You don’t think about weight loss in terms of financial outlay. If anything, you end up saving money on expensive takeaways and nights out and literally dropping the pounds? Not these days.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been using weight-loss drugs – and now I’m trapped in the most expensive yo-yo diet of all time. I’ve spent thousands of pounds, taken on extra work, foregone luxuries and even taken out a bank loan.
In all, it’s cost me almost £4,500. And yet last week, when I got on the scales, I weighed 22stone and one pound.
From start to finish, I’ve actually gained one pound in the last two years. I began using Ozempic (this contains the drug semaglutide, also used in Wegovy) in March 2022, aged 31 and weighing 22stone.
Despite my size, my GP told me they couldn’t prescribe weight-loss injections so I self-funded, shelling out around £200 a month and buying from private pharmacies.
After 11 months, by February 2023, I had lost over three stone, going from 22stone to 19. That’s a size 26 down to a size 18.
I felt like an entirely different person. Not only did people notice and comment that I looked slimmer but I was moving more, I had more energy, my asthma had improved and I felt a hundred times happier.
Then I stopped using it, thinking I’d be able to maintain the weight loss. I thought I had enough momentum, with the lifestyle changes I’d made, to carry on without Ozempic. I was exercising, eating more healthily, drinking lots of water – so I stopped taking it.
Almost immediately my weight started to climb. After just a couple of months I’d put on over a stone and to my horror it continued to go up. I was keeping an eye on what I ate but my hunger had come back with a vengeance, almost as though months of suppression had made it even more intense.
I was eating more healthily, and desperately trying to eat as little as possible, but still the scales ticked back upwards. Until I was right back where I started.
I began using Ozempic in March 2022, aged 31 and weighing 22 stone, shelling out around £200 a month and buying from private pharmacies. After 11 months, I had lost over three stone, going from a size 26 to an 18.
Since then, I’ve twice been on and off GLP-1 agonists, as these drugs are known. And I’ve come to the conclusion – which has been backed up by my doctors – that I need to be on them indefinitely to continue then maintain my weight loss.
The trouble is, at around £200 per month, I can’t afford it so I’m caught in the ultimate yo-yo diet trap. I’m not surprised to learn this is a problem many others have encountered.
One study from 2022 showed participants regained an average of two-thirds of their weight loss within a year of stopping semaglutide (although another study was more positive). This exactly reflects my experience, and that of many people on the various internet forums I follow.
These drugs are important. They present a key solution to the obesity crisis. But the way in which they are prescribed, or sold, needs to be considered far more carefully in terms of providing a long-term, not short-term, solution.
I don’t believe anybody chooses to live with obesity and, all too often, there are co-existing conditions making losing weight more difficult.
For example, I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and I also have something called bile malabsorption, which was misdiagnosed as IBS for years. Weight loss is not – contrary to popular belief – simply a case of ‘eat less, move more’.
I wasn’t overweight as a child. I was a typical chubby teen but carried on gaining pounds as I became an adult. I think I’m reasonably healthy in my approach.
I work as an NHS secretary, which is quite sedentary, but try to exercise at home. I have a hula hoop and I follow walking videos on YouTube, where you walk on the spot, as well as trying to move as much as I can day to day, taking stairs rather than using lifts. In spite of my size, I do have quite a lot of energy.
I’m also well-informed about diet, although of course it’s hard to stick to it 100 per cent. There are days when I want to have a treat, but afterwards I am good at drawing a line under a lapse and moving on.
Now 33, I have tried conventional diets, among them Slimming World and WeightWatchers as well as LighterLife where you swap out your meals for LighterLife Foodpacks.
I also tried the over-the-counter weight-loss treatment Orlistat but I found the side-effects horrific. If you eat fat, it’s not absorbed – which is great – but it can leak out causing diarrhoea, which isn’t!
Nothing has worked long-term. I have a nice GP but the practice is very black-and-white in its approach and it has always referred me to specialists rather than directly supporting me.
Fat stigma can be exhausting. Whenever I see a new healthcare professional, they ask whether I have diabetes, and when I say ‘No’, they look surprised. Neither do I have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. My gut issues, which include reflux and a hernia, meant that I was turned down for bariatric surgery.
By 2022, the extra weight was starting to take its toll. I had aching knees, felt out of breath and had the beginnings of a fatty liver. In addition, my husband and I wanted to try for a baby. So I turned to Ozempic.
I was excited to start the injections. Some people notice a difference straight away, but it took a couple of weeks before I saw my shape changing. My double chin receded; my clothes felt looser. Whenever I saw one of my doctors they’d comment favourably and, of course, all my blood test results improved.
By autumn 2022, I felt amazing. Yet the medication had already cost me well over £1,000. Now, you might be thinking that I was saving money on food, but actually, my grocery bill was higher. I was less hungry, but wanted to eat as healthily as possible.
Lean meat, good quality fruit and veg, and seeds all cost more than junk food, pasta and bread. It’s a catch-22. I’d say I’m spending an extra £20 a week on food. It’s money well spent but it does add up.
I only work part-time, so I took on extra secretarial work to make up the shortfall. Even so, £200 a month is a huge sum to have left over given the increased cost of living including petrol, travel and shopping.
So I did something rash. I took out a bank loan to cover the cost of five months of the injections.
I didn’t tell my husband, who works in construction, because I didn’t want to let him know it was a struggle. I knew he’d give me the money from his wages but we were saving up to move house.
The money running out played a key part in me coming off the drug in February 2023.
We got married in June 2023 and honeymooned for two weeks in Mexico, which meant I allowed myself to indulge.
By September 2023, I was back to my original weight – 22stone –and by October, I’d gained even more and was almost 23stone (22st 11lb). Plus, I had loan repayments of £131 a month, and nothing to show for it (the interest meant I paid an extra £600 in addition to the loan).
After 11 months, I had lost over three stone, going from 22 stone to 19. Not only did people notice and comment that I looked slimmer, but I was moving more, I had more energy, my asthma had improved and I felt a hundred times happier
Now, I’m right back where I started. I’ve twice been on and off GLP-1 agonists, as these drugs are known, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to be on them indefinitely to continue my weight loss and then maintain it
By now I was down £2,800 and heavier than when I started. Disheartened doesn’t begin to describe it. I was aghast.
I felt guilty I’d put the weight on again, but it also didn’t feel like something I was able to control. I was resentful I’d spent all that money and embarrassed imagining what people would think of me if they knew. My mood was desperately low. I now know what I was experiencing has a name, Ozempic rebound, where if you take away the medication that makes you feel full, you may well regain weight.
My husband has been so supportive. He loves me no matter what, but he understands that I want to lose weight. I discussed going back on the drugs with him, and he was in agreement that I should try again.
So last autumn, I asked my GP for semaglutide, but in the form of Wegovy, which is, according to government guidelines, available on the NHS for weight loss.
However, I was told the practice didn’t have the funding for weight-loss drugs and was referred back to bariatrics at my local hospital.
The hospital, meanwhile, agreed I’d be a great candidate as it had worked so well the first time, when I paid for it, and wrote to the GP practice saying there were no other options for me.
Yet my GP practice still said it was unable to prescribe it. In November 2023, at the end of my tether, I decided simply to buy it. This time, I asked my parents for help and my mum paid for a couple of months’ worth. But this time, to my astonishment, I didn’t lose weight. Quite the opposite. I increased the weekly dose as much as I could to 1.7mg, the highest possible amount I could tolerate – but still nothing happened.
It was devastating. I had more side-effects: gastrointestinal discomfort, wind, stomach ache and nausea as well as fatigue, but I didn’t lose my appetite.
Instead, I continued eating as usual and ended up gaining weight. If you’re thinking it sounds ludicrous that I didn’t just stop, it’s because I was convinced it would eventually work. I’d had the ultimate high of the weight loss with the Ozempic.
I was chasing that feeling of seeing the numbers fall away on the scales again, and every week I’d think, ‘Perhaps this is when it will kick in’. It’s like an addiction. But it didn’t – and again I was hundreds of pounds down.
I came off Wegovy in March this year by which point I was about 23st 4lb, the heaviest I’ve ever been, and am now on a third drug Mounjaro. It contains tirzepatide and works in a similar way to Ozempic and Wegovy, but is even more expensive, starting at £219 per month. I’ve been on it for 12 weeks and have spent £667.
Again, I could see my shape starting to change; I’d lost some puffiness around my face and I could see my cheekbones emerging. I felt as though I was getting closer to that ‘high’ again.
But once I’d lost 8lb, I stayed the same weight for weeks. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I started intermittent fasting on top of the injections – 16 hours fasting; eight when I can eat – as well as ensuring I have a decent calorie deficit. I went to the gym four times a week.
I was exhausted, but I lost an extraordinary 9lb in one week. In total, I’d lost 1st 3lb on Mounjaro. I don’t think that amount of effort is sustainable long-term, but the alternative is – as far as I can see – a constant spiral of weight loss and gain, and money pouring out of my pocket.
I have one last Mounjaro pen in my fridge to last me for the next four weeks. I paid for it with my credit card from a website that didn’t ask for any credentials.
It was cheaper than the pens I’d bought before and it had a discount code so cost £150. I just hope it’s not a fake. And after that final pen, who knows?
Now I’ve finally paid back the loan, I won’t take out another one and there’s no way of saving any more money. I don’t buy expensive beauty products and we’ve stopped going on date nights. Losing weight has taken over my entire life.
The bottom line is that I feel as though people are being taken advantage of because we’re so desperate to lose weight.
My consultant has agreed that the only long-term weight-loss solution is to stay on the injections. But until the cost and availability is resolved, this simply isn’t going to be possible.
That means the yo-yoing will continue for me and many others – and the only thing we’ll permanently lose is our money.
