It's been exactly 30 days since I gave myself my first injection of semaglutide, and I'm sitting here trying to process everything that's happened. They told me it would help with weight loss. They told me there might be some nausea. What they didn't tell me was how fundamentally weird this whole experience would be.

The First Week: Welcome to Nausea Town

Let's start with the obvious: the nausea is real. For the first five days, I felt like I was on a boat in choppy waters. Not sick enough to throw up, but sick enough that the thought of eating anything more exciting than plain crackers made my stomach turn.

My doctor had warned me about this, but there's a difference between hearing "you might experience nausea" and actually feeling like you're perpetually three hours into a road trip on an empty stomach. I learned quickly that ginger tea became my best friend, and that eating small amounts frequently was better than trying to force down normal meals.

The Food Noise Disappeared

Here's the part that caught me completely off guard: the constant mental chatter about food just... stopped. For my entire adult life, a significant portion of my brain had been dedicated to thinking about food. What's for lunch? When can I have a snack? What am I going to eat for dinner? Should I stop for coffee? Maybe just a little something...

By day 7, that voice was gone. And I mean gone. I would get to 2pm and realize I hadn't thought about lunch. I'd be watching TV and not automatically crave whatever food appeared on screen. It was like someone had turned down the volume on a radio I didn't even realize was playing.

This was simultaneously liberating and unsettling. Who was I without food constantly on my mind? It sounds dramatic, but that constant mental real estate had been occupied for so long that having it suddenly vacant felt strange.

The Physical Changes

Weight loss in the first month: 12 pounds. Not the dramatic 20+ pounds some people report, but steady and consistent. What surprised me more than the number on the scale was how my body felt different.

I noticed I wasn't getting winded going up stairs. My knees hurt less. I had more energy in the afternoons. These aren't the dramatic transformations you see in before-and-after photos, but they're the changes that make daily life easier.

The Weird Stuff Nobody Mentions

Random things I experienced that I wasn't prepared for: Fatigue that hit like a truck around 3pm every day. Weird dreams, vivid and strange. A metallic taste in my mouth for about a week. The sensation of my stomach feeling "full" shifted—it's not the same as before, almost like a pressure rather than fullness.

Also, eating too fast or too much results in immediate and intense discomfort. I learned this the hard way with a burrito in week two. Your body will let you know, loudly, when you've pushed it too far.

The Mental Adjustment

The hardest part hasn't been physical—it's been mental. I've spent years using food for comfort, celebration, boredom relief, stress management, and just about every emotion under the sun. Suddenly not wanting food in those moments left me feeling... lost.

What do you do when you're stressed and don't want to eat? How do you celebrate without thinking about what restaurant to go to? These might sound like good problems to have, and they are, but they're still adjustments that require real mental work.

Would I Do It Again?

Absolutely. Even with the nausea, the fatigue, the weird adjustment period—yes. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like I have a tool that actually works. The weight is coming off at a sustainable pace, and more importantly, I don't feel like I'm white-knuckling my way through every single day.

Month one is in the books. On to month two, where I'm told things start to level out and the side effects ease up. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.