well guys we've made it 6 months can you believe 6 months you've been having to listen to me ramble on and on and on about weight loss and about all the things 6 months and I am here today to share with you The Good the Bad and the Ugly um and if I would do it again so welcome if you are new here I am Cheryl so thrilled to have you here to all of my fantabulous sunshiny friends who are returning thank you all so much for being here so yeah really really quick um I'm sorry if I am looking down I did write this out I don't often script what I'm going to say but there's a lot I wanted to cover today so I do have some notes written out um so I apologize for that in advance um so guys I've made it 6 months I it kind of feels like yesterday that I was sitting at a union meeting and I got a text message that my medication was ready and um yeah so I just want to recap as quickly as possible if anyone has not been here since the beginning and if you haven't I'll give you a super quick recap right now but go back into my playlist and you guys can watch the whole thing unfold from the very beginning so last summer I went to my doctor um and this was actually a new doctor my doctor had retired a new doctor had taken over and um they had been calling me sending me letters for over a year saying like you really need to come in Meet the new doctor I don't go to the doctors so long story short I go to the doctor last summer and um it was more of like a meet and greet and she was kind of like you know it was the first time we had ever met is there anything that like I need you need to talk about or that I should be aware of and I had said to her that um I had been struggling with my weight my whole life look at my chart pretty apparent and I wanted to do something about it so obviously as a physici first thing that she needs to do is Labs so that was last July um so she did my labs she called me and she said you know some things are looking a little out of sorts with your kidneys um I'm sending you for an ultrasound so I go for the ultrasound and wasn't thinking anything of it at all but while doing the ultrasound I pretty quickly realized that something was up when um she called in somebody else and they were pointing at some things and doing some things and um I didn't really know what to expect not at all what I was think thinking when my doctor called me and told me and I want to say we're into October now um that I had CKD and I was like what is that I don't even know what you're talking about so I have chronic kidney disease stage 3A um and she was very nonchalant about it I was kind of freaking out about it long story short I am fine um if I can keep my stage 3A CKD at 3A for the rest of my life things are good if they progress they get worse 3B stage four liver fail uh kidney failure so that's what we're trying to avoid right so she prescribed some medication and I don't remember exactly but I want to say it was maybe seenda and then trulicity um both which were denied by Blue Cross keep going months go on um I'm kind of panicking a little bit now I'm talking to her she in my research now I come across all of these glp ones that are helpful so why goie being a glp one I I'm not 100% sure with the trulicity of the six cender if they're only glps or what the situation was but anyway she decided to prescribe the W GOI this gets approved by Blue Cross not for my CKD but because my BMI was 35 maybe I'd have to go back and check maybe it 42 I I my BMI was high enough to be considered obese so it was covered for obesity not for the CKD which is what we were looking for it for originally okay stay with me so long story short she puts the wovi in can't find wovie anywhere now I keep doing all the research I keep looking blah blah blah blah blah I realize there's like a nationwide shortage of this W goie back in October of last year um this was 2023 so months go on and I'm getting more and more anxious um and she ends up I start calling pharmacies and they're basically telling me there's no y goie but you may be able to get something else zet bound so I call my doctor again she says yep that's great if you can find it I'll prescribe it so I call I find Zep bound at Walmart near me my doctor switches the W GOI to Zep bound um a couple of days later I'm at a meeting it's nighttime 7:30 I get a text message my y go is in I leave the meeting as soon as it's over go right to Walmart pick up my medication come home and shoot myself with zet bound which was then 2.5 Mig this is what it looks like it comes in a shot this comes off you place the there's a needle in here you place that on your skin you press this button here and you hear two clicks medication goes in you do it in your arm your thigh or your stomach easy peasy so it wasn't until then that I started re searching exactly what glp ones are and how they can actually help with weight loss because remember I go in talking about weight loss we discover CKD I kind of freak out all I care about now is my kidneys kind of put the whole weight loss thing on hold in the last 6 months weight loss has become kind of the prevalent like number one thing going on here and CKD has taken the the back door um because she has calmed me down off the ledge it's not as concerning as I thought it was in the beginning as long as we keep it here at 3A if we keep it here with the help of my friend um I should be okay and obviously if you're obese and you're losing weight and you get to a healthier BMI all other things are going to help you be more healthy right so that is where we are now I had blood work in July of this year my CKD is exactly where it should be staying at 3A if anybody knows anything about kidney disease you don't go backwards I won't go back to a stage three a two that won't happen 3A is where I am um and that's where I'm going to continue um hopefully so just for the record um there are there was two studies about gp1s Zep bound specifically there is a study still going on about Zep bound and CKD that study is probably another year or so in the works but it is showing great things there was a previous study and I'm not sure which medication it was but it was GPS um and CKD and it just started to show like this is what we're saying and the study was showing the exact same thing and to save money they just ended the study I don't exactly know why um but there is still one study actively being done so hopefully within the next year or so these medications will also be approved through Med uh insurance for CKD okay so 6 months we have now been on this medication keeping our CKD in check and losing weight so to date the good my CKD in check thank you very much to my little friend um my CKD is exactly where it should be and we have lost 41b now 6 months 41 lbs might not sound like a whole big number to some of you but let me just be here to tell you that it is in fact excellent it is a fabulous number my doctor is thrilled with it um The dietitian that I saw was thrilled with it so at 41 lbs over 6 months that is 6.8 lbs a month or 1.5 lbs a week and if you do the research and you look most doctors dietitians nutritionists weight loss people they will all tell you that 1 to two pounds a week is where like that's like the perfect little area because if you're losing too much weight to quickly it's just not going to stay off it's just not realistic if you're losing slowly there's a better chance that you're losing less muscle mass and you're losing actual fat and that's what we want I want to lose as much fat as I can and retain as much muscle as I can now I am not ver muscular I am working on that that is a whole other thing that I'm I'm working through um so the good we are down 41 lb CKD is in check I am feeling stronger and better every day now part of the bad is not to do with the medication but I have had several surgeries in the past 5 years um I have had a hysterctomy I've had a hernia surgery because of the hysterctomy and most recently 2 and 1 half 3 years ago I had ankle reconstruction on my right ankle completely reconstructed all the ligaments tendons there's things in there that will be in there forever and then last August so just over a year ago I had complete ACL on my left knee so two different sides of my body um extremities have been severely damaged and a lot of therapy and all things so unfortunately in the ankle I will never regain full use um so I have um I don't have full use of the ankle I can walk I can do all the things um it swells very easily there's nerve damage it's it's a whole thing so exercise has been really really tricky and I have to be very careful because the littlest thing and I I can set myself really far back so so um but I have been walking my girlfriend can call we can go to the track I can walk I can do like a mile and a half without any major issues when I get tired we stop if it starts to hurt or swell I stop um I purchased a bike I've been doing that as often as I can I am trying to begin resistance training um it's just it's been a lot so that's kind of the bad is that um you do still need to do the work right this isn't easy peasy everything's just great that's just not how it works um but the medication helps you begin to lose weight begin to get your brain in check and begin to be able to do the things that you need to do so as far as it being bad I'm saying that it's bad because I'm still not quite there yet but it's actually really part of the good is that um the medication starts to help you be able to do these things so I'm I feel great as far as water I feel great as far as um being able to do way more than I could 6 months ago um and one of the biggest things that I'm able to do now um which is extremely embarrassing but I am quite sure that some some of you will understand um when you get to a certain size and things stop moving the way that they should things Little Things become extremely difficult going up and down the stairs like I don't want to go do another load of laundry cuz I got to go up and down two more time like I don't want to do it um I could not get on the floor if something fell I could not get on my hands and knees I can't do the baseboards like those types of things have been really difficult in the past three years especially with these past two injuries so it was already starting to get tricky you know but then the injuries really um antagonized everything so then putting more weight on during those surgeries was just you know the trifecta my grandson was born in April and I was freaking out I was like I'm going to be the worst grandmother in the world I'm not going to be able to do anything well since February I have lost the 40 lb and while we're not done yet things have changed so dramatically I was babysitting 2 months ago I was at their house and he's you know he's all over the place now well he's not crawling or anything but he lays on his little mat and he's playing and he's rolling over and he's doing all the things well I want to play with him right so I'm like okay I'm going to try and I got on the ground and guys I can get on the ground and play with Rowan on the ground and then takes a second I got to get myself up carefully but I can get up so I can get on the floor and I can play with my grandson and I don't know that anybody um unless you've been there can fully understand the weight of that no pun intended um but it was it was crazy to me I was really really scared that I wasn't going to be able to do things with him and I can and it's just the most unbelievable feeling and it's because of this medication and yeah I'm doing the freaking work I'm eating all the protein I'm getting exercise in as often as I can I'm watching what I eat I'm being more conscious of the food that goes in my mouth I'm but it's because of this that I'm able to do that if you go and you watch my video why are gp1s different I will show you dozens of reasons of things that I have tried unsuccessfully in the past this gave me the mindset to do it differently this time I have never done something for 6 months in my life to improve my health I don't think I've even done anything for 6 days um so this has been huge huge huge huge um the bad is that in order to stay and be success successful this is a lifetime commitment so my doctor and I have already talked and she said 100% I will need to take this for the rest of my life um that being said I can't guarantee that insurance will cover it for the rest of my life once your BMI goes under I want to say 27 but I might be wrong once your BMI is O overweight and not obese then um this is no longer covered for obesity management hopefully by the time we get there it will be covered for something else so I also suffer from PCOS um which this medication does really great things for as well um so maybe it will be covered for that maybe by then it will be covered for the CKD because in reality I need this medication to stay at stage three for the rest of my life but it needs to be covered and right now there is not a glp or a gp1 medication covered by insurance for CKD because those studies are not um completed yet so this is what I would need forever and with the medication come side effects and the side effects can be really tricky if you go and watch Monday's video last week sucked it was awful the nausea was terrible and that hasn't been the case for the past 25 26 weeks it was the case last week so there's really no Rhyme or Reason to the medication um which means I could be suffering from sporadic bouts of nausea or any number of other side effects for the rest of my life so that's a lot to process as well um I don't really know you know where to go there and then you also have the main side effects that most people run into with these medications is um constipation so I have been taking Bena fiber to alleviate that situation and kind of stay on top of it so that would mean I would also need to be taking these for the rest of my life and you know I know pay some side effects blah blah blah but this is also a cost so right now I am covered by insurance but I am paying a $30 Cay these are $13 to $15 a month so that's $45 right there and then I'm taking nazine for the nausea or Zofran from my doctor so that's another $5 to $10 a month right there um so there's a lot I'm currently I use um drip drop electrolytes sometimes once a day maybe a little bit less I put it in my water because it has magnesium in it magnesium helps with constipation with sleeping with you know some of the things that are caused by the side effects of the medication those are $10 a week um so you know there's a lot of other costs that would be lifelong at this point so you know that's kind of the bad part of it um but you know the all of these things you know you kind of give one it's a it's a give and take right I don't want to be obese I don't want to be unable to be mobile I don't want to die of a heart attack I don't want to die of kidney failure um I want to be here for my family I want to be the best mother wife and Mima or grandma or whatever he decides to call me that I can possibly be and and I know I could not do that 40 lbs ago I was not and when I look back at the pictures um it's kind of crazy to me um and I will put those in right here so the the green shirt is my first day came home from that meeting got my shot gave myself a shot and took those pictures so the green shirt was the first night February 27th um I can still wear that shirt which is frustrating to me when I put it on I was like okay big freaking deal like I and then I did the side by side so I will tell anybody who is just starting this journey I hate pictures we all hate pictures right we get into this position in our life pictures are the worst nobody wants to take a picture right take the picture I just keep M on my phone occasionally I show them to you guys because that is how much I love you I don't show them to anybody else it's kind of weird um most of my family and immediate friends except for a couple um don't watch this channel it doesn't have anything to do with their life so and that's fine um and I know that so I can share more because for some reason sharing this journey with the people closest to us is harder than sharing it with perfect strangers um but I share these pictures with you to show and encourage you because I look in the mirror and I don't always see what people are saying or what people say that they see and when I do the comparisons it's I have a video coming out um I think next week where I tried to clean out my closet and guys let me tell you it was the hardest thing I've ever tried to do the fear of letting go of clothes was like nothing I've ever experienced putting on some clothes so that gray um dress that you saw me in I wore that in November to um the November before so just before I started so when when I was going through the process trying to find the medication I wore that dress to um Nashville to a banquet that my son was honored with a a award from Nascar and when I saw those pictures it brought me to tears I looked so a awful I was so hard on myself looking at those pictures and then I tried those clothes on the other day and the dress fit and I was devastated Beyond devastated that that dress fit so I took a picture and now I looked at the pictures and there's a noticeable difference but I was so hard on myself that the dress still fit and obviously I hadn't lost enough weight and I and it was it was hard but I put those pictures in here to show you um there is a difference and I think you can see the difference even in my face with the way that I carry myself I was out yesterday and and this is i' I think I've said this in a few other videos where people have kind of mentioned that you know I look different and I ran into someone that um I saw at a funeral a few months ago but you know on the other side of the room and just kind of acknowledged you know cuz we were all there for a funeral and I saw this person last night and this was someone that I grew up around the same time with you know we had like the our families intertwined a little bit we weren't friends per se but I knew this person I've known this person since I was a child and haven't really seen or spoken to in 20 years and we ran into each other and he was talking and he said well you haven't changed a bit and I was like yeah okay and he said no seriously you really haven't and I was like well you know let having kids and you know being a grandma now we're all active and we continued talking to another friend of ours and a couple of minutes later he looked at me and he said no seriously he said you look really good and it's stuck with me all the past 24 hours because um when it's coming from people that you know and that know that you're on a journey I don't know I guess it just doesn't mean as much but it really it's it's choking me up now because um sorry this medication has really given me back my life um hopefully it keeps my kidneys in check and keeps me healthy in that regard you know for another 40 years and it keeps me healthy and at a healthy BMI where I'm able to continue to go on vacations with my family where I'm able to get on the floor and play with my grandkids where I'm able to do all the things that I want to be able to do sorry I don't know why that um that really really choked me up for some reason I think it's hard to accept the change and accept that we're doing okay so I just want all of you to know that you can do it too trust me if I can do it I have tried everything go back and watch that video it's pretty comical I have tried everything this is different this gives us the tools that we truly do need to make the changes so that we can live the life we want and live the life that we will love and I am just so absolutely grateful for my doctor for Eli Lily for Zep Bound for each and every one of you I don't think I would be able to have done what I have done in the past six months without you I love your encouragement I need your encouragement your support your kindness means so much to me and I know with out a doubt that there is no possible way that I would have survived these last 6 months without you um so I just want all of you to know yes 100% I would do this again and I would recommend to anyone who is struggling with their BMI um and just remember I am not a doctor I do not pretend to play one on your screens please consult a healthc care professional before making any um decisions look at your BMI um and my doctor has told me multiple times the BMI is what she's concerned about she doesn't care what I weigh she doesn't care about the little chart that says you know you should weigh 121 pounds that she doesn't give a crap about that she cares about the BMI she wants me a healthy BMI if I get one point under that BMI she will be Beyond thrilled um and so will I to be honest with you and that's why I have told you numerous times I have not set a goal as far as a number on the scale I don't give a crap about the number on the scale I care about how I feel um if this was all that um God is going to give me as far as my weight loss would it be a little disappointing yes but would I be okay I would because I feel a 100 times better than I did 6 months ago would I like to feel a hundred times better than I do right now absolutely who wouldn't but you know only time will tell so yes I would do it again yes I would recommend it to anyone who is considering it if you need it for your health would I consider it for someone who's 10 lbs overweight no I would not um but I would 100% consider this medication um and I personally would do it again I don't know if I covered all of the Good Bad and the Ugly that I was intending to because I started reading the first paragraph that I had written out and then I just went off on my own little tangent so I am sure that we will meet again real soon if you are new here and you got anything out of this video I would love it if you would go and subscribe my playlist is also um I will link down below right from the very beginning and all of the trials and tribulations along the way to all of my fantabulous fantabulous crew of um sunshiny friends I love you I adore you I thank you all for your love your support your encouragement and just remember everybody when you can't find the sunshine be the sunshine bye