Ozempic and Me
It's not all rainbows and skittles
Hey, Fat Dispatchers! Can you believe we’re already 10 days into 2025? It feels like it is screaming by! My kids finally went back to school on Tuesday. Can I be honest? Before I had kids, I used to judge the crap out of the Christmas song “It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas” because of the line, “And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again…” but NOW I GET IT. Togetherness is nice, but too much togetherness? Mama needs a break!
I am very much enjoying the routine and rhythm of back-to-school life, gearing up to teach a couple classes myself in the coming week. In addition to fat activism and education, I am an adjunct professor of Spanish at our local college. So I get to be back in the classroom, which I love. What are you doing in 2025 that you love?
One thing I do not love about 2025, though, is the presence of GLP-1 advertisements out the wazoo! Seriously, I can’t scroll five minutes without seeing either a name-brand ad like Ozempic or Wegovy OR an off-brand semaglutide ad. For one, I’M ALREADY TAKING OZEMPIC, ALGORITHM! You apparently don’t know me! For another, I HATE IT.
It’s Story Time, y’all. In 2020, I got Covid really really bad. Like, so bad I was in the hospital for a biblical number of days—40! (Well, 39.5, but I round up because…of course.) Stress on my body led to wildly fluctuating blood sugar levels in the hospital and I had daily insulin injections. (I had been diagnosed with diabetes in spring of 2020, but my A1C was just barely in diabetic range.) Because of Covid, once I was discharged, I needed medical intervention for keeping my A1C at a safe level.
At the time, I was struggling with an eating disorder (ED-NOS, for those of you who are curious) and my doctor and I decided that instead of tracking my daily blood sugars—which would trigger my ED—we would just work with my A1C and try this newer drug, Ozempic. It was spring of 2021 and I had never heard of it. My doctor might have mentioned that it would help with weight loss, but then again, she may not have, because I am ANTI-INTENTIONAL WEIGHT LOSS. So I honestly had no idea that people were or would be taking Ozempic for weight loss.
I took Ozempic for a year with minimal problems. It worked beautifully to lower my A1C into non-diabetic range…and I also lost weight. I have no idea how much weight I lost, because I do not track my weight. But it did result in me being able to sit in different chairs with arms. I did have some gastric distress (and still do) while taking it, but since I have a history with something like IBS, it didn’t bother me much.
Now, maybe you know some plus-size influencers who are promoting the use of GLP-1s/semaglutide, whether it’s under the name Ozempic, Mounjaro, or Wegovy. Just being honest, on one level, I judged those influencers HARD. How could they betray that goodness of their body by wanting to force it to be smaller? On another level, I get it—it is incredibly hard being fat in our fat-hating society. And they were making money from it, too? Totally relatable.
Anyway, while I judged those influencers and sympathized with them, I had my own (secret) Ozempic use going on. I was mortified even by the idea of sharing with my social media following that I was taking semaglutide. I was terrified that people would think I was a fraud at being fat liberation activist.
**Before going on, I want to caveat something here: as a fat liberationist, I believe that each person has bodily autonomy. This means that if someone chooses to pursue intentional weight loss, I do not fault them for it. Being fat is hard. I struggled with judging the influencers promoting GLP-1s, but that’s because they are trying to convince others to join them. But you do you, please. Do what brings you peace.**
Okay, so I was terrified of being found a fraud for my Ozempic use. I was silent during the Ozempic Love Fest that was all of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. I even endured the Ozempic shortage, not able to find it anywhere for more than 3 months. But I said nothing.
Then I decided—SCREW IT. I can’t be silent anymore. Maybe people will listen to a still fat person taking Ozempic and how little body peace it had brought me. I posted on Instagram about my journey, and I had an amazing response. Some judgment here and there, but mostly people being thankful for me sharing.
OVERVIEW OF MY OZEMPIC JOURNEY
started taking Ozempic in 2021
endured Ozempic shortage of 2022/3
terrified to be discovered using Ozempic, even though for diabetes management
spoke out about my Ozempic usage and its failure to bring me body peace in spring 2024
Now it’s 2025 and I am still taking Ozempic, still experiencing IBS symptoms, still injecting myself with a drug that may not be safe in the long term. I’m no longer afraid of talking about it, thankfully. I’m really tired of people promoting intentional weight loss through it, though. And I’m hella over people thinking it’s some magic cure to fatness. BECAUSE I’M STILL REALLY FAT after almost 4 years on it.
My doctor wants me to increase my dose—even though my blood sugars are steady— because she still lives in the land of thinner-is-healthier. But I am firmly against that, as long as my A1C stays in a good range. I won’t give up the fundamentals of fat liberation—where it is okay for any body to be fat, no matter what—for the sake of the promise of an easier life. I am committed to being the size my body wants to be without intentionally making it smaller. I am for the radical acceptance of fatness in the public square as just a way to have a body. And I am never going back to hating my fatness again.
Peace and love to you, especially my fellow fat ones!
Amanda Martinez Beck
PS. You can buy my books here.
PPS. You are awesome.
Thank you for sharing this! This kind of story is actually.... extremely common.
I think stories like this sometimes get drowned out in the *OZEMPIC IS A MIRACLE DRUG* or *OZEMPIC IS TERRIBLE* noise. Yes, lots of people use GLP1 or GLP1/GIP agonists, it can help them with diabetes, they may or may not lose some weight, and life will go on.
We still need to fight fatphobia.
I wish we had more stories like yours, because the new narrative is that because we now have these medications that being fat is a choice. It’s so dangerous. I’ve heard from only one other person that she’s on a GLP-1 for managing her diabetes and hasn’t lost weight. I wrote recently about my own experience quitting diets and gaining weight at the time when Ozempic exploded into the public’s attention. Staying the course and learning to accept my body has been one of the most difficult challenges I’ve ever faced, It was made even more difficult because the world is less tolerant of fatness than it has ever been.