Journalist and broadcaster Carole Malone has opened up about her experience using Wegovy and has admitted that trying to keep the weight off when she comes off the weight-loss medication is something that “scares” her.
Carole, who has been on Wegovy for six months, began taking the drug after she ruptured a glute muscle, leaving her worried about her mobility. It was then she decided to take action.
“Before my injury, being overweight had depressed me, but it hadn’t debilitated me,” she says. “Then, for a month, I had to use a crutch and found myself hobbling into TV studios. That’s what made me take it. I had a vision that I was going to hurtle into old age not being able to do anything for myself.”
In six months she has gone from 14st 8lb to about 11st 3lb, though admits that the next stage of her “journey” is to keep the weight off by relying on the healthy habits she has formed.
“When you get thin, you say ‘I’m never going to be fat again’. And that’s the terrifying thing for me now I’ve done the first part of my journey. The next part is to try to keep the weight off, which I have never done before, and that scares me,” she says.
“I’m on a much lower dose now, so I do feel a bit hungry. I don’t think feeling hungry is a bad thing, as I’m the right weight. But I have to be aware that when I’m hungry I don’t eat food that’s bad for me.”
While some people have referred to medications like Wegovy and Ozempic as miracle drugs – but not Carole. She said they can work miracles, but only with hard work as well.
“People shouldn’t expect to just inject themselves and see the weight drop off. You have to change your bad eating habits as well,” she explains.
As part of the process, she has overhauled her own diet to include oily fish, protein and vegetables – but only after realising she was depriving her body of essential nutrients.
“At the start, because I didn’t want to eat, I chose not to eat a lot of the time. What I didn’t take into account was nutrition and vitamins. That’s not the drug’s fault. That’s my fault,” she says.
“I was excited about the fact that I was losing weight and wasn’t hungry. I didn’t think about the loss of muscle mass, which has reduced to virtually nothing. Now I’m having to go to the gym to work at building it back up.”
But since overhauling her lifestyle, Carole has seen her mobility improve and the injury that kicked off her weight loss no longer hurts.
“My mobility is better than it’s been for years. I can walk my dog for miles. I don’t get the pains in my knees any more. That niggling glute injury which was the starting point for all this doesn’t hurt me any more,” she says.
“I’m a different woman. I’m happy with what I now see in the mirror and I’m happy that my health is better. I’m excited by how much healthier I feel. And who knows, I might even get to live a bit longer.”
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