Reflections on Weight Loss Journeys
Last summer, during various work trips to places like Portland and New York, as well as my fall visits to London and Paris, I made an effort to reconnect with old friends, colleagues, and college classmates. I hoped someone would finally ask me that long-awaited question: Had I lost weight? I was ready to share my experience, starting with the peculiar moment when I first injected myself in the abdomen with a 34-gauge needle. It felt incredibly unnatural—at first, I just sat there, staring at my own hand, almost detached from the act. Once I managed to push myself into doing it, it was merely about pressing a button on an Ozempic pen to release a dose of semaglutide through that tiny needle into my skin.
When I picked up my first Ozempic pen in April 2025, I found out that one in eight American adults had already taken semaglutide or other GLP-1 receptor agonists. These medications, marketed under names like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound, work by mimicking the hormones our bodies produce after eating, thus suppressing appetite and regulating blood sugar levels. Before 2021, these drugs were mainly used for type 2 diabetes treatment, but their off-label use for weight loss became popular among affluent individuals. In Japan, where I’ve spent time off and on for a decade, I discovered that prescriptions for GLP-1 medications could be obtained for weight loss if my body mass index (BMI) fell into the “overweight” or “obese” categories. When I visited a clinic in Tokyo that specialized in these treatments in April, the doctor quickly assessed my situation and stated, “Obviously, you meet the necessary criteria.”
If I had stepped on a scale, it would have revealed I weighed 291 pounds. At five feet ten inches tall, my BMI exceeded the 40.0 mark, categorizing me with class II obesity, clearly in the realm of class III, which no one really wants to be part of. I had stayed in that range for about a decade, yet I had never fully accepted the reality of my situation. It was a denial that stemmed from a history of bouncing back from weight issues. Back in my early 20s, I gained about 70 pounds over two years, but then, through obsessive distance running, I achieved my best physical shape. I attributed that gain to the indulgences of young adulthood. Growing up as the child of addicts, I consciously avoided drugs and alcohol, but maintaining a balanced diet and exercise was never easy for me. Eventually, I got into competitive road cycling and even managed to win some races, accepting that I might add a few pounds off-season and lose them during intense training. I returned to college at 30, weighing a lean and strong 165 pounds, but by the time I began graduate school four years later, I had gained 100 pounds. I dismissed it as just a temporary situation. I had shed the weight before, so I convinced myself that once everything settled, I’d do it again.
