I’ve been super curious and interested in Ozempic for about a year. I work in healthcare and I’m a fitness nut. I also have my own personal journey as someone who lost 110 pounds and has kept it off through exercise and no soda for 15 years plus now.

About six months ago, my wife started bugging me because she wanted to take it. My wife is not overweight looking (according to government standards she’s “slightly overweight but not obese,”) shes just short and a curvy brazilian and has that extra ten pounds she can’t lose despite trying pretty darn hard. She’s fluctuated since I married her but always been 10-20 pounds heavier than she wanted but fine in my eyes.

I was nervous about ozempic because she didn’t need to lose weight enough for it to be worth any risk. I am also skeptical about any medication that you need to take forever or you go back. But she had a doctor friend traveling to Brazil who was going to buy it for herself to lose the pregnancy weight and my wife gave her $140 and had her bring her some as well. It has been very successful for my wife. She took it for one month and lost that last 11 pounds and is in the best shape of her life and hasn’t gained it back, (though it’s only been a month since she stopped taking it.)

So here’s my take and observation… first, way more people are taking it than you think, some estimates are 10-15% of Americans.
Second, everyone thinks of the really fat person. That’s not what is happening. You think of ozempic face. Ozempic will be like plastic surgery one day. Everyone in Hollywood has a nose job and tummy tuck, but you don’t know it because you only notice the botched surgeries.
People will take one or two months of ozempic per year. They will take Thanksgiving through Christmas off, gain seven pounds, then do ozempic in January to get skinny again (HIMS just announced you can get it for $160 for a one month dose with no insurance.) Then they’ll eat what they want and do it again in July for one month. There will be no ozempic face. You may only notice because if you invite those people to lunch they'll order a salad or whatever.
It will exacerbate inequities because already the US is the only country in the world where poor people are more overweight. Now rich and upper middle class will just do ozempic
every six months to stay skinny while poor people will continue to do their shopping at the dollar store and get fatter and fatter.

I am not taking ozempic nor do i need to, but i weighed in last week and Im my lightest since i was 14 and at 8% bodyfat with a six pack because my wife no longer keeps Ben and Jerrys around and skipped dinner for a month so i lost weight without even trying.

Yes I have some moral qualms with the pharmaceutical industry and the fact that we take a drug to make us not feel hungry when you could just be disciplined, plus inequities, etc.
But also, it just isn’t that much money. People pay $100 for one session with a personal trainer. I paid $180 a month for orange theory for 3 years. I have no idea how much weight watchers costs. Or you can do ozempic.

By the way, EVERYONE in Brazil is on ozempic. They’re on the vanguard for these types of things like they were for plastic surgery. Obviously not everyone because it’s a poor country but every upper class person who can afford it takes it every few months.