Stressed on GLP-1 and Still Trying to Lose Weight

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]If you're on a GLP-1 trying to lose weight, trying to hit your protein every day, trying to manage your blood sugar, and life is absolutely wearing you down, then this video is for you. Because people are so quick to make it about food all the time. Meanwhile, you're over here stressed out, exhausted, barely sleeping, and still trying to take care of your body. Your appetite feels weird. Your body feels off.

[00:00:30]Meanwhile, over here your hormones are doing whatever they want to do, and you're still here trying to keep your health together. That has been my week.

[00:00:41]Welcome to Slow and Steady with Andy.

[00:00:44]I'm Andy, and I am on Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes, PCOS, insulin resistance, what else? Oh, yeah. And very slow weight loss. This week we're talking about what it feels like trying to stay on track with GLP-1, protein, blood sugar, and weight loss when life is heavy and stress is high. I'll also be sharing a quick update on how my first week on 12.5 mg Mounjaro went, as well as take my second week injection with y'all. So, this week's video is coming at you a lot more raw and not put together as other week's videos because frankly, I am exhausted. This week has been a very stressful week.

[00:01:38]There've been a lot of changes at my job. They've added a lot more responsibilities, and it has made just my work day so hectic. And the way my thought process is, I'm like, maybe I'm too old for this.

[00:01:57]Am I like too old to keep up? I'm I know I'm only 51, but I'm 51, and Meniere's disease makes it really hard for me to be looking at things a lot side to side, and what I'm hearing in the rumor mill is that they're going to be upping our monitors that we look at all day long from two to three. So, currently I have two monitors, having to look back and forth because I have to have so many different things up at the same time just to complete like one task that I'm working on. And now they're talking about bringing three in, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle it because there are already times in the day that I'm like toggling from monitor to monitor, and I start feeling dizzy. If you're not real familiar with Meniere's disease, I'll let you look it up if you're really that interested, but just to keep it as simple as possible, one of the effects of it can be vertigo.

[00:03:08]For me, it hasn't really been the kind of room spinning vertigo, but I get more of a balance type of issue. It's always hard for me to explain, but it's just different. It's just not room spinning, but it becomes very uncomfortable. It becomes really hard for me to focus.

[00:03:28]It's like when that dizziness comes on, I start getting this really heavy brain fog type of feeling.

[00:03:36]So, anyways, I don't know. I'm just really concerned about the future of this job, and I've been at this job for 16 years.

[00:03:46]I have built up, as you can imagine, a good amount of PTO time that I get every year for being at the company for so long. And at 51 years old, honestly, for me, time is worth more than money. I don't want to have to leave this job and start over at okay, after your you'll get one week.

[00:04:14]No, I I need my vacation time. Even though I don't go on vacation, I need my staycation time.

[00:04:22]So, it's just been very stressful for many factors. And then, on top of that, Monday was Memorial Day, and as the day was progressing, I noticed that our girl cat, who is 10 years old, she just wasn't eating.

[00:04:40]Or if she did, she would go to the bowl and just kind of stare at it, like, "I'm hungry, but I can't eat." And when we got her, she was 3 years old when we adopted her from the shelter. And my poor little girl, she is a beautiful little kitty. She's a very petite full-grown cat. I just love her. She's like she's a tuxedo cat.

[00:05:06]And when we got her, she her incisors were very buck-toothed, and they hung out of her mouth over her jaw area. And my poor girl, sometimes, I don't know if maybe she jumped or whatever it was, sometimes those incisors would actually poke and give her a little cut in there.

[00:05:28]But anyways, over time, one of those incisors fell out. Didn't really hinder her in any way. Once I saw that she wasn't eating, I was able to look in her mouth area, and she in fact lost her other incisor. So, of course, I called the vet first thing in the morning to get her in and she is doing okay. She did start eating a little bit more after a couple days.

[00:06:01]Her lack of eating didn't cause any issues. Sometimes that can become a really bad issue for kitty cats, but she was okay. However, she is in a lot of pain because the tooth broke off and there's still like a piece in there.

[00:06:18]It's become infected and needless to say we have to get two extractions done on her next week.

[00:06:29]Not only is it stressful to think that my poor kitty has now got to go through a surgery and all that.

[00:06:39]Y'all, it's not cheap. Let me just say it is not cheap. Thankfully, we have pet insurance that I got a couple years ago. And let me tell you, if you have a young pet don't waste time, get some pet insurance. It's very, very inexpensive for a young pet. And I have to say it has saved us so much money between both of our cats over the past couple of years. But, anyways, I know I'm going down a rabbit hole. You all are here to listen to a type 2 diabetic on GLP-1 who is a slow responder and I'm giving you a quick lesson on pet insurance. Anyways, get it. I'm telling you it's worth it.

[00:07:28]And the reason I'm sharing all of this is because I'm sure you know that when you're dealing with stress and it's affecting your sleep big time among other things it really takes a toll on you physically. With all this stress this week, I have been feeling extremely extremely bloated. Not so much in my legs or my arms, but when I start to feel bloated, I feel it a lot in my belly and my hands. Oh my gosh. I've pretty much had typing job since I was 18 and at this point I've 51 years old, my hands have really taken a toll. I don't have carpal tunnel. I have straight-up arthritis in my hands and I don't know if it'll show up on camera.

[00:08:24]Probably not. But when I have a lot of like inflammation and stress going on, I get redness on my fingers and my knuckles look white.

[00:08:38]Um and they feel really like rough and dry. It's just been really intense.

[00:08:47]My emotions this week, I'm sure again because of lack of sleep and whatnot, but combined with already my emotions because of being hormonal with perimenopause going into menopause, I have just been crying so much this week over every little thing. At this point, I don't know what's exactly stress. I don't know what's inflammation. I don't know what's hormone.

[00:09:16]It's [snorts] probably just a combination of it all.

[00:09:19]What I do know is my body does not feel very calm this week. And this is probably the first week since I started the GLP-1 almost a year ago that I have felt this rough.

[00:09:33]Um and I don't like it.

[00:09:36]I don't like feeling like this. And as far as what is my eating been this week?

[00:09:42]I I haven't been overeating, but I have been more reliant on ready-to-go things like my turkey lunch meat or pre-grilled chicken.

[00:09:56]Uh what else? I still have been relying on eggs in the morning.

[00:10:02]And yogurt, my Chobani zero added sugar yogurt drinks, but I just don't feel like I've had a very good week as far as consistent eating. I haven't been eating late.

[00:10:18]Again, I haven't been overeating. It's just been not very monitored. I'm sure I have not been meeting my protein goals, and that is a big issue because as many of you already know, I'm already dealing with very very thinning hair, and that has been something else I've been crying about this week because I feel like this week I've noticed even more thinning.

[00:10:47]And that is just That's a lot.

[00:10:54]That's a lot. And I know that reaching my daily protein goal is really really important to try and get my hair growth back, but when I'm already feeling upset, I feel like I'm forcing myself to eat at that point.

[00:11:11]When I'm like, I don't want to eat. Just let me drink my yogurt drink, and I'm good to go for the day. And that's not good because despite what some of those people out there who love to tell overweight people to stop eating, that's not how it works. We have to eat because then that's just going to create a whole 'nother line of problems. At least for me it will. Another thing that this high level of stress and just feeling exhausted has been affecting is my commitment and desire to do any type of workout. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't had a lot of physical activity because this week I have been working hard in my garden trying to get all the weeds pulled, my area all prepped. I did start to plant some of my veggies, but I still have a lot left to go because over the winter we had some really strong wind type of days. I Honestly, I really don't know what made this happen, but I have a wood raised garden that my husband built for me a couple years ago and it just collapsed. The front of the wood just completely collapsed, is breaking apart. So, my dirt is pouring out the front and that has to be completely re- rebuilt. So, that is a lot of work, but gardening and watering my flowers is one of my happy places. So, keeping up with that this week, even though it's been very tiring that has been my moments of peace among the chaos this week. So, I'm not going to be too hard on myself this week for not doing like formal types of workouts because I have been busting my butt out there. My back has been killing me from all that hard work, sweating like crazy because it's been hot out.

[00:13:25]Yeah, so I have been burning some calories and my weight on the scale is going to show that this week. So, I'm just getting it out there for any of you who might be hard on yourselves for not doing specific exercises.

[00:13:41]Any type of physical activity counts.

[00:13:44]Just we got to keep our bodies moving and active. Especially those of us who have very sedentary types of job that keep us sitting for most of the day. And before I get into the weekly update, if this video feels like your kind of week, too, subscribe, hit that like button, and if YouTube gives you the option to hype the video, it will push it out to more people who are trying to lose weight on GLP-1 while dealing with real-life stress, hormones, and everything else. So, I will start this out by sharing my weigh-in this morning.

[00:14:22]You'll see it pop up on the screen. This is the screen recording from my scales app. And if you watch last week's video, you will see that I lost, I think it's about a pound. I'm feeling pretty encouraged. This is officially the lowest weight since starting GLP-1.

[00:14:44]So, I am at 33 lb of weight loss.

[00:14:48]Hopefully, that will continue next week.

[00:14:51]I will even be happy if it at least stays at this weight and doesn't fluctuate back up because that just seems to be how this journey has went for me. I will drop the weight and then for like months, I stay within that range, like that 5-lb range. So, hopefully, we are on another trajectory.

[00:15:14]I really just at least want to get past that 200-lb point. And it just feels like it is never going to happen sometimes, but your girl keeps on going. Keep on trucking. As far as my appetite suppression on my first week of 12.5, >> [sighs] >> make this make sense. I feel like my appetite suppression was stronger on the 10 mg than it was this week. Now, maybe that has to do with all the stress I talked about.

[00:15:53]Well, I don't know. That remains to be seen.

[00:15:57]We'll find out as we go into week two.

[00:16:00]Food noise, the food noise relief, that is still existent. I I can't really say that I was somebody who had a lot of food noise. I've never been the type that eats emotionally. If anything, when I'm stressed, I do the opposite. I don't eat. I like go for coffee, and I just want coffee.

[00:16:25]>> [laughter] >> And that's really, really bad. Whatever food noise I did have when I started this journey has just really disappeared. So, that's been nice not hearing any type of urge for any type of craving. What about side effects? As far as side effects go, I still have the same side effects. I burp and I fart a lot. And if you have been watching some of my recent shorts, you know that I like to joke about it and make fun about it because farts are funny. At least around here they are.

[00:17:02]But, I also think that the reason I do tend to have a lot of gas is because broccoli and fresh garlic are two of my favorite things, and I eat uh steamed broccoli with garlic in it at least three to four times a week, as well as when I make fresh spinach with my eggs, when I saute fresh spinach with my eggs in the morning, I also add garlic to that. So, yeah. I I blame it on that, and I'm not giving those up, so I will continue to have the gas problem, and I'm fine with that. So, week one at 12.5, I really haven't experienced much change. My blood sugar has still been very stable, although there have been a few times this week where I got the Dexcom urgent warning that my blood my blood sugar was dropping rapidly, and that probably has to do with my eating this week, just not being very consistent. As a type 2 diabetic, I try to maintain a very scheduled timing of eating just to keep my blood sugar nice and stable throughout the day. So, I think that's really about it for this week, you guys.

[00:18:29]I'm going to get myself prepped to take my second week of 12.5 mg Mounjaro, and I am going to take it in my thigh this week, cuz I've been taking it in my arms for quite a few weeks now, simply because it is easier to film it when I'm injecting in my arm, but I prefer going back and forth between my arm and my thigh. That just has always seemed to keep my appetite suppression the strongest and get me the best results.

[00:19:05]So, let me just get set up, and we will take this injection together.

[00:19:23]>> Okay, hopefully my leg isn't showing up too hairy on screen here and I'm kind of nervous because it's been a little bit since I've injected in my thigh and it does hurt, so >> [sighs] >> All right.

[00:19:45]All right, there's worse things in life, right? So, here we go.

[00:19:49]3 2 1 >> [sighs] >> Oh, yeah.

[00:19:58]Yeah, that stings.

[00:20:01]Ooh, yeah. We got some blood that time, you guys. Oh, man, I don't know. I might have to stick with my arm unless my hubby's here to help me with that because it's a little difficult to try and see where I'm aiming while trying to record and do all that and yeah, that hurt. But we'll see what happens. There's nothing leaking out other than the blood, so I took the shot correctly.

[00:20:31]Don't worry and it's in my system and we'll see what happens on week two. If you are barely holding it together this week, too, I hope you know you are not alone. If you're still trying to take care of your body in the middle of work stress, family stress, pet stress, hormones, poor sleep, and everything else that still counts. We don't have to do this perfectly to keep going. Slow and steady still counts even on those weeks when steady looks more like crawling.

[00:21:06]See you guys next week. Bye.

[00:21:14]>> [music] [music] >> I've changed [music] for the better this time.

[00:21:35]I thought I would never [music] [singing] be fine.

[00:21:40]I strive just [music] to say I'm all right.

[00:21:45]And for the first time [music and singing] in a long time, I'm all right.

[00:21:49]I've seen a lot of change.