I have struggled with my weight my entire life — sometimes less successfully (hello, cooking school in Paris) and sometimes much more successfully. Prior to becoming pregnant, I can’t remember a single time in my life that I wasn’t on a diet or some special workout kick, or whatever it might be.
This led me to a lot of unhealthy choices. I remember in high school sneaking Dexatrim or 48-hour miracle juice from Walgreens in my mom’s shopping cart, hoping she wouldn’t notice at the register.
But now, I am a little over six months pregnant and I have gained about 30 lbs. That puts me on track to gain a whopping 45 lbs. this pregnancy — and I have my fingers crossed that that’s all.
As someone who has spent her life weighing daily, to see the numbers creeping up on the scale would have felt debilitating. It would have created a level of stress that only those that struggle with their weight can truly understand. The concept of trying to lose 45 lbs. after that baby pops out, at a time in a woman’s life when she is the most ill-equipped to lose it, I honestly can’t imagine how hard it would be.
But I feel absolutely no fear or stress about it. Why? Because I know that Ozempic is at the end of the runway.
Ozempic has taken what would have been one of the worst nine months of my life, filled with fear of gaining weight I will never lose — and made it so that I can just enjoy the miracle that is growing in my body.
The invention of these GLP-1 drugs will change my life. I has already changed my pregnancy. More than 3.6 million babies are born in the U.S. each year and 75 percent of women struggle with their weight like I do. That means these drugs are lifting a mental burden off of 2.7 million women per year as they go through one of the hardest physical and mental times of their lives.
Pregnancy has an enormous effect on women’s bodies. More than 75 percent of women are heavier one year postpartum than they were pre-pregnancy, with almost 50 percent retaining more than 10 lbs. and 25 percent more than 20 lbs.
I remember sitting out on my parent’s back lawn, crying to my father over a new diet I had tried that hadn’t worked (believe me I have tried them all) and saying “I would do anything for a magic pill to lose weight… anything”. To those of you that I understand the weight plight- you know exactly what I’m talking about. We now have a magic pill.
I have heard the naysayers (“Don’t put that stuff in our body!”), the cheerleaders (“You won’t need that, the weight will fall off of you!”) and the ones I want to punch in the face (“That’s cheating!”). But I don’t care.
The stigma around GLP-1’s like Ozempic is two-fold. Yes, some consider it “cheating,” and then many celebrities don’t admit to taking it. That is their prerogative, but this is my plea to them to go ahead — celebrate the invention of something that will change the lives of so many Americans for the better. Oprah, one of the most influential people of our generation, at first was one of the biggest naysayers for these drugs, but now she has come out guns blazing on the Ozempic bandwagon. And she looks fabulous!
This drug has changed so many people’s lives. My father lost 70 lbs. and went from taking seven drugs daily to just two. He went from driving a golf cart 18 holes to walking the course (6 miles) every time he plays. And I went from being terrified of my pregnancy weight gain to just enjoying the bliss of creating a new human being.
Let’s remove this taboo. Let’s celebrate one of the greatest inventions of modern medicine. What better way to start than by having celebrities not only be open about their use but celebrate it as well.
As Suzy Weiss put it in her recent article, the side effects of Ozempic are these: “I’m prettier, I’m happier and more confident.”
I’d add to that, you’re free — free from having your day ruined by the number you see on the scale that morning. Free from the constant food noise. Free from the overwhelming thoughts of being a failure.
Liberty Vittert is a professor of data science at Washington University in St. Louis and the resident on-air statistician for NewsNation, a sister company of The Hill.
