In the Age of Wegovy

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In recent months I’ve had a number of conversations about the use of Wegovy.  Specifically, what is my take given I’m a holistic doctor.

I am in full support of its use in helping people with Type 2 diabetes and while I recognize its promise treating a number of health challenges my concern is this:

Happily Ever After

Once the weight is off, the blood glucose levels at a healthy level, how will individuals avoid reverting to habits or lifestyle choices that had them needing it?

For Context

Having spent decades in tech – typically 10 to 15 years younger than my peers – I came to a point where I noted two peculiarities

  • Majority of my coworkers were male
  • My male coworkers tended to carry 30 to 50 extra pounds

Stress Stress Stress

I handled stress by walking on my lunch hour and after work.  When that wasn’t enough?  I joined a health club so I could add weight lifting and rowing.

This was a double-edged sword.  The issue was stress, not a need for physical fitness.  The more stress?  The more hours I spent working out.  

I ended up with an autoimmune condition and while this is a topic for another time – an upcoming podcast – I want to circle back to the topic at hand.

The Age of Wegovy

I got to a point in my career I was doing a lot of traveling. I would fly out Sunday or Monday, return Friday or Saturday and head out again Sunday or Monday.  I did this pretty much every week between the fall of 1993 and spring of 1996.

I cancelled my cable because I was never home to watch anything anyway.

SSDL

DL = Different Location

My travel routine wasn’t much different than my home routine.

  • Eat out
  • Wait for food to settle
  • Workout

Other than ESPN I wasn’t into spending the evening in a hotel room watching TV.

Unless I had a laptop and wanted ambient noise while working on a customer deal.

SSDA

Same Stress Different Approach

Listening to music while lifting weights, running on a treadmill, and taking advantage of whatever exercise options were available.

I generally brought mixed tapes created from vinyls on a Sony Walkman.

Bonus Bad Health Habit

Due to flight schedules I often ended up eating past 10pm from a room service menu lacking in healthy options.

Observations

Over those years I observed

  • I was the only female working out **
  • There were usually only 3 males working out alongside me even as I knew many more were – like me – traveling.  

I knew this because I worked with them. They were in the same hotel because we were collaborating on the same customer opportunity.

The Irony of Wegovy

I dealt with work stress by working out to excess and not eating healthy and though I didn’t gain weight or develop Type 2 diabetes I ended up with an autoimmune disease.

Many of the males I know currently on Wegovy dealt with the same type of stress by not eating healthy.

And not getting as much exercise as they could have while my situation shows exercise is no guarantee of good health.

Stress? What Stress?

Everyone has life stress but work stress fills a particular place in our lives and it gets my dander up every time I see another article blaming techies for the woes of the world.

The lifestyle that goes with that stress is why many techies have health challenges.

Next!

My understanding of holistic healing enables me to spot signs of old patterns that risk my health.  

God knows I don’t want to end up back in the land of autoimmune disease.

My concern is that majority of people on this medication won’t recognize the causality and may find themselves falling back into patterns that got them in trouble in the first place.

Life in the Age of Wegovy.

Be well.

** I was the only female – the highlight being the lone woman among 41 men in a post-graduate network technology program at Carnegie Mellon.