'Stop GLP-1 shaming me'
Four women on what it's like to take GLP-1s while strength training.
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For Danimás, a publication launched last year that focuses on women’s strength training, I got feedback from women who are using GLP-1 medications and strength training at the same time. They shared similar insights: the medications have helped them exercise more or heal their relationships to exercise, and some fear the stigma and judgement that comes with taking GLP-1s.
One shared that members of her family have reacted judgmentally or will talk about “skinny Ozempic celebrities” in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable; another observed that the people who seem most suspect about GLP-1 use are women “who I’ve always known to be thin.” This didn’t make it into the piece, but I found it interesting:
“Apparently there is a perfect level of thin that people who are on GLP-1’s are required to reach! I didn’t find that anywhere in the drug fact pamphlet or my weight loss program or consultations with medical professionals, but according to these women there is…And I have a sneaking suspicion it is somewhere in the not-thinner-than-them range.)”
(Oof! When I lost a lot of weight years ago, I got at least two comments from women saying that I “had better stop,” because I was approaching “skinnier” than the woman making the comment — even if I wasn’t, really.)
Of course this is only a small snapshot of the GLP-1 experience, and I’ve always been measured (I hope) about my feelings on these medications and intentional weight loss in general: see the fourth paragraph here, for example, and plenty of others in my archive. But given how transformative, for better or worse, these drugs are shaping up to be, I’ll take whatever user insights I can get, and I think you should, too.
Check out some of the piece here, and keep reading at Danimás for the entire thing. Please share in the comments any of your own experiences and opinions, if you’d like!
‘Stop GLP-1 Shaming Me’
The most transformative drug in modern medicine is also one of the most divisive. The growing culture of judgement around GLP-1s makes life uncomfortable for women who inject.
“You’re not using a jab, are you?” So goes the discourse that has become familiar to Elizabeth, a 41-year-old Mounjaro user. She has been using Mounjaro for nine months, and, through a combination of medication and strength training four times a week, she has lost around 45 pounds. The question is usually accompanied by observations, mostly from women, that she’s lost weight.
“I don’t think they were saying this to me because they are concerned for me,” she says. “I think they feel opinionated about this. It grates on them They are voicing what a lot of ‘hard-working, driven’ thin women like them think — but don’t necessarily say. That is: ‘You are cheating. You didn’t do this the right way.’” Elizabeth is experiencing the all-too-familiar narrative that is emerging in popular culture: that GLP-1 medication is a “sneaky short-cut.”
Perhaps naturally for any woman faced with unsolicited body shaming or body surveillance, this makes Elizabeth feel “defensive.” And she’s not the only one. I’ve seen many GLP-1 users online discuss the criticism and judgement they’ve faced for using these medications, and public-facing women like Serena Williams — who revealed she lost more than 30 pounds on Tirzepatide — face the same on a more significant scale.
As a writer who has built my career writing about body culture and body image, I’ve come to realize that much of the discourse lacks the nuance that conversations around the body naturally demand.
Many conversations around GLP-1 use are offered by people who are not taking the medication. Common arguments I see are that use of these medications is in pursuit of extreme thinness; that medications will decimate muscle mass or bone density; that users will surely become starving skeletons. And there I’ll be, like a broken record, repeating and repeating: That’s not always true. Not necessarily. You’re not considering the entire picture.
Why do I care? I’m not a GLP-1 user myself, I haven’t been, and I also don’t plan to be…
I am not a woman, so I recognize things are different for me. At the same time, I think my experience supports the points you are making here. I lost 90lbs in 2008-9. I kept most of it off over the subsequent 15+ years. Getting to the low point was easy compared to staying at the low point, which was impossible. I gained and lost the same 30 pounds roughly ~10 times between 2009 and 2025. The gaining happened notwithstanding the fact that I knew I "never wanted to go back" and "always had to be on a diet." My appetite was such that it was trivially easy to overeat even the nutritious food that makes up 95+% of my diet. The losing was always an absolute fucking grind. I knew I could do it and I knew how to do it--it just sucked to have to do.
I got a script for tirzepatide in 2025 and it has been transformative for me. I am *effortlessly* at a body weight I would have struggled to maintain pre-GLP1. In the past, I would deny myself foods I love like pizza because of my penchant for overeating--"one slice becomes five slices and eventually those 30lbs come back." Now I can have a single slice of pizza and not be obsessed about whether I can have another.
I've done it the hard way. I understand the self-satisfaction that comes with doing it the hard way. And yet, Tirzepatide is so much better than the hard way. I cannot put myself in the headspace of someone who judges another people who uses an effective tool to improve their lives.
Mikala, I appreciated this piece, particularly your point that no one should be shamed for making a medical decision with their physician. That feels like an important distinction that's often lost in these conversations.
As I was reading, I found myself wanting a little more discussion of why many people are cautious about GLP-1s in the first place. Your piece understandably focuses on the social stigma surrounding these medications, but I don't think that's the whole story.
Many people's concerns have nothing to do with someone becoming thin. They're asking questions about a powerful new class of drugs that has produced remarkable benefits but also carries well-documented risks and significant unknowns. Gastrointestinal complications, gallbladder disease, pancreatitis, blindness, loss of lean muscle mass, uncertainty about long-term use, weight regain after discontinuation, and the extraordinary speed with which these medications have entered our culture.
I wonder if focusing on the judgment some users experience, the conversation risks overlooking those legitimate medical and ethical questions. It can begin to feel as though people are asked to choose between supporting GLP-1 users and questioning the drugs themselves, when I don't think those positions are in conflict.
One of the things I value about your essay is its nuance. That's why I found myself wishing this piece had spent a little more time holding both truths at once: that people deserve compassion and respect for the choices they make with their doctors, and that one of the most consequential new classes of medications in decades deserves thoughtful public scrutiny as well.