Ozempic taught me about style and self-esteem

I have always liked clothes.Gaining 100 pounds robbed me of my sense of style, but I had no interest in fashion.Nine months on GLP-1 and a diary changed everything again.

During business trips to Portland, Oregon, and New York last summer, and visits to London and Paris last fall, I tried to catch up with old friends, classmates, and former coworkers, hoping someone would ask the question I'd been waiting to hear: Have I lost weight?I was ready to tell them everything, starting with the strange feeling the first time I stabbed myself in the stomach with a 34-gauge needle.A deeply unnatural act that it required a certain kind of isolation;for the longest time i just sat staring at my hand.When I tricked my body into self-destruction, all I had to do was press a small button to push a dose of semaglutide from an Ozempic-brand pen dispenser through a thin needle into my flesh.

When I bought my first Ozempic pen in early April 2025, one in eight American adults was taking semaglutide or another GLP-1 receptor agonist.This class of drugs, sold under names such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound, suppresses appetite and regulates blood sugar like a glucagon-like hormone.peptide-1 hormones that are released by our body after eating.Before 2021, when the use of GLP-1 drug was used for weight loss in rich and well-connected people, it was used almost for the treatment of diabetes mellitus 2. In Japan, where I lived for more than ten years, I discovered that I can have a prescription for GLP-1 pills for weight loss, if my body weight falls into "weight lines" or "overweight".When I visited a hospital in Tokyo that specializes in these drugs in April, the doctor looked at me and told me his diagnosis directly: "Obviously, you meet the appropriate criteria."

If he had asked me to step on the scale, it would have told him that I weighed 291 kilograms, which, at five-foot-ten, gave me a BMI over the 40.0 cutoff that separates Class II from Class III obesity, putting me at the end of the spectrum, a fate no one wants to be in.condition.It was a state of denial based on my perfect bounce back from previous bouts of obesity.At one point in my 20s, I gained about 70 pounds over two years before extreme running put me in the best shape of my life.mine.I took it to extremes as an adult.I avoided drugs and alcohol as a kid, but balance in diet and exercise didn't come naturally.Later, I got into competitive road cycling so much that I could hit incredible speeds on the beginner circuit, and I got into the habit of eating a few pounds in the off-season and then losing it all in pre-season training camps.When I returned to college at age 30, I was still a skinny 165 pounds, and even though I gained 100 pounds four years later when I started graduate school, I told myself it was only temporary.I had lost it all before, and once everything falls into place, I will lose it all again.

But things did not go well.In 2019 I managed to lose 30 pounds after the publication of my first book, ashamed of the temporary stability of a fat-looking author image that will forever be lost to readers from her jacket.Manhattan in an unusual corner of the United States.By 2023 there is a growing body of research suggesting that the benefits of GLP-1 drugs outweigh the risks.I was also very encouraged by how cheap Ozempic is in Japan, where $165 out of pocket will buy me a four week supply.each dose .5 mg recommended by the doctor (compared to the US, where I myself will pay about $ 350 per month).But what really hit me hard was the sudden death of my cousin Bob, who, like me, was in his early 40s and had no serious health problems other than weight.One night in early 2024, Bob fell asleep and never woke up.

Along with the fear of death, there was also the feeling that somehow I had become a disgrace.Any professional writer spends a lot of time in his head, but the intensity of my rejection required a temporary residence there.It's not that I was completely unaware of my physical background: in 2016, when I went to report a newspaper article about illegal counterfeit markets in China's Zhejiang province, several vendors there called me "fat" in Mandarin Chinese."Brother," I understand why.But by clinging to my image as a fit person temporarily trapped in a fat body, I was able to achieve a Zen-like detachment from my physical self.

It is not my job as a reporter to reveal the deceptions of this decade.Ever since I wrote my first article for this magazine in 2022, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that my interview subjects are somehow disappointed when I show up—they expect to meet someone cooler, sexier, and more in line with the image of a men's fashion magazine.Instead, they meet a man whose sense of style is a long-term experiment in self-results;a man who might wear black Carhartt pants, plain t-shirts, and the kind of escapist sweaters he might wear if his freedom depended on interfering with a crowd in Seattle or a San Francisco boardroom.They meet a man whose clothes say nothing about who he is, because in order to express that he must first acknowledge who he is or who he wants to be.

Before it atrophied, my imagination, like my relationship with food, was a continuation of the poverty of growing up in the Pacific Northwest.In my family, we ate what we could when we could and wore what others threw away at the thrift stores.That's what set me apart from other kids, for better or for worse.Wearing jeans and flannels from Goodwill and the Salvation Army made it impossible to fit in and follow the rules, so I had no choice but to do it myself.

I still remember the first piece of clothing that made me feel special: a pink Lacoste polo shirt my aunt sent me when I was five or six.After I grew up, I decided to get another pink shirt, this time an oxford with a used button, because it seemed like I should always have a pink shirt.At a young age I began to see the distance between myself and other children - I spent more time studying than all my friends, and I could understand what intelligence was.No, and I want to be one of them, and I understood the childhood notion that oxford shirts and corduroy trousers were a necessary part of living an intellectual life.

In sixth grade, the success of the band Nirvana, which broke up, was my path to popularity in high school, and Kurt Cobain was the first rock star to dress like me.Suddenly there was nothing wrong with worn jeans and second-hand corduroys, old flannels and button-up vests, and T-shirts with corporate slogans from the '70s and '80s.All that really mattered as a teenager at that time was whether you played sports, what music you listened to and how you dressed.The coincidence that I looked vaguely and authentically 'grunge' gave me a place in the social order.That place stayed intact because grunge gave way to alternative and indie gave way, not because I dressed so differently from year to year, but because these subcultures tend to blend into each other.What amounted to the same aesthetic in the 1990s went by many different names, in part because so many of the decade's countercultural movements shared an anti-body ethos that made a second-hand five-dollar suit cooler than something from the mall.The most expensive part of my teenage years was looking at a pair of Dr.Martens that I had to save up for every summer: green shoes one year, red boots the next, and then one pair of each in basic black.

In retrospect, it's amazing how much time I used to spend thinking about clothes, and how much my high school life was like my clothes.Countless friendships started with a conversation about a shirt one of us bought at a concert or at a skateboard shop.As a student I lost my virginity to a girl who introduced herself by saying she liked my shirt.I first lived right through this envy when that punk rocker from my high school went out with me, of all people, not because I listened to Little Trouble but because he liked the plaid golf pants I altered to look like Vivienne Westwood skinny jeans worn by Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols.

What surprises me the most now is that my obsession with clothes has never been happy or unpleasant.Now I know that in the 90s it was easy to be obsessed with style without being selfish, anxious or self-critical. Especially as a teenager of average height, weight and appearance, it was fun to look at my clothes in the dressing room mirror. You might also see bleached or dyed hair that looked strangely green. in the window of a parked car. The only self-judgment I faced was in my 20s when I started losing weight.no need to buy Levi's with a 34" waist instead of a 32".

My weight became a real source of anxiety at the age of 23, when I discovered that I liked running long distances and having sex with men.The first of these two hobbies enabled the second as I regained my 32-inch waistline and immersed myself in a world of completely unreasonable expectations about what male bodies should look like.Gaining weight for the first time made me more self-aware, but getting in shape is necessary to truly become aware of my body.This was several years before the launch of the mobile app Grindr, when the closest thing to a beacon for gay men was Diesel jeans, so I stopped wearing Levi's and started spending $200 on pants that were spiritually, if not aesthetically, equivalent to wearing buttless leather pants in the '70s on my closet.In many ways, the journey, both sexually and sartorially, felt like taking a single step that put me on the other side of an imaginary barrier.Clothing that was vaguely strange in straight life was considered fascinating in queer life.

I got a little stressed because years of casual sex had led to the comfort of a long-term relationship, and then I lost everything when my boyfriend left me.Was it a coincidence, I sometimes wonder, that the longest period of weight gain started right after this, when I started meeting women?It was a special offer I was chasing, and an opportunity to be vulnerable with men in ways that are difficult for me, but in my experience, when it comes to controlling their partner's waist.Women were more relaxed then too.Shortly after going back to school at age 30, my metabolism was sluggish and the busy schedule was trying to reverse a decade-long slide into obesity.Then came graduate school and my first newsroom job, through which I worked long hours, ate poorly, and eased my anxiety and depression with snacks and lots of soda.Before long, I was so heavy that knee pain prevented regular attempts to run again.Still, I thought, the next one.The day will come next week, next month, next year when I finally turn things around.This earnest hope gave me a strange little habit which I could not shake;in my heaviest years I would sometimes buy shirts or pants that were too small for me, as if a collection of ill-fitting clothes threw off the extra mass that prevented me from wearing them.

I bought things for my petite body that I wouldn't have worn when I was dressed.A few years ago in Helsinki, I stumbled upon a vintage clothing store like the thrift store I used to go to in high school, and couldn't resist buying a Korean Coca-Cola t-shirt that was so kitsch and too small.It looks like something Santa Claus might have fired from a gun, with red Hangul prints on a bright yellow cloth.When I bought clothes that fit well, I prioritized comfort, but also a little lightness, as I hope to disappear under black, gray and navy coats.With clothes that are too small, I did the opposite.It felt like I was a teenager trying on new clothes, hoping to find something that would reveal a hidden part of me.character.Mostly in high school, I shopped thrift stores, desperately seeking to introduce myself through clothes other people rejected.But I also went to the store as a teenager before the end of summer vacation to try on clothes I couldn't afford, wanting to see just a little bit of what my middle-class, regular self might look like.Every time I walk in, I feel like casual life suits me like the bag of Calvin Klein jeans and hoodies I leave in the closets at Zumiez and JCPenney.Just like the art that inspires us and the people we want, there is an element of mystery in why certain clothes seem right or wrong from the moment we put them on, and an undeniable pleasure in the challenge and the border.Even as an adult, I sometimes wonder what kind of room I'm standing in when I shop for new clothes.In 2012, when I bought a polka dot t-shirt designed by Comme des Garçons for the street brand Supreme, did I try the same split styles that didn't seem juvenile?And years later, after gaining too much weight to wear a Super t-shirt I've never worn, I spent $800 on a Marni mohair cardigan two sizes too small, some kind of bag of inspiration?Was it just stupid?

A few years ago, while Japan's borders remained closed to foreign tourists due to the pandemic, I took the opportunity to wander the eerily empty alleys of Harajuku, the center of Tokyo's fashion culture.At the main outlet for Neighborhood, a Japanese streetwear brand, a line of summer offerings had just been launched.Among those in the window was a Hawaiian-style short-sleeve shirt in shades of green and brown that playfully evoked camouflage, which I liked so much that I walked around.The store clerk brought me the largest size they had, as I requested, and explained that extra large in Japan is equivalent to large in the US, suggesting the shirt is very modest.it wouldn't fit.After my first dose of Ozempic, I realized that this lie could now become reality if I could lose enough weight to accept it as a gift from my former self.

My first experience with life-changing weight loss was easier than the following six words would make it seem: I ran 50 miles every week.It helped that I was in my mid-20s, had a fast metabolism, and endless energy.It also helped that I had just become a queer sex maniac: the feeling of need and control of my body as an instrument of desire awakened a latent narcissism that led to almost monastic practices of self-restraint and self-restraint.If only he had discovered sodomy and bicycle racing 10 years ago, he would have won the Tour de France.

In middle age, my resolve was as weak as my knees, so it was surprising to rediscover a modicum of self-control after only a few days on Ozempic.It's not just because I'm less hungry and feel full faster, although these are the most obvious side effects of the drug.Over the next few weeks, there was also a dramatic shift in my sense of what it meant to experience and satisfy a desire.It was as if my cravings—for sugar, caffeine, sex—were a soundtrack playing.shaking at full volume until a weekly dose of semaglutide calmed them down.Every desire became something to consider instead of an itch that was badly needed to be scratched.

The shift began with an overnight end to my year-long Coca-Cola addiction.It worked in a way that felt far beyond anything I could have hoped for from a weight loss drug: I paid off my credit card debt.I lost the compulsive shopping habit that caused me to spend money I didn't have on clothes that didn't fit.In the summer I avoided opportunities for casual sex.Surprised me, because I could imagine the result would be exhausting for both of us.

A study published in January 2025 suggests that these changes are probably not coincidental.Using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, researchers found that diabetes patients who used long-term GLP-1 drugs had a lower risk of substance-related disorders;one researcher said this may be because GLP-1 receptors suppress brain centers that are involved in impulse control.This question is far from settled.and another research note, though less rigorous in its methodology, suggests that GLP-1 drugs may induce other types of impulsive behavior—the authors note that people get divorced, leave their homes, and make other major life decisions soon after starting to take one of these drugs.In any case, what seems clear is that the widespread use of GLP-1 drugs, which affect neural pathways related to both satiety and reward, crossing the blood-brain barrier, may soon lead to changes in large segments of the population that go far beyond their waistlines and wardrobes.

For me, these changes turned out to be a simple cognitive problemWhen I was a child, I dealt with trauma by accepting the idea that it was important to my body;Those difficult times helped me to cope, and therefore, not keeping up with them meant the end of living in a way that was considered different and true.When the urge to make mistakes left me, it inspired a journey along these lines of thought: When I was deprived of my food, I thought, What about me?One thing to agree on is that we are more than our failures and mistakesBut if we are not compared to our desires, and are separated from each other by our desire to avoid or walk in the path of darkness, then I can think of nothing to compare us to.

The changes in my body were less ambiguous than in my head.In my first week with Ozempic I lost three kilos.The next week I lost four pounds, and the week after that I lost three more.This strong start is undoubtedly due in part to my abandonment of Coca-Cola, which I drank every day for years.My craving for all processed sugar has diminished so much, in fact, that I stashed some of my favorite chocolate bars in my kitchen cabinet to see how long I could resist them.For months they remained untouched.When I finally started eating the candy, it felt less like I was treating myself than letting go of an experience that had become boring.This is both the miracle and the horror of semaglutide, that it makes the irresistible ordinary, so that pizza and broccoli are equally attractive, and riding in an elevator seems no more exciting than sex in your own bed.Just as itching is less irritating, scratching is also less satisfying.

I began to understand the situation of professional athletes where food is a mathematical problem to be solved.While the food is completely unhappy, it feels less animal.Local supermarket.The only thing that worries me more than getting a balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats in my diet is hydration, because my doctor said that these things are very important to prevent organ damage when my body goes through the stress of sudden and prolonged weight loss.To avoid scarring and loose skin, I started taking at least 20 grams of collagen peptide daily and used a body lotion that pregnant mothers rubbed on their swollen bellies.

For the first time in my life, I started watching my calories to make sure I wasn't eating too much.When I forgot to eat a lot on a very busy day, the results were noticeable when my body felt completely free.At no point in the hours before that, did I feel hungry or not.

Losing weight on GLP-1 drugs is different in almost every way from doing it the old way.One of the few ways it's not so different is that the experience becomes all-encompassing, like a career or an expensive hobby.This is never more evident than at the beginning and end of each day, when the bathroom scale tells me how I'm doing.At the end of June of last year, when I got ready to fly to New York for a retirement party for a former grad professor, it was good.I left.30 kilos in less than three months.

My relationship with clothes just started to change.The first clothes I threw away were half a dozen Carhartt work pants that looked good in April but were out of pocket by the end of June and I pulled them out.A sunny day on my ass will lighten the way: I can change these pants, or leave my work clothes behind and try something new.As for others in my adult life, I have never had more than one pair of Carhartt pants at any time, starting with the ones I bought as a teenager in 1998. These pants were made in the US at the time, and were more expensive than, say, a pair of Levi's pants, because they had to stand up to Carpenter's damage.The reason I started paying good money to wear pants like my grandfather's was to see the quality of my friend Kate's, which was good and guaranteed to look like her father's old work clothes.Several years later, Carhartt is no longer a brand with workwear that isn't a car for fun, it's also a brand for employees.Take more time to figure out what kind of person I am now, pants, I have a new belt.

By the time my pants needed adjusting for the first time, the shirt I bought at the Neighborhood flagship store in Tokyo fit me so well that I decided to wear it to my professor's coming out party.No one there mentioned or even noticed my weight loss.This suggests one of three tempting possibilities, the first and most cynical of which we are ambivalent about fat people;those who don't scream.And in order not to fetishize cruelty, they still classified fat people into one category to which no additional adjectives need to be applied.There are no gradients or shades in this category, so there can be no discernibility.By removing ourselves from deciding how to treat fat, we free ourselves.Let go of the guilt, of judging them too harshly, and of the fears they cause about the surprise of our own bodies.

A second possibility is that the difference between 290 and 260 pounds is not as noticeable as I had hoped.Looking in the mirror every day, looking for signs of a quarter pound that disappeared overnight, above all else, makes it harder to see the person in front of you as the rest of the world does.Then there's a third possibility, which is that we haven't yet figured out how to talk about weight loss in the age of GLP-1 drugs.While this was a rare success, weight loss had to be noted.Considerable weight.Now that it's all around us — and why is it all around us — commenting on someone's weight loss requires navigating a minefield of assumptions: Is the person proud of having lost weight or ashamed that they didn't do it sooner?Do they feel good about their bodies or does their shame run deeper than that?And, most importantly, are they interested in discussing or admitting how they lost weight?

When we are ready to discuss this matter without embarrassment, then we will have something to talk about.Recently, when GLP-1 drugs became available in pill form, it seemed almost certain that obesity would be over for everyone who could afford such drugs.And inevitably, there will be further stigmatization of obesity that is already associated with lower socioeconomic status in America.How will the widespread use of GLP-1 affect fashion?Perhaps, people who are too poor to afford the drugs they need to lose weight will be much less obese than clothing services that make them look good and feel stylish.

While I was in New York, I went shopping.My obsession with clothes that didn't fit me completely made me forget the one item of clothing I needed for the next leg of my journey: a raincoat.Buying one put me in an unexpected bind.for me since I first worried in at least a decade about buying clothes that might be too big rather than too small.The solution came to me when I remembered writing about Arc'teryx for , and learned about the brand's resale program for pre-owned and refurbished outerwear.

When I arrived at the Arc'teryx store in SoHo, I felt a spontaneous urge to explain my use of Ozempic to the sales assistant who greeted me.Were all these conversations I was hoping to have with friends having a hard time going out after no one mentioned my weight loss?I'm not sure.But when I told her I was at Ozempic and wanted to look at raincoats that fit well but weren't too tight, her reaction showed me I wasn't the first to come to her with such a request.Not only because it made the transaction smoother, but also because it did not cause embarrassment and embarrassing shopping experiences.It felt good because I was so used to it.To get through this situation, instead of lying or avoiding salespeople altogether, I talked openly about my body and the clothes I wanted to wear.Months later, I realized that this was not the only milestone I passed that day; instead of buying one of the usual black, gray or navy raincoats in stock, I opted for an oversized, bright orange anorak that looked like a nuclear one.

One thing I never forget to pick up is the first pair of new shoes I'll buy in years.They have been sitting untouched in my closet since I picked them up at an Asics store in Ginza, near my apartment in central Tokyo.My concern is that they are still too heavy to run without knee pain, and taking them off before my body is ready could cause damage that cannot be repaired without surgery.The prospect of running on Alaskan roads that I know well is irresistible.The first day back I went straight from the airport to my hotel for a nap, then woke up around 10pm.and put my shoes on to run down a lonely road with mountains on one side and snow on the other.This far north, the midsummer sun was setting so late that it was still night when I set out on my first run in five years.It took about 10 minutes before he turned and walked, and physically he was terrified.But emotionally, even spiritually, it was like I was reborn in my body.

I ran again for 15 minutes the next night, and then another 15 minutes for two nights, and still no pain in my knees.In July, when I got home, I started running 20 minutes every other day.Then 30 minutes, six days a week.It was a particularly hot and humid summer in Tokyo, so every day I got up before dawn and ran along the banks of the Sumida River.Running again changed everything, starting with my relationship with food.I've never thought of GLP-1 drugs as a scam, but there was something strange about losing weight without any exercise other than long walks with the dog.Even stranger was the feeling that food was nothing more than calories, numbers that had to be balanced against my metabolic abacus.Ozempica, and how the embodied feeling of exhaustion brought back some pleasure in eating.The best part of running again, though, was on the road, where, putting one foot in front of the other as much as I could, I felt like my life was completely, if only briefly, under control.

My goal for the October trip to London is not to wear a special outfit, but to look good enough to host dinner with a friend from grad school.He's the person I've always loved, and even though I never thought about talking to him, it was important to make the effort.I want to remind myself how good it is to want someone.Be with those you want to be with and the light of their presence will fill you with unquenchable desire.

Along with my charisma, I had lost some of my ambition.Today's media world favors big personalities, relentless branding and the kind of self-promotion I couldn't stand when I got sick enough to hate looking in the mirror.Being a magazine writer is already a disappearing act in a way, because you often have to fade into the background so far that the topics seem as if you are not there.But.in my case, the activity continued even after the stories I worked on were published.Time after time I turned down the opportunity to appear in television programs and documentaries promoting my work.This self-doubt almost certainly prevented me from moving forward with the next phase of my writing career.At some point I stopped caring.

When I moved to London I had lost about 60 kilos: the contours of my body were starting to look more like a grown man than a huge child.But each milestone brought with it a deepening obsession with tracking my progress toward some intangible goal;I bought enough Ozempic to last me until the end of the year, by which time I had lost about 80 pounds.It pushed the “obese” range of the BMI scale into the realm of simply “overweight.”It brings me within a few kilos of quitting.Losing another 15 pounds will get me into the "normal" weight range, at which point I'll figure out how to manage my weight without Ozempic.And to manage hunger, cravings and neuroses that get worse when I no longer take the drug.Like my obsessive fixation on constant downward progress, for example.

The prospect of not weighing myself during my two-week trip to London was so terrifying that I almost packed away my scales.I believe it was a form of post-traumatic stress from a decade of failed dieting attempts.What made Ozempic work so deeply for me was that its results were immediate, leaving no room for setbacks when progress is slow and any small setback stirs emotions that people tend to hide under layers of Flamin' Hot Cheetos dust.After all, leaving them at home wasn't the craziness of packing weird-looking Japanese bathroom scales, but rather the prospect of getting them out of your luggage and into the trash along with your laptop and phone during airport security.

In London, I found temporary relief from the hyper-self-consciousness that had dictated six months of weight loss.Every day I woke up early and ran for over an hour through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.I ate heartily, walked aimlessly for hours, and went to every thrift store I could.

My shrinking waist meant I had to buy smaller clothes every few months, and even without a goal, I knew I wasn't ready yet.So spending on a completely new wardrobe will have to wait.This is what my slimmer self has in common with my fatter self: a keen sense of the impermanence of my body, the tyranny of a mindset that was once self-delusional, now aspirational, but either way, completely in progress.Survival takes longer than a pack of trousers, and London's thrift stores are proving to be exceptional.So instead of deeper or more fashionable solutions, I turned to the Uniqlo store in Mayfair, London, where the chinos of the Japanese fast fashion juggernaut fit me quite well.Later that night, over dinner with my beautiful graduate friend, I wasn't thinking about my past or my future.In fact, I wasn't thinking at all.within myself, I thought instead of the secrets of a body other than my own.

A version of this story originally appeared in the magazine's March 2026 issue under the title The Ozempik Diaries.

Photos by Joan Clayton Lee

Nega Mari Kobayashi pri Y's C inc.

Styled by Haru Shimizu