AARP Hearing Center
I have always been a man of appetites. Whether it be food, wine, or whiskey, I have craved it, consumed it, relished it. It’s why my friends nicknamed me “Turbo.”
Once you hit middle age, it comes time to pay the price. The bourbon stings. The cigar coughs linger. The pasta, cheese and medium-rare rib eyes make their mark, inside and out. By which I mean to say, at 56, I was overweight.
Overweight again, I should say. Fifteen years ago, I was also out of shape and in declining health, until I went on an aggressive diet and exercise program and lost 70 pounds. I looked and felt great. But slowly, surely, I put all that weight back on my 5-foot-10 frame. Just before summer of 2024 began, the bathroom scale read 259.6 pounds — do not print that I was 260.
I wasn’t having it.
In the past three months, I’ve lost nearly 40 pounds — I still have about 25 more to go. This time around, though, the weight loss journey has been different. Turns out a slower metabolism and sore knees make shedding pounds tougher.
I’m watching my diet and exercising more, but I’m also taking a prescription GLP-1 drug (that’s short for glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist) called tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound (federally approved for weight loss) and Mounjaro (for type 2 diabetes).
It’s been shockingly effective. Almost immediately, I stopped craving food and alcohol. Most surprising: I stopped obsessing about food and alcohol. This has had several knock-on effects, including giving more time in the day to work, play and think.
Doctors tell us these GLP-1s — others in the category include Ozempic and Wegovy — aren’t “miracle drugs.” But for me, it’s been pretty darn close.
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