r/GLP1_BeforeAfter

Where do I begin? About a month ago I started to notice that I had some lines that are almost abs. I’ve never in my entire life, had anything even remotely similarly close to abs. I had someone at a family gathering say “[my name] isn’t even a big or strong man” and it really took me by surprise. I now know people in my life who never knew me when I was at my heaviest. The strangest thing, how the world treats you when you’re thin. I wouldn’t say that I am treated tremendously different, but people stop commenting on my Eatin when I’m eating around them. They no longer say “should you really be having that?”, or “I see you really enjoy those [insert sugary sweet we are all eating]”. I don’t get weird comments from partners families about suggested ways to lose weight. I wish more people kept thoughts like that to themselves. I’m still the same human, I just look different now!

If you can.. get active y’all.

I promise, I understand the excuses we give ourselves.

I’m too tired. I don’t feel good. Bad day. No time.

Take your pick of excuse. I’ve been there. I used to have horrible knee, shoulder, and feet pain. Purely from being too heavy for my frame. It prevented me from doing anything. But you have to simply start.

Pain. Pain is the thing we try to never experience in life and our bodies. We don’t want pains of hunger. Pains of body.

Pain is temporary. Pain lessens as you build your strength.

GLP1s are amazing. But they are not liquid accountability.

They also will cause you to lose muscle mass from reduced caloric intake. So it’s really important to do heavy lifts and resistance training. GIVE YOUR MUSCLES A REASON TO EXIST.

There is always something you can do! You don’t need a gym. You don’t need to do anything other than SOMETHING.

It’s small consistent steps with big results. You got this. You reading… YOU got this.

Felt like I didn't look much different from starting a year ago and decided to take some after pictures definitely changed my mind. 20 year old 5'3 265lb to 190lb. 50 more pounds to my goal weight.

I started on zepbound 7/2/25. I weighed 267. Today I woke up to 162.8. I feel and look better at 50 than I did at 30 ❤️

SW:267
CW:209
GW:175
What an amazing difference! ALWAYS TAKE THE PICTURES!

Week 4 weight loss progress is good.

My SW was 260 and my GW was 205. As of this morning I am 203... I met with my pharmacist last week (we do monthly check ins) and I told her I was ready to start maintenance. She ordered me 6 months of my current dose (1.7) and transitioned me to care with my PCM. The pharmacist was very detailed in my plan, and rate of increase for medication, and I'm afraid my PCM will not be as well versed on it, but I don't see him until January. Will my body naturally settle into a good weight? At 200 I start to look too skinny, and my fear was always looking sick like some do when they are on GLP-1s. I get my healthcare and medication through the VA.

For reference, the ideal weight for me is 136-184 according to the BMI charts. My BF% has went from 29% to 19%.

After bouncing back and forth between 170lb-173lb for about a month and a half, and this morning, I weighed in at 168!! In celebration, I’m reminiscing on a gym selfie a year ago and yesterday 😁💪🏾 Feeling proud and grateful to spread my cheer in the community 🫶🏾

Was very scared to start this journey but sure am glad I did I was in denial on how big I had gotten I hurt my leg and ballooned up to 284 from 240 in three months always been on the heavier said but I’m finally under 200 something I thought I’d never see in my life almost to goal now debating to quit cold turkey or do a maintenance dosage any thoughts on or advice from anyone who has gotten to their goal weight

After 41 months on Tirzepatide and 16 months on Naltrexone/Bupropion (meds in Contrave) I have officially reached goal. I've lost 141.1 lbs or 48.79% of my body weight. My goal was to get below 30% body fat which seems to put me around 149 lbs. My scale has me between 29-31% most days. Now I start the process of finding a medication routine for maintenance. I currently take 16 mg of compounded Tirzepatide, 12.5 mg Naltrexone, and 100 mg Bupropion. My PCP recommended trying to take Naltrexone/Bupropion every other day. In the first 2 weeks of trying that I went up about 4 lbs. Can't say for sure it was because of that but it made me nervous and I went back to daily 😬. I'll have to try again though.

The first collage is me at my heaviest, about 289 lbs wearing a size 24 and me now at 149 lbs wearing a size 8.

The second collage is me in 2006 trying on a top at H&M that I really wanted but I didn't buy. I was a broke college kid and how much could I really wear a sheer shirt. I bought the dang shirt on eBay recently in a size 6 (EU 36). Still don't know where I'll wear it 😆 but I have grown up money now.

Note added: I am not planning on going off medication all together especially Tirzepatide. I just need to find a dose where I stop losing.

Edited to add stats since they aren't in my name: 39F | 5'7" | HW: 289.2 | SW: 287.2 | CW: 148.1 | 16 mg

A1C was at an 8.6 at its highest, currently down to 5.5!

This medication along with proper diet and exercise, and education have saved my life.

Goal weight: 160ish.

Started this journey at 205lbs on Mother’s Day in 2023. I was overweight, I was tired all the time, and I was an alcoholic with a seriously bad habit of drinking a bottle of wine a night. I took my first shot and my last drink on May 12th, 2023 and I have not looked back. I’m a better mother, I like to run, I love clothes, I started wearing crop tops!

SW: 205lb, size XL, 14-16
CW: 110lbs, size XS, 00
GW: 110lbs 🙌🏻
Current Telehealth- Rift (best experience ever!)

I lost 93 pounds, but what’s more important is I gained sobriety! 3 years and counting!

40M. I’ve been losing slowly over the past 2 years. Started August 16, 2024 at 370 now 263. Kept my muscle mass (in fact gained 2 pounds of muscle) and so far has been great for me. It’s allowed me to make a lot of healthier choices and over time has helped me change my relationship to food. Not a magic pill though, still have to work for it and mind what you eat. Specifically for me compared to the beginning: eat more, more often and healthier. Drinking lots of water as well. Best decision I ever made.

8 months on tirzepatide. Current dose is 6.0 MG. Current weight 198.

TW: mentions of disordered eating

I was overweight for most of my adult life. Growing up in the 2000s where skinny was chic I always thought I was fat and resented my body. Looking back, I may have been overweight but I was always fit and active, and the way I carried it was fine: my waist to hip ratio was healthy. Gosh I wish I had appreciated what I had when I had it.

When COVID hit and everything was insane. Having nothing else to do I locked into fitness and got under 140lbs for the first time in my adult life. Unfortunately I achieved this with an extremely restrictive diet, intermittent fasting / fasted cardio, and daily gym sessions. I was happier with my body but was absolutely miserable sustaining it.

So of course as soon as I injured my knee (couldn't run anymore) and started eating more, I began to balloon. I always told myself that tomorrow I would go back to that diet so it was okay to eat extra tonight. My ADHD meds reduced my appetite during the day so I wouldn't eat anything and call that a win, then become so ravenous in the evenings I absolutely gorged myself. The food I was eating wasn't actually unhealthy, I just started eating a crazy amount of it. I started my PhD studies and grad school drinking culture and stress made things SO much worse.

I still feel so much shame for this period of time in my life. As I started gaining weight I kept telling myself I'd just lose it the way I had before once I finished XYZ in the fridge so it wouldn't tempt me. But as I started seeing the scale go up, my mental health got worse and I didn't have any willpower to follow through with my plans. The only way I knew to lose weight wasn't healthy or sustainable, so I kept failing. It's incredible how quickly it spiralled: over two years I gained 60lbs. I suspect once I got around 160lbs I developed sleep apnea which made the problems even worse (I know this because I got tested in 2025 when I was 160lbs again and it came back mild so I can only assume it was much worse over that body fat %). For a brief period I locked in again and lost some of the weight but for some reason I went back to my old ways. To make things worse, my metabolism was working against me. I was diagnosed with PCOS at 14 but the obvious symptoms (facial hair growth, acne) had been stable on my birth control since my diagnosis. I told my doctor my concerns about weight gain and asked about GLP-1s but it wasn't until I passed 200lbs that he referred me to a medical weight loss clinic. (I have a new physician now who takes my concerns seriously which has been huge.)

At the clinic I was offered group doctors appointments which were basically weekly courses in the science of obesity, nutrition, and mental health. It named a lot of my struggles and helped me acknowledge the fact that I was indeed fat phobic. Now this is NOT for everyone but I learned that recent studies showed that it's not true that weight loss has to be slow in order to be sustainable, and was prescribed a meal replacement diet as well as Rybelsus. For the next three years I locked in for 2-3 months at a time in a concerted effort to lose weight. Finally with the food noise gone I was able to eat less than my TDEE. Turns out you can have insulin resistance without having diabetes, and getting treatment for it can be life-changing. Now I want to take a moment to apologize to the fat community for thinking weight management was a simple matter of self control. No, it's incredibly difficult to fight for your health when your biology is sabotaging you at every turn. I hate that I had to experience it personally in order to learn that lesson instead of just believing fat people, but it's absolutely true, and I'm so sorry.

The photos are of me at my heaviest (213lbs in August 2023), at 183lbs in November 2024, and finally today at 143 lbs. I found a list I made in 2023 of all the reasons I wanted to lose weight, and wow it's so sad to think back to how miserable I was. I had stopped doing all the sports and activities I loved, and actively avoided taking photos of myself for years. I genuinely had a hard time finding this "before" photo because I didn't want any record of how far I'd fallen. Looking at it now I don't even recognize myself.

I've been off GLP-1s for several months now but importantly I've been taking metformin and - now that my husband and I are trying to conceive - myo-inositol. By finally treating my insulin resistance I've been able to enjoy a happy, healthy life with a normal amount of hunger. I'm trying to find meaning in this journey and learn to accept all this loose skin I never had before because I still resent myself for spiralling like this. It's hard to feel proud of myself because it never should have happened in the first place, you know?

That's why I wanted to post here. I couldn't bring myself to put these images on my social media accounts because I never want anyone who I haven't seen in person over the last few years to know how far I fell, but I also want to celebrate this new chapter and share my story in case someone could learn from it.

Now that I've reached what I believe to be a healthy, sustainable weight for myself, I'm locking into recomp and I hope to have some more progress to report in a few months. I'm so happy to have reached a healthy starting point for pregnancy and I really hope my husband and I will be successful in our efforts, as it's been a lifelong goal of ours to be parents. I hope some toning will help with the loose skin, but I also know that a pregnancy would likely have the same effect on my stomach as my obesity, so that makes it a bit easier when I look in the mirror and inevitably compare my body to how it was before. Also I found out that a breast reduction would be fully covered by my country's healthcare system (I would just have to pay a couple thousand dollars for a lift) so I have that to look forward to once I'm done with pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Anyway, life is finally looking up! I joined a volleyball team, a local run club, and I successfully hiked the West Coast Trail! Now my fitness goals are to do my first pull-up and strengthen my body for pregnancy instead of chasing a number on the scale. I hate that I had to go through all this, but for the first time in my life I finally found balance and happiness that is actually sustainable. So that's my story! Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions. :)