Just Me Being Me: Going Beyond the Point of No Return and Forgetting Ozempic
I hit 150 lb and my life seemed to change overnight. People were nicer and paid me more attention. It felt like I belonged, like I was finally the correct size and shape for this cruel world.
Just Me Being Me is literally just me being me, living my life outside my comfort zone when it happens as it happens. Since I’m a dedicated introvert, this doesn’t happen much, which makes it doubly interesting when it does.
Last Friday—well, Friday the 17th, as I'm publishing this on the 26th—I realized that I forgot to take Ozempic the week before. I'd never forgotten, and for a moment, I panicked. It was also right before the week I started walking and tracking my calories again. Did I ruin the effects of these good habits with my bad memory?
Of course not. Everything was fine, I was okay, and I could just resume taking Ozempic that Friday. That's a classic example of childhood trauma possibly ruining your mood for the whole day. I felt like the world ended when I realized I made a mistake, but it didn't—and the situation was easily fixable. My inner child thought she ruined everything.
Why Goal Weights Can Be Tricky
In the Philippines, we use pounds to track how heavy we are, rather than kilograms. For most of my life—before 2025—150 lb was my goal weight, and I only hit it once. It was back in 2005, right before Raf and I started dating. I didn't know it back then, but I was severely depressed and feeling more than a little out of place everywhere I went.
I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) after an episode of extreme bleeding that landed me in the emergency room (ER). The doctor prescribed Metformin but also strongly recommended that I lose weight, picking 150 lb as a goal seemingly from out of nowhere. After much research, I now know that the number corresponds to the weight I would need to be in order to move from obese to overweight using the BMI (body mass index) calculation.
Because the situation seemed easier to fix than my mental health, I hyperfocused and developed bad habits to hit that target. I told my family that I would eat at school, my classmates that I would eat with my friends, my friends that I would eat at home. In reality, I ate one can of tuna daily, if at all. I walked everywhere, memorizing the streets of Cubao and Diliman, even when it was blazing hot or raining. I would get massive headaches in class that I'd chase away with coffee and painkillers.
I hit 150 lb and my life seemed to change overnight. People were nicer and paid me more attention. It felt like I belonged, like I was finally the correct size and shape for the cruel world I was born into. My doctor praised me, and my mother said we didn't need to go back to the doctor's office after that. But I still felt sick—in the head. I couldn't get over how much my life changed because of a few pounds I lost. Because only I knew what those pounds had cost me, I couldn't talk to anyone about how I was feeling.
Raf came along and I think he slowly started to realize I had many bad habits connected to losing weight. While his love played—and continues to play—a big part in the improvement of my mental health, that also meant the eventual breaking of those bad habits. I think I was about 170 lb when we got married, and more than 180 lb right before we moved to the United States.
When I started working out here in Vegas, I set 150 lb as my goal weight because it had worked before—even though I'd forgotten all about PCOS and wasn't relying on bad habits at that time. Eventually, I'd be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and my PCOS would also be uncovered again. I got put back on Metformin and prescribed Ozempic, which changed my life.
The doctor that diagnosed my diabetes set my goal weight at 120 lb, probably because that's what it would take for me to be at a normal weight according to BMI. But I couldn't even get past 150 lb, even after more than a year on Ozempic.
How Ozempic Helps You Lose Weight
I'm not going to claim that I'm an expert on this topic, not am I going to pretend to be a medical professional. You can get medical information elsewhere—these thoughts are just from my own experience with the drug.
Of course, I was hesitant. At the time I was prescribed Ozempic, it had just become a hot topic in the news. People kept on speculating which celebrities were taking Ozempic to lose weight, and its medical purpose wasn't clearly defined in the numerous social media posts that mentioned it. But after taking the time to research, I found that it was actually developed for people struggling with diabetes, so I gave it a shot—or, I gave myself the shots. Actually, I did in the beginning, but soon asked Raf to do it for me.
Why did I slowly develop a dread of injecting myself with the drug? In the beginning, it caused me to vomit a lot. I was new to my diagnosis, and was still adjusting to my new diet and new medications. Any time I ate anything that wasn't typical, I had to be prepared for a possible vomit session. And those came without warning! I've had mishaps at home and in hotel rooms because I couldn't get to the bathroom in time. While Ozempic also gave me headaches, those definitely weren't as troublesome as the extreme nausea.
After adjusting my diet and lifestyle to fit my diagnosis, the vomiting tapered off. The problem with taking Ozempic in the long term is that you never know if you should eat or not, because you never feel hungry—ever.
Breezing Past 150 Pounds
At my last check-up, my doctor commented on the fact that I'd plateaued weight-wise just above 150 lb. She mentioned that not losing weight on Ozempic is a waste of the drug, and that I should just not eat if I wasn't hungry. She also reminded me that I would still be overweight according to the BMI calculation, even if I hit 150 lb. I mentioned offhand that I thought maybe trauma from my past was blocking me from hitting 150 lb, but then quieted down when I realized that I was talking to my doctor and not my therapist.
Because I was embarrassed at my doctor's office, I decided to focus on walking and tracking calories daily again. But I also forgot to take Ozempic last Friday the 17th. Did it make a difference? Honestly, I hardly felt the absence of it. And at the end of my first week of starting on these good habits again, I weighed myself and found that I was 145.5 lb.
That weekend, I was in my head a lot. It's been months and months of me prolonging this goodbye to my old self—the one who grew up with my Dad, the one who grew to love Raf, the one who couldn't make it as a musician, the one who survived Manila, the one who experienced moving to Las Vegas—and this was the last straw. There's no going back after breezing past my old goal weight. I'm a totally different person now.
"Hello, I'm Miao. How Are You?"
Whoever I am now, I'm still me. I just have to get used to this face, this body, this reality. Grief and loss can be overwhelming, but they're no longer everything. At the end of the day, I'm still here. I get to live in this new reality and continue growing in it. I owe myself that much.
I realized that there was no need to say goodbye to the old me. I've always been Miao—even when I was called other names—and have always been in a constant state of becoming. So, who is Miao? She loves music but struggles with songwriting; she has struggled with mental health for most of her life; she enjoys walking outside more than exercising indoors; she finds joy in writing even though it can be an arduous process; she loves her husband and dog more than anything in the world; she has big dreams but is content with small victories. And most importantly, she's always been just Miao—no matter what weight or state of mind she's in.
Don't be afraid to go beyond the point of no return. Embrace change and growth. Find your true self and love them unconditionally. Because at the end of it all, you are all you've got—and that is more than enough.
Photo by Beatrice Mata
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