This post may contain affiliate links and/or codes. You won’t pay anything extra, but I might make a commission.
Some people don’t think that fat people deserve to lose weight unless they do it all by themselves, with only willpower. That’s absolute bull, and so are some other comments.
You don’t deserve to be thin
One of the reasons that I decided to write about taking Wegovy in the first place was because of how many stupid things ignorant people were saying about it. People who obviously didn’t even have a clue as to what it did or how it worked.
And the most common one I see, the one that gets under my skin the most, is that taking Ozempic or Wegovy in order to lose weight is cheating.
Cheating at WHAT exactly?
What they mean is that people who need to take Wegovy in order to lose weight don’t deserve to be thin.
I swear to you, that’s what’s at the heart of it. This idea that if someone isn’t able to be thin on their own, then they deserve to be fat. As if other people getting help losing weight somehow makes their own size less valuable, less coveted.
I wouldn’t bother trying to convince those people of anything. They won’t hear it. They’re so far up their own butts about how great and strong and smart they are that they’ll never acknowledge their own advantages. “If I did it on my own, you can too.” As if everyone’s situations and struggles are the same.
I’m not writing this for them. I’m writing it for the people who are bothered by what they say.
The truth is, everyone deserves to be healthy, and feel good. But we don’t all take the same path to get there. For some, it’s an easy roll down a soft hill.
For others, it’s an uphill climb that never gets any easier.
You have to do this, it will TOTALLY work for you!
Some people are lucky enough to find a method of staying healthy that works great for them. But the problems start when they assume that what works for them will work for everybody else.
I’m not immune, I’ve fallen into that trap myself. There have been times when I tried to insist to certain people that what I was doing would be perfect for them. But then when people started getting on my case about me needing to give up carbs in order to lose weight, I became more aware of what I was saying to other people, and I stopped.
I didn’t stop offering up my experiences on weight loss, there’s nothing wrong with that. I just stopped telling other people that they had to try what I’d done, that I knew it would work for them as well as it had worked for me.
(This is why I like having a blog. I can put my thoughts in front of people, and they can read them or not. I don’t have to trap them in a conversation.)
Maybe what they did worked for them through hard work, willpower, grit, and desire. But I think for a lot of people, they have advantages that they aren’t even aware of. Maybe it’s genetics, or money, or a love of exercise, or a hatred of their own body (I hate to refer to that as an advantage, but it does motivate some people into losing weight).
Whatever it is, it’s working for them. If it doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t mean that you failed, or that they’re better than you.
You just need some willpower
Some people think that I have amazing willpower because of how much weight I’ve lost in the past. And sure, it took willpower, but I didn’t have an unlimited supply. I couldn’t keep it up forever. Struggling so hard against what my brain was telling me to do was a daily torture. Willpower isn’t the answer for everyone.
Besides, defining and recognizing willpower is a tricky thing. I think we tend to attach our own wants to other people’s results. We credit willpower, when the other person isn’t actually fighting against anything.
I’m a vegetarian. I’ve been one for pretty much my whole life, and I have zero desire to eat meat. But when some people find out that I haven’t eaten any meat at all for decades, they think I have amazing willpower, because they struggle against their desire to eat meat.
But willpower has nothing to do with it. I don’t want to eat meat. I shouldn’t get any credit for that, but to some people I’m a model of vegetarian willpower.
I don’t drink alcohol either. Again, I just don’t want to. It’s not something I fight against, not even a little bit. And yet, some people are impressed by my self-control. They shouldn’t be. But because they love drinking so much, they don’t really get how easy it is for me to just not have any.
If someone says no to chocolate cake while I’m having a second piece, do they have amazing willpower? Or do they just not like chocolate?
And what about those people who do actually have a lot of willpower? That’s great!
Lots of people actually can be at a healthy weight through willpower. Often that willpower comes with great genes, or a personal trainer, or freshly-prepared and delivered foods, or some other mechanism that helps to keeps weight in check for some people, and I am 100 percent behind people doing what works for them.
But willpower isn’t the answer for me, and it might not be for you, either.
But Wegovy has so many side effects!
So does being overweight. (Or, at least it can. Some people seem to do just fine being heavier.)
Similarly, Wegovy can have lots side effects, or it might not have any. It depends on the person, and each person has to weigh the risks and possible side effects against being overweight. What’s worth it for one person might be a deal-breaker for another.
You just need to learn good habits
For me, being on Wegovy isn’t teaching me better eating habits. Instead, it took away my obsession with food. If I stop the medication, I have no reason to believe that the obsession won’t come right back, along with the weight.
Years on Weight Watchers did teach me how to eat well while still losing weight. I’ve never eaten healthier than I did on Weight Watchers, and I also ate a lot of food, food that I loved, and lost 50 pounds.
But the habits didn’t stick, even though I had done them for years.
In fact, I don’t think they even counted as habits, because even after all that time, they weren’t automatic. I don’t think I’m capable of learning good habits, to be honest. I’m only capable of convincing myself to do things.
Do you brush your teeth every morning? Why? Is it just a habit, something you do automatically every day?
Every time I brush my teeth, I have to force myself to do it. I have to make a conscious decision, and a big effort. I have to go over the pros and cons in my head, and convince myself that yes, I really do need to do it again. Every. Single. Time.
The same goes for exercising, and paying bills, and doing laundry, and washing dishes, and a million other things that some people manage to just do, consistently, without thinking about it.
So, habits aren’t really a thing for me. I can convince myself to eat in a way that benefits my weight, but I have to do it every time. It never becomes natural or automatic. It’s always a struggle, and it’s exhausting and unsustainable.
Eating whatever you want and still losing weight isn’t healthy!
I don’t know where some people got the idea that you can take Wegovy, pig out, and lose weight. It’s simply not true.
Semaglutide (the main drug in Wegovy) isn’t a stimulant, it’s not an amphetamine (incidentally, I gained weight when I went on a stimulant med for something unrelated to weight loss).
I guess in a technical sense I am eating whatever I want and still losing weight, but only because Wegovy has drastically altered how much I want to eat. I’m probably eating about one-quarter to one-third of what I ate before Wegovy.
But you’ll have to be on it forever!
Very possible. One study found that after being on Semaglutide for a year and then being off of it for a year, patients had regained about two-thirds of the weight that they had lost.
Chronic diseases might need lifelong medication to control. There are so many advantages to weighing less for me, taking an injection once a week seems like an excellent trade-off.
On the other hand, nobody really knows if the weight will stay off long-term with Wegovy. Our bodies can get used to a lot of things. I’m already eating more than I was when I started this dosage a few months ago, and yet I’m still losing weight at the same rate. Bodies are weird.
So this might not even be a long-term solution. We just don’t know yet.
Other Wegovy Posts
Side Effects of Wegovy (From Someone Who Had a REALLY Embarrassing One!)