I Tried Wegovy for a Year and Here's Why I'm Never Going Back

We've all dreamed of that magic pill—the one that would effortlessly melt away unwanted pounds and transform our bodies overnight—and make these overconfident gym rats look at us with a rare glimpse of approval. But as Sierra Robichaud discovered, according to a YouTube video she posted, the reality of weight loss medications is far more complicated than the glossy advertisements suggest.

"I almost threw up. I do not want to go back. I don't want to go back to the way that I was." These raw words from Sierra capture the emotional rollercoaster of her weight loss journey.

A mother of two and brand owner, Sierra describes herself as an "excessive talker, shy but outgoing, wants friends but the not friendly, traveling homebody." Over the past year, she has been on a tumultuous journey with GLP-1 medications for weight loss. In this candid account, she shares her experiences with Wegovy and Saxenda, detailing the highs, lows, and everything in between.

Her Weight Loss Struggle

"I am 5 feet 6 inches, and my weight when I started on day one was 204. I had struggled with my weight for three years," Sierra shares in her video. "Prior to getting on the medication, I had my son in January of 2020. After I had him—two weeks after I had him—my weight went down to… okay, so when I delivered him, I was 217. Two weeks after I had him, my weight went down to 195, and from there until November of 2022, it was almost three years. I just fluctuated between 195 and 205. I could not lose weight. I exercised regularly. I was doing keto. I tried keto, I tried intermittent fasting… but my weight did not change. It would go down five pounds, but then it would go right back up, and then it would go down and right back up again."

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Starting Saxenda

Sierra explains, "So I went to my doctor and told her, I really don't know what else to do. I thought maybe she would send me to a nutritionist. I had never even heard of this medication before. So she told me about the medication, that it was shots. She said there was a weekly one, which was Wegovy. Ozempic, but that was back ordered. At the time there was low stock or I can't remember, there was some issue with it. So she started me on Saxenda, which is a daily injection, and I was on that for three months and I lost 20 pounds, 21 pounds I think."

Switching to Wegovy

"So I went back to the doctor for my follow-up, and at that time, that was in February of this year, 2023. She said that the Wegovy was available now so that she could switch me to Wegovy, and that would just be easier because it was a weekly injection," Sierra recounts. "The only thing with the Wegovy is, or was at the time =, that they only had the higher doses. They didn't have the lower doses, but she figured since I had been on Saxenda for so long, for three months and I was on one of the higher doses, that I should be fine."

Her Experience with Side Effects

Sierra describes her experience: "When I started on Wegovy, I could feel it immediately. The side effects were insane. I was so tired, just totally, completely wiped out. I had horrible headaches, constipation, nausea, on and off, nausea. I did stick with it and it did die down a little bit. There were some things that I did to kind of help with the side effects. One of them was drinking liquid IV in the morning because I noticed on Wegovy that I did not have the desire to drink water at all, and what I heard was that when you're not hungry, you're also not thirsty, and so you just don't have the desire to drink water."

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Stopping and Restarting

"I stopped taking it in May, and by the end of June, I had gained back 12 pounds," Sierra admits. "I was up to 172, I want to say was the highest. I just was like, oh my God. I was really upset because I felt so comfortable at 60; I feel like that is my weight. Maybe I could go down to 155. I wouldn't mind fluctuating between 155 and one 60, but I felt real, really comfortable with myself and my body and the way that I looked at one 60 and I really wanted to stay there and I could start to tell as I was going up to one seventies, being in the low seventies, this is not what I want to do."

The Struggle Continues

Sierra shares her ongoing battle: "I stopped taking at the end of September and my weight pretty much stayed the same for about five weeks, and then I started to notice I was very bloated, more bloated than usual, and with the medication, it really does reduce your bloating immediately. Every time I would take the shot, I lost a gallon of water out of my body. As I was feeling that bloated feeling like the scale started going up and every week the scale is just going up, up, up, up, and I'm like, okay, maybe there's a rebound effect where you've suppressed your appetite for so long that it has to go up a little bit and then stabilize."

Where She Is Now

"It has been two months since I've been off of it and I have gained 20 pounds. It just as quickly as it came off, it has come back," Sierra reveals. "I don't want to go back on the medication. I want to just figure this out on my own, and that's why I'm starting my new health journey of not drinking alcohol anymore and going to the gym in the morning and working on my eating, making sure that my nutrition is good because this is the thing. I feel so much better off the medication. I feel like a normal functioning human being. I feel like I have all the energy back that I used to have."

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Her Dilemma

Sierra concludes, "Now I feel good, but I don't like the way that I look, and I don't know where to go from here. I am trying to figure it out. If you have any advice in the comments for what to do other than go back on the medication, which I really do not want to do, please let me know because I just really want to go back to one 60. That is where I'm happy. 161 was what I was holding steady at today. I stepped on the scale and it was 181, and I almost threw up. I do not want to go back. I don't want to go back to the way that I was." And if you enjoyed this article, don't miss 20 Incredible Ozempic Success Stories of All Time.