There is not a person on the planet with a few kilograms to lose who does not dream of a quick fix to their problem, writes Charmain Naidoo in Daily Maverick, and if that elixir were an easy-to-swallow pill, how much better – one that would release the brakes and let you eat as many chocolates, chips and ciabatta as you want.
That dream finally moved into the realm of the possible – only, the elixir came in the form of a self-administered injection.
I first learnt of this secret fat-busting weapon when US media personality Kim Kardashian wore a tiny, body-hugging Marilyn Monroe dress to the Met Gala, announcing she’d lost 7kg in two weeks to fit into it.
Quickly, rumours of how she’d achieved this rapid, extreme weight loss began doing the rounds on social media. Before long, tales of a miracle drug that dulled your desire to eat, that killed cravings, emerged.
Word of this miracle drug spread. Ozempic whispers grew into a hubbub and there was rejoicing in the world where thin equals happy. Finally. A drug that made you thin.
No matter that it was intended to treat type 2 diabetes; Ozempic was a way out of fat jail and into the world of thin freedom.
My own relief was palpable. Eight years ago I chose the extreme option of having bariatric surgery, an operation that resulted in a quick loss of 55kg. I have put 20kg back on, most of it during cooped-up Covid.
Ozempic heralded hope.
My Favourite Cousin, who lives nine time zones away, and I spend hours on WhatsApp, talking family and work, but mostly weight, diet, exercise, surgery, recipes and, well, food. The advent of Ozempic and Wegovy, in which the active ingredient is semaglutide, thrilled us.
Now there are other brands – Saxenda, Trulicity, Mounjaro – using the ingredient tirzepatide. What they all have in common is that they give hope. And a promise that once the weight has been lost, you can keep it off, with very little effort.
Or so we thought.
Favourite Cousin could more easily obtain Ozempic in her country nine time zones away. Her doctor happily provided a prescription, and she embarked on her journey.
A few months later her enthusiasm had waned. She’d lost no weight, and she’d discovered there was a catch. You had to eat healthily, control portion size and embark on a fairly rigorous exercise regimen for the drug to work.
She was unimpressed. The drugs are expensive (R2 722 for a month’s supply of four 1mg subcutaneous injections that have to be jabbed into your fat bits).
The side-effects – burping, farting, nausea, acid reflux – were embarrassing. And you have to diet and exercise along with it. Is it worth it? she complained.
I thought so. When the drug became available in South Africa and my doctor suggested it, I jumped at the chance and began the weekly injections. I had no side effects at all.
And so I waited – for the craving for sugar and carbohydrates to vanish. It did not.
It must be admitted that I made no major lifestyle changes. I ate as I normally did.
And then I saw weight loss results en masse on the red carpet at the Oscars, where Ozempic was one of the winners at Hollywood’s most glamorous party – a category of its own.
And you know something has been given a global stamp of approval when Oprah Winfrey owns up to using it.
After nearly a year of silence and massive weight loss, she admitted using the drug to maintain her weight loss, announcing she’d finally learnt that obesity is a disease – that it’s not about willpower, but about the brain.
I buy into that theory.
As Oprah says, I don’t just like carbohydrates and sugar; I need them. In true addict style, I crave them and am never sated, always wanting more – more bread, more chocolate, more, more, more.
And so I am, and have been my whole life, fat. Apparently it’s a bad word these days and you could be cancelled for using it. But I’m not big-boned or sturdy or statuesque or plus-sized, though I am that too: I’m fat.
I’ve lived with fat-shaming all my life. When I was five, starting out at big little school, a boy called me Blobby.
Before long, the class had joined in, as children do, walking around with blown-out cheeks and rounded arms, giving Blobby body. That I was plump and asthmatic, huffing and puffing my way through running games at playtime, didn’t help.
The story being told about obesity is changing. In the same way that alcoholism was declared a disease by the World Health Organisation in the 1950s, obesity appears to now have the same status.
Now the common wisdom is that obesity may be the result of hedonistic over-eating where the arousal of the pleasure centre in the brain makes one want to recapture the high given by sugar, fat and carbs. The definition of addictive behaviour.
Looking at smug photographs of thin Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Kelly Clarkson – the list is long – I decided it was time.
I’ve joined an aqua aerobics class and started walking three times a week. I’m cutting back on the carbs and sugar and slowly becoming less squeamish about stabbing myself in the stomach once a week.
It’s time to end a lifetime of humiliation and self-loathing.
Ozempic is the new Holy Grail.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Fake Ozempic sends users to hospitals
Danish commission calls for end to Ozempic subsidy for diabetes
Weight-loss drugs frenzy risks return of body size stigma
US study finds serious side effects from weight-loss drugs