Emotional Eating Unwrapped (Sober Eating Podcast): EP 33
Maybe you have considered Ozempic, or you are already taking it, and part of you feels you are doing something wrong. Or you have watched the debate on social media and cannot tell whether to cheer the drug or distrust it.
In this episode, Alana Kessler, MS, RDN, CDN, a registered functional dietitian, steps into that debate without picking a team. She calls the drug a scientific breakthrough and still argues that the most common question about it misses the point: "I think that there's really an in between."
Takeaways
⦿ Alana does not see taking Ozempic as cheating, and she calls it a scientific breakthrough.
⦿ The more useful question is whether a drug gives you the emotional transformation needed to sustain weight loss. In her view, it does not.
⦿ Hunger and cravings are part of life, so the long-term skill is learning to stay with them and self-regulate.
⦿ Whether medication use is a concern comes down to your motivation, which only you can know.
⦿ A smaller frame is not the same as freedom with food, trust in your hunger cues, or ease after an indulgent meal.
Is taking Ozempic cheating, or is that the wrong question?
Is it cheating? Alana's answer is no, and she adds that "that isn't really the right question." The better question is whether the drug provides the emotional transformation and empowered mindset someone needs to keep weight off long term. Her answer to that one is also no.
"the emotional eating journey and the weight loss journey are two separate journeys" (Alana, 7:25)
She describes the drug as quieting hunger and parts of the craving response while you take it. That can help with a result, but those sensations return, and the skill of staying with them never got built: "there's no way to avoid feeling hunger. What you have to learn is how to be with those things and how to internally regulate."
Does using it mean you have disordered eating? Not automatically. In her view, "it all comes down to your motivation." She separates people prescribed it for a clinical reason from people who are exhausted after years of trying and want a shortcut. For the second group: "I won't say it's disordered eating, but I would say that it bypasses the root issue," meaning the emotional triggers, decision fatigue, guilt and shame underneath the eating.
Why a smaller body is not the same as feeling free
What a shortcut gives you, Alana says, is fewer pounds and a smaller frame. What it does not give you is security around food choices, connection with your hunger cues, or the ability to enjoy something indulgent, or feel overfull, without spiraling into guilt.
"When you take Ozempic just to get a result because it's been too tiring and frustrating in the past, you're bypassing the root issue" (Alana, 13:33)
From her own experience, "being skinny doesn't make you happy or more confident" unless you know how you got there and trust that those skills are yours when life gets hard. On influencers who use the drug quietly, she defends privacy and draws the line only at dishonesty: "We all are allowed to evolve and we can evolve privately and that should be okay." Her closing image: the drug "is a car and you are the driver."
Key moments in this episode
Click a time to play the video from that moment.
0:19 Setting up the debate: tool, villain or cheating?
3:30 Why "is it cheating?" is the wrong question
6:24 Hunger, cravings and the skills the drug does not build
8:04 Does taking Ozempic mean disordered eating?
11:50 How a shortcut bypasses the root issue
14:19 Why being skinny does not make you happy
21:14 The car and driver metaphor
Read the transcript
Full episode transcript
Clean verbatim transcript of this episode: filler words and false starts removed, nothing reworded. Click a time to play the video from that moment.
0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome to another new episode of Emotional Eating Unwrapped. I'm so happy you are here listening today. I'm your host, Alana Kessler, and I hope that you're doing well wherever you are and that your week is going well and that you are ready for a really good juicy episode, because today we're going to talk about Ozempic. We're going to talk about whether Ozempic is a tool, whether Ozempic is a villain. We're going to talk about is Ozempic cheating.
0:34 We're going to talk about a lot of different things about Ozempic. Does it mean that you have disordered eating? We're going to talk about how Ozempic is showing up in social media and how the judgments and opinions about Ozempic are presenting itself, because it really is a revolutionary experience what we're experiencing these days, to have a weight loss drug that is so out there. There are ambassadors for the drug, and then there are also people that are ashamed, and there is this kind of underlying confusion.
1:19 And just, I don't know, I think there's an underlying sense of should we like this drug or should we villainize this drug, and I think that there's really an in between. I think that there's a conversation around Ozempic that hasn't been necessarily had, and I want to touch on it. I want to talk a little bit about it.
Is taking Ozempic cheating?
1:53 So, as you know, weight loss to me, and overcoming emotional eating, and this whole topic of really putting effort and commitment into creating the body that you love, I find that to be really, really important. I am a big proponent of people that want to lose weight, they should prioritize that. And I also feel like weight loss, the journey of weight loss, is so much more than about your body getting smaller. There's just so much to weight loss and there's so much more to heal, because when we think about losing weight, we also have to think about how we gained the weight to begin with.
2:50 And I think that that piece of it is the piece of the conversation that is missing with Ozempic, because Ozempic is really about taking a drug and getting a result. When the question is asked, or when the elephant in the room is uncovered, which is, is Ozempic cheating in the weight loss journey, are you essentially taking a shortcut to weight loss if you take Ozempic? To me, the answer is no. I don't think that you're cheating when you take Ozempic, but I also think that that isn't really the right question.
3:41 The question of is someone who takes Ozempic taking a shortcut in cheating, that's not the right question. The right question is, does Ozempic provide the necessary emotional transformation and empowered mindset that someone needs to sustain their weight loss long term? That's the right question. And to that question, I say no. I don't think Ozempic does that.
4:13 Ozempic is a revolutionary breakthrough in science, and as a person who respects science. So, I'm a clinician. I'm a clinical dietitian. I have my master's in clinical nutrition, right? I believe in Western medicine, and I think that Ozempic is an amazing scientific breakthrough, and I do think that the drug can help change lives. But I also believe that it isn't enough. It's not enough. And this goes along with what I always say about weight loss.
4:52 Getting to your goal weight, or losing the weight you want to lose and getting to a body weight that is your goal, is not enough. You have to have more than that, right? You have to have the emotional transformation. You have to have the empowered mindset. And with Ozempic, I definitely don't believe that that's enough. And in the worst case scenario, what happens with Ozempic is that your life holistically can actually get worse, especially if you stay on the drug too long, and even if you don't do any other healing work around the reasons why you emotionally eat and how we got there in the first place.
5:43 Because what happens when you get off the drug, right? So you could stay on the drug too long, or you can't stay on the drug and your doctor takes you off the drug, because you need to get this prescribed, hopefully, and you're off the drug and you haven't developed any of the skills that you need to sustain long term, because the drug inherently, in and of itself, suppresses some of those skills, right? You don't feel hunger. It shuts off certain parts of your craving mechanism.
6:30 And so on one hand that's good for a result, but on the other hand that's not great for skill building around that long term, because there's no way to avoid the feeling of urgency and cravings long term, and there's no way to avoid feeling hunger. What you have to learn is how to be with those things and how to internally regulate and find accountability within those things, and build up that skill, train that muscle to hold the capacity for the hunger feelings or the craving feelings. And so that's where I think Ozempic doesn't provide the solution.
7:21 And it goes back again to something I always say, that the emotional eating journey and the weight loss journey are two separate journeys. Does it give you a solution to lose pounds? Sure. Do I think it's cheating? No. I mean, no, it's fine. But does it help you heal emotional eating and give you that pathway to sustainable, permanent, lifelong weight loss? I don't think so. I don't believe that to be true.
Does taking Ozempic mean you have disordered eating?
7:52 Another question that I've gotten, and I'm just going to go into some questions actually that I've heard around this, and the next one is: do you believe that people who use Ozempic are automatically participating in disordered eating behavior? If you decide to take Ozempic, do you immediately have some disordered eating? And I don't agree with that. I think the answer is no, because again, at the end of the day, it all comes down to your motivation, right?
8:31 So I don't think that anybody who goes on Ozempic has disordered eating behavior. Do I think some people that go on Ozempic have disordered eating behavior? Probably. But it all goes back to your motivation for why you're going on it, and only you know your motivation. And I say the same thing when it comes to food, right? There is no definitive answer with food, right? There's no good or bad food. It's not like this is a good food, this is a bad food.
9:05 Definitely, there are foods that are less nutritious than others, but it's not that they're bad. It's not that they're bad foods. It's more about your motivation for eating, your intention for eating, and your behavior eating the food than anything else. You can have a food that's necessarily not nutritious, but you're eating it in a way that it's fine, right? There's intentionality around it. There's responsibility, accountability around it. Or your motivation can be to abuse it or exploit it, or to use it to provide you with some sort of emotional experience or soothing or something, and that's your motivation for using it. The food itself isn't bad.
9:50 Same thing with Ozempic. The people getting prescribed Ozempic for insulin resistance and losing weight, weight loss is typically a side effect of taking a medication for insulin resistance, right? So if you take a medication for insulin resistance, which is essentially what Ozempic was initially intended for, weight loss is going to be a side effect. And those people who have weight loss as a side effect of taking the drug and having insulin resistance, and then they lose weight, those people aren't using Ozempic from a place of trying to feel more in control.
10:48 Do they maybe have some disordered eating from a binge or an emotional eating perspective? Maybe. But the reason that they're using Ozempic is not to secure a shortcut to getting skinny. Usually when you're prescribed Ozempic for clinical purpose and weight loss happens as a side effect, I don't think the motivation is essentially to bypass and get a shortcut to skinny. That's just my perspective. Do they have emotional eating? Maybe. It's unlikely that somebody with insulin resistance and obesity, or significant weight gain, doesn't have emotional eating. They usually do.
11:36 But the people who don't have a clinical diagnosis and are using Ozempic because they're just tired and exhausted from trying to lose weight for years, and they feel like they've tried and they've failed at everything to lose weight, and they want a shortcut. I won't say it's disordered eating, but I would say that it bypasses the root issue, which is the emotional triggers, the lifestyle imbalances, the nervous system issues, the lack of feeling, the lack of wanting to have to make decisions about food. So, there's the decision fatigue, there's the guilt and the shame and all of that emotional strife that comes with it. They just don't want to deal with that anymore.
What weight loss alone doesn't give you
12:23 And so the problem that happens here is that if and when weight loss happens taking Ozempic in order to have this shortcut or bypass, what you get is less pounds and a smaller frame. But what you don't get is that feeling of security and freedom around making food choices. What you don't get is the connection with your hunger cues and that really empowered ability to eat something indulgent and feel good and feel okay with that, right?
13:09 What you don't get is that feeling of getting over full and sitting with that and trusting that that's not going to make you gain weight, and you don't have to feel guilty about that, and doesn't send you into, oh no, I already screwed up, so let me just let it all go, right? All of these mindsets and emotional entanglements that we have with food and eating. When you take Ozempic just to get a result because it's been too tiring and frustrating in the past, you're bypassing the root issue, and therefore long-term sustainability is unlikely.
13:49 And like I said in the beginning, I'm all for people feeling worthy to lose weight. I think I'm a fan, right? If they know that being lighter will provide them with a greater sense of confidence and self-expression, and they'll just feel more available to put themselves out there and let themselves receive things that they want and just be more open, I'm all for that. But I also know firsthand, really firsthand, that being skinny doesn't make you happy or more confident, unless you truly feel like you know how you got there.
14:29 Where you truly feel like you know that how you got there is a result of the changes and shifts you made in your life. And those changes and shifts that made in your life are now your lifestyle. They're second nature. And those changes and those shifts that you made in your environment, in your emotional mindset, in your ability to navigate the physical discomfort and the decision fatigue around eating, you feel comfortable that you can navigate that, and it doesn't take anything away from your pleasure, your joy, and your ability to live your life exactly how you want to. Okay? When you have that, that's when you're happy.
15:16 Being skinny doesn't make you happy. Okay. What makes you happy is that really empowered, grounded sense of knowing how you got there and knowing that you can access all of those skills at any point and that nothing is going to throw you off course. Whereas with Ozempic, you might have gotten to a result, but it's like, how did you get there? Right? What happens when you're off the medication? What happens when life throws you a curve? This is my issue with Ozempic. Not so much that it's a shortcut to weight loss, but it's what it covers up, and it's an illusion for happiness, in my opinion.
16:06 And again, this is just my opinion. So, I'm not saying this is truth, but this is just my opinion. Curious to hear your opinions. If you're listening to this and you have an opinion, definitely feel free to share with me, because I do feel like this conversation needs to just be more of a conversation. I don't think people should feel ashamed to go on Ozempic.
Body positive influencers and transparency
16:30 And this is another topic that I think is coming up lately, especially with social media backlash and backtracking with the body positive influencers that are using Ozempic and they're not being transparent with their audiences. I think this is a really difficult thing, and I don't necessarily have a clear-cut opinion or a clear-cut perspective on this, because on one hand I feel like everyone has the right to do what they want for them, and everyone has a right for privacy.
17:11 And I also think that if you're capitalizing on a platform and you have a certain message that goes against or is in conflict with taking Ozempic and losing weight, there does have to be some sort of accountability and responsibility to that end, right? And I also think that saying nothing is also fine, right? So, the influencers that maybe were body positivity and all about messages about intuitive eating, low impact workouts, and their messaging is your body weight isn't really that important, and then they decide to take Ozempic and lose weight.
18:05 Do I think they need to go out and publicly have a live on Instagram and talk about their mental journey towards getting there? No. I do think that if they choose to say nothing, then that also should be okay. I think that people who decide to be silent is an okay thing. But I think that if you've taken Ozempic and you have lost weight and you're not being honest about that, and you're still touting messaging that it's natural intuitive eating, somehow it just happened with low impact workouts, then I think that that's dishonest.
18:48 And I think that you should either say nothing or you should own the fact that something changed for you and you decided you wanted to lose, because that's really powerful, especially when you have had a change in mindset and something did change. It can be really empowering to other people who might feel the same way. As an influencer, and I'm not an influencer, but I would think that you as a human have every right to change your mind. And that is fully okay.
19:25 And if you want to influence people, people don't necessarily only want to hear one message from you. They want to hear your transformation. And I think that that could be really, really important. That could be really powerful in the conversation, especially with social media and some backlash that influencers are getting for either not being transparent about their Ozempic journey or saying nothing at all.
20:01 I think that it can be really interesting for somebody to come out there and say that I changed my perspective. And I think that that could be allowed, right? As humans, we're all allowed to change our minds and to have a new experience and evolve, right? We all are allowed to evolve, and we can evolve privately, and that should be okay. And we also should feel empowered to evolve publicly, especially if that's our platform and that's how we want to lead our lives. And so that's where I stand on the social media aspect of it.
Ozempic is a car and you are the driver
20:51 So at the end of the day, I just want to sum up this episode by saying that I really feel like Ozempic is a tool, for sure. Ozempic can be really powerful and definitely is not a villain, but Ozempic is a car and you are the driver. And so it is really up to you to look under the hood of all of it and address all the necessary emotional triggers to really support you and allow for sustainable weight loss beyond Ozempic and other weight loss drugs.
21:36 Okay. And that's really what I want you to take away from it, is that it's not about Ozempic so much, because it can be used as a tool. It's really about the holistic nature of it all. So on that note, thank you so much for joining me today. And if today's episode resonated with you, please join me again next week for another one so you can fall in love with eating, start losing weight, and keep it off with sustainable strategies and lasting change.
22:08 And if you found this episode insightful, please subscribe, leave a review, leave a Q&A. We have Q&A now, and you can actually leave a voice note. So, if you want to leave us a voicemail or a voice note, that would be amazing, because we're going to start doing these Q&A episodes where I answer your questions, and that could be really fun. So, if you have a specific question, feel free to leave us a Q&A and I will answer it in one of our next Q&A episodes.
22:38 I also have lots of free resources on my website to support you on your journey to loving food and losing weight. Just go to www.bewellbyak.com. And until next time, I'm Alana, and thank you for listening to Emotional Eating Unwrapped.
Related episodes
Healing emotional eating vs losing weight - why Alana treats these as two separate journeys
Being skinny is not the key to happiness - the deeper look at thinness and confidence
Social media, body image and influencers - more on influencer messaging about bodies
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