Say no to Ozempic, Wegovy, & GLP-1. There are better ways to lose weight for most!

Ozempic, Wegovy, & GLP-1 are the miracle drugs shredding the pounds off of Americans. That is not the real answer and here is why.

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Say no to Ozempic, Wegovy, & GLP-1

I have battled the bulge my entire life. Being overweight is that private battle many of us fight publicly. It is the equalizer whether you are a doctor, lawyer, engineer, secretary, janitor, president, teacher, or other professions. Most of us have a propensity to be fat or obese. Ozempic, Wegovy, or other GLP-1 drugs should not be the answer.

Why is a political newsletter talking about weight control?

• I am tired of watching how our corporations and media play us on all sides. Their subliminal messages through marketing make us fat, and then they clean up financially to solve our fatness.

• Our elevated weight is a precursor to diseases that increase healthcare costs for all of us.

• I just reached a milestone in my own weight control following the suggestions in the weight loss book I wrote while on a cruise a few years ago. Yes, it is a shameless plug for my book, but for a good reason.

A critical corporate reality.

This will not bore you if you are a regular reader of my newsletter and politically engaged. It may bore you otherwise, but I ask you to read openmindedly.

We are a capitalist country, a form that really harms most of us too often without us realizing it. To be clear, I believe 100% in a democracy that everyone has the right to establish businesses for profit if they so choose or work for someone else or for a corporation if they desire. While we have the rhetoric about freedom and the ability for all to succeed, it is far from the reality. The essence of my newsletter is to expose these, tie them into our lived realities, and ultimately provide solutions for getting out of our national quagmire.

So, what the hell does that have to do with weight loss? Everything! While we are theoretically free, so many well-designed psychological cues are coming at us that modify our behavior subliminally for the profit of a relatively small set of shareholders and executives. In other words, we are just widgets used to make a profit by all means necessary.

Our detrimental over-dependence on corn is just one example. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a cheap replacement for sugar, is believed to be a leading cause of the obesity explosion in America. A study with rats a few years ago seemed rather definitive in that there is a difference in how HFCS is metabolized.

Many other corporate foods are detrimental to our health, and corporations owning our government and our minds continue to infect us with them. And, of course, they make us believe that regulations are bad and take away our (read, their) freedom.

We pay to get sick and pay to get better.

Most of us know that HFCS is not suitable for us. We know that climate change is real. We know that polluting industries harm us. But because we have yet to wrestle our government away from corporations, they continue to pollute the air with massive fires and hurricanes resulting. They continue to pollute the soil and water, resulting in cancers and many other illnesses. They continue to produce food that makes us obese.

We must buy gasoline for mobility. We cannot control the soil and water pollution because politicians are “bribed” to stop regulations. It is also hard to find affordable food not contaminated with HFCS. In other words, we are paying corporations to make us sick.

These same corporations do not want to pay their fair share of taxes to support a universal healthcare system to make those they have sickened better. It is all on you. You also must pay to get better. And it is not cheap. You pay them hundreds of dollars a month for Ozempic, Wegovy, or other GLP-1 drugs to get better.

My most recent weight story.

I had the worst 5 years of my life. Up until 2019, I had maintained my weight for years. Christmas 2019 was disastrous. My mother-in-law had a massive stroke during our Christmas dinner and died a few days later. On January 25th, 2020, 30 days later, my daughter had a stroke. In Christmas of 2020, I lost my best friend and mentor to a massive stroke. On September 25th, 2021, my daughter had a second stroke, this time massive as the arteriovenous malformation (AVM) that caused the first stroke collapsed from the radiation treatment.

I moved to Washington, DC, to care for her for almost a year in her small apartment. The pain, stress, demands, lack of exercise, and terrible eating caused a 30-pound increase in weight over my five-year ordeal. My daughter, through the entire ordeal, was intent on completing medical school. Even though she cannot practice because of her physical deficits and other logistic issues, I am incredibly proud of her recovery as she moved back to Houston and is rebuilding her new life. BTW, she has diagnosed me with PTSD from the ordeal of the last few years.

I told my daughter I would take the weight off no matter what. After all, I wrote a book about my experience and the mathematical method of losing weight. After all, it is not rocket science. I reread my book and started following my previous modus operandi. And between August and December, I took off 20 pounds. I am at a good weight for my height and built, 205 at 6’1”. But my goal is 190. I did not use Ozempic, Wegovy, or other GLP-1 drugs. We can save ourselves and the healthcare system billions of dollars with a bit of sacrifice and forgiving discipline. Forgiving discipline means we should not concentrate on when we fail as long as we bend the arc to stay with the program.

My Daughter’s weight loss story.

After my daughter received radiation (CyberKnife Treatment) for her AVM after her first stroke, she gained 100 pounds because of the heavy dosage of steroids she was on to control the brain swelling from the procedure. Just before she got her second stroke, she began losing weight as they reduced the level of steroids, and she started controlling her caloric intake along with exercise.

After her second stroke, they pumped her up with even more steroids as the irritation from her bleeding virtually compressed her brain in her head. After she was out of danger, they prescribed a drug in the GLP-1 class similar to Ozempic and Wegovy. She took it for about three weeks. However, her stomach pains and vomiting scared me, especially the stress from throwing up violently. She stopped it and returned to discipline, eating (most of the time), and light exercise as she tried to strengthen her left side. We would get up in the mornings and take strolls in the park or at the Lincoln Memorial, reflection pools, and other areas in DC to break the monotony.

My daughter has lost over 60 pounds and continues to do it without Ozempic, Wegovy, or other GLP-1 drugs. If a double stroke victim can do it, if a PTSD dad can do it, we should all first attempt it, IMHO, without enriching the corporate structure whose policies have been complicit in our weight gain.

Conclusion

I understand that some need a helping hand to get out of our weight problems. It may be that Ozempic, Wegovy, or other GLP-1 drugs are their only choice. It is presumptuous not to acknowledge that reality. Based on my own experience and that of my daughter, my informed suggestion is to educate ourselves on the math of weight loss without all the snake oil that comes out heavily at the beginning of the year. Please consider getting my book “Lose Weight And Be Fit Now: Say No To Snake Oil Weight Loss,” where I detail my personal experience of losing weight and the science of weight loss. I am sure you will learn through my experience. More importantly, it will support my political activism work, including the fight for Medicare for all. If you become a paid subscriber to my newsletter, you will have access to my five books and all subsequent books I write.