Zepbound helped me lose 18% of my body weight. I wish I didn’t feel the need to apologize for it.

“You look great! Did you lose weight?” a friend I hadn’t seen in a few weeks asked, barely a beat after saying hello

I grimace as I guiltily admit that I did

“Zepbound,” I say, the one-word explanation slipping out almost unbidden, like a naughty confession

It feels strange to apologize for improving my health. And yet that’s exactly what I did

Now, eight months after starting Zepbound, also known astirzepatide, I’m still learning not to feel guilty about taking care of my body in the way that works best for me

My body needed more than diet and exercise

I first approached my primary care doctor about prescribing a GLP-1 in 2025 after debilitating foot pain hobbled me. No specialist directly blamed my weight, but I felt certain that added strain on my joints had worsened my plantar fasciitis, resulting in a ganglion cyst

I won’t lie and say the superficial outcome wasn’t also welcome. My weight had crept up over a decade, and after I gave birth in 2022, it stubbornly wouldn’t budge below what I assumed was my new baseline

Countless diets centered around the classic “calories in, calories out” proved futile for me. I was simply too hungry to maintain a large enough deficit to lose weight, and working out just made me hungrier. I felt completely disconnected from my body. I was slow, tired, and overwhelmed

I also struggled with “food noise,” although I didn’t know there was a name for it until I started Zepbound and joined online forums for users. The medication quieted it. I felt full sooner and stopped fixating on what to eat next. And luckily, my insurance covered it

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It was a major success. I lost 30 pounds in six months (about 18% of my body weight), and the pain in my feet and knees evaporated. So why did admitting it feel like I’d done something wrong?

The social stigma against GLP-1s continues to be infuriating

Media coverage of weight-loss drugs hasn’t exactly been nuanced. Before seriously considering one, my predominant association was the infamous viral blind item in 2024 about Gwyneth Paltrow’s Hamptons houseguest having an unfortunate bout of Ozempic-induced diarrhea and then fleeing the scene. It seemed like all I read about were the drugs’ negative effects (often made the butt of jokes) and none of the positives

Then there was the body-positivity issue. I’ve long tried to be, if not body-positive, at least body-neutral — especially as the mother of a savvy 3-year-old who picks up on everything. Yet some body-positive people seem to view GLP-1 users as automatically fatphobic or personally triggering. One particularly upsetting viral essay in The Cut described a woman cutting off a friend for taking Wegovy

Underneath much of the judgment is the sense that GLP-1 users are “cheating” or “not doing it the right way,” as though weight loss only counts if it involves a certain amount of misery. Because suffering is, I guess, noble?

These weren’t just amorphous opinions online. Friends and loved ones made similar comments to me — or in front of me — during my early days on Zepbound, before my weight loss became apparent. I hadn’t told most of them yet that I was taking it, so they had no idea they were criticizing a choice I’d already made

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I’ve been lucky to experience relatively few side effects: no gastrointestinal issues or unexpected food reactions. I did have some hair loss, a relatively common GLP-1 side effect likely triggered by losing weight quickly. The drug wasn’t magic or without tradeoffs. But it gave me something years of white-knuckling hunger never did: the ability to feel at home in my body again

Taking Zepbound doesn’t mean I believe thinner bodies are morally superior, nor does it invalidate anyone else’s choice to embrace their body as it is. Body neutrality should leave room for people to change their bodies for their own reasons without turning that decision into a judgment on everyone else

When someone asks whether I’ve lost weight, I still feel an urge to apologize. I’m trying to unlearn it. Taking a GLP-1 was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It improved my health and daily life, and I’m done treating that like a shameful confession