Isabella Roland (@HellaBella) is a weight loss warrior and social media influencer who regularly vlogs about her experience on Ozempic. In a recent viral video, she opens up about everything she has learned about weight loss on the drug. “I have been taking Ozempic for a little over six months at this point, and it helps me with my appetite, it helps me with my hunger cues and fullness signals, and it's been a great tool for me,” she says in the clip. In the video, she discusses the types of meals she eats and what she has learned about eating to lose weight in general.
Tracking Calories Is Key
Her first pointer has to do with calorie counting. “For me, tracking calories is the best way for me to monitor how much food I'm eating,” she says in the video.
Consume Lots of Protein
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“I also find it helpful just to kind of try and get in enough protein on the daily,” she says. “One of the ways that I do that is to have a protein shake per day pretty well. I usually have about 30 grams of protein through a premier protein shake a day.”
RELATED:What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Taking Ozempic
Seltzer Water Curbs Hunger
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“Some of the other things that I frequently have are seltzer waters,” she says. “That's something that I drink throughout the day.”
Coffee with Protein
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“I usually only limit myself to two cups of coffee per day because otherwise I am like, you know, jittery, and I get anxious. So I try to minimize the amount of caffeine that I'm having,” she says. She also adds Pure Protein to her cup. “I've been using about one-third to one-half of these per cup of coffee. And then I drink two cups of coffee a day. So I mean, I usually get about 30 grams of protein from these per day,” she says.
She Eats Boring Food
Also, maintaining her diet isn’t very exciting. “In addition to that, I just eat a lot of boring food like chicken, cheese, eggs, and things like that,” she says.
Food Doesn’t Give Her the “Dopamine” That It Used To
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“If you look at the types of meals that I'm having, one of the things that I've noticed about eating is that it just does not have that same magical feeling that it used to have. So I'm not as concerned about food. Food does not give me the same dopamine that it used to. And so, unfortunately, I've lost some of the joy of eating, but I also, it's, it's a pro and a con at the same time,” she says.
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She Eats According to Mood
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“What I eat changes based on my mood,” she says. It is also based on how busy she is and what she has going on.
She Eats Frozen Dinners
“I'll often have frozen dinners,” she says. “I sometimes have Lean Cuisines and stuff like that.”
She Meal Preps
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“I really prefer to just have freshly cooked meat in the fridge. And so I can meal prep with that on Sunday, and then I can eat that throughout the week,” she adds. She gravitates toward the “crockpot type” of meals. “I made all of this chicken here in the air fryer, and I'm just gonna put that up in some bags, and then I'll use that throughout the week to make different things,” she says.
She Bases Breakfast Off Hunger Cues
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“Breakfast for me usually just depends on how hungry I am,” she says. When she is super hungry, she will have oatmeal or Greek yogurt with granola. If she isn’t as hungry, she might have a Light and Fit protein shake. “They're 10 grams of protein, and they're only 80 calories,” she says.
She Eats Smaller Portions
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“I just wanna give that tip to you. If you are starting out, you might want to put what you normally put on a plate and then plan on eating 60% of that or 50% of that even. Because it's just your stomach that just can't handle food like it was, it stays in your system longer, and it's definitely more prone to making you upset if you eat too much.”
RELATED:20 Possible Ozempic Side Effects
If She Eats Fast Food, She Skips the Sides
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She still eats fast food but sticks to ordering one item. “I went by Chick-fil-A and got me a spicy chicken sandwich and some ketchup. This is 490 calories, and I think the ketchup is 25 calories. So I do not limit myself to not going to fast food, but I will say when I get fast food, instead of going to get the whole meal, like the sandwich, the side, and the drink, I usually just get the sandwich because it fills me up and I don't wind up having a lot of leftovers. And honestly, it cuts the calories pretty much in half if you don't wind up getting a side,” she says, adding that she only gets fast food once a week.
Start Slow in Your Changes
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“Just remember to start slowly with the changes that you're making because the best way to make changes sustainable is to change slowly over time. If you change everything all at once, you're going to have a very hard time staying successful,” she says. “In order to make a change, you have to sort of moderate what you're doing. You have to try. You have to have effort involved. And so it's hard to put all your effort into something all at once.”
Habit Stacking is Key
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“I'm going to count calories this week, and next week, I'm going to limit the amount of calories I have. Then, the week after that, I'm going to try to count calories, limit the amount of calories, and aim for a hundred grams of protein per day. So just think about it in terms of that,” she says.
RELATED: I’m 50+, and These are 3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Getting the Best Shape of My Life
Finally, Be Patient
“If you're not losing weight super quick, it's not something to get discouraged about. My weight loss has honestly been really slow compared to other people's, and at times, it made me feel self-conscious or just like I'm not doing enough,” she says. “But I know in reality that I've focused on this extensively. And so I think that the results that I'm finally starting to see are like a culmination of everything that I've been doing.” And if you enjoyed this article, don't miss 20 Incredible Ozempic Success Stories of All Time.
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