Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara
'Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara' is hosted by two saddle sisters, keeping you company one ride at a time. We discuss life, love, horses of course, and all the unexpected turns along the trail.
Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara
Ozempic, For The Love of Our Horses
What happens when Cara's dancer’s instincts meet a sensitive horse on a training day that finally clicks? We start with a small miracle—hips and shoulders aligning, cues clearing up, and a horse who stops guessing and starts trusting—and follow that thread straight into the messier arena of aging, body image, and the weight we carry. The dance floor, the round pen, and the kitchen table all ask for the same thing: clarity.
We get candid about menopause, insulin resistance, and why “eat less, move more” can fail a body that’s fighting its own chemistry. Sandy took part in the Semaglutide human study and learned the real upsides and risks—significant weight loss, a quieter appetite, and the very real threat of dehydration when she didn't respect the basics. Cara navigated hypoglycemia and thyroid swings, discovering how hunger can drown out good intentions. Tools like Ozempic and tirzepatide can help, but they’re not magic; hydration and realistic movement still matter. We also question the food system that stacks the deck against health while asking us to try harder anyway.
The heart of the episode discusses the nightmare of a young mustang mare who foundered after getting into sweet feed. We walk through months of care, fleeting hope, and a final decision rooted in compassion. It’s a hard story, but it sharpens the bigger lesson: quality of life is the metric that counts—for our horses and for us. From there, we let go of “the number” and choose capacity instead: ride the hills, enjoy the clothes that fit, keep the strength you need to live the life you love, and measure success by what your body and your horse can do together.
If you’re navigating weight loss medications, metabolic puzzles, or a tough call with a beloved horse, this ride is for you. Tap follow us on Saddle Talk with Sandy and Cara, share this episode with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more riders find the show. What capacity are you building for the life you want?
Flip flip goes, the trail sun is rising. Two thousand seven meets the big event's sky. Laughing and chatting as a desert rolls on by. It's Saddle Talk. Come along for the ride.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome, listeners, to Saddle Talk with Sandy and Kara. Whether you're here to laugh with us, learn, or just ride along, you're in for a really good time. So go grab your helmet or your pooper scooper and settle in with us as we discuss life, horses, of course, and all the unexpected turns along the trail. And hey, whether you're a seasoned cowgirl or you're still learning, remember we're sharing our own stories and opinions based on decades of personal experience. Always ride safe and check with a professional before trying anything new. Now let's go ride.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, Kara. Today has been quite the day. Oh, yeah, it has. Yeah. So you had a really good lesson with Armani. You were gonna give us an update on how he's doing.
SPEAKER_02:Swarmani is moving up the levels of Perelli very quickly. Nice. My trainer was recalling back to when we started, and she can't believe how fast he's come along. And it's really cool to be able to talk to someone about Perelli, but her and I can have these very high-level discussions about horse psychology.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think because intuitively you are a trainer, so you're already at a different level than, say, a novice that hires a trainer.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And I've been at a different level for a long time. I enjoy conversations with her because I feel like I'm splitting hairs in a really positive way. I can have these high-level conversations and I feel like we're exploring and comparing notes, and it's really fun to do it with my own horse in real time. Right. Just notices the nuances that I notice and a look or a movement or a hesitation. I've always noticed those little things in a horse and recognized it as body language. Right. And I think what her and I talked about today, which was really interesting, and we have to stop ourselves during the lesson. We literally have to stop and talk and make sure we get back to training.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Because we get sucked in. Yeah. But today I was telling her humans aren't that different. And that the four personalities of the Pirelli world are a lot like people. Right. And so she started talking about her mom and how her mom was a right-brained introvert. But I thought she was talking about a horse. So I had to pause her, say, is this a horse or a human? Right. And then it was just really neat because I realized also after this conversation that my background in dance has been the reason why I've been so successful with horses. Really? Yes. How's that? There's a relaxed zone that you get into in dance where everything you do, every movement means something. Oh my it sounds so stupid. I'm gonna cry. Ugh, so menopausal right now. Yeah, so anyone who's oh I'm literally gonna cry.
SPEAKER_01:Anyone who is Well, don't cry, because I'm on the verge of crying anyway, which is an entirely different reason. Anyway, I'm sorry about it.
SPEAKER_02:I think as an ex-dancer, there's this, there's this feeling that you get a physicality that you cannot describe to another human. The only people who recognize that feeling are other dancers. And dancers in a room automatically have this crazy bond. And it's a lot like horse people. If you meet a random ass horse person and you're chilling and you're talking, you can recognize that horse person right away, have an amazing conversation and never talk about the shit that's going on in the world or politics. Right. And I don't care what your politics are because we're horse people talking about horses. And dancers are just as crazy as we are and have the same exact nuances. And I think that my upbringing in dance prepared me for a world of observation of horses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's a really neat connection. Thanks.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The littlest things mean the biggest in dance. A turn of a head means a change of emotion in the story that's playing out on stage. The same thing happens when I'm watching Armani, and today we had the saddle on and he was getting lunged, but it's not called lunging because it's leading. And I had to recognize in myself what I was doing wrong. I had him out on the lunge. This is almost at the end of our lesson. So we've had this full, rich lesson, and then I realized that my body was saying conflicting things. Right. My upper body was telling him to move forward, and my hips were rotated the wrong direction, and I was pushing him with my hips. Wow. And asking him to go forward with my upper body, and it clicked when I shifted my hips and my shoulders in the same direction.
SPEAKER_01:So when your body was in alignment, he understood what you were asking him to do. Yep. And when they were not in alignment, what the fuck? He was like, I don't know what you're asking.
SPEAKER_02:And he was kind of like, fuck you, is this right? I don't know. Fuck you. I think you're yelling at me. Right. Yeah. And I wasn't yelling.
SPEAKER_01:No, no. I mean, I was. I was yelling. But but still, though, and I didn't mean to. And and in relation to your dance metaphor or analogy, when you're a dancer, your body has to be in alignment. You can't have yourself going in one direction and your feet are pointing in the other direction. And it's gonna throw you off balance.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it means something else to the audience. Like you have to be clear about your communication on stage. And here I was, and he's my audience. And I was being very unclear, and it clicked in that moment how my clarity was not working out for either of us.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that is amazing. That is really great.
SPEAKER_02:I miss dance. I will always miss dance.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's one of the um crack.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's one of the hardest things about getting older. Oh my gosh. This leads into something. Uh Michael and I went to one of our local casinos, and there was this woman. She had to be a hundred. Walking up on her walker. Okay. People are getting out of her way. She walks straight up to that dance floor. She gets herself centered, and she starts to boogie. Oh, it's gonna be me. With her little arms. Oh my god. And her little frail body. She didn't give a fuck. And did not care. It was amazing to watch. Good. So I'm looking at this woman and she's just up there dancing her little heart out. She had to be 95. Maybe she was younger. Just lived a long life. Yeah. She was having the best side. And she had a beer. Good for her. She had a beer. I'm like, I want to be you when I'm your age, whatever your age is. I think you should get back out there and dance. Why aren't you dancing?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's not the same. As time goes by, your body just makes these changes and you can't carve out three hours a day to dance.
SPEAKER_01:No, and then there's menopause.
SPEAKER_02:And then there's menopause. And I I that's not to say that I couldn't get back into that dancing shape, but I think every dancer knows when you hit a point. And probably every woman knows you hit a point and you look back and you think, will I ever do that activity? The answer is no. That's how I feel about skiing. That's how I feel about fucking Mount, whatever. What's the big one? I don't know. Mount Everest? Yes. Never. I will never even climb to base camp of Mount Everest. I climbed Mount the big one in Whitney. Whitney. That's it. I climbed Mount Whitney and I thought that's good enough. It's kind of like when I ran a marathon, I only did a half. And I thought that's good enough.
SPEAKER_01:I walked a marathon. A whole, I think. Or a half.
SPEAKER_02:A half?
SPEAKER_01:Not a whole one. I don't think I did a whole.
SPEAKER_02:No, I did a half and it was flat by the ocean and it was beautiful, but I'll never need to ever do a full 26 miles.
SPEAKER_01:But but that's how I feel about skiing. I skied when I moved to California. It's so funny, I grew up in Virginia, and I didn't learn to ski until I moved to California. And I really enjoyed it. And I don't want to ski anymore. Yep. I just don't. I just want to ride horses. That's all I'm doing. Yeah, I know, me too. Yeah, I just want to ride.
SPEAKER_02:What is left that I still need to do with my life? Riding. This is the physical activity that I want to put on the pedestal and move towards.
SPEAKER_01:And this leads us into our topic for today, which is Ozempic. In whatever form.
SPEAKER_02:Because there's so many different types. Why don't you explain that? Because I don't know if everyone's aware.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I say Ozempic, that's the brand. Semaglutide is the generic name of the drug. I always called it semaglutide. Doctors don't really care. About seven years ago now. I was overweight. I'm five feet tall. I was about 170, which is considered obese. So I met this woman on the train when I would go into downtown LA. I worked at SoCal Gas. And she worked at this uh clinic that catered to people with uh diabetes. They did testing. And I told her, I said, Well, if you guys ever do a test or a trial where the person doesn't have to have a diabetes, but they're overweight, let me know. And about a year later, she said, Sandy, guess what? So I was very excited and I went to her clinic and I had to qualify. It's really funny because this is the first time I went home and I found out that I qualified and I went to my husband and I'm like, guess what? I qualified for the study. He said, Oh, what were the qualifications? Well, I have to be obese and not diabetic. And I qualified, and he didn't know how to be happy for me. Because if he acknowledged the happiness, then he's acknowledging I'm obese, right? And most women, what you think I I wasn't gonna do that to him. I gave him the out. I said, It's okay. It's okay right now. It is. I said, right now it's okay for you to acknowledge that I'm obese.
unknown:I get it.
SPEAKER_01:So it was a really great study. It was a year and a half. I got paid. I got$100 every time I went in. And in the first, I'd say four or five months, I went in every week. So I was making an extra$500.
SPEAKER_02:Of course.
SPEAKER_01:But in SoCal, that just paid my electric bill. Literally. So there you go. So it was a year and a half study. I went from 170 pounds to 117.
SPEAKER_02:And in a year and a half.
SPEAKER_01:In a year and a half. I looked awful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you looked hungry.
SPEAKER_01:I looked hungry. I had the turkey neck. Which I have to laugh because I remember when you and I went to on a ride, and you're so honest and so like to the point where I just want to strangle you. But I said to you, I remember we were standing at the trailer. I'll never forget. We were standing at the trailer, we're getting our horses out, and I was talking about the weight that I had lost. And I said, Yeah, but now I have this like neck. And you s and you looked at me and you went, Yeah, but it's okay. I was like, but you're acknowledging my neck. I couldn't just take the compliment, right? I was like, you're acknowledging my turkey neck. They call it the azempic neck. Yeah. But it's not because of a zempic, it's because it is, but you were gonna get it anyway. That's what my mom told me. It's true. She said, Sandy, you were gonna get that anyway. So welcome.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But it's because you lose the weight so fast. Yeah. And your skin doesn't really have a chance to get back into the tightness. Plus, you're older and you don't have a collagen that you had when you were in your 20s losing weight.
SPEAKER_02:So if you've been overweight for 30 years, it's gonna be pretty shocking.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Even if it's just a little overweight. I'm not even talking like I didn't need to have skin removal kind of weight. And there are people that do. So that's an entirely different subject. I always was worried, I am always worried, not was. I'm always worried about my weight when it comes to my horses. Because I worry, I worry about being too heavy for them. Are they carrying me? How's it going to be different? And when I was a teenager, between the ages of about 16 to 21, I was addicted to cocaine. So I was very skinny and I didn't have to worry. I ate Doritos for lunch, and it was a beautiful thing. And then when I got smart and got off the drugs, and I consider myself a recovering cocaine addict. I, you know, always an addict. Truth. When I, you know, got clean and I was flying right, all of a sudden a bag of Doritos didn't mean the same thing, and I couldn't eat it. And I started gaining weight, and I would do everything I could to lose weight. I did laxatives, I did stupid diets, I ate hot dogs all the time. I did my best to work out. And then as you get older, these things they don't work the same. And when you go through menopause, your chemistry is changing, your body's changing, you can't lose that weight. And so you need, I did the vitamin B shots.
SPEAKER_02:I completely remember us trail riding when we were sort of at our peak trail riding months. I remember you going on this one diet where you were adding drops of stuff to your food.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. It was type of it wasn't echinace. I don't know why that comes into my mind, but thermogenic. It was a thermogenic and they were drops, and you would add it to your food.
SPEAKER_02:I remember you trying everything.
SPEAKER_01:Everything.
SPEAKER_02:And then I remember you getting on the trial and you were super excited.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I was happy for you. Yeah, of course. You know, because I want you to feel good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And you're a friend and you're supporting me. And yes, there are people out there that are in menopause and can do. I have a sister who has struggled with her weight. Right now, she's probably at the best weight she's been, and she's nine years older than me. And she has been eating healthy, watching what she's eating, and her and her husband are both on the same page, and they're they're buying groceries, and that's wonderful for her. And I'm happy for her, but I don't have that. My husband could drop a few pounds, but he's pretty good. He doesn't have an issue with weight. He doesn't, and I love him dearly. He will buy me stuff. And his feeling is just eat a little bit. You don't have to eat a whole thing, but that's not me. I feel that I have an addictive personality. I don't think I I'm gonna say I have a cocaine addiction, right? Because that was the addiction I chose. Right. So yeah, no cocaine for me. I don't think that I'm a cocaine addict. I think I'm an addict and I chose cocaine. I could have chosen alcohol. I'm not an alcoholic. And I know the first step is don't deny it, right? But I'm not. Like it doesn't rule my life, it doesn't control my feelings, I don't live my life around forward to it. No, no, no. I just feel that I have an addictive personality, so it doesn't matter if it's sugar. For me, I feel like I'm addicted to sugar.
SPEAKER_02:And that's it. Truly. Exactly. I had to come off of sugar, and I am not joking you when I say that I was jonesing. I was literally shaking. Yeah. Because I was diabeting. Oh, it was awful.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I got sick. I was diagnosed pre-diabetic years ago, and I thought I could sort of control my metabolism and my body weight by exercising. And I thought that I didn't have to do anything else. And I thought, oh, I can handle this, I can exercise away, whatever the problem is. And I kept all of these logs, and so I was diagnosed pre-diabetic. And then I tried to control it. And within a few months, I was literally weighing more when I'd been exercising and I couldn't figure it out. Right. And I had these crazy sugar crashes, and I had this amazing doctor, and I'll never have another doctor with that type of relationship again because they just don't have time to spend with me the way this doctor did. And we figured out that I was headed even more towards pre-diabetic. I was, what's the word? Hypoglycemic, bad hypoglycemia, and I had a thyroid problem. Right. And she thinks that whenever they tested me, my thyroid just happened to be high. And so she did all this intense testing. And we thought that I was gonna get better once she gave me the thyroid medicine. She said to me, Oh, you're gonna drop 10 pounds pretty easy. And no, I went back and I was two and a half pounds heavier, and I kept all of the logs of every food I ate, of all the exercise I was doing. And then she said to me, Kara, I think you're in what horses go through, which is insulin resistance. Right. And so she said, I think you're insulin resistant right now. We're gonna test you. And she said to me, Do you feel like you need to eat your fist? Like you are so hungry all the time. And I said, You don't understand. I am starving. And when I go to eat, I'm so hungry that I I just want to eat something. And and it doesn't matter if it's healthy or not.
SPEAKER_01:And usually you choose the wrong thing. Well, uh well, I'm sorry, not you, but me when I do it, yeah, I will choose the wrong thing because I'm so hungry, I don't have time to like cook something.
SPEAKER_02:You it's true.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's a part of it.
SPEAKER_01:And because my husband doesn't have an issue, he's got crap in the you know, in the cupboard.
SPEAKER_02:Pre-made food tastes amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The problem with the study though, they tried to give us a nutritionist to talk to. It didn't really do anything. He didn't really tell me anything. I didn't already know what I should be doing, and it just it was just silly.
SPEAKER_02:And I feel like that's always the story we get told as women. You need to control your diet, you need to increase your exercise. And I think to myself, I have a best friend that's a professional athlete, and she struggles with her weight. And she's a professional athlete. Who how am I a normal human with a full-time job? American society is not based on your physical health. Everything is convenient, everything takes time. How am I possibly gonna control this human body if she can't? Oh, I'm not.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and then at the end of the store, they just said, okay, bye. And they just they just dropped me off. And so here you were in 117. Yeah. And then you went to nothing. Nothing. And then I started gaining the weight back. And I have to say, this is not an episode to dog Ozempic. It's not. I love somaglotite or stomaglutide or have it.
SPEAKER_02:I love what it's done for you and your friends.
SPEAKER_01:So I have now gotten back, but there are problems with it. There are serious things you have to pay attention to, and the biggest thing is dehydration. You have to drink whatever thing you think you're drinking in water, double it. Because at one point I wasn't taking it seriously, and I remember getting up out of bed, passing out, and running into the wall. Or should I say, I blacked out. I didn't actually pass out, I blacked out. I couldn't see where I was going, and I ran into the wall. And I went to the doctor, they couldn't even get a needle in my vein.
SPEAKER_02:Because you're so dehydrated.
SPEAKER_01:Because I was so dehydrated. So that really woke me up to water. But now I am, you know, I moved up here because all of that, of course, I stopped the study right at COVID when everyone's at home sitting on their ass. And I just gained it all back. Even without just because you have this insatiable hunger when you come off of this product. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Like you can't get enough. Oh. You're hungry. Yeah. So there you go. Uh. And now here I am. I so my waist started going back up again. I knew I needed help. I found a doctor, thanks to you, who is amazing. He's a really nice doctor. He's so sweet. And he understood my struggle. He understood that I'm in menopause. He understood that my chemistry is different. And he's got me on a compound formula of smagletide.
SPEAKER_02:And compounding just means lotion?
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, no, no. What they do is a compounding pharmacy. So um, I know I say um all the time, but this is appropriate um because I'm trying to remember. Nordono Nordisk is the manufacturer of Ozempic. Okay. They're the ones that came up with semaglatide. What they have the patent on that. I'm not really quite sure how all this works, but the compound that I'm using, please Google what I'm about to say because I'm sure I'm getting part of this wrong. But they're getting the byproduct of the semaglatide salt or something, and then they make a an injectable from this byproduct, which I don't know how that even works. Like, how do they even get that from novisk? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. And then they make a solution out of it. Sometimes they add vitamin B, sometimes they add other stuff. Reminds me of cocaine when they would uh Baytelux in it and all of a sudden now they cut it. Cut it, they cut it. Or cutting it. So they do, but that's what they do. They cut it. They're cutting it and they're bringing it together. And I just did my injection this morning. I do it once a week. It's an injection, it's no big deal. And it's helping. It really is helping. I was gonna say, how's it going? I'm not hungry because that's what it does. It turns off that noise in your brain. And it doesn't work for everybody. I have another friend that was doing it with me. Her reaction to it was a lot different. She moved over to the Monjaro's, I think it's trazepotite, all these things. It's so crazy. Anyway, that product works best for her, and she has done amazing on it. She's like beyond her goal weight into clothes she was wearing in high school. I haven't gotten there yet because you have to still exercise. This isn't a magic pill. You you take it, it makes you not hungry, but if you're still just sitting on your ass, you still need to expend calories more than you're bringing in. So if you're expending zero calories and you're eating 10 calories, that's 10 calories more than you should be eating.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I 100% understand that. One of, yeah, my athlete friend, we were just talking on the phone, and she said it took her six months to lose seven pounds. And the way that she did it was a calorie deficit. Yeah. She said the calorie deficit was such a slight margin, but she knew that if she did it, she would get to her goal weight, and she was frustrated because it took that long, but she understands her body is different now because she's getting older. Yes. And it was funny because we were comparing notes, and I had lost the same exact amount of weight in the same exact time period. She was cutting her calories, and I've just been eating healthier. I have to modify my diet all the time. Right. I know, I've been around you. Is I just cut things I think aren't healthy, and then I eat the stuff that I know is okay with my body and I go with that. It actually kind of scares me because I I feel like the amount of food that I can eat and the variety of foods that I can eat, the list just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
SPEAKER_01:It does, it does.
SPEAKER_02:And so I worry about as I age just being able to keep on weight. I'm I'm still a healthy 175, and I think I'm 5'6.
SPEAKER_01:I was just gonna say, let's put that in perspective because 175 on you looks a lot different than on me. So yes.
SPEAKER_02:And I've always been a girl whose weight is spread evenly throughout my body.
SPEAKER_01:I don't have a big butt and then and I feel like that's my problem too, that I gain weight proportionately, and I never realize how big I actually am until I see myself in a picture or riding a horse. I hate pictures of me riding a horse. Oh, but you're beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:I look like I'm all ass and thigh. And it's so funny because I don't see that at all.
SPEAKER_01:I just I wish I could see me through your eyes. I wish you could too. I know. I wish more people could see themselves through the eyes that other people have.
SPEAKER_02:Truly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I wish it was like that. I wish that we didn't have this judgmental lens of overweight, not overweight, beautiful, not beautiful. Because I think it's bullshit. I think for me, it's all about my body's health. And I grew up in a family who were morbidly obese. Most of my family members were morbidly obese. So for me to say 175 at five, five, and three quarters, I think I look fan fucking tastic, especially being 48. Right. I just think, well, hell yeah, I'm rocking it out. I can do all the things that I want to do. Yeah. If I feel like going hiking, I can go hiking. If I want to go biking, I can go biking.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there are people that are even more overweight and they can do all those things. Absolutely. Because it's not always about the fat on your bones. Yeah, it might take you longer to get there, but I know that there have been people that have done miraculous things that aren't the typical Barbie weight. You know, it's cardio and it's endurance and it's stamina, and I don't have all that.
SPEAKER_02:I don't have any upper body strength. And I I was just so sick for so long, and I'm just thankful. And now I look at my body and I think she's beautiful and she works and she wakes up every day and I can do what I want to do. Yeah. And I I feel bad for where you look at a body and you think that something is overweight, and then there's this negative connotation that goes with it. I've never had that.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Because I grew up in a family where what limited you was because you were so big you couldn't sit in an airplane chair. You couldn't go through a door. That was what the limiting factor is. And so I grew up with a different lens.
SPEAKER_01:And then I sometimes tell myself, when do I get to not care? Exactly. When when can I be uh stop caring right now? No, really. Well, but I want to continue to care. I know I I I guess I guess I should I should quantify that. I it's not that I don't care. I do care. And mostly now it's because of my horse. Right. I want to be a good weight for my horse. I don't want them to, I'm not, I don't want to ask my horse to go up a hill that, you know, now he has to carry me and my fat ass up that hill. I want to be a good weight for them. Yeah. So that kind of helps get me through it. I want to be at a point where I'm not always on the scale.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And I've started doing that. I don't weigh myself every day. I used to. Because a lot of the magazines say, Oh, weigh yourself every day, watch what you eat. My husband feels that the secret to my issue is writing it down. Because when I was on the program, I had to keep a journal of what I ate. And I actually had to text them my weight every morning. It was part of the program. Okay. So I would text my weight every morning. They in the beginning gave me food to eat. It was so funny too, because I remember when I went home with my first bag, I thought this was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it's not. It's all about calories. So I ate almost everything in the first couple days. And I said, I'm out of food. They're like, What the hell? Well, we gave you enough food for a week. And I said, No, you didn't. They said, This is how many calories you get, Sandy. You get 800 calories a day.
SPEAKER_02:A day.
SPEAKER_01:It might have been a little bit more, I don't remember. But this is how many calories you make Sandy. Gave me enough calories for a week. And I was eating most of it in a day. Because I was eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it took a while for the Ozempic to make me not hungry. Okay. And then I was just not hungry. And the other thing too is I know a lot of people who are on this product and they they just drink alcohol. Alcohol. Well, first of all, alcohol is gonna make you dehydrated. So unless you're following that up with a crap ton of water, you're gonna get yourself in trouble. Second of all, I love my alcohol. Don't get me wrong, it has those empty calories, and you need to be careful. Plus, if you're not eating as much and you're drinking, you're gonna get drunk faster.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:When I started the program, I was probably drinking a bottle of wine a night. And let me just tell you, there's three glasses in a bottle, a regular bottle. Yeah. Three glasses of wine a night is not a big deal. I was not an alcoholic. But when I went on the program, I really I didn't have the desire to drink. So I stopped. I heard it has that effect on people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it's helping people who are alcoholics. Yes. Which is amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So I really stopped drinking my wine and I'm I don't really drink like I used to at all. It really is a good product, but there really are some issues behind it, and there are health things that can happen if you're not on top of it. It's not something to just go on as a hobby.
SPEAKER_02:It scares me if I'm being honest. But please, yeah. Yeah, I I'm We're nothing but honest. That is true. With each other and to our listeners. I understand where my body is and I I go through these weird periods of the city. You're not thinking about it, are you? No. Oh, I was gonna say not for you.
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, not at all. And that's why I was gonna say I was hoping you weren't going down that okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I I'll I do that. And I'd be afraid you're allergic to it.
SPEAKER_01:So I you know, the only needle I'm sticking in you is your epi pen and you have an anaphylactic shot. However, have you seen the commercials for the nasal one? I really would.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm actually really excited.
SPEAKER_01:I would love for you to get on that and take that on trail with me because I would have no problems sticking something up your nose and squirting as opposed to an epi pen.
SPEAKER_02:So just you know, I'll get on that. I need to see my doctor.
SPEAKER_01:Little PSA.
SPEAKER_02:If you're I do carry an EpiPen on the trail. I have, just so that our listeners know, I have some serious issues with food. And I've always had allergies. And then after 2020, after COVID, my allergies got exponentially worse. I cannot describe my body's reaction post-COVID. You've been in the world. I've been hospitalized. I almost died. My colon almost died. It was just some crazy times. And what I figured out with my allergist, and I was so lucky, this sounds crazy, but I was so lucky to have anaphylaxis in the allergist's office. But what we figured out is my weird body's reactions were allergic reactions to the food in the environment. And I was having such a hard time post-COVID. And I did a lot of studying and trying to figure stuff out. Anyways, my immune system is whack. And so new foods every year get on my do not eat list. And it's I don't know how to describe it, except that it's like having a chronic disease. It's exactly yeah. So it scares me that we are going to this shot and that this is the answer, and that instead of looking at the ills of our society and trying to fix our food chain system and trying to fix what is actually at play, which is a land of plenty. And then right, we have this this this uh amazing access to so much good food and so much bad food and so much wonderful food. And you look at other countries whose resources are so much less, and yet they don't have these same chronic diseases and issues. And I I'm afraid for the long-term effects of a reliance on a shot.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and what happens is all those things need to be instilled into the younger generation growing up because once you reach menopause and your chemistry starts to change, none of that matters. You need intervention because all that other stuff doesn't well, that's not true either because my sister's not using it and she's losing weight. So I, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:I I I had to get out of insulin resistance in order for my body to process calories at a normal rate. So I was only eating 1200 calories a day. I was burning 2,500 a day on top of like normal metabolic activities. When I say I was exercising every day, I was a dance teacher. Plus, I would cycle twice a week during the week. Plus, I would cycle on the weekends.
SPEAKER_01:When you say cycle, I think menstrual. I'm like, you're cycling two days a week? Like, oh no.
SPEAKER_02:I was riding my bike on these beautiful rides, but yeah, it didn't make a difference and I was starving all the time. And she said, I bet you're hungry, and at 1200 calories a day, you're going to gain weight, even though you're only eating 1200 calories a day because my my metabolic issues were just completely whack. And so getting sick, I think helped me in a lot of ways, but it also, I mean, obviously my body almost died, but it helped me realize the power of eating healthy. And it's been years, and I'm still trying to eat healthy. It is so difficult.
SPEAKER_01:It's hard for me to eat healthy, especially my husband does the grocery shopping. I am one of those lucky ladies whose husband does all the grocery shopping and the cooking, but in the same respect, he's the one that buys the food.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And he will buy ice cream.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, and I hate cooking. I buy all the food.
SPEAKER_01:I don't mind cooking, but I always my cooking always got judged. So I was like, mm, do it yourself.
SPEAKER_02:I only cook for myself. So I eat this really healthy, delicious food, but I don't enjoy it. I think if I wasn't working full-time and had a ton of horses, I guess how this all ties to horses is I had a horse that was insulin resistant, and that was awful. Baby, baby, and call her baby. I had a different name for her, but we ended up always talking about her as baby, and she was a Mustang that I adopted at two years old. Maybe she was less than two. No, I think she was two. She was two, and I had her until she was four, so I only had her a couple years, and we were at the point where I was gonna start riding her, but I always knew that there was something wrong. I always knew that there was something off, and I'm so glad that I had that sense because I think if I had pushed her, I think it would have been more painful. Right. After having looked back on the whole experience, I don't know if there is anything I ever could have done to save her from the fate she was headed towards.
SPEAKER_01:Eventually, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, I think it would have taken longer, but she got into a bag of sweet feed and she foundered. And then from there, I could not get her metabolism under control. She just would not stop the inflammation stage of laminitis. And she foundered in all four feet. And it was months and months and months of drugs and comfort and changing up her hay, trying to figure out what the best hay was for her.
SPEAKER_01:It was it was hard.
SPEAKER_02:It was so hard, and it was a journey, and it was awful. And I don't think that her body was ever going to be in line with living the way a domesticated animal lives. She was used to starvation. Her metabolism was used to starvation.
SPEAKER_01:Was built for that.
SPEAKER_02:Was built for that. Her body was beautiful. Her body was made for nature. That horse never got hawks sores. She never was bothered by flies. I never had to groom her. She was glowing. It was the weirdest thing to have this animal that was basically perfect in so many ways. I thought the way her body was structured was fantastic. I just thought you were one of the most athletics.
SPEAKER_01:And she's a devil's garden must say, right?
SPEAKER_02:Devil's Garden. And I fell in love with her on Facebook. And then you and I went and got her. She was perfect. But after that found her, I couldn't get her back.
SPEAKER_01:She was downhill.
SPEAKER_02:She had this weird way that she would always lie in shavings. She used to lie down all the time, and I would make this nest for her. And I I thought of it like a nursery. But you know, looking back, I don't know that she wasn't in pain. And that's why she was lying down all the time. Yeah. Because the Devil's Garden, if you go on the Devil's Garden Facebook page, there are horses, they have a page you can follow. A lot of them talk about how the horses nest. And if you put down shavings, that they get super psycho about it and happy. That was her gig right from the beginning. There's so much regret tied in with her foundering and her laminitis.
SPEAKER_01:I wish I could take that away from you. I know, I do. Because I don't think that you have, in my opinion, from my purview, that you have anything to regret. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't provide her with the sweet feed. She got in there.
SPEAKER_02:And it was Bob's. It was Bob's sweet feed.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it was his um his senior feed, and he was, you know, at the end of his life cycle.
SPEAKER_01:And he ate And but here's the thing: a normal, I'm not gonna say normal, a domesticated horse, say one of mine, one of them gets into sweet feed and eats half the bag.
SPEAKER_02:Bob ate the other half.
SPEAKER_01:They're probably gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Bob was fine, she wasn't. Right. Yeah, yeah. They shared it together.
SPEAKER_01:So that's but that's my point. That's why I wish I could take that burden away from you. And then and once you realized you you called the vet.
SPEAKER_02:You you had our stomach almost kind of pumped, right? Oh, we had both our stomachs pumped. We pumped hers first, and it was gnarly. It was 17 degrees out, and we were out there for three hours.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It was horrible.
SPEAKER_01:So you took every action that you should have taken.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, when she all of a sudden became laminitic and she started having issues, you you were on it. You were on it with the thyroid medicine. I remember I remember feeding for you when you had to go away and all the stuff that you did for her. I mean, you did everything, everything possible.
SPEAKER_02:So many different types of interventions we tried and nothing worked.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I couldn't get her back to normal.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:I want when I say normal, I couldn't get her back to pain-free living.
SPEAKER_01:And so I made Because when I looked at her, I thought she looked fine. And I that's just my inexperience with that sort of thing. And you kept telling me, no, feel this. You know, you could feel the um the pulses, you know, in all four feet. And oh my god.
SPEAKER_02:And they would always rage and they would rage and not rage and rage and not rage. And it was so difficult to it, and when I say difficult, I mean harrowing. It was a harrowing experience. There wasn't any one thing that ever lasted long enough. There was this one day when it was her last day of meds, and she was on some NSAIDs. It worked for whatever reason. This one day she felt fantastic and she was galloping and playful. And I just thought, that's my horse. That's the horse I remember. That's the horse that I fell in love with. And the next day she was not herself. And I knew this is never gonna get better. No matter what I do, there's always gonna be this pain factor. And I didn't think that I could tell the difference between her being super okay and her being in pain because she was always in pain. There was never gonna be a day when I could work her and feel comfortable. And so I called it and I let her eat alfalfa that morning. She was so skinny at that point because we were trying to cut back on our feed. So she was so happy. She was so skinny, and we put her down, and it was not something that I took lightly. I oh, I'm gonna cry again. As an equestrian, this was like the worst, this isn't every equestrian's nightmare. Yeah is they get into the sweet feed. And in 40 years, I'd never had a horse get into the sweet feed. And you hear about these horror stories when I was a teenager growing up of all these different animals that had done this. And back then we knew less about laminitis than we do now. So my nightmare happened, and then I had to let her go because I wasn't gonna watch her be just okay for her whole life and then go through periods of laminitis and foundry. I'm not gonna do that to her her whole life. She was only four. Right. Imagine like a lifetime of pain. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Like that's like 12 more years, you know, if she lived to 26, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, thanks.
SPEAKER_01:Or 16. My math is off.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. But a couple months later, my friend called me from SoCal, and she was going through the same exact thing. Her horse, however, was laminitic from cushions, and he'd been diagnosed crazily. He was diagnosed as a seven-year-old with cushions within a month of my horse being diagnosed with cushions. But my horse was a late teen. He was 17 when he was diagnosed. So as a seven-year-old, it was really weird to get that diagnosis. And then a few years had gone by, and at this stage, he was 14. And so she had to call it. And call it, I mean put him down. She reached out to me, and then we had a conversation, and I said, Is he ever gonna not be in pain? And she said, No. And I said, Well, then you have to figure it out. You know, how do you want to move forward? How do you want your horse to live? What's the quality of life? And I watched her videos, and I felt like I was watching me going through my saga with baby, and she decided to let him go.
SPEAKER_01:You both made the right decision.
SPEAKER_02:There was nothing we could do. No, and we had a conversation about how the doctor was actually thinking of putting her horse on a zimpic. And so then she said to me, you know, it's not labeled for equine use, but it was a risk, but they were gonna try it because they had no idea what else to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it's expensive, it's expensive.
SPEAKER_02:And she said to me, I can't afford it for myself, and here I am gonna put my horse on it once a month. Is that realistic? And I was like, you know what? There comes a time, and it's such a difficult decision.
SPEAKER_01:It is. Well, that's just horses in general. I mean, at what point do you look at your pocketbook? I mean, really, can you afford what it's gonna take?
SPEAKER_02:So you gotta do the right thing. And it's hard. It's so hard that we are bound by a pocketbook, but we are. We are paying a pocketbook.
SPEAKER_01:On that lovely note.
unknown:Sad note.
SPEAKER_01:So I guess the moral of this episode is what?
SPEAKER_02:For you. What's the moral for you?
SPEAKER_01:The moral for me is be healthy. I'm sick of worrying about a number. I'm really not caring about what the number is. I'm currently at 161. I have lost uh 20 pounds. When I started, I was about 100 and oh, okay, my math is off again. I was probably 170, so I've lost 10. About 10 pounds, not 20. Wishful thinking. Uh, but I don't want to worry about that. I want to fit into my clothes. I want to be a good weight from my horse. I don't want to worry about a number. And yes, I am using a compound of semaglide, air quote zozempic, to help keep my weight in check. I just feel like that's the best route for me.
SPEAKER_02:That's your health decision.
SPEAKER_01:It's my health decision. And one day, and one day I probably will stop. And I'm gonna have to realize that I could gain the weight back. And I have to figure out how do I not gain the weight back. And I don't know when that's gonna be. It's just an ever-changing journey. So, whatever journey you guys are on out there, you know, just be authentic to yourself and be on your journey and don't worry about what other people say. Don't worry about, you know, the articles in the you read online that say, Oh, you're gonna get the isempic neck. You know what? You were gonna get the neck anyway. So just don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_02:Rock on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just rock it up. Just rock it. Yeah, rock the neck.
SPEAKER_02:I think the moral for me is to be continuously thankful. Oh my crayon. To be continuously thankful for the the health that I do have. Yes. Because I'm scared that if I get skinny, that I'm gonna have another hospital visit where I lose 30 pounds and I won't have anything left. Right. I won't have any reserves. And I know part of what got me through a couple years ago was I did have 30 pounds to lose. And when I lost it, I I felt my body eating itself, literally consuming itself. And I was so thankful that I had that reserve. Yeah. And now I'm worried about what if I don't? And this happens again. And it could happen at any moment, literally, with all of my allergies. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So which worries me every time I don't hear from you. You're so confident. That's why, because I texted you this today and I said, Are you ready for me? And I didn't hear anything. And I was like, screw it, I'm just gonna go everywhere.
SPEAKER_02:She might be sick. She might be dead. Yeah. But I think the moral of the story for me is to do what I've been doing, which is enjoy my physicality at this stage of my life. Yeah. And to know that the physicality I have now is still very capable. Yeah. And it's not the physicality of my 20-year-old body.
SPEAKER_01:No, and who cares? The 20-year-old is gone. No, I loved her though.
SPEAKER_02:We had so much fun together. I know. But I'm gonna keep enjoying the level of movement that I have and be thankful for it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna be sorry for or shamed. No. Or, you know, the way that we feel so much shame over our own bodies.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I fucking hate that. I'm never gonna feel that way about my own body because she does what I ask her to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm thankful for what she can do.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. That's beautiful. Thank you. That's beautiful. Thank you. Well, toodles, everybody, and have a wonderful week. And we'll talk to you again. Yep. Toodles. Toodles.
SPEAKER_02:Hey friends. That's the end of today's ride. We hope you enjoyed listening. Don't forget to follow Saddle Talk with Sandy and Kara wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave us a review, share us with a friend, and saddle up with us next time as we ride through more stories, questions, and our wild tangents. Till then, friends, keep your boots dusty and your hard hats on. We hope to see you out on the trail.
SPEAKER_00:Danny and Kara stirrups swinging free. Talking about life and love and mystery. From coyotes to coffee, they'll cover it all with the sagebrush blowing and the wild birds call soast and shut up your boots. We're hitting the track, saddletalks on, and we're not looking back.