on that is not cute.
What happened? Honestly, nothing dramatic. The medication kept working. My body just... slowed down. And I hadn’t built any of the habits that would have carried me further because I never needed to.
That’s the part I didn’t expect. Not that the weight loss would slow down - I knew that was coming. But that I would get to this phase of the journey completely unprepared for it. Because the first phase had been so easy.
what I’m actually doing now
I’m 37. I’ve been on a GLP-1 for three years. And I am only now, slowly, starting to build the lifestyle I probably should have been building all along.
No more ordering food to school most days. Cooking dinner more nights than not. Going to the gym at least twice a week, sometimes three times. Starting to actually like it, which I genuinely did not see coming.
None of this happened overnight. None of it was a dramatic moment where I decided to change. It was just... slow. Gradual. One meal at a time. One gym session at a time.
And I think that’s okay. Actually, I think that might be the only way it works for people like me.
what I want you to take from this
If you’re just starting - you don’t have to flip your entire life upside down. Make small changes. Let the medication do some of the work it was designed to do. Give yourself permission to not be perfect.
If you’re in the middle like me - the plateau is real and it is frustrating and you are not broken. You might just need to slowly add in the things you weren’t ready for at the beginning. And that’s not failure. That’s just how this actually goes for some of us.
If you’re feeling behind - you’re not. Three years in and I still have 40 pounds to go. I’m not racing anyone.
Make sure you’re following me
And if you want to go deeper on the messy middle - the plateau, the hormones, the emotional side of being stuck - that’s what I write about every week here on Substack.
You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just in it.
That’s the whole point.
if you've been doing this alone - the weekly weigh ins, the spiral when the scale doesn't move, the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out if you're doing it right - you don't have to anymore. paid subscribers get the deeper posts, the friday deep dives, and our weekly chat threads where we're literally just in it together. it's the group chat you didn't know you needed. $29.70 for the whole year until May 1st. come sit with us. (after May 1st, the price goes up).
This really highlights the “long game” side of GLP-1s that doesn’t get enough attention. After a few years, it’s less about rapid weight loss and more about maintenance, mindset, and adapting to a new normal.
That middle phase—plateaus, identity shifts, staying consistent—is where most of the real work happens.
It also reinforces that the medication is just one part of it. The structure around it is what determines whether results actually last, which is why approaches like FormBlends are getting more attention alongside it.
More people need to hear that it is okay to allow the medication to do the heavy lifting. Everything else can come later and don’t feel an ounce of guilt about that. I sat on my butt in my art studio the first 6 months and took my shots and didn’t move an inch and lost 50 pounds, at age 60 mind you when it’s super hard to lose weight! After that weight came off all of a sudden I felt like moving…I actually WANTED to move. And now the stall that I had has gone away too. But unlike you, my tastebuds and food preferences changed drastically after my very first shot. I am what they call a “super responder”. I haven’t had any of my obesity foods or sugar since I started the Tirz shots not because I am white knuckling some sort of healthy diet, but because I have no desire for any of that now going on 8 months!