This article isn’t about weight loss tips, quick fixes, or before-and-after photos. It’s about a question almost no one seems willing to ask, but one I think about often: are GLP-1 medications only weight loss drugs, or are they also metabolic correctors? What are the actual GLP-1s metabolic effects?
For the past year, I’ve been on Mounjaro for insulin resistance and obesity. I’m on maintenance now, but during that year I lost 44 pounds (20 kg). That fact alone makes many people think they already know my story, but the truth is, they don’t.
For generations, we’ve been taught to think about weight in the simplest possible terms: eat less, move more, try harder. If the weight goes up, the assumption is that something went wrong with your behavior. But what if that assumption is wrong?
Read more: The Guilt of Getting Better on GLP‑1s
What if weight gain isn’t the problem, but a symptom? What if the real issue is a disrupted metabolic system, shaped by hormones, brain signaling, stress, and years of accumulated damage? And what if GLP-1 medications don’t simply “cause” weight loss, but correct the conditions that made weight gain almost inevitable in the first place?
Every day, I see GLP-1 medications reduced to “weight loss drugs,” often so people can judge those who take them. “If you just ate less and moved more, you wouldn’t need that shot.” “Just have some willpower.” “Nobody wants to take responsibility anymore; everyone wants the shortcut.”
It’s the same tired tune, usually sung by people who’ve never lived in a body with hormonal chaos, insulin resistance, or a metabolism that stopped responding to all the usual advice.
Let me be clear: I’m not a doctor, but I am a patient who lived for years in a healthy, responsive body. I gained a few pounds and was perfectly capable of losing them with diet and exercise. Then came perimenopause, insulin resistance, hormonal changes, and a metabolism that no longer played by the old rules.
For years, I went from one nutritionist to another, from one doctor to another, only to be told to eat less, move more, cut carbs, or simply accept what comes with age. None of that worked anymore. I was struggling with dieting, starving myself, and then ending up eating more because I was constantly hungry. I developed severe perimenopause musculoskeletal syndrome and other debilitating symptoms from a lack of estrogen. I became prediabetic and struggled with obesity.
When I started the medication, I had no expectations, because I had tried everything before. Still, to my surprise, after a year on this medication, my lab results told a different story. My insulin resistance improved, my insulin and blood sugar levels came down, and my cholesterol improved.
So I stand by this statement: in my case, weight gain was driven by metabolic disruption. GLP-1 medications acted as metabolic correctors. Weight loss was a result, not the goal.
When you address metabolic dysfunction, weight loss often follows. If the medication is stopped and nothing else in the system has fundamentally changed, the weight can, and often does, return. This isn’t a personal failure. It’s proof of how powerful and stubborn the body’s metabolic systems can be.
Think about how many times you’ve tried to lose weight over your lifetime. You diet, you exercise, you lose a few pounds, then life happens. You stop. And the weight comes back, often faster than before. The core problem was never resolved.
Read more: How Mounjaro Changed The Way I See Food
In this article, I want to explain why I believe this, not to convince anyone to take medication, but to challenge the way we talk about these treatments and the people who use them. If we keep framing GLP-1s as shortcuts or cosmetic tools, we miss what they actually do. Worse, we keep blaming people for a problem that was never about willpower to begin with.
What Are GLP-1 Medications, Really?
GLP-1 medications like Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy, and others belong to a class of drugs originally developed for type 2 diabetes. They mimic a hormone the body already makes, one that helps regulate blood sugar and appetite. But their effects go far beyond appetite.
These medications work primarily in the brain and influence the systems that regulate hunger, cravings, and our response to food-related stress. Rather than simply suppressing appetite, they help restore balance to signals that, for many people, have been misfiring for years.
When metabolism is disrupted, hunger doesn’t behave normally. Cravings can feel relentless. The urge to eat doesn’t shut off after a meal, especially during stress, fatigue, or hormonal shifts. GLP-1 medications help quiet that constant “food noise.” They allow the brain to properly receive fullness and satisfaction signals again. It’s not like flipping hunger off; it’s more like tuning a radio that’s been stuck in static for years.
Read more: Food Noise or Hunger? How to Tell the Difference
For people with insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, or decades of dieting, this can feel life-changing, not because of discipline, but because the system finally works the way it’s supposed to.
Metabolic Syndrome, Hormones, and Midlife Reality
Here’s what many people miss. Most people taking GLP-1s aren’t lazy or clueless about nutrition. They often have more willpower than most and have already tried everything. But there is insulin resistance, prediabetes, visceral fat, or a long history of blood sugar instability in the background.
And then there’s menopause. When estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone shift or decline, metabolism changes dramatically. Fat redistributes, cravings intensify, and energy drops. The old rules stop applying. This is no longer just about calories in and calories out. It’s about a metabolic system and a brain shaped by years of stress, hormonal change, and diet culture misinformation.
Read more: Hormone Therapy and Mounjaro: Finding Balance in Midlife
Why “Willpower” Is a Lazy Diagnosis
When the brain becomes insulin-resistant, it doesn’t receive clear “I’m full” signals. The reward system gets louder, cravings feel urgent rather than optional, and biology overrides intention. You can’t out-stubborn that.
GLP-1 medications don’t make people “better.” They give the brain a fair shot at hearing what the body has been trying to say all along.
Metabolic Healing Isn’t a Straight Line - My Real Story
When I started taking a GLP-1 medication, my blood sugar and insulin resistance improved quickly. It felt like my body was finally listening after years of ignoring every diet and lifestyle change. My appetite calmed, the urge to eat constantly faded, and for the first time in a long while, I had real hope that my metabolism was finally getting a break.
But after those first few months, things got confusing. Even though I was about 30 pounds lighter, my labs started going in the wrong direction. My cholesterol climbed again. My insulin and blood sugar were suddenly very high. On paper, it looked like I was getting worse, not better.
What I learned is that this isn’t rare. When you lose weight, especially after years of metabolic dysregulation, the body can push back. Hormones shift, appetite signals change, and the liver can dump extra glucose and cholesterol into the bloodstream. It’s not punishment and it’s not failure; it’s the body trying to defend an old metabolic set point, even when that set point was unhealthy to begin with.
In other words, weight loss doesn’t automatically mean metabolic healing. Sometimes the body resists before it recalibrates.
I was frustrated. I was doing everything “right” and watching my numbers get worse. Progress was anything but linear. Still, I kept going, continued treatment, and waited it out. Eventually, things shifted again. My weight stabilized, my labs began to improve, my blood sugar normalized, and my insulin resistance finally started to ease. My metabolism found a new rhythm.
For me, real metabolic healing has been a bumpy process, with plenty of setbacks and surprises. It hasn’t followed a straight path, and it definitely hasn’t been instant. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that improvement can come after setbacks, if you stick with it long enough to let your body find its balance.
Why “Just Weight Loss Drugs” Misses the Point
Calling GLP-1s “weight loss drugs” misses what they actually do. They correct faulty signaling between the brain and the body. That’s why they’re being studied for addiction, mood disorders, and neurodegenerative disease. When signaling improves, the whole system responds.
After losing 44 pounds without starving and while supporting my biology, I have little patience left for willpower lectures. If you’re struggling, you’re not broken or lazy. You’re dealing with a complex biological system that doesn’t respond to shame.
GLP-1s aren’t shortcuts or the easy way out. They’re tools. And they deserve to be called what they also are: metabolic correctors.
More interesting reads
- Can You Be on Mounjaro Forever?
- What People Ask About Mounjaro (and My Real Answers)
- Why I Started Mounjaro and What I Wish I Knew First
- New Year’s Diet Resolutions Are Designed To Fail
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