SNDY - EP 25: I'm the Lab Rat | Listen To This Before You Regret GLP-1 — 13-Month Case Study

What does 13 months on GLP-1 actually look like from the inside — not the highlight reel version, but the full case study with real numbers, real side effects, and the findings that never came up in a single doctor's appointment?

Theresa opens the lab.

64 pounds down on Zepbound (tirzepatide), with 30 pounds to go, she puts her actual data on the table — her week-by-week Month 1 breakdown, her complete dosage timeline from 2.5mg to 12.5mg, and how her results compare against the clinical trial averages. Then she goes where the prescription doesn't.

In this episode:

→ The gastrointestinal side effects they describe as "mild" — and what that language actually means at every dose increase

→ The skin elasticity loss that showed up in a massage studio mirror and what it revealed about collagen, rapid weight loss, and what women in midlife are not being told

→ The silent nutritional drain — the specific micronutrients GLP-1 appetite suppression depletes over months, why they are non-negotiable for women over 40, and the exact labs to ask your doctor for at your next appointment

→ The question at the center of it all — was it worth it — and the honest answer that doesn't fit on a before-and-after post

This episode is for the woman already on a GLP-1 medication who is seeing changes in her body she wasn't prepared for. It is also for the woman considering it who wants the complete picture before she starts. Either way — this is the conversation your prescription didn't come with.

You deserved this information on Day 1. Here it is now.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want to tell you about a Tuesday morning in a massage salon. I was face down on the table. When the massage was over, I got up, got dressed, looked into the mirror just to check myself out before I walked out. And my face. My face, the indentations from the headrest were still there, creased into my skin. Like I had been pressing my face into a pillow for hours, like I slept there overnight. Except it had only been an hour and the creases weren't fading. I stood there for maybe even a few minutes. I don't even know if it was more than five minutes, but I just stood there watching my face in the mirror, waiting for my skin to bounce back. And it didn't. That was the moment I understood in my body, not just in my research, what it means to lose collagen faster than your medication warns you. I've been on Zep Bouncer Zepatide for 13 months. I've lost 64 pounds and I'm not done yet. I have 30 more pounds to go. And today I'm opening up the lab, my lab, because I am the specimen. And I'm your host, Teresa. And today I'm going to do something I've not done on this show yet. I'm going to put my real data on the table. Not the highlight reel, not the before and afters, and I'll do probably some of that as well, but the actual numbers week by week from the first injection until now. And I'm going to run them against the clinical trial averages and what the researchers say an average woman should lose while on GLP1. Because the gap between those two sets of numbers tells you something important about your body and about the way the side effects hit the way that they do. Here is where I started. March 2025, I was 248 pounds. I probably weighed 250, but I just, I don't think I weighed myself. I never got on a scale after 248 because I just didn't want to see 250. I would have been defeated. And again, let me start by saying I'm not body shaming anyone. This is just my own personal story of where I was. And for my body frame, 248 was beyond anything that I wanted. But my first week, I started with the entry level, I think it's 2.5 milligrams. And that first week I lost seven pounds. And I was really surprised. Week two, I lost five pounds. Week three, I think I went down to like three pounds, but week four, I lost four pounds. That's 19 pounds in one month. Now watch what happens when I put that next to what the clinical trials say the average person loses on their first month of drzepatide. I lost 19 pounds, which was 7. The clinical average is 9.4 pounds, which is about 3.8% of your body fat. I lost double the clinical average in the first month. Double. Now, before you call that a win and move on, I need you to hold that number in your hand and understand what it costs. Because that speed of loss is part of the reason why we are having this conversation today. I am outperforming the clinical average by nearly four percentage points over the 13-month period. And I deliberately slowed down my dose increases. I didn't rush to 10 milligrams. I stayed on five milligrams for two months and then like 7.5 for another two months. And then I sat at 10 for seven months from September, I think, until just February or March of this year. I was in no hurry. Why? Because I was watching my skin. And I was afraid of what I was seeing. Here's my full dosage timeline. I'll put it here for every woman who is somewhere on the staircase and wondering what comes next. My first month, 19 pounds, immediate response. Um, probably in May, April, maybe April, May, the GI side effects at dosage increases started happening. And then there was like a deliberate slow escalation because of the adverse impact that all of this weight loss was having on my skin. And then I think I plateaued probably, I don't know, maybe September. I plateaued probably around November to where I was between 189, 195, like up and down over the holiday season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and into the new year. And after I felt like I plateaued, I went back to my doctor. I had my annual in March of this year, April, right in April. I'm going to start on 12.5, and then I plan to do my final dose tier of 15, maybe by May, because I really want to hit my goal, which is 154 pounds. So total loss to date is 64 pounds, 25% point eight, 25.8% of my body, my starting body weight over the course of a year. My blood work, everything is excellent. My doctor looked at those labs and said I was doing great. My cholesterol level was slightly higher than it was last year, but everything else clean. Now, here's the part where the visit and the conversation normally ends. Lab results reviewed, numbers looking good. All right, Teresa, we'll see you next year. And nobody, not one person in that office looked at my face or my neck or my thighs and asked, What is happening to your collagen? I took all my clothes off and had to put on a paper gown. I had EKG done, um, x-rays. So my nurse saw my skin hanging and she didn't say a word about it. Here's what I've learned in 13 months living inside this medication. Not what the pamphlet says, what my body reported. The first finding, the diarrhea they called mild in air quotes. Clinical studies describe the gastrointestinal side effects of GLP1 medications as typically transient, mild to moderate. They say it happens during the initiation of or dose increase. That's accurate. And it's also a masterpiece of an understatement. Here is what GI disruption at dose increase actually meant in my body. Every single time I moved to a higher dose from five to seven and a half, seven and a half to ten, I would wake up between two and four in the morning with my digestive system in an emergency. Not discomfort, not loose stools. I mean, my gut was running a fire drill with no advanced notice in the middle of the night every time. They say about one in three people on the higher doses of terzepatide experience this. The studies describe it as resolving within a few days to a few weeks per dose change. For me, that was real. It did resolve, but nobody told me it was coming. I didn't expect that. I didn't anticipate it. Nobody said, hey, every time you increase your dosage, be prepared. Budget for a few uncomfortable nights. So I'm telling you, budget the nights because they are coming. Do not schedule anything requiring high performance for three to five days after your dosage increase. And hydrate because dehydration on top of GI disruption will compound every other side effect that we're going to talk about. Well, your doctor doesn't say. GI side effects are dose-dependent. Every escalation is a reset, essentially. So plan for it as a scheduled disruption, not an unexpected one. Stock up on Pepto, skip the 6 a.m. workouts, at least those first few days, you will recover. But only if you know recovery is part of the process. That was probably the most startling thing that I discovered. My second finding was that my skin stopped bouncing back. This is the one nobody has a script for. When you lose weight this fast, and I want to be honest, like double the clinical average in a month is really fast. And your skin doesn't even have time to receive the memo that, hey, we're losing weight over here. And the fat is vacating the premises. And the collagen and elastin that would normally keep your skin like taunt and feeling vibrant and youthful is already declining because you're a woman over 40 years old. And the medications, appetite suppression, only means you're not consuming enough protein to support collagen synthesis. And all three of these things happen simultaneously. And nobody connects them in your appointment. Nobody talks to you about it. Nobody warns you about it. And here's where I'm experiencing it, specifically in my face, my neck, my thighs. And you know, I started taking something, I'll put it here, and my sister told me about. And I'll show you before and afters. I don't know if my before and afters, and I've been doing it probably for about two months, so I should have some results. So we'll see, but I'll post it. And these results, they aren't, you know, hands down, absolutely it works for me. And maybe I'm still losing weight too fast. I I actually contemplated, do I need to gain some weight back? And then in my neck, oh, I'll definitely there is a I was taking a picture, and sometimes I'll pull my phone out to get ready to take a picture, and there is an angle that I can get just looking under the camera. I can't do it here, but oh my goodness, I'll post it. And my neck is like chicken skin. It's it's not attractive at all. It's like a little gobble neck. Yeah, that's it. And it's not attractive at all. And that's where I saw it the most. And then in my thighs, like I always had big legs and cellulite, I had it, but it wasn't where my skin was sagging. Like I always had beautiful hamstring on the back of my thighs. Like my legs, as big as they were, I could flex big old hamstring. I loved them. And now my hamstring is like fighting to get through. That muscle is fighting to get through those layers of fat and layers of skin that are hanging there. But I'm I'm in the gym. We're gonna talk about temple maintenance. And yes, Coach George will be back, our fitness pastor. But the face is the most startling because it changes the face you've known your entire life. And it's not a wrinkle situation. Like I have wrinkles, I have, you know, crows' feet coming to my eyes. Okay, I'm 60 years old. But it's a volume situation. Like the fat underneath the skin provides structure. And when that fat is gone, the skin drapes differently. That's what the internet calls the Olympic face. And it's real. I live in it. Trust me. Even the lines on the side of my face, and I think that's why people get facelifts. Like, I don't know that I would get a facelift. I don't know. I don't think that I would, but just the creases in my face are not like if I had a facelift, it'll pull all that back. Like these lines here. Literally a facelift would pull me up and back. I don't know. I don't think I'd ever get a facelift. I can't imagine that I would. But I understand why people do. I truly do. But the neck and thighs, that's a skin that has stretched and not retracted. The skin that you did not expect to see when you imagined what 64 pounds lighter would look like. And then there was that Tuesday morning. I got off that massage table after an hour face down, looked in the mirror, the indentations from that headrest, the creases from where my face had been pressed into that cushion were still there. I went to the grocery store afterwards and I felt like apologizing to people, like, oh yeah, I I I've been, I had a massage. Like, that's why my face is like, it looks like I've been asleep. It was so bad. And I waited and I watched, expecting them to fade. And I would hope that it would have just bounced right back like it would have a year ago when my face was fatter. They did not fade quickly. They sat in my face for hours after I left that studio. And I realized in that moment that what I was looking at was not a wrinkle, it was the absence of elasticity. The harsh reality for me is that my skin no longer has the snapback mechanism it used to have because of the collagen that powers that mechanism has not been replenished. Because the medication that is doing extraordinary things for my weight has also suppressed my appetite so effectively that I'm not consuming enough of what rebuilds my skin. And I was trying a protein with collagen. It was a powder and it used to make my um protein shakes very chalky and it didn't work at all. I bought a huge trough of it and it didn't work. And so I just recently um ordered Spoiled Child. I don't know how it's gonna work yet. If you guys know, let me know in the comments if you've used it. But I think it's E27 that I ordered for collagen, the mango flavor one. And they had something else as well for um anti-aging. And so I ordered that as well, and we'll see what happens. But the information like regarding what I'm learning about my body and the natural adverse effects of aging, it's really eye-opening. The data regarding my rapid weight loss, especially when I'm exceeding the clinical average rate, it removes fat from beneath the skin faster than collagen production can compensate. And after 40, collagen synthesis is already declining by probably 1% every year. And GOP1 appetite suppression reduces protein intake, which is the primary building block for collagen. So age plus speed of loss plus protein deficiency equals what you see in my neck and my thighs right now. That's what that looks like. But is it reversible? Partially. And trust me, I've done the research and I'm looking to fight everything that I can. But with resistance training, deliberate protein intake, and topical collagen support, and I'm hoping liquid collagen support and hydration and sun protection, you could actually slow the further loss and improve the skin's surface appearance at least. For significant laxity, cosmetic procedures exist, and there's no stigma in considering them. I don't know that I would ever have one, but I've done some research. And you know, there's so much on the market now that's different from, you know, I've seen facelifts from years ago where they cut at your hairline and pull your muscles and make it taunt. And I don't think it's that difficult anymore. I actually saw one where they put like um a splint in your face. It's it's a lot, it's out there, but I don't know that I'd ever consider any of that. But I really am going to see what I can do to stop myself from aging at least any faster than I need to while on GLP1. Um, but none of this was in a folder when I received my medication. My doctor didn't even sit down and say, now let's talk about these adverse effects. They really talked about, you know, the digestive issues and things like that. But I feel like those types of things should have been discussed. And here is what I wish someone would have said to me on day one the medication will suppress your appetite aggressively, but you must deliberately fight to eat enough protein. And based on your body weight, wherever you are, I need to consume probably 80 to 120 grams of protein every single day. And you must do resistance training at least twice a week, three or four times a week. And you must understand that if you lose weight fast, your skin may not keep up. So plan for this. It is not a failure, it's just physics. This is what a complete conversation looks like. This is what I deserved on day one. That first day, somebody should have told me. And it's what you deserve to hear right now. At TFT Realty, we don't just sell homes, we guide transitions. Whether you're selling your current property to step into your next chapter, or you're a first-time home buyer ready to stop leasing and start owning. We bring strategy, clarity, and experience to every deal. My team is prepared to walk with you from consultation to closing, helping you make informed decisions that align with your lifestyle and financial goals. If you're ready to make a move in Atlanta's real estate market, now is the time to do it. And we're ready when you are. Visit TFTenterprises.net to schedule your consultation, send us an inquiry, or DM me today. TFT Realty, we are your key to Atlanta's real estate. My third finding was the invisible drain of nutrients. And this one will not really show up in the mirror. You don't see it, and that's what makes it probably the most insidious. But my labs came back clean, and I'm grateful for that. But here is what my labs did not specify they didn't test for my vitamin D, B12, my magnesium, um, the markers of nutritional depletion while on GLP1. Users are really showing deficiencies, and mostly at the six-month or 12-month mark, you'll probably really see them in your labs. But my doctor was really just testing for my health, making sure I was still healthy, you know, just to even be on the medication. But when you're eating significantly less, and I mean genuinely profoundly less, because this medication literally removes the desire to eat. Some days you'll be like, Did I even eat today? Like I have to make a conscious effort and decision. I'm going to eat protein. I'm going to intake this and that because I need it. Um, you're also absorbing significantly fewer micronutrients every day, silently. And for a woman in midlife, those nutrients are not optional. Vitamin D is critical for bone density. B12 is critical for nerve function and energy. Magnesium, it's involved in over 300 biochemical reactions in your body. These are not supplements you add, like, oh, it's a daily vitamin, I'm going to take it for extra credit. They are foundational. You need them. The particular concern for our demographic women over 40, many in perimenopause or postmenopause is bone density. Estrogen protects bone. And when estrogen declines, bone loss accelerates. Add rapid weight loss, reduce mechanical load on the skeleton, and nutritional depletion to that picture, and you have a fracture risk that your doctor can't even warn you about. And your doctor's standard blood panel may not even catch that. And I'm not telling you to panic by any means, but I am telling you to ask better questions at your next appointment. You should ask your doctor specifically for vitamin D, your 25 hydroxy, vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, albumin, and prealbumin. Those are Protein markers. These are the markers clinicians are flagging in GLP1 users. A standard annual panel may not include all of them. You have to ask for them. So write these down before you walk in. Now, the real question. I want to address the thing I know some of you are probably sitting and wondering right now. Like after all this information, after all of my findings, and after 13 months being knee deep in all of this, your question and mine, is it worth it? 64 pounds down, sagging skin, overnight GI disruptions, a face that creases and holds it for hours. Is this medication worth it? And I can't answer that question for you. I can only answer it for me. And for me, yes. But not blindly. Not because the number on the scale went down and I could fit in my skinny jeans, but because I am learning in real time how to steward this body through a process doctors hand you a prescription for and send you home with. The frustration, it's real. I am sitting in the tension of wanting these last 30 pounds off and watching my neck and my face and my thighs and asking, what is this costing me? And I don't have a tidy resolution to offer you. I'm in the middle of it with you. But what I can tell you is this the way through is not ignorance. It is not pretending the side effects aren't there just because the scale is going down. It's not celebrating 64 pounds without understanding what 64 pounds of rapid weight loss demands from your skin and muscle and bone and nutrient stores. Being a woman in midlife, those are things we have to consider. Proverbs 4 and 7 says, though it cost you everything you have, get understanding, sis. Get wisdom. Wisdom is not a reward for completing the journey, it is the equipment for surviving it. This episode is not a warning against GLP1, and it's definitely not negating it. I'm still on it and will continue to be until I get to my goal and will be on it for my maintenance. But this is a call for complete conversation. One that your prescription doesn't provide, one that your doctor's standard follow-up visit may not cover. One that you now have because you showed up for this one. So before your next doctor's visit, whether that is next week, in six months from now, or whenever it is, I want you to bring a list. And on that list, I want you to write down vitamin D, B12, calcium, magnesium, albumin, prealbumin, and ask for these specific labs. Tell your doctor you're on GLP1, if this isn't the doctor that prescribed it for you, and let them know you want to know your nutritional status and you want a baseline for bone density so you can monitor it. And if you're postmenopausal or over 50, you definitely need that information. And then I want you to look at your protein intake. This week, if you're on GOP1 and you're not deliberately tracking protein, you are almost certainly not hitting the numbers that your body needs right now. The medication has quieted your hunger, which means your muscle and skin and bone are being quietly under-resourced. Knowledge is the intervention. Start there. If what you just heard resonates, if this is the kind of honest, straightforward, strategy-level thinking that you've been missing, I want to tell you about a book I wrote that operates in the same space. Don't quit yet. Seven strategies every entrepreneur should know before leaving their nine to five. The revised and expanded edition is available directly through my website. It's not a theory book, it's not a motivational poster. It's actually a strategy document for women in transition who are tired of making decisions without complete information. If you're rebuilding your body, there's a very real chance you're also rebuilding your life. And rebuilding without a strategy is just hoping. And we don't do that here. The link is in the description. The workbook is included. Come get equipped. I started this episode with a massage table and a mirror. And I want to end it here. You are not just a number on a scale. You are not just a percentage of body weight loss. You are a whole person. Skin, muscle, bone, nerve, hormone, history. And every part of that whole person is affected by this process. Your medication doesn't know your whole story. Your doctor may not have a time to go through your history with you, but you are sitting here 13 months into my lab notes, and you know more now than you did at the start of this episode. That is the work. That is what we do here. Follow the show, subscribe, tell a woman who is on this journey she needs to hear this conversation. And as always, you are still not done yet.