"I said yes to Mounjaro because I didn't know there was another way"

2026-04-18

If you’re reading this because you’re on Mounjaro, Ozempic, Wegovy, or Zepbound—and some part of you feels… I don’t know, reluctant about it—stop and breathe for a moment.

Sometimes these decisions are not entirely our own but at the recommendation of someone else like our doctor or even loved ones. Friends say to you, “it’s working for me!” and so you decide to give it a go. You’re doctor says, “this is the best next step”, and they start putting in the prescription before you could utter a word.

But you’re also the same woman who has tried many things, so why not? At least this one appears to be proven to help lower A1c and get the body to lose significant amounts of weight (including muscle mass which we want). But it kind of works like an antibiotic, it flushes everything good and bad bacteria.

Anyway, a part of you said yes or at the very least “I guess”.

And now you’re here, reading this, because something actually doesn’t quite sit right. Maybe it’s working—the numbers on the scale are definitely going down, your appetite is more supressed, your blood sugar looks better on paper. But you’re also wondering:

Is this forever?

What is this doing to my body long-term?

Did I give up too soon?

Is there still another way?

Let me answer that last one first: Yes. There’s still another way. That’s what this article is about.

“Do you work with people on GLP-1s? I reluctantly said yes to Mounjaro because I felt I had no other choice. But I’m terrified this is a lifetime thing. I’m wondering what it’s doing to my body overall. I’m a real food nut and I want to find the root, not just manage symptoms. Can you help me even while I’m on this medication?”

Letter from a new client before we started working together.

I get some version of this email all the time though. And every time I read one, I see the same pattern:

The relief of something finally working. I get this.

The fear that it’s not actually fixing anything. Yes.

The guilt about being on medication. Mhm.

The hope that maybe there’s still a path to not needing it. YES.

It lights me up when women get to this conclusion. If that’s you—if you’re sitting in that exact emotional space right now—I want to walk you through what I see, what I know, and what’s possible from here.

First, let’s talk about why you said yes

Your doctor didn’t pull out the prescription pad randomly. You were there for a reason.

Maybe it was your A1c that hit 6.4 and you officially crossed into diabetes territory. Maybe it was 5.9 but climbing and your doctor wanted to intervene before it got worse. Maybe you’d been trying to lose weight for years and nothing was working and your doctor said, “This could help.” These days, it’s an easy recommendation.

And when they recommended it, you probably had one of these reactions:

Relief: Finally, someone’s taking this seriously. Finally, there’s a tool that might actually work.

Resistance: I don’t want to be on medication. I wanted to do this naturally.

Confusion: Is this really necessary? Why isn’t anything working?

Desperation: I’ve tried everything else. What choice do I have?

Most women I talk to felt all of those at once.

And then they said yes and not that they were excited about it, but because they were out of options. Or at least, out of options they knew about.

That decision made sense with the information you had at the time.

Your doctor gave you the tools in their toolkit. GLP-1 medications are effective for blood sugar control and weight loss. The research is clear on that. So they offered it to you.

But what they probably didn’t share or maybe didn’t know themselves—is that GLP-1s absolutely don’t address why your body developed insulin resistance in the first place.

They manage the symptom (high blood sugar, excess weight). They don’t heal the root cause (chronic inflammation, cortisol dysregulation, gut dysfunction, metabolic damage).

That’s not a criticism of your doctor. That’s just the limitation of the tool.

And that’s the gap I talk about filling.

What GLP-1s actually do (and what they don’t)

You might be tired of reading the articles that talk about this, but I’m not going to tell you GLP-1 medications are bad. They’re not. They’re powerful tools that work for what they’re designed to do.

Here’s what they do:

They mimic a hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) that your body naturally produces after eating. So they don’t do anything “new” that you’re body hasn’t done before. But this hormone tells your pancreas to release insulin, tells your stomach to empty more slowly, and tells your brain that you’re full.

So when you take a GLP-1 medication:

Your pancreas releases insulin more efficiently
Your stomach empties slower (you feel full longer, you’re less hungry)
Your brain gets a stronger “I’m satisfied” signal
Your blood sugar stays more stable
You eat less because you’re genuinely not hungry
You lose weight because you’re consuming fewer calories

This is genuinely helpful. I’m not downplaying that. For many women, it’s the first time in years they’ve felt like their appetite is manageable. The first time the scale has moved. The first time their blood sugar numbers looked good.

But here’s what GLP-1s don’t do:

They don’t reduce the chronic inflammation driving your insulin resistance.

They don’t heal your gut if gut dysfunction is part of the problem.

They don’t regulate your cortisol if chronic stress is spiking your blood sugar.

They don’t fix your sleep if sleep deprivation is impairing your insulin sensitivity.

They don’t change the dietary patterns that created metabolic dysfunction in the first place.

They don’t reverse the cellular-level insulin resistance that made your body stop responding to its own signals.

GLP-1s make your body behave like it’s more insulin-sensitive. But they don’t make it become more insulin-sensitive at the cellular level.

And that’s the difference between management and reversal.

That’s why women on GLP-1s ask me: “What happens when I stop taking this?”

And I wrote about that here:

But somewhere deep down, you know: if the root cause is still there, the problem with come back and then what.

The conversation no one’s having with you

Alright so let’s move along. When your doctor prescribed Mounjaro or Ozempic, they probably said something like:

“This will help bring your blood sugar down.”

“This should help you lose weight.”

“We’ll monitor your progress and adjust as needed.”

What they’re not saying is:

“This medication works best when combined with comprehensive root-cause work. The dietary changes, the stress management, the sleep optimization, the gut healing—you still need to do all of that. The medication supports your body while you do it. But it doesn’t replace it.”

That’s the conversation that’s missing.

And because that conversation isn’t happening, women are taking GLP-1s and changing nothing else. Or they’re making half-hearted attempts at “eating better” without really understanding what their body needs. Or they’re losing weight on the medication but still exhausted, still craving sugar, still not sleeping well, still inflamed.

The numbers look better. But they don’t feel better.

And they’re terrified of what happens when they stop.

What “root cause work” actually means

I know that phrase gets thrown around a lot. “Address the root cause.” It sounds vague and overwhelming.

So let me get specific.

If you developed insulin resistance and prediabetes, it happened because of some combination of these factors:

Chronic inflammation

Your body is in a constant low-grade inflammatory state—from gut issues, food sensitivities, environmental toxins, chronic infections, or autoimmune conditions. Inflammation drives insulin resistance at the cellular level. Until you reduce it, your cells won’t respond to insulin properly no matter what medication you take.