Oral GLP-1 Pill for Weight Maintenance: A Dietitian's Real Results w/ Whitney Black, MS RD

Whitney Black (0:00)

One of the biggest differences between the Foundayo and then the oral Ozempic is just the administration. There's not as strict rules, like you don't have to wait 30 minutes or an hour. You can take it whenever with food, whatever. And that was a big selling point for me. But I did that for about two months, and we can talk a little bit more about that journey as well. And then I switched back to Zepbound.

Ana Reisdorf (0:21)

Daily GLP-1 pill sounds like an easy way to maintain your weight loss. But what happens if you switch and it doesn't work, like the shot did? Welcome to the GLP-1 Hub Podcast. I'm Ana Reisdorf, Registered Dietitian and GLP-1 user. And today, my guest is Whitney Black, a fellow Registered Dietitian living with Type 1 diabetes. We discussed her switch from Zepbound to Foundayo, what changed with her fullness cues and blood sugar, and how she found her way back to Zepbound. Realize that this is one person's experience, not a verdict for how it will work for everyone. I still felt like it was an important story to share. Now let's get on to the episode.

Welcome to the GLP-1 Hub Podcast. I want to welcome one of my wonderful colleagues today. We have been trying to connect for a long time, and I am a crazy busy person, and so is she. Welcome Whitney Black to the podcast. If you're not following her over on Instagram, she has amazing stuff over there. So welcome, Whitney. Tell the people a little bit about what you do.

Whitney Black (1:23)

Hello, hello. I'm so excited to be able to just kind of join you and finally kind of meet face to face and talk. Like Ana mentioned, I am Whitney. I am a fellow colleague. I am a GLP-1 dietician. I've been a dietician for about seven years. I started out in dialysis and then kind of switched to private practice. And then along that journey, I also started a GLP-1 and then switched to more of the GLP-1 space where I, that is my niche now. I do work with GLP-1 and weight loss specific clientele. Yeah, I've been on a Zepbound for about two and a half years now. And it has been wonderful. It is truly, I looked back before, I'm like, I cannot even fathom. Like, it has been a game changer for me. So I do not plan on ever stopping this medication. It is fantastic. I love it so much. Right.

Ana Reisdorf (2:06)

So can we talk a little bit about before and how you were managing your weight, but also you have diabetes as well. So can we talk a little bit about pre GLP-1 Whitney a little? Yeah.

Whitney Black (2:18)

Yeah. So I do have type 1 diabetes. I also have Hashimoto's and PMOS. I was always on the larger side. I was never in the high class 2, 3 of obesity, but I was always teetering with 31, 32 BMI, just very overweight, larger in my body. I'm also 5'2, so it doesn't take much weight for it to just really show up in my body.

But I always struggled. I always struggled. Even as a child, I remember being a little chubby, a little rounder. I loved to eat. I loved food. And I remember, I mean, I probably have tried so many different diets and so many different things to manage my weight. And then, of course, you have the diabetes aspect, where a lot of things kind of backfired. And so I had to choose between, okay, well, do I want to keep doing this and potentially maybe I'll drop 5, 10 pounds? Or do I also want to harm my body because it's damaging for my blood sugar and all these different things? And I got to a point to where I was like, okay, I'm just going to be more like midsize. I'm going to be curvy. And then I was just learning to love that, right? And for a while it was fine. And then I had my second child and about over six months postpartum, maybe six, seven, eight months postpartum. I had already stopped breastfeeding at this point, but I just knew it was like it started slowly and then it just started progressing quickly. I was gaining weight. My insulin, I was becoming more insulin resistant. I was having joint pain, insomnia, like all of these different symptoms from all of the different diseases that I have. I just felt so lost and frustrated.

I remember going to my endocrinologist and my gynecologist. We checked all these hormones. Everything looked fine on paper, but I was frustrated. I didn't know where to go from there. I didn't know what to do. Thankfully, my endocrinologist was very, I love him so much. He's a nurse practitioner, but he was like, hey, given all the things that you're going through with PCOS at that time, diabetes, all these things, why don't you try a GLP-1, try a Zepbound? And so at that point, thankfully, he gave me all the information to call my insurance. Okay, ask about these things. And my insurance at that point covered Zepbound. It was a super easy process. And so I got started on that in March of 2023, and I have never looked back. I do remember, of course I knew about GLP-1s. I remember in like 2021, when I believe it was, I think it was still Ozempic at that time. It was starting to become a more well-known thing. But at that point it was, the news was, oh, well now it's approved for weight loss. And I remember hearing more about it at that point. And then once I got to the point to where my doctor was talking to me about it, I was really hesitant at first, because it was like, well, I'm a dietician. I should know, I should need this. On one side of the coin, on the other side, I was like, okay, but these work really, really well. You could finally lose all this weight, and plus all these other things that you're hearing about. So I did start obviously at a low dose, and then almost immediately, I'm a very sensitive responder to the medication. So I had nausea. I was losing weight pretty quickly at first. And it was really eye opening that these are very strong medications, and they really do work. But even someone that has the knowledge, has the education, has the training in the background, still can struggle with it. So I had to dietician myself in the, okay, well, we know this is going to happen, but we still know we need to do this. So what can we do to kind of bridge the gap there? So I just kind of a lot of trial and error and figured it out what works for me in that point. And then from there, I was like, okay, well, if I'm struggling with this, these are becoming more and more popular. I know other people have got to be having these issues. So that's when I started sharing my journey online, and I kind of shifted my practice into more of the GLP-1 space. And it has been truly eye-opening, and I love it. This has been, I feel like this is where I'm meant to be within dietetics, and it's a chef's kiss. I love it.