Sabrina Chazen followed the rules. She cut her carbs, counted her calories and walked every day. But after four disciplined months, the scale hardly moved. \u201cI lost maybe a pound,\u201d the 39-year-old content creator tells TODAY.com. \u201cNothing changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frustrated, Chazen turned to her doctor for guidance, who recommended an injectable medication as a way to curb her appetite and support her weight loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, ‘This is it, the magic thing that\u2019s going to work where everything else hadn\u2019t,’\u201d she recalls. <\/p>\n
But after two years on the drug, she lost roughly 20 pounds, a much smaller percentage of her starting weight than the “average 15%” advertised on the medication’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t magic for me,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n The limited results left her feeling “like a failure,\u201d despite following the regimen faithfully, she says.<\/p>\n “I took this shot, I did everything right and the weight loss never came. … I\u2019m stuck in this body, and everyone else isn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n One of the most popular classes of weight loss drugs and the kind Chazen tried is called a GLP-1 agonist. These medications, which include Wegovy and Ozempic<\/a>, work by mimicking the hormone GLP-1, naturally produced by the body after eating, leading to reduced appetite. These drugs are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat obesity, Type 2 diabetes and a few other weight-related conditions.<\/p>\n “Out-Eating” the Medication<\/p>\n Chazen, a former Division 1 water polo player, says she was able to \u201cout-eat\u201d the treatment. While it slightly curbed her cravings, she says it didn\u2019t change her long-standing food habits.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the popular perception, everyone assumes the weight loss (on GLP-1s) will be dramatic,\u201d Dr. Jennifer Manne-Goehler, an infectious disease and obesity specialist at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital in Boston, tells TODAY.com.<\/p>\n But Chazen\u2019s experience underscores a broader and often overlooked reality “that people respond (to weight loss medications) in different ways,\u201d Manne-Goehler adds. And some patients are left feeling ashamed if they don\u2019t lose as much as they\u2019re told they \u201cshould,\u201d or if their bodies respond more modestly than those showcased in the media.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stigma around weight never ends,\u201d Manne-Goehler says. \u201cPeople feel like it\u2019s their fault if the medication doesn\u2019t work the way they hoped. That\u2019s something we work against constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n Chazen did notice subtle changes at first. \u201cMaybe the food noise<\/a> was a little lower, but if there was a pie in the house, or my kids\u2019 fries were in front of me, I\u2019m still eating them,\u201d she says. \u201cI can just eat when I\u2019m not hungry. It\u2019s mindless. That\u2019s my thing. Food is joy and comfort for me.\u201d<\/p>\n In an Instagram reel<\/a> shared this past October, Chazen, a size-inclusive influencer, addressed the flood of messages from followers recommending GLP-1 drugs after she spoke about her weight being \u201cup.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy doctor put me on it two and a half years ago. I lost, you know, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, which is amazing,\u201d she said in the clip. \u201cBut I literally could out-eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n While taking the medication and in the years since, Chazen says she’s noticed people around her grow visibly leaner, which also has come with an emotional cost.<\/p>\n \u201cI get mad,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m happy it works for them, but it\u2019s dangerous messaging. Now people think everyone can be skinny.\u201d<\/p>\n As a person in a larger body, she says she’s felt more pressure and fat phobia recently “because people go, \u2018Well, you don\u2019t need to be fat anymore. Take the shot.”<\/p>\n When Weight Loss Medications Don’t Work<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk \u2014 the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, which contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide \u2014 tells TODAY.com that clinical trials showed that “most people who used Wegovy have clinically meaningful weight loss.”<\/p>\n “For example, in the 2-year STEP-5 study, 36.1% of adults taking Wegovy lost 20% or more of their body weight, compared with 2.3% of adults taking a placebo. Additionally, in the STEP-1 trial, 47.9% of adults taking Wegovy achieved a weight loss of 15% or more after 68 weeks, compared to 4.8% with placebo.”<\/p>\n