Ok, hopefully you are reading this before your first shot and not after. I, being a rather dumb individual, spent literally no time learning about what it’s actually like to take weight loss injections before jabbing a needle in my arm. I just wanted to be less fat as fast as possible.
Fortunately, and like most people, I tolerate semaglutide pretty well. Nevertheless, I learned a couple hard lessons I hope you can avoid.
First, if you have a wedding or a dinner or an event where eating is a central activity, you may want to wait until that is over. Why? For starters, when you first start, you will not only lack much interest in eating, but it will be hard to eat. I recommend sticking with a BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast) plus yogurt or oatmeal or other basic, easy to eat foods – not the type of food you’d order at restaurant or be served at a special event that isn’t for children.
Anyway…
During the first week, I struggled to eat 800 calories and literally would force feed myself Chobani Greek yogurts before bed. The yogurts tasted as or more delicious than they did before treatment, but my stomach, though it felt fine, felt full all the time.
Now on to booze. If you really want to drink or get drunk, hold off on your shot until you’ve satisfied that urge. I am a normal drinker and surely enjoy having a few or a handful of drinks from time to time.
But not on semaglutide. Wine, for both myself and my spouse, was a delicious way to feel nauseous. Tequila didn’t cause me nausea, but its effects were lackluster, as in, I just drank 4 skinny margaritas and I don’t feel remotely buzzed.
It turns out that, if you want to nerd out on semaglutide, you’ll find research into its (and the other GLP-1s) impact on dopamine. In a nutshell, just as semaglutide minimizes the positive dopamine burst we get when we eat, it also takes away the good feelings caused by alcohol.
As a result, not drinking becomes an easy choice, but if you want to party one last time, its best to do that before taking the first plunge.
So now that I’ve established its best not to take the shot before a wedding or a bender, let’s look at a couple other important first week avoids, the most important of which is garbage food.
As I said before and can’t say enough, it is hard to eat on GLP-1s. Really hard. And that’s a good thing. But during that first week, if you’re like me, you might find yourself wanting to comfort eat for the dopamine – which you can’t get anymore by eating – and turn to foods that got you in trouble.
For me, luckily, I immediately lost my desire for fast food, ice cream, candy etc. On day two I watched my kids eat Crumbl cookies and didn’t even try to negotiate 25% from each cookie like I normally would.
However, I will share a story from five weeks in to help shed light on foods to avoid. I had been out all day with my son and he was starving for a burger. I too had been feeling hungry and, having been “so good” for so long, thought it would be cool to get a single Shake Shack cheeseburger with no sauce. It was only 410 calories; it wasn’t going to throw off my weight.
And it didn’t. I actually lost weight the next day. But that weight loss came from sitting on the toilet for an hour after eating the burger as my stomach struggled to digest all the fat and flavor additives. It wasn’t fun and I’ve certainly avoided all fast food since then. I strongly advise doing the same thing, especially in the first week.
Now that we’ve covered what and what not to put in your body, its time to discuss what your body is going to be feeling – tired.
For both myself and my spouse – we started at the same time – energy was a big issue the first week. A large factor in this is low caloric intake. It is hard to eat and so you’re always low calorie tired. Not hangry, but low energy.
So be mindful of your schedule and if it is particularly intense a certain week or there’s an athletic event on your schedule, wait until you have a few easy days.
I’m sure I am forgetting things here, but I’m feeling confident that I have imparted some important wisdom that will hopefully save you the minor, but not fun, issues I had during my initial week of semaglutide usage.
If you haven’t gotten started with a semaglutide program yet, be sure to choose from our very small list of top companies that provide shots. Out of 20 companies reviewed, only 6 companies passed our safety and reliability based screening criteria. Find current deals and sign up via our links here to help support Weight Loss Reviewed.
