The Unexpected Lessons I Learned From Trying Wegovy
When I considered trying Wegovy, I thought I knew what the experience would teach me. I expected to learn whether I could tolerate the medication. I expected to find out whether it would help me lose weight. I expected there would be side effects, decisions to make and probably a few ups and downs along the way.
What I didn’t expect was that the biggest lessons would have very little to do with weight loss at all.
In many ways, Wegovy changed how I think about food, obesity and even myself. Not because it transformed my body, but because it made me question things I’d believed for years.
Food Noise Isn’t Experienced By Everyone
One of the biggest surprises from trying Wegovy was realising that not everybody thinks about food the way I do.
That probably sounds strange to anyone reading this who has never struggled with their weight. But for most of my life, I genuinely assumed everyone spent a significant part of their day thinking about food. I thought everyone mentally checked what snacks were available in the house. I thought everyone opened the fridge and immediately noticed what was there. I thought everyone had those little internal conversations about whether to have a biscuit, another biscuit or perhaps just one more.
Why wouldn’t I think that? It’s how my brain had always worked. I’d never experienced anything different. Then, a few weeks after trying Wegovy, something changed.
I remember being in the kitchen one afternoon when it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about the chocolate in the cupboard all day. Not because I’d been busy. Not because I was deliberately avoiding it. I simply hadn’t thought about it. That sounds like such a small thing, but it genuinely stopped me in my tracks.
For years, food had occupied space in my mind that I hadn’t even noticed because it had always been there. It was like living next to a busy road. Eventually, you stop hearing the traffic because it becomes part of the background. You don’t realise how noisy it is until the noise suddenly disappears.
For the first time, I understood what people meant when they talked about food noise. More importantly, I realised that some people live their entire lives with much less of that noise than others. That was a difficult thing to process at first. I really didn’t understand it until trying Wegovy opened my eyes to it as such.
Realising I Am Not A failure
For years, I’d sometimes wondered why eating seemed easier for some people. Why do some people leave chocolate untouched for weeks? Why do some people genuinely forget about snacks sitting in the cupboard? If I’m honest, there were times when I probably assumed they simply had more willpower than I did.
Now I don’t think that’s true.
I think many of us are comparing ourselves to other people without realising we’re starting from completely different places.
The experience of trying Wegovy made me think differently about obesity, too. I’ve spent most of my adult life hearing variations of the same message. Eat less. Move more. Be more disciplined. Try harder.
Whilst there’s truth in some of that, Trying Wegovy showed me something I’d never experienced before. It showed me what life felt like when my appetite wasn’t constantly demanding my attention.
It made me realise how easy it is to underestimate the role biology plays in weight management when you’ve never experienced the alternative.
Before Wegovy, if someone had told me how dramatically their appetite changed on the medication, I don’t think I’d have fully understood what they meant. Afterwards, I did.
I could suddenly see why obesity is so much more complicated than many people realise. It’s easy to judge something you’ve never experienced. It’s much harder once you have. Another lesson surprised me even more because it challenged beliefs I didn’t even realise I was carrying around.
How I Think About Weight Loss Medication
Despite losing 10 stone in the past, despite writing about weight loss for years and despite trying to help other people without judgment, there was still a small part of me that viewed weight loss medication differently from other medical treatments.
Not consciously. Not in a way I’d ever say out loud. But I think I had absorbed years of messages suggesting that weight loss should be achieved through determination alone. That somehow needing help was taking a shortcut and doing it “naturally” counted more.
Actually trying Wegovy forced me to confront those beliefs. Because once you’re the person injecting the medication, once you’re the person dealing with the side effects, once you’re the person navigating the decisions and emotions that come with it, the situation suddenly becomes much less black and white.
I realised that medication isn’t weakness.
It’s not cheating.
It’s not failure.
It’s simply one tool amongst many.
Whether somebody chooses to use that tool is entirely personal, but I came away with a much deeper understanding of why people do.
When Medications Aren’t Right
Perhaps the most important lesson, though, came when I had to stop.
When the vomiting and diarrhoea became severe, I found myself facing a reality I hadn’t anticipated. Up until then, I’d been fascinated by what the medication was teaching me. I’d experienced a quieter mind around food. I’d gained a completely different perspective on appetite and obesity. I’d started to understand things I’d spent years wondering about.
But none of that changed the fact that I felt awful. For a while, I found myself weighing everything up in my head. Was it worth persevering? Was it worth hoping the side effects would settle? Was it worth continuing because of the potential benefits?
Eventually, I realised something surprisingly simple. It didn’t matter how promising the treatment was if it was making my life miserable and I was actually quite ill. I couldn’t hold anything down, not even water!
That might sound obvious, but I think many of us are guilty of pushing ourselves too far when we’re chasing a goal. We become so focused on the outcome that we ignore what it’s costing us along the way.
Stopping Wegovy felt disappointing at first. I’d hoped things would work out differently and I’d be one of the success stories. But with a bit of distance, I can see that the experience wasn’t a failure at all. In fact, it taught me more than I ever expected.
It taught me that food noise is real and that appetite isn’t the same for everyone.
It taught me that obesity is far more complicated than most people realise.
It taught me that medication is nothing to be ashamed of.
And it taught me that looking after your health sometimes means recognising when a treatment isn’t right for you. None of those were lessons I expected to learn when I started trying Wegovy. Yet they’re the things I’ll probably carry with me long after the medication itself has become a distant memory.
How do you feel about my journey?
Have my story and experiences of Wegovy taught you anything? Would you consider trying Wegovy to help with your weight?
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