I grew up in the limelight, with my appearance scrutinized weekly from the time I starred in my own NBC show at 14. I was blissfully unaware of my weight back then. I was naturally lanky and athletic, and I ate whatever I wanted with no concern for weight gain. All that changed when, as a teenager, I was put on medication to manage my moods, and weight gain followed me from there. By my 40s, still actively working as an actress, I acquired a deep sense of shame around my body. At a size 6, I felt obese. By the time social media arrived—with its fixation on being thinner, more toned, more surgically perfected—that pressure tipped into a disordered relationship with food that I have spent years trying to untangle.
Early menopause did not help. In the last several years, I’ve put on about 20 pounds that I really don’t need. I also don’t seem to have the discipline, motivation, or time to lose them.
Still, that’s not why I went on a GLP-1. I went on a weight-loss drug because a doctor told me it might help ease symptoms I’ve struggled with for basically my entire adult life.
I was diagnosed with my first autoimmune condition—Graves’ disease—at the height of my health, when I was 23. My immune system forgot that my thyroid was a part of my body and attacked it, sending it into an overactive storm that made me very, very sick. My doctor prescribed strong medication and sent me on my merry way. In 1998, there was no discussion of diet or lifestyle or any of what we now know can influence autoimmune conditions. I probably did a lot of things that very slowly made my condition worse.
