The Miracle Weight Loss Drug Isn’t Here Yet

When I was an overweight teenager battling obesity, my mother would sometimes make me an offer, “Weight loss surgery is covered under my insurance.  I can schedule you an appointment if you want me to?”

As a kid going to school everyday getting teased on a regular basis about how fat I was, this was a tempting offer.  Furthermore, knowing how much intense effort I was putting into exercise and changing my diet, knowing that effort wasn’t producing any results, knowing I was only getting heavier every year… It was a massively tempting offer.  More specifically, it was tempting to believe that after the surgery, all my problems would go away.  I never did take her up on that offer.  It was purely for the fact that I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that I did it on my own and I did it the hard way by changing my eating/exercise habits.

That was in the late 90’s.  Fast forward 20+ years later and we seem to be on the cusp of a miracle drug for weight loss in Ozempic.  For years people like me have advocated that there is no magic pill for weight loss and for the first time in my life that may not be totally true anymore.  When I first started hearing stories about people using Ozempic to lose weight I was alarmed.  My initial concern was that we were giving each other an excuse to stop trying to change our eating and exercise habits.  Then I  realized that at its best, if there were no side effects and it was cheap to buy (neither of which is currently true), the drug only manages body weight.  Health is much more than body weight.  If one is not committed to exercise, proper eating, stress management, quality sleep, quality relationships, gratitude, and finding purpose in life, then how much is losing a few pounds going to be worth in the long haul?

Honestly, I’m all for tools to aid people on their wellness journey.  Ozempic, Bariatric Surgery, Personal Trainers, Cook Books, Exercise Books, This Blog etc. are all tools to aid a person who has hopefully made a deep intrinsic decision that they want to be in better physical condition.  However, all of these things will be ineffective in the long term if people chose to do nothing about their daily habits.  

I’m sure many of us know people who have yo-yo’d in their body weight for years after all kinds of interventions.  I’m betting Ozempic will be the same way in some regard because I don’t think that there will ever be a replacement for changing our fundamental beliefs.  In my experience, engaging in a hard process is a large part of changing how we see the world and ourselves.  The satisfaction that I sought as a kid was the satisfaction of knowing that I faced the mountain and I climbed.  Even if I never lost the weight, I needed to know that I kept fighting to change.  There are tremendous levels of confidence in knowing that you are willing to engage with adversity when you could take an easy way out.

I’m not saying anything new or ground breaking, but I’m becoming more convinced that these types of simple truths need to be said over and over, by people like me.  Desiring the world to be an easier place is in some ways robbing yourself of the opportunity to become stronger.  I guess I’m posing the question of which is more productive:  Hoping for a miracle solution to solve the problem or spending that same time actually iterating through potential solutions to the problem?  Hell, I’m okay with people doing both as long as you’re at least trying to solve the problem while you’re waiting on the miracle. 

I get it.  Losing weight is hard.  Changing your eating habits is hard.  I’ve been there and even after losing 100 hundred pounds over 20 years ago, I still have to be vigilant about emotional eating.  I embrace that practical battle because it makes me mentally stronger with time.  I encourage you to see your health journey the same way.