Holly Figueroa O'Reilly felt like her body was trapped after trying to lose weight with “every known diet” and two bariatric surgeries, but with no long-term results. He says he felt it.
She was overweight her whole life, reaching 300 pounds at one point. Later, when she lost her weight for a while, an illness in her family made her unable to work outside her home. She started a home bakery and chocolate shop there in 2022.
“It's hard to eat and taste, and it's not great when you're trying to lose weight,” O'Reilly, 52, of Seattle, told TODAY.com.
Her weight was back up to 250 pounds. However, her weight today is 145.
When people ask her how she does it, O'Reilly says she lifts heavy weights and eats a high-protein diet, but what's really made the difference is her type 2 diabetes medication, which reduces appetite as a side effect. He replies that it was Ozempic.
“Before I started taking Ozempic, my brain was always thinking about food: When and what was my next meal going to be?” O'Reilly says of a phenomenon known as food noise.
“It's like my brain is always screaming, 'Food, food, food,' and my brain doesn't do that anymore.”
worried about diabetes
As a child, O'Reilly was always bigger than other kids, starting in kindergarten. He was especially heavy during middle school and high school.
Her family was poor, so meat was scarce, she says, and cheap processed foods like crackers and canned soup made up for the lack.
“We had four kids, so we ate whatever we could get our hands on first,” she recalls.
O'Reilly's grandfather weighed about 400 pounds when he died from complications of type 2 diabetes. Later, her father also developed her type 2 diabetes. Although she didn't want it to happen, her weight continued to increase after she gave birth to her first child at age 23.
In her 30s, when she finally weighed 300 pounds, O'Reilly underwent her first bariatric surgery in 2006. Her gastric band surgery allowed her to reduce her weight to about 135 pounds at one time.
However, so much scar tissue formed around it that doctors removed it in 2012 and also performed a gastric sleeve, marking her second bariatric surgery.
That didn't help for long either. O'Reilly lost 40 pounds, but gained it all back “pretty quickly,” she recalled. Since then, she has tried to manage her weight with diet.
Family crisis leads to weight gain
In 2021, my husband was diagnosed with leukemia and was on the verge of death. Her long journey to visit hospitals, doctors and clinics began.
“There was no way to cook. I didn't have the time, I didn't have the energy to make a meal,” O'Reilly recalls.
“I was eating cafeteria food for a few months, maybe a year, and it wasn't great. It wasn't delicious food. I wasn't getting as much exercise as I used to. I just started gaining weight. And I didn’t care.”
And there was a chocolate shop. Because Ms. O'Reilly needed to be at her home to take care of her husband, she started a home-based candy business, Marcenette Her Mercantile. Tasting products and eating “mistakes” is the province of chocolatiers, she says. O'Reilly's girlfriend weight is back to 250 pounds.
Doctors told her she was “severely overweight” and her A1C, a measure of her average blood sugar levels over the past three months, was elevated and trending incorrectly. Concerned that she would become prediabetic at her next visit, her health care provider prescribed Ozempic.
This drug helps patients manage their blood sugar, but it also has a well-known side effect: weight loss. As TODAY.com previously reported, semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, mimics a hormone known as GLP-1 that the body releases into the intestines when a person eats food.
People have a decreased appetite and feel full quickly after eating.
O'Reilly started taking the drug in the spring of 2023 and lost 105 pounds in less than a year. Her A1C has gone down and she is now at her goal weight of 145 pounds.
“[Ozempic]has given me the space to develop a healthier relationship with food, because I don't remember a time when I wasn't always hungry,” she says.
“It really changed the way I looked at food as a form of nutrition.”
She estimates that she now eats a quarter of what she used to and is more mindful of planning her meal times and making sure she gets enough protein. Masu.
According to the manufacturer, the most common side effects of Ozempic include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and constipation. According to NBC News, some patients can't tolerate the side effects at all and stop taking the drug.
O'Reilly said she initially experienced nausea and some diarrhea, but it subsided after about four weeks. She has since stated that she has had no other side effects and is not concerned about the possibility of any unknown problems occurring in the future.
“I'm much more concerned about carrying 250 or 300 pounds for a long period of time, because I know what the side effects are,” she says.
Since reaching her goal weight, O'Reilly has been using less Ozempic and injecting herself every other week instead of every week to see if she no longer needs it. So far, she says she hasn't noticed a difference.
a 2022 survey We have found that when semaglutide is discontinued, some people regain most of the weight they lost after a year.
Doctors caution that GLP-1 drugs are designed for chronic long-term treatment and should generally not be used intermittently.
O'Reilly said as long as his insurance continues to cover Ozempic, he plans to continue it if necessary.
“It completely changed my body and the way I go about my life,” she says.
