I am an online personal trainer and nutrition coach. I have also struggled with my weight my whole life. Quite the contradiction. Let me tell you about my life-long struggle with food noise, my journey to taking an oral weight loss medication and why I am now considering taking a glp-1 weight loss drug.
I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. The cause of that struggle is a drive to overeat. I have done a lot of work to try to understand why I feel compelled to eat more than I need. I have a few theories and maybe I will go into some of them in the future.
My Lifelong Battle with Food Noise
One memory stands out: the summer between 5th and 6th grade, a cross-country trip of a lifetime. We spent five weeks traveling in motorhomes with my family and my best friend’s family. It was amazing, but one memory is… well, not so great. Those long travel days were brutal. I remember laying in the motorhome, reading, and obsessing over the snacks in the cabinets. I became a master at sneaking them. How, in that tiny space, did I manage to devour four or five bags of fruit snacks at a time? And why did I feel that overwhelming urge in the first place? The guilt was instant. Looking at photos from that trip, I can literally see myself getting bigger each week. I often wonder if the adults knew it was happening.
I was always pretty active as a kid. I played on sports teams, danced, and did swimming. Despite being very active, I was always on the bigger side. I don’t remember feeling that I was fat until late in middle school. In 7th grade I broke my ankle playing football in PE. I was in a cast from my ankle to my hip for a long time! I remember being on crutches for almost 6 months. This time being laid up meant that the weight really did start piling on.
8th grade is the first time I have a vivid memory of actively trying to lose weight. Of course, I did not really know what I was doing, so my decision was to just not eat lunch. I remember having a conversation with my PE teacher at the time and she realized I wasn’t eating lunch. She gave me money and told me to go buy something. I don’t recall if we really got into why I didn’t have or eat lunch that day. I just remember her telling me that skipping lunch wasn’t a good choice.
All of that to say, my struggle with food has been around for a long time. And all of that time I really believed that I was to blame. I looked at other people, people I viewed as “normal” and I wondered why it was so easy for them to eat only one serving of dessert. Or how it was possible for people to keep candy jars on their counters and not eat the entire bowl in one sitting.
I have tried countless diets and many workout plans. Some of them helped and some of them made my disordered relationship with food even worse. No matter what, it seemed that the drive to overeat kept rearing its ugly head for me.
Unmasking Food Noise and the Medication Journey
As an adult I went through a phase of eating no sugary or fried foods. This was part of a challenge with my fellow basketball coaches. I remember a very distinct thing happening. In the past when I went to Starbucks I would look at the goodies behind the case and have a full on conversation in my head, back and forth about either, what I would get to eat or trying to convince myself not to get anything because I didn’t need it. It was not a quick or easy decision. Even if I knew I did not want to eat one of the high calorie treats, I often had to convince myself of that fact over and over again as I waited to order my coffee. What was interesting is that during that no sugar, no fried food challenge, the compulsive, obsessive thinking went away. I remember being in line at Starbucks and not even giving the treats behind the glass a second thought. I was floored by that. How had that voice in my head quieted down?
I still don’t know for sure what happened during that time period. But what I have learned is that the voice in my head that I have fought with all my life is not unique to just me. The rise of GLP-1 medications, like Ozempic, has been accompanied by a term that makes incredible sense to me. The term is “food noise.” I first heard that term on a podcast, Docs Who Lift. Dr. Spencer Nadolsky and his brother Dr. Karl Nadolsky talk about GLP-1 medications a lot on their podcast. I have found them to be a great source of information. They break things down just enough that the average listener can understand.
Anyway, once I heard the term food noise, it made perfect sense. It was incredible to me to know that other people also struggled with that voice in their head, that compulsive thinking about food, that I have experienced for most of my life.
Navigating Barriers and Seeking Solutions
The more I learn about how these GLP-1 medications work, the more convinced I am that I am an excellent candidate for them. I know they will help me take my weight loss journey the final stretch. So why am I not on them yet?
Well, the short answer is insurance. Currently I have Kaiser. And currently they do not cover weight loss injections unless you have taken their weight loss classes and tried and failed two oral weight loss medications. That is only part of the issue though. The reason I have not yet tried the injection yet is because Kaiser does not treat the medication as a long term health solution. If you lose weight, they stop paying for the medication.
In some cases, patients are able to lose weight with these medications and then come off of them and maintain successfully. But for people like me, who have struggled with weight related issues all their lives, it is quite likely that the medication will need to be taken long term.
I equate this to the allergy medication that I am on. In college I developed really bad seasonal allergies. The doctor prescribed Allegra. This allergy medication is now available over the counter, and there is no expectation that once the medication helps my allergies that I will then be able to “get off” the medication. If I stop taking my allergy medication I get itchy, watery eyes and sneeze uncontrollably. I imagine that once I start taking the GLP-1 medication the food noise that has followed me my whole life will be gone. This will allow me to take everything I have learned throughout my fitness journey and finally be able to more easily maintain a healthy body weight. But I also imagine that I will need to stay on the medications long term.
In October of 2024 I had an appointment with my doctor. I really love this doctor. It is the first time in my whole life that I have felt comfortable and confident speaking to a doctor. The previous year I had brought up the idea of weight loss injections. She was quite hesitant. I felt that she had not quite caught up to speed on just what these drugs were and how they were going to impact people who struggle with obesity. Ultimately, she encouraged me to start the weight loss classes and offered to start me on an oral medication. I did start the weight loss classes but declined the oral medication at the time because I had just started with a weight loss coach and I wanted to “try it on my own again.” Even though I was sure medications would help me, I still felt like I “should” be able to muscle my way through it.
By October of 2024 I had given it a real solid try. I worked with my coach and have improved my relationship with food immensely. I do not demonize foods. I do not beat myself up for wanting to enjoy chocolate. I am better at identifying food cravings that come with my menstrual cycle. I have a consistent and solid workout routine.
But despite all of these things, the food noise still persists. When I went to the doctor in October I felt defeated. She later told me that it was the lowest she had ever seen me. And she saw me through my dad’s sickness and passing, so that is saying something. We decided that day to try an oral weight loss medication called Contrave. It is a combination of Wellbutrin (a depression medication) and naltrexone, (which is used to treat addiction). Contrave works for weight loss by decreasing appetite and cravings. The naltrexone component blocks the rewarding effects of food, while bupropion, the active ingredient in Wellbutrin, helps to reduce hunger and food cravings and may also help to burn more calories. For the first few weeks, it was remarkable. I felt full faster, my appetite decreased, the food noise diminished, and I lost weight.
But here we are, in February of 2025 and the efficacy of the medication has worn off. The food noise has become very loud again. I am continuing to rely on the foundations I have built. I am using all the tools that I help teach others to use. But when I go for my check up in March I am going to inquire about the GLP-1 option again.
Fighting for Long-Term Weight Management Support
I really wanted to be able to wait until Kaiser does not cut off access to the medication. But I just don’t know if that is going to happen. I may end up needing to switch to a different insurance or pursue different options, but I am no longer going to wait to get the help I need.
It is my hope that by sharing my journey I will make it okay for others to experience theirs. Not everyone needs weight loss medications. It is possible to “eat less and move more” your way to a healthier size. But it is also true that for some people, it is biologically harder. And I am here to tell you that it is okay if it is hard for you. And it is not your fault. And it is okay for you to ask for help, whether that is coaching or whether that is a conversation with your own doctor.
I will continue to share my journey with you. My work as an online personal trainer and nutrition coach was born out of my desire to help myself. I have discovered that I also thrive in helping other people on their own journey to fit. That didn’t change because I started an oral weight loss medication and it won’t change if I decide to start a GLP-1 medication either.
