Losing Weight After 50: How I Shed Belly Fat and Improved My Health With Wegovy
Key takeaways:
Shannon Townley spent years trying to lose weight.
Her doctor recommended she try the weight-loss medication Wegovy (semaglutide).
Shannon was able to lose 60 lbs with few major side effects.
Shannon Townley had her second child when she was in her 30s. But unlike with her first pregnancy, the weight she had put on didn’t fall away after she gave birth.
“After I had my son, Hunter, I just never lost it,” says the 51-year-old resident of Pasadena, Texas. “I can’t call it baby fat after 16 years.”
That extra weight led to years of small, self-conscious moments, like untucking her shirt when she sat down for fear her belly would protrude.
But it wasn’t until a medical visit in 2021 that Shannon’s doctor expressed concern about her weight, suggesting that she try Wegovy (semaglutide), a once-weekly injection that had just been approved by the FDA for chronic weight management.
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The scale at the doctor’s office gave her pause
For years, Shannon says, she wasn’t strict about her diet.
She had stopped working to help homeschool her son, Hunter, for a time. And, in those days, she and her family would go out to dinner often. She liked to joke, “I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I’m not having a salad.”
“If we were going to go out to eat and everybody was having beer and wings, or pizza and cheesecake, then I was gonna have it, too,” she says.
As Shannon’s weight crept up, she tried bouts of dieting. She tested out the keto diet and Weight Watchers (now WW). But nothing produced lasting results. “I’d lose some, but I’d gain it back,” she says.
In November 2021, during a routine medical visit, Shannon got on the scale at her doctor’s office. She weighed 194 lbs.
“I remember being at the doctor that day and getting on the scale and just being like, ‘Holy crap, almost 200 lbs and I’m not pregnant. This is not good,’” she says.
Her doctor was also concerned and recommended Wegovy, which is often prescribed in conjunction with a lower-calorie diet and exercise to reduce appetite, stop cravings, and help people eat less.
The medication works by stimulating insulin release after eating, blocking the liver from making extra glucose and slowing the movement of food out of the stomach, which creates a feeling of fullness. It also targets appetite- and reward-related areas of the brain, to reduce food cravings.
Shannon read that there were some unpleasant side effects associated with Wegovy, which tend to be more prominent when people first start taking the medication or after a dosage increase. (These include diarrhea, stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting.) But she decided that if her insurance would cover the high cost, she would try it.
“We’ll power through side effects and see if it works,” she recalls thinking at the time.
Because she had certain health conditions — including a body mass index (BMI) of about 33 — Shannon’s insurance agreed to cover the cost of her Wegovy after a 4-week approval process. That was good, she says, because it cost more than $1,000 a month.
Overcoming her fear of needles
When Shannon started taking Wegovy in December 2021, she also had to overcome her fear of needles. “It took me over an hour to take my first shot. I was so scared that it was gonna hurt,” she says.
But it wasn’t as bad as she feared — nor were the side effects. (Typically, people start with a lower dosage that is ramped up each month until they reach their target dosage.) She had some initial diarrhea and several waves of fleeting nausea the day after she took her first shot, but those side effects waned over time.
“The next day, I could already tell I wasn't hungry,” she says, referring to how quickly the medication started working after her first dose. “I just didn’t feel like eating.”
After she started treatment, Shannon found she could only eat small portions of food and that she thought about food less often. She also didn’t crave salty snacks as much as she had before.
“I used to be a huge pickle eater. I mean, that was my snack. I kept them all the time, and I probably haven’t had a pickle in over a year. I just don’t have the taste for it,” she says.
She also stopped wanting a cocktail or glass of wine with dinner. “It’s just the weirdest thing. I just have no desire for it,” she says of drinking alcohol.
Her goal was to reach 160 lbs. In the first month, she lost 8 lbs to 10 lbs. In subsequent months, she lost 4 lbs or more before her weight loss plateaued.
Changing her eating and exercise habits
Shannon began exercising more, too. She started riding a stationary bike at home and going to the gym to do strength training with her husband, Larry, who is into bodybuilding.
With her reduced appetite and increased exercise regimen, Shannon has now had to learn to eat more consciously. Her goal is to make sure she’s getting enough protein and nutrients, something her husband has stressed.
She might have coffee and a protein powder mix for breakfast and a half-sandwich or small salad for lunch. But she usually doesn’t worry too much about dinner, knowing that she won’t eat too much of whatever she and her husband are having.
“And if I want to have an Oreo or two, then I’ll have it and I’m done with it,” she says.
‘The easiest thing I’ve ever done to lose weight’
As the months have gone by, Shannon has surpassed her weight-loss goal. But she’s kept going.
Since 2021, she has lost 60 lbs. For the last 6 months, she’s maintained a weight of about 135 lbs, she says.
While people have noticed her weight loss, the benefits go deeper than that, Shannon says.
“Twenty years ago, I would have been, like, ‘Oh, I look so good. I look better in my clothes’ — which I do. But for me, now, it’s more of, ‘I can cross my legs when I’m sitting in a chair. I can get off the couch in one go,’” she says.
“I don’t sit down and pull my shirt out of the waist because I feel like my stomach looks big. There are just those little things for me, now,” she says. “But feeling better, moving better, having more energy — those are the things that have really impacted me.”
Wegovy is meant to be taken long term since, according to healthcare experts, once people stop taking it, the weight they’ve lost may return. But, initially, Shannon did not want to take it indefinitely, because she was unsure of its long-term effects.
“I was dead set to stop taking it when I hit my goal,” she says.
But, given her years of battling weight, Shannon gets nervous about stopping the medication anytime her weight inches back up. And she feels more active and in better shape than she has in decades.
“I’m not going to commit to forever at this point, but I’m going to stay on it for a little while,” she says. “This has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done to lose weight.”
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