‘Why I Stopped Using Zepbound After Weight Loss’Hearst Property
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My relationship with food has never been healthy. I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life, but my recent weight loss journey started after my second son was born in 2018.
I’ve dealt with it depressive disorder and postpartum depression since birth. In 2019, about a year later, I sought help. Over the course of two years, I was prescribed a variety of different medications for depression, such as Zoloft, Celexa, and Cymbalta, until I decided to take Cymbalta, which worked well for me. Many of the antidepressants I’ve been prescribed have potential side effect of weight gain.
At the end of 2021, I stepped on the scale and was the same weight as when I was nine months pregnant with my youngest – and it didn’t feel right. At the time, I attributed my weight gain to the antidepressants, but I continued to see my weight gain. So in November 2021 I started Weight Watchers.
Over the course of eighteen months, I devoted all my time and energy to participating in the WW program and lost 65 pounds. I connected with other WW members online and shared recipes and nutrition information on my Instagram and TikTok accounts. Everything was fine until something happened in my personal life that sent me back to my old ways emotional eating and binge eating. Binge eating is a condition in which a large amount of food is eaten in a short period of time while feeling out of control, usually once a week, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
My mental and physical health are so closely intertwined that when one succeeds, the other succeeds – and when one fails, the other fails.
Between February and December 2023 I fought my brain every day.
I was going through an emotional time in my personal life, and food was my coping mechanism. I was obsessed with food. When I had a WW plan, I thought about all the things I wanted to eat. If I didn’t diet, I would feel guilty. I had previously lost 65 pounds on WW, so why couldn’t I do the same now?
I thought about food all the time. But I’ve learned that I’m not the only one experiencing these thoughts. “Food noise” is a colloquial term for constant and persistent thoughts about food and eating that are difficult to suppress, according to a 2023 narrative review in the magazine Nutrients. It can also seem like your life constantly revolves around food, the review shows. This is exactly what happened to me.
When I lost weight during WW, I dedicated all my time to the program and was successful. When life got hard, the food noise returned.
By the end of 2023, I had gained 37 pounds.
So my doctor and I decided to try it Zepbound (tirzepatide), an injection for weight loss and weight management, in addition to WeightWatchers.
I had previously done some research on how weight loss medications like Zepbound can help reduce “quiet” food noise. This caught my attention and sparked my initial interest in taking it. And while mental health wasn’t the main reason I started taking Zepbound, mine improved so dramatically that after consulting with my psychiatrist, I was eventually able to lower my dose of the antidepressant.
At the time, WW also had the WeightWatchers Clinican online program that connects you with doctors and care coordinators to help you customize your weight-loss plan and prescribe weight-loss medications. I chose to try the WeightWatchers Clinic because I was already satisfied and comfortable with the WeightWatchers experience, so it made the most sense to explore this option through them.
I got my prescription for Zepbound through the WeightWatchers Clinic and I started with the 2.5 mg loading dose of Zepbound. I stayed at that dose for about a month to make sure my body didn’t experience any negative side effects like nausea or vomiting. While taking the medication that first month, I communicated via chat with my WW care coordinator and doctor to report any concerns or side effects. Once we knew I wasn’t experiencing any negative side effects from Zepbound, my doctor increased my dose to 5 mg and eventually to 7.5 mg for about a month.
In the beginning, as my body was adjusting to the medications, I experienced mild constipation that corrected itself after a few weeks. But overall I was lucky and had very minimal side effects. On the days I did my injection, I noticed that I wasn’t that interested in eating food. (But I still ate, because it’s not healthy to starve yourself!).
At that time my diet also changed. WeightWatchers introduced them GLP-1 programwhich connects you with a doctor to determine your best medical options for weight loss, including GLP-1 drugs. Instead of tracking points (the traditional WW program uses a points system to help you track foods and encourage healthy choices), the GLP-1 plan had me aim for certain target amounts of protein, water, fruit, and vegetables for that day. An important part of being on Zepbound was making sure I got enough protein you are susceptible to lose muscle mass when taking GLP-1 medications, and eating enough protein can help. The tracker helped me understand how much protein I was getting in my diet and whether or not I was on track toward my long-term weight loss goals.
I lost 22 pounds on Zepbound from mid-December to the end of March.
The mental health changes I experienced during my weight loss journey meant so much more to me than losing weight. For me, the weight loss was just an added bonus.
Zepbound did more noticeable things for my mental health than any SSRI I’ve ever taken. (GLP-1’s including Zepbound have been studied to reduce the risk of depression and anxiety.) For the first time in my life, my brain was silent. I didn’t realize how much mental space was taken up by food noise until it was gone.
“GLP-1 drugs affect all the neurotransmitters in the brain associated with mental health: norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine,” says Sue DecotisMD, a weight-loss doctor based in New York City. “When they are low, it causes depression and anxiety. GLP-1s increase the production and function of these neurotransmitters.” That said, none of these medications are FDA-approved for mental health, she says.
In addition to the changes in my mental health, I realized that the food noise I had previously struggled with had disappeared. I could eat a portion of cake, be satisfied and move on with my day. I could have leftover dessert on the counter and not be fixated on it. I was able to do so much more with the space my brain now had – I even took on several puzzles and projects that I didn’t have the energy for before. This was so incredibly liberating.
But in 2024, after four months of Zepbound, I was forced to quit.
The main reason I decided to move away from Zepbound was the cost. I had been paying $550 a month out of pocket with a savings card, and my insurance refused to cover it. I figured if I talked to my insurance company and went through the proper channels, I could eventually get coverage. I begged them and explained that this drug was beneficial for my mental health, but they didn’t budge. The rule for my insurance company was that these medications would only be covered for patients with diabetes – and because I didn’t have a BMI over 30 and didn’t have diabetes, I didn’t qualify.
Because insurance did not cover the medications, I had to pay for the medications out of pocket. My cost for Zepbound is $1,100 per month, and even with a savings card from the pharmaceutical company, this only dropped to $550 per month. At first I decided I was still going to try to stick with it no matter what the damn cost.
Unfortunately, the cost was not feasible for me to maintain in the long term. Six thousand dollars or more a year is a lot. I kept thinking about what I could use that money for, like my kids, vacations, and bills. I couldn’t get myself into debt.
Another major problem at that time was the shortage of medicines. It was difficult to get the doses I needed, and going to the pharmacy to sort things out made me anxious. (My doctor was going to send the prescription, but I was lucky if I could actually get it.)
Due to the high costs, I stopped taking the medications cold turkey.
I had no adverse physical side effects after quitting, but the food noise returned immediately.
When I came off Zepbound in March 2024, I did so with a plan in mind. I learned through the WeightWatchers Clinic that some oral medications, such as Opposite (a combination of Bupropion and Naltrexone), may help with certain aspects of addictive behavior and cravings. When the food noise returned, I figured I had nothing to lose by giving Contrave a try. It was easily accessible, covered by my insurance, and relatively inexpensive. I also had an appointment with a dietician to discuss where I was, where I wanted to go and how I could get there. We decided that going back to the WeightWatchers behavior plan was the best route for me. It was something I felt comfortable with and had already had success with from 2021-2023.
I’ve been on Contrave ever since and use the WeightWatchers points plan to keep track. I lost more weight: 55 pounds total. Now I have to be very conscious of what I eat and make sure I keep track of what I consume. And while I believe Contrave helps with some of my cravings, it is not nearly as helpful as the Zepbound.
I also have a food diary in the notes app on my phone. This forces me to stop and think about what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t my choice to leave Zepbound. I was completely priced out of a drug that literally changed my life. Sometimes I get frustrated knowing how hard I have to work to stick to a WW eating plan and control my binge eating, knowing that Zepbound has made it much easier for me to simply coexist with food.
There is so much stigma surrounding weight loss medications that when I decided to use Zepbound, I was nervous about telling family, friends, and even the WW community because I was afraid of being judged. If someone is depressed, you can tell them to see a doctor or get some medicine. Why is this different?
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