I've been taking Ozempic or Zepbound for a couple months as a personal experiment and the effects have been nothing short of life-changing.

I have been somewhat of a "casual bio hacker" for the past 25 years and have done things like quitting alcohol or caffeine cold turkey and staying off it for years, or tracking every calorie I ate for 10+ years. I've had periods of eating really healthy, I've had periods of eating whatever but staying in calorie deficit, I've had periods of just not eating much at all, I've had periods of eating anything and not caring. I've tried a variety of more extreme body modifications just to try it and note the results. I find messing with the body (or food intake or whatever) to be like trying to reverse engineer an unknown binary, or like trying to write a keygen but for your mood and health. It's been a little hobby of mine for a long time.

These medications are WAY different. There is no way to describe it. You just feel... better, in almost every way. As someone once posted on another thread, their relationship with food changed. I noticed my relationship with food changed as did my relationship with other minor vices; my "screen time" is down. My anxiety is almost entirely gone, my mood is better, and I feel like I sleep better.

Even as the weight loss rate decreased (which was dramatic at first but has mostly stopped as I didn't increase my dosage of the medications to see what would happen), I just feel... better.

No amount of eating better or healthy lifestyle that I've tried (and documented) in the past two decades has produced anything nearly as profound as the impact that Ozempic has, both on my mental and physical health. Which seems crazy, and I thought that people who were crowing about an off-label diabetes drug were crazy as you probably think I am. But I agree with these types of articles - GLP-1 drugs are just the first step in some kind of next step in health, and obviously right now the focus is on "lose weight, undo the damage of processed foods!" but I think we are going to find that GLP-1's are just the first of many new discoveries that could extend or improve our lives beyond the aesthetic reasons that people take them today.

Regarding side effects, I have a lot of people ask me or comment about this. I think just like any drug, you only hear about the people with bad side effects. 8% of American adults are taking a GLP-1 drug right now, yet CVS Pharmacy doesn't have a section dedicated to managing the side effects (but they do for opioid side effects like constipation), which would be my gauge as to how it's really going.

I did have some dehydration (far less than something like scopolamine gives me) on the first couple days after my first self injection, but increasing my water and electrolyte intake fixed that and it seems to have gone away (I've even tried lowering my water and electrolyte intake and it didn't come back). I am not more tired, nor do I have more (or fewer) digestive issues than before. I think people who do have increased digestive issues have just never experienced (or not recently) what happens when you are really full and just overeat, because their bodies are so used to higher calorie or sugar consumption. Just like how Thanksgiving dinner can make you tired or make you have to wait in the family line for the bathroom, I suspect that GLP-1's are causing some people's "normal" meals to feel to their body like a "Thanksgiving dinner" because they effectively are (by comparison). I have noticed some slight muscle loss in my non-dominant arm that is of mild concern but nothing that I am worried about at this time.

This is anecdotal yes and it's just my personal account of these medications but I was skeptical until I tried them, like you are, as I thought "oh, just eat healthy, why needs a shot".

I will update this post when it's determined that GLP-1's cause some crazy or horrible disease but for now I am enjoying this experiment with them.