Holy Shit 50!!

It occurs to me as I hit 50 and have embarked on a serious weight loss program that I might want to revive this. I doubt there’s many followers left and those who got it by email will either have a WTF? moment or it will go straight to spam.

That’s ok. It was never about followers anyhow. It was always about me and my journey.

And my journey has been full of twists and turns and bumps and potholes… but here I am. 50 years old, not at my goal weight, but having experienced so much that I’m not surprised I’m not there yet.

50 was a hard one for me for two reasons. First, my late husband never got the chance to celebrate 50. The running joke for years was that he would be 50 before I was 40 and now here I am 50 and he died at 49. Second, it was the lamest non-birthday celebration ever. I had hoped for something, not spectacular, but something. In the end, I got a fantastically thoughtfull gift from my husband and inlaws, my kids barely acknowledged it and only 1 friend suggested we do anything. Even the friends who don’t miss anything and we don’t miss anything of theirs didn’t come out for appies with us – there was a miscommunication there and so yeah. I was feeling hurt and forgotten.

But here I am, 50. I’m working in health care, I see all the people at their worst, and I’m terrified of ending up like them. I even had a patient say to me that I needed to take care of myself and lose the weight because she wished she had and the way she was living wasn’t worth it. And as I watched them ship her to ICU… I realized that yes, I have to do something.

So, I talked to my doctor, and I have started on Ozempic. Now, before y’all come at me about how it’s a diabetes drug blah blah blah… I know that. I also know that if I don’t lose the weight I WILL have diabetes. I WILL have heart issues. I WILL have all the medical conditions that have my patients in hospital wishing they’d done something about their weight and health when they were younger.

Ozempic is not only a drug to treat diabetes, it’s a very effective drug at preventing diabetes. Diet and exercise don’t work. I have too much cortisol in my body because of all the stress I’ve been going through in the past 13 years. Need a rundown?

Hubby got sick and spent 6 months in ICU. Hubby died. Moved to another town and had to start over with no support system. Broke up with the guy I moved there for. Went back to school. Got a job in health care. Met a new guy. Graduated. New guy and I were fairly rocky for a while but got married. Wedding. Start of kid’s medical diagnoses. They have autism, adhd, epilepsy, brain cancer and they are transgender. We’ve been to the Neuro hospital 2x in 4 years for craniotomies. I went back to school. Hubby changed jobs. COVID. Bought a house. My own mental health issues. Finances.

I think that’s it. But along the way there were kid issues (i have 4 of them) Grandkids (in July there will be 8 of them) and learning to navigate a new marriage while still missing the old one.

Exercise and diet was not enough. I was slowly dying from stress which was causing me to gain weight with each new issue. At my highest, I was 291lbs. Today I am 283lbs. In 1 month I have lost 8lbs and I haven’t changed much except I started on Oz.

Now that my body is starting to feel better, now that I’m starting to be able to move more, I am incorporating movement into my day. Concurrently, i am also adjjusting what I eat. Not because I’m making the conscious choice to do so, but because I can’t eat much, and if I eat junk or proccessed food, my body rebels.

Ozempic works. It doesn’t work for everyone and not everyone will see fantastic losses but it works for me. And it is not a lifelong drug for me. The plan is to lose enough that I can exercise on the regular, that I’m eating healthy about 80% of the time and then wean off it.

I will not be ashamed or embarrassed for doing what’s best for me and my body and my life. I am not taking away from anyone – I am doing my best to prevent me from needing it for different reasons.

For the record? I was adamantly opposed to any medical interventions for weight loss. I used to think it was just diet and exercise and willpower and that I didn’t have that going on for me. Now… I stop eating when I’m full and I have no brain chatter that tells me to eat more. It is a blessing and a relief to not always be thinking about eating and junk food.

I hope you’re willing to join me on my journey and help celebrate my 50”s and beyond as I work towards being healthy in my twilight years. If not? feel free to pass on by my blog. I will just delete any comments that are not supportive. I don’t have the mental energy to argue with you and I don’t want that negative energy to detract from my successses.