A Busy Dad's Honest GLP-1 Experience

My five-year-old asked why I couldn’t run at the park anymore.

We were at Washington Park, which is this beautiful loop in Denver where families go on Saturdays. My older two kids, Grace (10) and Eli (8), were racing ahead on their bikes. Charlie, my youngest, wanted me to chase him through the playground.

I made it about forty seconds before I had to stop, hands on my knees, wheezing.

“Daddy, how come you can’t run?” he asked. Not mean. Just genuinely confused. His friends’ dads ran at the park. His dad didn’t.

I told him I was tired. He said, “You’re always tired.”

He was right.

Your experience may differ from mine. This is my personal story, not medical advice.

How a Reasonably Fit Guy Ends Up at 267 Pounds

I played lacrosse in college. Not D1 or anything impressive — a small school in upstate New York where everyone played something. But I was active. I could run for days. I graduated at 207 pounds of mostly muscle and big meals.

Then life happened.

The usual trajectory: desk job at a tech company, long hours, a marriage, three kids in five years. Each life stage added weight like sediment. Not dramatically. Just five to eight pounds a year, compounding quietly.

The pattern was always the same. Wake up at 6, get kids ready, commute, sit at a desk for nine hours, commute home, dinner with the family, crash on the couch. On good days, I’d eat a decent lunch. On most days, I’d skip breakfast, grab something fast at noon, and then absolutely demolish dinner because I was starving.

Then came the nighttime eating. After the kids went to bed — that 9 PM to midnight window — I’d sit on the couch with my laptop, doing “one more thing” for work, and eat. Chips. Cereal straight from the box. The kids’ leftover pizza. Whatever was easy.

I wasn’t eating because I was hungry. I was eating because I was decompressing. It was the one part of my day that felt like mine.

By 40, I was 260 pounds. By 41, I hit 267.

The Sleep Apnea Diagnosis

My wife, Sarah, had been telling me for a year that my snoring was getting worse. I’d always snored. But she said this was different — she could hear me stop breathing. She’d lie there counting the seconds until I gasped and started again.

I finally did a sleep study. The results weren’t subtle: moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea. I was having 38 breathing interruptions per hour. The doctor said my throat tissue was collapsing during sleep, largely because of the weight around my neck and midsection.

They gave me a CPAP machine. If you haven’t used one, picture strapping a small vacuum cleaner to your face every night while you try to sleep. The mask leaked. The tube got tangled. The machine hummed. Sarah said it was like sleeping next to Darth Vader.

It helped my breathing. It ruined my dignity.

The sleep doctor was blunt: “Lose fifty pounds and there’s a good chance you won’t need this anymore.”

Fifty pounds. Right. Let me just squeeze that in between the 6 AM wake-ups and the 11 PM emails.

Sarah Did What Sarah Does

My wife is a researcher by nature. She works in healthcare administration, and when she gets interested in something, she goes deep. After the sleep apnea diagnosis, she spent three weeks reading about GLP-1 medications. Clinical trials. Side effect profiles. Comparison studies. She built a spreadsheet.

She’s the person I married, and I love that about her.

She came to me with a recommendation: tirzepatide. She’d read that it targeted both GIP and GLP-1 receptors and showed stronger weight loss results in clinical trials compared to semaglutide alone. For someone who needed to lose 50-plus pounds, she thought it was the better option.

“There’s this provider called Remedy Meds,” she said, showing me her phone. “Telehealth. Compounded medications. The reviews are solid. Want me to set up the assessment?”

I said sure, partly because I trusted her research and partly because I knew she’d keep bringing it up until I did.

The online assessment through Remedy Meds took maybe fifteen minutes. Medical history, current medications (just Prilosec for reflux), weight loss history (none worth mentioning), and goals. A provider followed up with a video call where I had to be honest about my eating patterns, which was uncomfortable. Telling a stranger that you eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of the box at 10 PM while watching SportsCenter isn’t a great moment.

She prescribed tirzepatide, starting at 2.5 mg weekly. Medication showed up four days later.

Week 1-2: The Rough Start

Starting weight: 267 lbs, size 42 waist

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. The first two weeks were rough.

I took my first injection on a Sunday evening. Sarah watched me do it (moral support disguised as curiosity). The needle was tiny — way less intimidating than I expected. Barely felt it.

By Tuesday, I was constipated. Like, aggressively constipated. I won’t go into detail because nobody wants that, but it was significant enough that I was Googling solutions at my desk.

The fatigue surprised me. I expected appetite changes, but nobody warned me I’d feel like I was running on 60% battery for two weeks. I was dragging through meetings, relying on coffee more than usual, and passing out on the couch by 8:30 PM.

“You seem worse,” Sarah said, concerned.

“Give it time,” I told her, mostly because I’d already committed and my stubbornness wouldn’t let me quit after two weeks.

I also had some nausea, but it was mild — more like a general “meh” feeling about food than actual sickness. The real effect was that my appetite just… decreased. That 9 PM couch eating? I’d sit down with my usual snacks and just not want them. Not in a willpower way. In a “my body is actually not hungry” way.

Month 1: The Dad-Specific Challenges

End of month 1: 256 lbs (down 11 lbs)

The fatigue and constipation settled by week three. I added a fiber supplement and started drinking way more water, which helped. But new challenges showed up, and they were all related to being a dad.

Challenge 1: Kids’ leftovers. My kids are the world’s least efficient eaters. Grace picks at everything. Eli eats the middle of his sandwich and leaves the crusts. Charlie takes two bites of anything and declares himself “full.” Before medication, I’d finish their plates without thinking about it. Half a quesadilla here, some chicken nuggets there, a handful of goldfish crackers. That’s probably 400-500 extra calories a day that I never counted.

On tirzepatide, I genuinely didn’t want the leftovers. I’d scrape them into the trash and not think about it. Sarah said that alone was probably worth the cost of the medication.

Challenge 2: Work dinners. I’m in sales. Two to three client dinners a month at steakhouses in Denver where the appetizers are fried and the portions are absurd. The social pressure to eat and drink heavily is real.

I developed a strategy: order a protein and a vegetable, eat slowly, nurse one drink. Nobody noticed or cared. Turns out, clients care about the conversation, not whether you finished your 16-ounce ribeye.

Challenge 3: Weekend food culture. Denver is a food city. Brunch culture. Brewery culture. Tailgating at Broncos games. Every social event revolves around eating and drinking.

This was the hardest adjustment. I didn’t want to be the guy who couldn’t hang. But I also noticed that the medication made alcohol hit harder — two beers felt like four. So I naturally cut back, which had its own benefits.

Month 2: People Started Noticing

End of month 2: 247 lbs (down 20 lbs)

Twenty pounds is where it becomes visible, especially when you carry weight in your face and midsection like I do. My face thinned out. My work shirts weren’t straining at the buttons. A colleague asked if I’d been working out.

“Something like that,” I said.

I wasn’t ready to talk about it at work. There’s a weird stigma around men and weight loss medication. Women in my office talked openly about Ozempic and Mounjaro. But the guys? Silent. Like admitting you need help losing weight is somehow a character flaw.

I told a couple of close friends. One was supportive. The other made a joke about “taking the shortcut.” I let it go. He’s also 280 pounds and has been saying he’ll “start Monday” for three years, so I wasn’t taking his critique too seriously.

Sarah was thrilled. Not about the weight — she’d always said she didn’t care about that. She was thrilled that I was sleeping better. The snoring had decreased significantly. I was using the CPAP most nights but had already had a couple nights where I slept without it and didn’t have events.

“You’re not gasping anymore,” she said. “I can actually sleep.”

Month 3: The Kids Noticed

End of month 3: 239 lbs (down 28 lbs)

Charlie asked me to chase him at the park again. This time, I lasted more than forty seconds. I ran around the playground for ten minutes, and when I stopped, it was because he was done, not me.

He didn’t say anything about it. He just assumed his dad could run now. Kids are like that. They don’t analyze change. They just accept the current version of you.

Grace, my ten-year-old, was more observant. “Dad, your face looks different,” she said at dinner one night.

“Does it?”

“Yeah, thinner. In a good way.”

Eli, my eight-year-old, asked if he could “see my muscles.” I flexed for him. He was not impressed. But the fact that I was standing in the kitchen flexing for my kid instead of collapsed on the couch with a bag of chips felt like a win.

My clothes were getting loose. I’d been wearing size 42 pants, and they needed a belt. I bought two pairs of 38s at Target, which was the most optimistic purchase I’d made in years.

Side effects had mostly leveled off. Mild nausea on injection day, some reduced appetite (that was the point), and occasional acid reflux that I managed with my existing Prilosec. The constipation was manageable with fiber and water.

Month 4: The Sleep Apnea Follow-Up

End of month 4: 227 lbs (down 40 lbs)

I went back to the sleep doctor for a follow-up study. The results were significant: my events per hour had dropped from 38 to 11. Still technically mild sleep apnea, but the doctor said at this rate, I might not need the CPAP much longer.

“What changed?” he asked.

“I lost forty pounds.”

He literally said, “Well, yeah, that’ll do it.”

I started sleeping without the CPAP on weekends as a trial. Sarah monitored me (she’s a light sleeper). No gasping. No long pauses. Just normal snoring that she’d lived with for fifteen years.

I cannot overstate what better sleep does for every other part of your life. My energy came back. My mood improved. My patience with the kids — which had been running on fumes — got better. I wasn’t the irritable, exhausted dad anymore.

Sarah said something that stuck with me: “I feel like I got my husband back.”

Coaching Soccer and Other Things I Couldn’t Do Before

At 267 pounds, I’d stopped doing physical things with my kids because everything was uncomfortable. Running hurt my knees. Sitting on the floor to play Legos made my back seize up. I’d volunteered to be “team parent” for Eli’s soccer team instead of assistant coach because I couldn’t run the drills.

At 227 pounds, I signed up to coach Charlie’s spring soccer team. Five- and six-year-olds don’t need tactical genius. They need a grown-up who can jog alongside them and make it fun. I could do that now.

I also fit into a size 36 waist. If you’ve never gone from a 42 to a 36, let me tell you — it’s like discovering a new section of the clothing store exists. Pants that aren’t in the “big and tall” area. Shirts that taper instead of drape. I felt like a normal-sized person at a store for the first time in years.

What I Eat Now

People always ask this. Here’s my typical day:

• Breakfast: Two eggs, toast, coffee. I eat breakfast now, which is new. Turns out, eating in the morning means you don’t eat the entire kitchen at night.
• Lunch: Whatever’s available at work, but reasonable portions. A sandwich and a side. Maybe soup. I stop when I’m satisfied, which is earlier than it used to be.
• Dinner: Whatever Sarah makes for the family. I just eat less of it. One plate, normal portions, no seconds.
• Evening: Nothing. This is the biggest change. The 9 PM to midnight eating window is closed.

I’m not on a diet. I’m not tracking macros. I’m not doing keto or paleo or carnivore or whatever the guys on podcasts are pushing this week. I’m eating regular food in regular amounts because the medication reduced my appetite to something manageable.

The Honest Stuff

This isn’t all victory laps and soccer coaching. Let me be real about a few things.

Cost: We’re paying $199 a month for compounded tirzepatide through Remedy Meds. Our insurance doesn’t cover weight loss medication. That’s $2,400 a year, which isn’t nothing. Sarah and I talked about it as a health investment — cheaper than the CPAP supplies ($50/month), the reflux medication that might go away, and the long-term health costs of obesity.

Dependency concern: I think about what happens if I stop the medication. The research suggests many people regain weight after stopping GLP-1 drugs. My provider and I have talked about this, and the plan is to establish sustainable habits while the medication is helping, then discuss tapering at some point. I’m not there yet.

Social drinking: I drink way less now. Partly because the medication makes alcohol feel stronger, partly because I don’t want empty calories undermining progress. This has been mostly positive, but I’ve had a couple of awkward moments at client events where I’m nursing club soda.

The guilt: There’s a little voice that says I should’ve been able to do this on my own. That a grown man with a good job and a loving family should have the discipline to eat less and move more. I’m working on telling that voice to shut up. Some problems need tools beyond willpower.

What I’d Tell Other Dads

If you’re reading this and you’re where I was — fifty-plus pounds overweight, exhausted, watching your kids from the bench instead of the field — I want to say something clearly: this isn’t about vanity.

This is about being alive and functional for your kids. About not needing a machine to breathe at night. About being able to chase your five-year-old at the park.

I resisted getting help because I thought I should be able to fix it myself. That cost me three years of being too tired and too heavy to be the dad I wanted to be.

The assessment through Remedy Meds took fifteen minutes. The first injection took thirty seconds. The results took four months. In the scope of a lifetime, that’s nothing.

If you’re interested, you can take Remedy Meds’ free assessment to see if you’re a candidate. Have your wife fill it out for you if you need to. That’s basically what happened with me, and I’m glad she pushed.

Where I Am Now

I’m four months in. Down 40 pounds. Size 36 waist. Off the CPAP most nights. Coaching my kid’s soccer team.

I still have about 20 pounds I’d like to lose. My provider is adjusting my dosage, and we’re talking about adding more structured exercise now that my weight is in a range where my joints can handle it. I signed up for a gym near my office — nothing crazy, just weights three times a week during lunch.

Charlie doesn’t ask why I can’t run anymore. He just says, “Chase me, Daddy,” and takes off.

And I chase him.

James R. is a reader in Denver, Colorado. He submitted this story in February 2026. Individual results with GLP-1 medications vary. Always consult with a healthcare provider before starting any weight loss medication.