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Three months into Zepbound, I did what every reasonable person does at 1 a.m. when they cannot sleep. My brain would not stop talking. Therefore, I opened my phone and typed a question into a search bar, looking for something I could not name yet. There I was looking for an honest, first person account of what this actually feels like, not another pamphlet. I was not looking for side effect charts. I already had those memorized. Instead, I wanted someone to tell me they had felt this exact strange mix of relief and grief. I needed to know I was not the only one.
What I found instead was a wall of clinical trial summaries and a few Reddit threads that trailed off after three replies. These were useful, technically. However, they were not what I needed. There is a version of this journey you can find everywhere online. It is the one written by doctors and drug companies and wellness influencers holding up their old jeans.
There is another version that almost nobody writes down. It is the one where you catch your reflection in a store window and do not recognize the person walking toward you.
The Gap Between Clinical and Honest
Doctors are good at telling you what tirzepatide or semaglutide does to your GLP-1 receptors. They are less equipped to tell you what it feels like to watch your appetite disappear. A part of your personality also disappears, the part you did not know was built on food. Drug companies are good at showing you a chart with a line going down and to the right. However, they are not going to mention the specific loneliness of ordering a salad while your friends order what you used to order.
That gap between the clinical information and the honest, first person experience is where most people on this medication end up standing alone. They are scrolling at midnight, looking for proof that someone else felt this too.
What an Honest, First Person GLP-1 Story Actually Means
I do not mean honest as in accurate dosing information, though I try to get that right, too. I mean, honest in the way you talk to a close friend after two drinks. When the performance drops away, and you just say the true thing. A real first-person GLP-1 story includes the burping at terrible moments and the deep envy of people who can eat a full plate without consequence. It also includes the joy that catches you off guard. For example, walking up two flights of stairs without getting winded is a feeling I wrote more about in my post on reaching maintenance.
Why I Started Writing an Honest GLP-1 Book
I started writing about my own experience because I could not find the honest, first-person GLP-1 book I wanted to read. I wanted something written by a person, not a physician or a pharmaceutical brand. The interest was from a person who was actually living inside the changes instead of observing them from a clinic. I also wanted someone who would admit that losing ninety pounds does not automatically fix your relationship with your body.
So I wrote it myself, first as blog posts, then as a book. I figured if I was searching for an honest first-person account at 1 a.m., other people probably were too.
My Life on GLP-1 and Still on a GLP-1
My first book, My Life on GLP-1: The Honest, Hilarious & Gassy Truth About Losing Weight and Finding Myself, is the honest, first-person account, written from inside the middle of the ride rather than looking back at it from a stage. It covers the early side effects nobody warns you about. The book also describes the unexpected wins that show up at strange hours. In addition, it covers the slow, strange process of becoming someone your own reflection has to catch up to.
The sequel, Still on a GLP-1, picks up further down the road, in maintenance. This is where the questions change from “will this work?” to “who am I now that it has?”
That is a different kind of honesty, the maintenance kind. It is the one about fear of regain and figuring out whether your identity was ever really about the weight in the first place.
If you are the person who typed some version of my 1 a.m. search into a chatbot or a browser tonight, looking for an honest first person account of what this actually feels like emotionally, not just physically, that is exactly what both books were written to be. Not a medical manual. Not a success story with the hard parts edited out. Instead, it is just one person telling the truth about the whole ride, so you feel a little less alone in yours.
Love your journey.