Every Saturday, I have a date with a needle (Zeptide). Let me back up first. I’m doing this for weight loss, under the close guidance of my doctor – this isn’t a solo experiment with a medication I found online, it’s a supervised process, doses and all. I say that upfront because I think it matters. What follows isn’t a “just try it and see” story. It’s a real week, in a real body, being carefully managed and adjusted along the way.
It didn’t start on Saturdays, either. I began this journey injecting on Fridays, dutifully, at the end of every week like clockwork. Then one Friday slipped by me – life got in the way – and by the time I remembered, Saturday had already claimed the slot. So Saturday it is now. My body doesn’t seem to mind the shift; if anything, it’s settled into the new rhythm like it was always meant to be there.
I’m currently on 7.5mg of Zeptide, my third dose increase since I started this whole slow, hormonal recalibration. I began at 2.5mg, moved up to 5mg, and now I’m here, at a dose that, frankly, doesn’t let me forget it’s in my system. And that’s the thing nobody quite prepares you for: as the dose climbs, so does everything that comes with it. More weight comes off, sure. But more of you has to adjust too.
The Night It Begins
I inject in the evening, usually later at night, which I’ve come to realize is both a blessing and a slow-burning curse. A blessing because I get to sleep through the initial onset. A curse because I wake up already mid-battle.
The morning after is when the “heavy head” arrives first – that thick, foggy sensation like my brain is wading through syrup. Some weeks it fades by afternoon. Other weeks it lingers, quietly setting the tone for the days ahead. It’s not painful, exactly, more like the volume on everything has been turned down and slightly distorted.
And close behind it, right on cue, are my two most loyal companions: nausea and dizziness. They’ve been with me since 2.5mg – long before this dose, long before things got “serious” – so at this point I desperately hope they will RSVP the moment I pick up the pen. The nausea isn’t always dramatic; some days it’s a low, background queasiness I can work around, and other days it sits right at the edge of my throat and colors everything I try to eat or even smell. The dizziness shows up in quieter ways, standing up too fast, turning my head, climbing stairs, small reminders that my equilibrium isn’t entirely mine this week.
Fight or Flight, Courtesy of a Hormone
Here’s something I didn’t fully appreciate before starting this: GLP-1 isn’t some external chemical doing something to my body – it is a hormone. And hormones, as anyone who’s been through puberty, pregnancy, or a rough month can tell you, don’t operate quietly. They ripple outward and pull every other hormone in the body along with them.
For the two to three days following my injection, my body genuinely feels like it’s in fight-or-flight mode. Body aches settle into my muscles like I’ve run an ultra marathon I don’t remember signing up for. The nausea deepens here, and the dizziness gets a little more insistent, less “background hum” and more “please sit down for a second.” I need constant rest, not the lazy, scrolling-on-the-couch kind, but the real, bone-deep, my-body-is-doing-internal-work kind. Call me dramatic, but some days I can genuinely feel the medication working, and it is not a graceful process.
What makes this stretch even more interesting is that I don’t stop moving through it. I still go to the gym five to six days a week, dose week or not. It’s non-negotiable for me at this point, not to punish my body, but to protect the muscle and shape I’ve worked hard to build, so that what I’m losing is fat and not the strength underneath it. Some days that means pushing through a workout while quietly negotiating with my own dizziness. Other days it means scaling back the intensity and just showing up, because showing up on the hard days is its own kind of consistency.
Then, Somehow, It Gets Better
Just when I start to wonder if this is simply what my life looks like now, the tide turns. By the final two or three days of the week, things ease up. The nausea softens from a constant presence to an occasional flicker. The dizziness backs off, and I can stand up without bracing myself first. My head clears. There’s a version of relief that only makes sense if you’ve spent the earlier days in the thick of it, and by the time I feel like myself again, it’s almost time to do it all over.
Food, Cravings, and the Aversion Nobody Warns You About
If the physical side effects are one story, my relationship with food this week is an entirely different one.
For the first two to three days after injecting, food and I are not on speaking terms. The aversion is real – not a mild “I’m not that hungry” but a genuine inability to get close to certain foods without my stomach staging a protest. Eggs, which used to be my easy go-to (could easily have 2-4 eggs a day), are now firmly off the table thanks to this aversion, so chicken and beef have quietly taken over as my protein staples (a whole conversation for another day).
I’ve also learned I can’t push past a certain point when I do eat, overdo it even slightly, and a tummy ache follows almost immediately. My body has become very clear about its boundaries, and I’ve had no choice but to listen.
What I do crave, constantly, is something cold. It’s become something of a ritual: ice-cold water with a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt – my makeshift electrolyte fix, which by the way is a great fixer for the dizziness and nausea – and more ice chews than I’d like to admit to. There’s something about the cold that feels grounding when the nausea and dizziness make everything else feel like it’s in flux.
And Then, Saturday Comes Again
By the time the week rounds out and I’ve settled into feeling like myself, the calendar quietly resets. Saturday arrives, and with it, the same routine: the injection, the heavy head, the nausea, the dizziness, the fight-or-flight days, the gym sessions I show up to anyway, the slow climb back to normal, and the food aversions that ebb and flow with it all.
It’s not glamorous. It’s not always comfortable. But it’s honest, it’s supervised, and it’s working, and if you’re on this same path, chances are, some version of this week is your week too.
