I asked my doctor a few days ago, “Is Ozempic a forever drug?”
Briefly, he said, “Yes.”
OK – so I’m not a fan of taking ANY drug forever! I’m not excited about taking drugs to lower my cholesterol or my blood pressure, either. So…how did we get here?
A number of factors seem to have come into play:
Physical inactivity is the absolute DRIVER of heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity – and at the risk of sounding crass AND INCLUDING MYSELF – comfortable being fat. Sitting behind a desk – even walking back and forth in front of a classroom doesn’t compare favorably with being hunted by animals or having to hunt for even the simplest foods. We are BUILT to run, chase, and walk. We are NOT built to sit in a desk chair, a car chair, or in front of a TV.
And yet we do, so we get fat, our hearts don’t have to work very hard, and we burn WAY less calories than we eat. So what happens? I have to either take Ozempic, Lipitor, and Lisinopril (or their competitors or a generic drug that does the same thing) or die.
But that’s not exactly true, is it? I COULD opt out of the drug regimen by choosing to eat reasonable amounts of food. For example, is a Big Mac with fries and a shake a REASONABLE amount of food for one meal? No. Not really. MAYBE if I was a farmer and working in the fields all day long! But not for being a classroom science teacher!
But the company does offer a more reasonable meal: a kids meal. Hamburger, fries, and a drink – MOST sensibly, water; but even a diet drink would be sometimes OK.
Because our jobs have us burning fewer calories we -- you AND ME -- experience higher rates of obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol. “The World Health Organization has declared sedentary lifestyles a leading cause of chronic illnesses globally.”
Stress does a number on us and while I see their point, what could be more stressful in the modern world than bubonic plague, roaming wild animals, danger of invasion by some other tiny country wanting your land or slaves in the 1700s? If “modern life triggers a "fight-or-flight" response that floods the body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which can raise blood pressure and blood sugar levels; why weren’t there many fat people in Victorian England or the American Colonial period or among Australian Indigenous people?
The rise of easily accessible, processed, and refined foods has fundamentally changed our eating habits. This diet is typically high in sugar, unhealthy fats, and sodium, and low in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. This shift is a major contributor to obesity, inflammation, and chronic illnesses.
But let’s be honest – it’s MADE to taste wonderful, easy to access, and for many of us, in UNENDING QUANTITIES. I don’t HAVE to stop eating if I don’t want to! And I have plenty of money, I can buy whatever I want and no one can tell me I can’t…well, at least no one here in middle-to-upper class America.
I can even buy Ozempic to “magically lose weight!” HOWEVER, I DID write about that! (https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2023/03/diabetes-research-right-now-3-most.html and more recently https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2025/08/guys-gotta-talk-abouttype-2-diabetes-34.html)
But as a long-term solution? Ouch. If I WERE to stop using Ozempic, I would have to have a very clear plan – and I would have to CHOOSE RIGHT at every turn. Exercise more (I do bike 5-10 miles a week in the summer); I park farther out in the parking lot than I need to); change my diet – or even more importantly DON’T EAT SO MUCH!
My goal is to get off Ozempic. I just have to practice saying “No.”
To my self…
Source: https://www.webmd.com/obesity/features/natural-glp1-boosters
Source: https://www.webmd.com/obesity/features/natural-glp1-boosters
