I lost two stone in three months by doing ‘Wegovy Wednesday’ – the midweek ‘Ozempic’ trend

As experts warn of the dangers of batches of false Ozempic being sold online, there is another weight loss trend sweeping the internet. Here, Suzy Cox explains why she joined in and how it has changed not just her waistline, but her life too.

Cox turned to the so-called ‘wonder drug’ after various diets failed to help her reach her goal weight (Supplied)

Every Wednesday morning, after a reminder alarm beeps on my phone, I go to the fridge and take out my prescription. I prime the small needle, try not to flinch as I inject myself in the stomach or thigh, and text “Happy Wegovy Wednesday!” to a WhatsApp group. Then I wait for the medication to take effect.

I’ve been on Wegovy – a weight loss medication I inject once a week – for three months. I have lost 10.9kg (1st 10lb). Like me, thousands of users choose to inject midweek – so many that  #WegovyWednesday has become not just an alliterative reminder to inject, but an online support community.

Search #WegovyWednesday on TikTok, and you’re greeted by videos of people sharing injection-day tips (stomach, arm or leg?!), diminishing numbers on the scale, and checking in with others on their journey. The reason for picking Wednesday? If any side effects such as nausea or vomiting kick in (and for many, they do), you’ll hopefully be fine by the weekend.

You might be wondering how I got here. Well, to quote Julia Roberts’s “poor me” monologue from Notting Hill, “I’ve been on a diet every day since I was 19, which basically means I’ve been hungry for a decade.” Except I’ve been on a diet since I was 10 – which makes it 36 years.

I’ve struggled with my weight since puberty. Name a plan: I’ve tried it. Slimfast, juice fast, eating Special K for lunch. Atkins, calorie counting, 5:2, 16:8. Original WeightWatchers, new WeightWatchers – all the points plans in between. Once, I even trialled a paste that was meant to expand in your stomach and make you feel full (spoiler: it did not). 

I regularly cycle between a size 12 and a 16. I’ve been big. I’ve been small. I’ve never been consistent. I hate it. What does it say about me that I cannot control this one, simple thing?

That said, even I baulked at the idea of injecting myself once a week. But a few years of a pandemic plus a new job plus losing a parent and supporting the other left me… let’s not sugar coat it: fat. Like so many, I’d eaten my emotions and not noticed my size creeping up.

Last Christmas, I bought a pair of size 20 jeans “just to feel comfy” over the holidays. By January, they weren’t so comfy anymore. Moaning to a French friend at work about the difficulties of dropping weight in your forties, she whispered, “Just get an injection. Everyone in Paris is.”

Wegovy and Ozempic – brand names for semaglutide, a weight management medication – work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is involved in regulating appetite and food intake.

They use mechanisms like appetite suppression, delayed gastric emptying and improved glycemic control, which can lead to weight loss and potential metabolic benefits. Wegovy comes in a “pen” with four doses – each week you attach a new, small needle and inject into a different site. Doses start low (0.25mg) and move up in strength each month, until on week 17 you hit the highest (2.4mg) and stay there. 

On holiday in Mexico, which was preceded by a lot of spin classes and carb-shunning (Supplied)

One quick Google revealed that GLP-1 medications became available in the UK through high-street chemists last year.

The World Health Organisation issued a safety warning about potentially “life-threatening” counterfeit batches of the drugs this week, which is why it is advisable to always get them from a registered and regulated clinic. Even then, consumers are encouraged to always check boxes to assess the label quality too, with fake batches often “having spelling mistakes on the box”.

There have also been warnings of Ozempic abuse, with some who don’t really need it using the drug to drop some extra pounds to get “beach body ready”. To get approved I had to fill out an online assessment. An obese BMI got me through. One health questionnaire and an “okay” from my GP later, the Wegovy pen was in my hand. I was nearly £200 worse off, but for a month’s supply, it seemed expensive but worth a try.

That night at dinner, I left half my plate. I just knew I was full and didn’t need it. In the coming days, I stopped thinking about food. The battle in my head – the “food noise” as the online community calls it – had disappeared. After 30 years of internal chatter (”Are you hungry?”, “Check the calories in it”, “I can’t believe you ate that”, “People will judge you”) there was silence. 

In December, Oprah – a woman who’s been on possibly more diets than me – admitted she used weight loss medication though didn’t namecheck a brand (“I’m absolutely done with the shaming… The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift”). 

‘I regularly cycle between a size 12 and a 16. I’ve been big. I’ve been small. I’ve never been consistent’ (Supplied)

Since then, Wegovy spotting – and shaming – has become the new sport. Whether it’s among your own friends, people you follow on Instagram or people in the public eye, if someone has lost weight the first thought is now Ozempic.

Both singer and TV host Kelly Clarkson and actor Jesse Plemons denied taking GLP-1s after losing weight. In April, Barbra Streisand asked Melissa McCarthy if she’d taken Ozempic in the comments on her Instagram. The actor neither confirmed nor denied.

Our former PM Boris Johnson – whose doctor labelled him an “ideal candidate” for semaglutide – came off it, saying: “I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill. For now, I am back to exercise and willpower.”

The reticence to link yourself to GLP-1s is understandable. And Johnson (for once) with his inference that this is a solution for the willpower-weak is straight to the issue that hits where it hurts. When a friend tells me I’m looking trim, I feel like a fraud. Because after years of struggling – four-spin-classes-a-week, bread-ban struggling – this time my weight loss has not been hard. Does that make me weak? Shouldn’t I just be able to do this on my own?

And yet Wegovy means I now walk through supermarkets unmoved by the pastries. I have half a glass of wine and leave the rest. I eat three small meals a day, never snack and haven’t touched chocolate in months. Suddenly food – the most toxic relationship I have ever had in my life – has no power over me.

There are physical side effects – for me, intense nausea which I get in short waves. I’ve been lucky and (so far) had none of the others but vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation and abdominal pain can occur – especially at the start of treatment. One friend was “horrifically backed up” (her words) for nearly two weeks. While that (and the blockage) has since passed, let me tell you it was far from fun.

Cox says the drug helped her deal with her ‘toxic’ relationship with food (Supplied)

Am I vain? Clearly. But try walking into rooms in both a size 12 and a size 20 body and tell me that people don’t treat you differently. Because they do; I’ve seen it firsthand. But there is another reason: my health.

My father was overweight for most of his adult life and had heart issues for decades. Eventually, heart failure took him. There’s nothing like losing someone you love to a condition they could have prevented to make you not want to put left loved ones through that same mill.

On TikTok, the support community grows stronger. Sarah In Scotland (“I’m 41 years old. I’ve been on a GLP-1 medication for 16 months and lost nearly 60lb”) chats to her 15,000 followers nearly daily about how it has transformed her life and helped her manage polycystic ovary syndrome. One night, I fell into a live chat room where 10 people discussed their “non-scales triumphs” (“I don’t have to ask for an extender belt on a plane”; “Parents at my toddler’s school now talk to me.”). 

NICE guidelines currently recommend that semaglutide be used for “a maximum of two years”. The idea of coming off it terrifies me. Despite my progress, I still have an “overweight” BMI. I don’t want to go back to the person I was: self-hating, food-obsessed.

So yes, I inject because it’s easy. And yes, I inject because size 12 jeans are my Roman Empire. But yes, I also inject because I would really love to be here for longer and enjoy much, much more of my life. I have done it safely, and I haven’t cheated the system for a medication that I didn’t need. 

The food noise in my head is finally gone – all I hear right now is absolute quiet. And it’s delicious.