What I have learned in a year of taking Tirzepatide, Mounjaro and Zepbound!

Susan Maria Leach
Let's Glow
Founder of Bariatric Eating
Author Before and After - Living & Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery (HarperCollins Publishers)

I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying on clothes in my own closet and making a pile for the Animal Rescue thrift store. I missed the opportunity to wear many of them and they are now too big. You think I would have learned after the pile of *new with tags* jeans I gave away in July. It's a happy day though!

I also just returned from a couple of weeks in Cabo where we have a timeshare we have owned for 30 years. I wore a bikini for the first time since I was five years old... it took guts since I have loose skin and I am 63 years old... but dayum I thought I looked good! I really felt great about this GLP1 path and where I am currently standing. 

I finally feel normal in my eating and choices as food no longer rules me. I look at a menu and try to choose something SMALL that has some protein thats easy for me to eat now that I have the double whammy of bariatric plus GLP1. I laugh thinking back to the days before bariatric surgery when I would consider the menu to order the dish that would give me the MOST food. How far I have come. 

In Mexico ordering small was easy as tacos are perfect, I could eat a couple bites of one taco as it was meant to be eaten, then open them up and eat the saucy grilled shrimp until I no longer wanted more. With Tirzepatide GLP1 thats about FIVE BITES.  I didnt feel like drinking alcohol as that desire has been killed off nearly completely, so I'd keep pouring the SAME MARGARITA over more ice in a new glass as it melted. Super cheap date.  

Overall, I was pretty happy and came home almost two pounds lighter. I feel that I am nearing the weight I was meant to be if I had not been cursed with the crappy metabolism I have lived with my ENTIRE life. That is until my first injection of Mounjaro in September 2023. 

Here are a couple of things I've learned after over a year of taking Tirzepatide, Mounjaro and Zepbound in combination, that I would like to share.

It is important to go a little more calorie dense. So YES, this is the opposite of what I told you for years about Bariatric Surgery alone. I could eat a lot more with just my bariatric surgery even though I have always had very strong restriction even after 23 years. However, with GLP1 meds, I dont want to even THINK about eating, I am close to being repulsed by food. The meds work at a higher level, before the thought of food even forms in my brain. Can you relate to that? The med changes my brain patterns. IF you are responsible for feeding others in your family, it's annoying that they want to eat. Imagine the nerve of them wanting lunch. I feel bad when I realize it's 3pm and my poor husband is only running on his 8am breakfast. 

When I do eat, it has to be a little higher in calories and something I don't get sick of eating before I even make it. I like soups and they work well. So I will make a pot of my homemade Pasta Fazool, which is Italian Bean Soup, and put it into quart containers for the freezer. I bought a sleeve of 32 empty plastic deli type containers/lids from Amazon to keep in my pantry. I fight pouring the leftover soup into the containers as when I am finished eating, I cannot fathom eating it again and want to put it in the garbage disposal. 

I now do the same thing with meatballs and tomato sauce. I'll make a Sunday pot of bubbling sauce and after supper divide it into containers for my freezer. On our vacation, we had a condo and I ordered a grocery delivery, so in the morning, I would make Ty bacon and eggs and whip up a banana papaya GLOW Vanilla Cinnamon smoothie to share. It was so delicious. One needs a good blender for a smoothie though. The condo had a great Oster blender that only had ONE BUTTON with three settings, OFF 1 - 2 - 3. Not like the ridiculous one I have at home that requires an engineering degree to turn on. I literally have to get out and read the instruction book to make it blend. I usually opt for a protein shot in my metal shaker, just a couple tablespoons of Glow with milk. 

It is really important to eat at least two small protein meals no matter what. Eating less will not equate to greater or faster weight loss. Eating less will not equate to greater or faster weight loss. In fact eating a little more food that includes some carbs, will help you to lose weight faster as it gives your boosted insulin something to work on. It also helps you to develop balanced eating habits you've lost after years of dieting. 

No matter how much you dont feel like eating, you do need to maintain your minimum calories as determined by your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Do not for one minute think you are smarter than the people who developed the protocol for the drug studies to gain FDA approval for these meds. There is a reason they tell you EXACTLY what to do and even recommend you not overthink this. In addition there is no need to add Intermittent Fasting to the mix as you are not going to improve upon the results of the Surmount Studies which were designed to get this medication approved. IF adding twists made Semaglutide and Tirzepatide work BETTER or FASTER, that is what they'd tell us to do. Make sense? After a lifetime of subjecting ourselves to strange diet habits, we cant help ourselves.

PLEASE TRY TO LET GO AND JUST EAT FRESH FOOD YOU ASSEMBLE AND OR COOK, and do it at regular intervals. 

Here are some of the foods I can rely on to grab for a meal when I really dont feel like eating. I dont necessarily eat all I put on a plate. I seem to eat a little more than half. I eat the same things all the time.

Some of the foods are as recipes in our website section 'Eating'. 

• Good Culture Cottage Cheese with Everything Bagel Sprinkle 
• Half an English muffin or slice of toast with a Jones Sausage Patty. 
• A homemade crostini with a smear of whole milk ricotta, slice of Prosciutto and drizzle of balsamic glaze. (I make my own crostini with a .99 cent loaf of Italian bread at Walmart - thin slice using serrated knife, arrange on sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil and bake until golden crisp. Store in a ziplock.)
• A 1 ounce chunk of really good Vermont Cheddar or imported Provolone.
• Half a banana in the Nutribullet with 1/2 c whole milk and 2 tablespoons GLOW Vanilla Cinnamon protein powder to sip (yep, a banana, hard to believe isnt it).
• A Noosa or Fage or Oui Yogurt (eat REAL yogurt that has a bit of fat not the low fat or Yoplait fake kind that is gum thickened water!)
• Half an English Muffin with Peanut Butter. 
• Meat sauce over a little Barilla pasta. (Brown a pound of Marketside ground beef and add a jar of Rao's or Carbone pasta sauce.)
• Homemade Applesauce - Honey Crisps cut into quarters, simmered with cinnamon and run through my food mill. If you dont have a food mill, peel and core your apples before cooking. Not protein but it's good! 
• A mini turkey 'sub' on a Kings Hawaiian Roll - Butterball turkey, provolone, lettuce and tomato with olive oil and balsamic drizzle. (Chef's Kiss).
• A scoop of Egg Salad to dip with a couple of Stacys Pita Chips. 
• A scoop of Shrimp Salad to eat with a spoon or some Stacys Pita Chips. 
• A Meatball in a dish with a bit of sauce. 
• A Marketside Vidalia Onion Angus Beef Burger (frozen Walmart in meat section) - from the freezer to the grill or saute pan.
• A baked potato topped with Good Culture Cottage Cheese, salt and pepper. 

I actively try to not eat overly processed foods. I stick to meats, dairy, ALL fruits and vegetables, and even a little pasta and homemade bakery style breads. Things with a short list of real food ingredients and not chemicals, preservatives and gum starches.  I rarely eat fast food or frozen convenience foods. I do still use a little Splenda as I cant stand the bitterness of monk fruit and stevia but prefer very lightly sweetened. I only have 15 pounds to go to hit goal weight! 

Yeah, life is good!