Amy Kane
Appearances
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
Immediately, almost within days, that voice that I've had in my head since, I always say, my earliest memory is five years old. I remember thinking about food, when I'm going to eat food, how much I'm going to eat food, where I'm going to, what I just ate, how many calories was it? And all of a sudden I took this medication and it felt like I was freed. Like I literally felt like I'd been trapped.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
And it felt like I don't have to think about this all the time anymore.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
So much has happened. The one thing that's remained the same is that I've now maintained the weight loss for about a year now. And in that period of time. That is in itself is huge. It's wonderful. That's wonderful. Yeah. I mean, I always say that it wasn't about losing weight for me. I knew how to lose weight. It was how to maintain the weight loss. Yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
So for me now, having maintained for a year is pretty great. And I'm pretty proud of myself for that. And during that time, I have sort of established this sort of community of people on social media who are kind of feeling the same as you and I, where it's all about, you know, I am so tired of feeling bad about my weight. And I'm so tired of being shamed for my weight. And it's not my fault.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
And I'm not alone in this. Yes. And I'm tired of people shaming me for being on a Zempik or being on another GLP-1 medication. So it's been kind of a whirlwind since we last chatted.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
People want this time to be different. Like I said before, I know how to lose weight. I didn't know how to sustain it because often when I was losing weight, I would feel that I was starving myself. I wasn't giving myself the right nutrients. I wasn't allowing myself to have a piece of my daughter's birthday cake at her party because if I ate carbohydrates, I was going to gain weight.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
And so this time around, people want to know how to do it differently. So they might be on a GLP-1 medication, or maybe they're not yet, or they're thinking about it, but they want to know, how can I heal my relationship with food? How can I heal my relationship with my body? It goes so beyond the exercise regimen and the diet changes, but how can I really heal
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
Oh, my gosh. It's all day long, unfortunately, on social media platforms. People continue to say you're lazy if you're on a GLP-1 medication. You're lacking motivation. You should just be able to go to the gym. It's only for diabetes. You shouldn't take it if it's for weight loss.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
Uh, you know, I think people just assume that GLP-1 medications, often they'll just phrase it as, well, all it does is make you starve yourself. That's all it does. There's not more to it. And when you get off the medication, you're going to gain all the weight right back. And, uh...
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
I mean, so much shaming around these meds to the point of your face looks a certain way if you're on these medications or your body looks a certain way.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
Yeah, exactly. I'm told I have ozempic face and ozempic butt. And in reality, it's just blue skin from significant weight loss. It has nothing to do with the medication. But, you know, medications like ozempic and manjaro are... in my opinion, a perfect sort of scapegoat for the continuation of shaming people in larger bodies. Yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
And people ask me all the time how I kind of deal with a lot of the negativity that comes my way. And to me, I mean, so many people, when I talk about food noise or when I talk about obesity being a disease, they're like, I thought I was the only person that had these thoughts up here. And that outweighs the, no pun intended, that outweighs the other stuff, the negativity that comes my way.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
It's definitely gotten better. You know, even though I've now been on this medication for about two years now, I've been on this weight loss journey, so to speak, for about two years. I have to remind myself that this was decades. I mean, since I was a little girl of thinking one way about my body and about food. And so lots of progress has been made.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
But there's still times where I look at I'm folding laundry and I look at a pair of pants and I'm like, whose pants are these? There's no way these are these. These still fit your these fit your body. But I'm coming to terms with it. I challenge myself. I take pictures of myself now. I had no pictures of myself with my children from when they were little. I take pictures.
The Oprah Podcast
Dr. Ania Jastreboff
That kind of thing challenges some of that thinking. But I think it's going to still take more time.