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The time I nearly became a viral video.
Three months into taking Zepbound, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had lost some weight, had more energy, and decided it was time to join a gym. Not just any gym, but one of those serious places where people grunt and drop weights and look like they were born doing burpees.
I signed up, got my tour, and decided to start with something simple: the treadmill. I hopped on, pressed a few buttons, and started walking. Easy enough. Then I got a text message. Without thinking, I pulled out my phone to check it. What I did not realize was that I had accidentally hit the incline button multiple times instead of the speed button.
Suddenly, the treadmill started rising like a drawbridge. I am talking a nearly vertical climb. My casual walk turned into a desperate scramble. My phone went flying. I grabbed the handrails like I was hanging off a cliff. A personal trainer spotted me and sprinted over, slapping the emergency stop button while I stood there, legs shaking, completely mortified.
The entire gym had stopped to watch. Someone even started a slow clap, though I am still not sure if it was genuine or sarcastic.
Here is the thing that stuck with me: after the initial shock, the trainer did not make me feel like an idiot. He just said, “Happens more than you think, man. These machines are confusing.” Then he showed me how the controls actually worked and went about his day.
A year ago, before I started this whole journey with Zepbound, I am not sure I would have been that kind. I probably would have been one of those guys smirking in the corner, mentally adding another story to my collection of gym fails to share with buddies later. But something about going through my own transformation changed that impulse completely. Now when I see someone struggling or making a mistake, my first thought is not amusement. It is recognition. Because I have been that guy. I am still that guy sometimes.
The Weight You Shed and the Perspective You Find
When I first started taking Zepbound, my goals were straightforward and honestly pretty shallow. I wanted to lose the gut that had been expanding since my late twenties. My goal was to stop feeling winded after one flight of stairs. I wanted to look in photos without immediately zooming in to see which angle made me look the least heavy.
What never crossed my mind was that I might gain something intangible but infinitely more valuable: genuine empathy for other people’s struggles.
Before this journey, I thought of myself as a decent guy. Supportive. Understanding. When my friends talked about their health issues or weight problems, I would listen and say encouraging things. I thought I understood what they were going through. But honestly? I had no clue. I was watching their experiences from a comfortable distance, like someone observing a sport they have never actually played.
Losing weight has this way of stripping down more than just physical mass. It peels away layers of assumptions you did not even know you were carrying. The quick judgments you make when you see someone ordering fast food. The internal commentary that runs when someone takes the elevator for two floors. The silent superiority you feel when you think someone just needs to try harder or care more.
All of that started dissolving as my own journey got harder and messier than I ever anticipated.
When Biology Becomes Your Teacher
There is something deeply humbling about discovering that your greatest obstacle was never about willpower or character. It was about chemistry and hormones you could not control no matter how hard you tried.
Learning how GLP-1 medications like Zepbound actually work fundamentally changed my worldview. These medications function by mimicking natural hormones that your body produces to regulate appetite and insulin response. They are not shortcuts or cheat codes. They are medical interventions that address real biological dysfunctions that have nothing to do with being lazy or undisciplined.
That realization landed like a sledgehammer to my ego.
For years, I had bought into the simple narrative that weight was just about calories in versus calories out. Just eat less and move more, and problem solved. But the actual science is staggeringly complex. Obesity involves metabolic pathways, neurological signaling, hormonal feedback loops, genetic predispositions, and environmental factors that interact in ways most of us cannot begin to comprehend, much less control through sheer determination alone.
Understanding this did not just change how I viewed my own struggle. It completely transformed how I saw everyone else still fighting their battles. The guys at work who have tried every diet trend that comes along, only to end up right back where they started. The family members who avoid social gatherings because they feel ashamed of their bodies. The strangers who have been written off as lacking discipline when really they have been fighting against their own biology with inadequate tools.
I used to see someone struggling with their weight and think some version of, “Come on, man, just commit to it.” Now when I see that same person, my immediate thought is, “I know exactly how brutal that fight is, and I respect that you are still in the ring.”
That shift from judgment to solidarity is what real empathy looks like.
The Unexpected Skills You Develop in the Trenches
Nobody warns you that losing weight is essentially a masterclass in understanding human struggle. But it absolutely is.
Empathy does not bloom in comfortable conditions. It grows in the difficult spaces created by setbacks, gets stronger through frustration, and deepens through all those small victories that nobody else witnesses or celebrates.
When you have spent nights dealing with nausea so intense you question whether this whole thing is worth it, you develop a different perspective on invisible battles. THere are days you get weird side effects like skin sensitivity or feeling cold, you wonder why you are doing this. When you have experienced the crushing disappointment of doing everything right for weeks only to see the scale refuse to budge, you understand that progress rarely follows the straight line we hope for. When you have had to explain to yet another person why you cannot just have a beer with the guys because your medication changes how your body processes everything, you learn what it means to stand up for your own needs in a world that does not always make room for them.
All of these experiences become building blocks for understanding others better.
I have noticed that I listen differently now. When a friend talks about something they are struggling with, I am not mentally preparing my advice or waiting for my turn to share a similar story. I am actually present in what they are saying because I remember what it felt like when I desperately needed someone to just listen without trying to fix everything.
I have also stopped dispensing unsolicited wisdom, which is harder than it sounds for someone who used to pride himself on having answers. Now when someone tells me they are struggling, I try to offer something more meaningful than solutions: understanding. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is acknowledge that someone’s struggle is real and hard, without immediately jumping to how they can overcome it.
How Compassion Creates Community
Something remarkable happens when you swap judgment for understanding. It spreads outward in ways you never anticipated.
As my own perspective shifted, I started noticing that people approached me differently. Friends began coming to me not for workout tips or medication recommendations, but for encouragement when they felt like giving up. They wanted someone who would not make them feel weak for struggling. Family members who had been quietly thinking about their own health started opening up about their fears and doubts. They shared things they had been too embarrassed to admit, knowing I would not respond with lectures about what they should be doing differently.
Even guys I barely knew started reaching out. They sent messages saying my honesty about the unglamorous parts of this journey made them feel less alone. That hearing someone talk openly about the hard days and setbacks gave them permission to acknowledge their own difficulties without feeling like failures.
This is where empathy reveals its true power. It transforms isolation into connection. It turns individual struggles into shared human experiences. That is why I kept all of my experiences and wrote my book so that this community had the support and humor it needed to get through those days of struggle.
Your transformation stops being just a personal achievement and becomes something larger. You realize that every person who feels understood by your story might extend that same understanding to someone else. Every moment of compassion you show might inspire someone else to show compassion. Every time you choose understanding over judgment, you create permission for others to do the same.
This ripple effect matters more than any number you will ever see on a scale.
What the Scale Never Measures
Zepbound has given me tangible benefits. A body that does not ache after basic activities. Clothes that fit without strategic layering. Medical test results that no longer come with concerned lectures from my doctor. But none of those gifts compare to what happened to my capacity for compassion.
I used to believe that strength meant control. Control over what you eat, control over your habits, control over those impulses that tell you to take the easy path. I thought transformation was about discipline and the ability to override your body through mental toughness and determination.
Now I understand that genuine strength looks nothing like that. It looks like having compassion for yourself when you stumble. Strength looks like extending grace to others when they are struggling. It looks like recognizing that being human means being imperfect and choosing to believe that imperfection does not make anyone less worthy of respect or kindness.
The pounds I have lost are significant. But what I have gained in empathy, understanding, and connection to other people weighs infinitely more.
A Final Thought for Fellow Travelers
If you are somewhere in the middle of your own transformation right now, whether with Zepbound or through any other path, I want to tell you something important: yes, pursue the physical changes your body needs. Celebrate every milestone along the way. Take pride in showing up day after day even when it feels impossible.
But do not lose your humanity in the process. Do not let success erase your memory of how hard the struggle was. Do not trade your capacity for empathy for a lower number on the scale.
The world has plenty of people who forgot what it feels like to fight. What we desperately need are more people who remember. People who can witness someone else’s battle and recognize it as worthy of respect, even when it looks different from their own. People who understand that compassion is not weakness but the most powerful thing we can offer each other.
Your transformation is making you more than just smaller or healthier. It is making you more fully human. And that is the version of you the world needs most.
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