Can Ozempic, Mounjaro, and GLP-1 Inhibitors Help with Disordered Eating?
Preeti (00:00)
Hey, it's Preeti from Maya4Life.com. I'm going to talk a little bit this morning about disordered eating. I've struggled before with extreme food restriction, veering between extreme food restriction, eating 200, 300, less than that.
calories a day, feeling really accomplished and good about myself because of it, feeling like I was in control on top of things. And then on the other side of the spectrum, binge eating. And I've struggled with my weight my whole life. I've been thin, I've been very heavy. I was close to 300 pounds about four years ago. I lost 100 pounds.
And I did so with a lot of different things. I've thrown everything at this. I've tried every diet and then decided to go with some medical interventions. And they included having gastric sleeve surgery, something I don't talk about very often because there's a real stigma on bariatric surgery as the easy way out. There's nothing easy about that surgery. In fact, it's actually really easy to gain weight.
because it's not a fix. It's not a fix for your head. It's not a fix for the mental health issues that underlie disordered eating or the metabolic and other physiological issues. And that's actually the thing that I'm coming to understand as the medical community is embracing this idea that metabolic issues require a medical intervention, a drug treatment. And these GLP -1 inhibitors, while they've gotten a
bad rap for causing ozempic face and all these other kind of external things. For those of us with disordered eating, for those of us with addiction, there are some research -based evidence, but anecdotally, doctors, endocrinologists, people who are invested in the health and healthy maintenance of a proper weight for their patients are finding so much anecdotal evidence.
that these are also helping with quieting the mind. Disordered eating and binge eating especially, which is the other end of the spectrum for me, it's really not about the food. It's about losing the ability to focus on other things. And what happens to me when I get a binge eating bout is that I am unable to focus on anything else.
It becomes an obsessive compulsive preoccupation with food. And it looks like different things. It doesn't always look like eating. Sometimes it looks like looking at restaurant reviews. Sometimes it looks like reading menus and sort of deciding what I'm going to eat from restaurants that I actually never order the food from because I have so much shame about actually eating.
Preeti (02:47)
So I've struggled with disordered eating, both extreme food restriction and binge eating for most of my life. And when I came into recovery four years ago, I felt like I'd nipped this in the bud. And it took some time, but as I got sober and as I learned how to move through my life as a sober woman, I also got a handle on my eating and I felt so much better. I was able to apply all the things I was learning about sobriety.
to food as well. And I became very active. I was exercising regularly, I was feeling great, I continued to lose weight, just looked better and better. And then everything changed. it's so upsetting to have felt like you got this, that you had a handle on this and for it to just...
feel like it disappears overnight. It didn't disappear overnight, but something did happen. And my trigger was that in May, my dog died. My sweet puppy of 13 years, who was my best friend through all the worst moments and best moments of the last 13 years, died from a heart condition. And I went back to using food as comfort.
And I think that my brain scanned for ways to just sort of feel okay. And while I did use the tools that I've learned and I never ever thought about picking up a drink during this whole time. And there was a time where I thought it was inevitable that I would relapse when my dog died. None of that was true. But some of my old habits my seeking food as comfort.
came back in and then it just snowballed in a very short amount of time, while I was 20 pounds close to my goal weight, within 20 pounds of my goal weight, which I've never been in my whole life, I gained 20 pounds. And that realization that I was now 40 pounds from my goal weight was devastating. it made me feel like a complete and total waste of space.
the amount of self -loathing that took over my body from the moment I realized that I gained weight in such a short period of time and not by eating ridiculous amounts of foods. I can't actually binge eat. Between my small stomach from gastric sleeve surgery and being on ozempic, I can't physically binge eat, but I can think about it enough.
that I can put more and more calories in my body over time. But the fact is, is that there's very little room for error with my metabolism. Like I've been eating 1200 to 1600 clean calories, working out, doing all the things and still struggling to lose weight. And that's because when you have a metabolic issue, you need a medical intervention.
Preeti (05:30)
I really felt like since coming into recovery, I had a handle on this. a lot of the work I've done in recovery from alcohol use disorder has also benefited my relationship with food and almost anything that I can do excessively or compulsively.
I have not been an excessive shopper in this last year. I've been really mindful of how I spend my money and whether I'm trying to use external things to validate myself, which I need to do internally. And when it comes to food, when I got sober, I also decided that I was going to put myself in an entire kind of adult wellness program. I did Pilates. I worked out with a personal trainer doing strength training three times a week.
I did cardio every day. And, know, addict brain, I did that obsessively and compulsively for about 18 months to two years, and then I burned out. And one of the things that I noticed is that I wasn't really losing weight. was gaining muscle, my body was changing, but my weight had kind of settled at a number that I wasn't comfortable with, you know?
still around 200 pounds. And it felt really defeating that I was working so hard and not really getting anywhere. And doctors didn't really have an answer to that. And so I turned to the addiction community and I asked friends in recovery if they had any advice or if they had any experience with this. And I ended up talking to somebody who both has issues with eating very, very similar to mine.
and issues with recovery from alcohol use disorder. And she's been in recovery for 35 years. So she knows a thing or two. It's really great to have women in this community who can guide me and help me. And they're so generous with their time. And it's part of the reason why I want to talk about this today. She said, Preeti, if you had heart disease, would you go to Heart Anonymous? Or would you?
take your heart medication and then maybe also go to heart anonymous. And I really appreciated her honesty in that moment. It did what my education on alcoholism did for me initially is make me understand that I can be doing a lot of things right, but that my brain is formed a certain way. And that if I'm not addressing
the root issue. I'm not addressing the disease that is actually at play. If I'm thinking that my eating is a moral failure, if I'm thinking that it's all about willpower, it's going to go the way that alcohol did. There's actually really no way to willpower your way through it. You have to change your brain. You have to change your brain chemistry. You have to change your mindset and you have to work at it every day. And I'm willing to do this work, right? we can do the hard things, but we have to do them every day.
small, consistent effort. And so I had been on Ozempic and it had worked a little bit. What it did for me mostly was that it quieted my mind, those obsessive compulsive thoughts about food, about eating, and then about beating myself up, thinking about food and thinking about eating, which by the way has very little to do with hunger, because it's really not about
It's not about nourishment at this point. It's a disease that is about obsessively and compulsively your brain being on this endless loop, this sort of merry -go -round of thought around food and an obsession, a really unhealthy and deeply uncomfortable obsession with food. And so...
After talking to this woman in recovery, who I'm so grateful to, I called my endocrinologist and I said she had suggested switching drugs from Ozempic to Monjaro. I'm also a type 2 diabetic. So these drugs were designed for type 2 diabetics. They also assist with weight loss. But she had actually suggested that perhaps we switch to Monjaro and see if a different drug would actually work better for me. And when the increased dose of Ozempic didn't work to
quiet these thoughts. I would love to lose another 30 pounds. I would love to fit into a smaller size. Those are all things that I work on with my therapist, but they're very much, you know, desires that I have that I'm not beating myself up over. But the thing that is so excruciatingly painful is how debilitating thoughts of food and eating.
can be, and that's why it's a disorder. That's why it's a disease. Immediately when my doctor sent in the prescription and insurance approved it relatively quickly, which I'm so grateful for, because it's really hard in our country to get the medical care that we need through health insurance sometimes, I felt such a sense of relief. I felt like I was being cared for. And I just want to point out
that while I have really good people in my life who care very deeply about me, it is my responsibility to make myself safe when I feel unsafe. Though it is my brain at play that is creating the environment in which I am thinking nonstop about food and hating myself for it. It is my responsibility to use the resources at my disposal to...one understand and then take steps, the next right action, the next right thing. And my next right thing was waiting for that prescription to come. And when the pharmacy called and said that it was ready and they were sending it over the next day, I was surprised at how little time it was going to take to get this medication. after I had put in the call, after I'd gotten the prescription, after we got the approval, all these steps, which happened in about 96 hours, I was sort of holding on for dear life. Okay, in the interim, you are not going to be cured of disordered eating. In the interim, you are still gonna have obsessive compulsive thoughts of binge eating, of how terrible I am, of all the self -loathing that comes up, of every time I eat something.
I actually have a narrative in my head. It's almost with every bite. You're so fat. You're so fat. You're so fat. And then, and really what that translates into is you're no good. You're no good. You're less than. You don't belong. You're unlovable. Absolutely exhausting. And if you think about why some of us turn to alcohol to self -medicate, it's because when you have these kinds of obsessive compulsive thoughts and the anxieties,
and the self -hatred that comes along with it, drugs and alcohol can shut it all down, quiets the brain and it works temporarily. So I decided that I was gonna give myself grace and that if it took a week or two weeks to get this new medication and I would continue to eat poorly, I was gravitating towards sugars and processed foods, which...
I've cut out of my life before successfully and happily because I feel really good when I eat clean. I was gonna give myself grace and just say, don't beat yourself up anymore. You've done all the things you can and now we wait. And when that call came from the pharmacy, I burst into tears.
I don't talk as often about my disordered eating as I do about my alcoholism because as much as there's a stigma around alcohol and drug abuse, you know, it's all this sort of attitude of get it together. Like we're supposed to be able to regulate ourselves with things that are actually designed for complete dysregulation. The stigma and shame around being fat, around being overweight.
around not feeling good in your body, around feeling judged for it, around not living up to some sort of standard of beauty or ideal, and also just not feeling well because you're not at a healthy weight. Some of these things are true and some of them are perceptions, but they all come together to create an environment of terrible personal discomfort.
I took my first dose yesterday and I felt relieved. think placebo effect, another level of relief. Okay, next right thing. We took the dose and now we wait. And we do things in the interim. I helped a friend, I took her to the airport. We had a lovely conversation. I felt so loved and connected. I connected with my family.
It was a really good afternoon.
And when I woke up this morning, the first thing I wanted to do was take my dog.
When I feel the level of shame and discomfort that I have felt for the last several weeks, I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to be seen. I know enough to know that that isolation is the beginning of depression. It's the beginning of a road to relapse from my alcohol use disorder. And so I am very, very cautious about finding a balance where
I can isolate some of the time, but not all of the time. And that has worked for me until I can get to a healthier, more stable place where I don't feel like I need to be alone, where I don't feel so protective of myself. And this morning, it was the first sign that maybe this drug will work for me. It's nothing to do with what I've consumed, with what I've eaten.
So whether or not I lost a pound or two, it all has to do with quieting the mind and the brain. And as I was walking with my dog in the darkness at five o 'clock this morning.
I could smell the trees. There was a sense of that it was about to rain. I could feel the breeze. I felt connected to the earth. I felt connected to my dog. I was patient with him.
And it just illuminated how incredibly difficult it is in the mind of somebody with an eating disorder. Our minds are racing and they often work against us. They are telling us that we don't do enough, that we are not good enough, and none of it is true.
So while there's a lot of chatter about whether this is the easy way out, whether we are conforming to these beauty standards and putting our bodies through it, I have zero judgment about women who do this just for aesthetics. It is hard to be a woman. It is hard. We are born into this world, confident, happy, funny, sassy little girls.
And we get the shit kicked out of us at a very young age with a lot of messaging about what we should be, how we should look, how we should sound, how we should move, what we should do with our bodies. And it's exhausting. Boys have a hard time too, absolutely. But it's different. There's so much about the external world watching
us as women, that is incredibly, incredibly hard for a young person to deal with. And while disordered eating comes from within and it comes from the brain and it comes from physiology, there are external environmental factors that trigger it. And if these medications over time are proven to quiet our brains, to be
amazing tools that we can use to then get to work. Because I don't know about you, but when my mind is cluttered of thoughts of negative self thinking of invalidating my very existence and worth, because I can't stop thinking about a piece of cake, or a piece of chicken, or a pile of mashed potatoes,
It's not about food. It's not about nourishment. It's not about being healthy. We want to be healthy. People thrive when we are active with our bodies and our minds. People thrive when we put good food into our bodies. And I have been a person who has done really good healthy things for myself pretty consistently for the last four years.
My brain sometimes works against me. And instead of being angry at it, I am trying a drug prescribed by my doctor, recommended by a trusted friend. And I think it's going to make a difference. I think it's going to help me help myself. And one thing that I have learned as a sober woman for the last almost four years,
is that I will use any tool that is going to help me take responsibility for my life and help myself. If you are struggling with disordered eating, there are amazing resources, therapeutic resources, medical interventions for you. But if you are a family that wants to talk about it from a different perspective and gain some insights,
with somebody who's been through it personally, and perhaps talk about how it affected my self -confidence and ways that we at MAYA think that we can help you or your child with their disordered eating. I welcome you to contact me directly at maya4life .com.
You can also make an appointment to talk to me at Maya4Life.com. I'm here to help. I'm here to tell my truth in hopes that it will help you find yours, in hopes that it will help your child recover. We don't do any of this alone. You are not alone. Your daughter is not alone. And we are here to help you. Thanks so much for listening. Have a beautiful day.
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