Because I’m not diabetic, my primary care physician could not prescribe a GLP1 for me as I thought was going to happen. She did mention that she thought my employer had a program that might approve me and cover some part of the cost.
The next week I checked into this and found out she was correct. My company uses United Health and they have a more holistic program that offers medical doctor team, weight loss coach, an app for tracking things like weight, sleep, steps, energy, and something called red foods. This is a better approach to me vs just prescribing medicine without tackling the other the lifestyle issues.
My first step was to have blood drawn for a complete metabolic panel so they could look at the numbers. The only thing that wasn’t clear to me during the onboarding was that it would have been better for this to be done while fasting. When I had mine done, I’d eaten something about 5 hours before.
Once those came back, I was approved for the program. I was sent one of the new digital scales that automatically sends my weight to the app. I’m supposed to weight myself daily which isn’t a problem for me. I was 341 lbs the first day I got on the scale.
Learning About GLP1’s
The next task for me was learning about the GLP1 drugs – how they work, side effects, etc. Naturally I turned to the source of all modern wisdom – You Tube! The most common side effects are nausea, constipation, vomiting, and other gastro-intestinal issues. I learned that eating a healthy diet low in fats, sugars, full of fiber combined with drinking enough water should lessen the risk of these. I knew it would take some getting used to so I decided to start early figuring out what I needed to eat and following that plan before getting the shots.
By the time I took my first shot on 2/9/2025, I was already down 4.8 lbs, to 336.2. #YayMe
