When Andrea Mullinax got home from work each day, her joints ached and she felt exhausted. A 35-year-old mom of two active adolescent girls, Andrea wanted to keep pace with them.
Some days her body wouldn’t let her.
“I walk eight or nine miles just at work, and I would hurt at night,” Andrea said. “I was lethargic. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to with my girls. My body hurt.”
With a busy work and family life, Andrea tried lots of things to lose weight. She worked out, saw a dietitian and tried the stimulant phentermine prescribed by a physician.
She saw some moderate success with weight loss but decided to try something different. In February 2023, she reached out to MU Health Care’s Weight Management and Metabolic Center for help.
“I walked in, I'm like, ‘Hey, I’ve got to do something,’ ” Mullinax said. “I had tried other ways to lose weight and wasn’t where I wanted to be.”
Andrea and her provider, Victoria Newcom, FNP, a medical weight loss expert, first tried an oral medication to help Andrea lose weight.
But when that medication didn’t fit her needs well, Andrea and Victoria — or “Tori,” to Andrea — discussed injectable glucagon-like peptide 1 antagonist (GLP-1) medications.
“GLP-1 medications not only help patients lose weight but also support better blood sugar control by increasing insulin production,” Victoria said. “These medications were developed to treat Type 2 diabetes and studies have shown they are a tool for safely managing excess weight and obesity as well.”
For Andrea, GLP-1 injections were a game-changer in her battle to lose weight and move toward her goal of living a long, healthy life.
“I was on the verge of having health issues,” she said. “I was starting to get high blood pressure, and my family has heart issues. My mom had diabetes. I didn’t want to have all those problems.”
The injections, which Andrea gets weekly, are a longer-lasting version of the hormone our bodies naturally release after eating.
This hormone plays a critical role in appetite regulation by slowing down the digestion process, helping people feel full sooner and longer, and eat fewer calories overall. It can also reduce food cravings.
“Andrea and I talked about all the treatment options we have and went over her goals, medical history and past medication use,” Newcom said. “She had already tried one weight loss medication. We found that she had insurance coverage for a more effective option, semaglutide. It was a decision we made together.”
The benefits of using GLP-1 medications for weight loss include reduced hunger hormones, feeling full sooner while eating and improved metabolic health. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist specifically approved for chronic weight management in people who are diagnosed with obesity or who are overweight.
"I felt very confident that I was going to get somewhere with this medication,” Mullinax said. “Tori is my cheerleader. She encouraged me and helped me understand how it works and how it could help me.”
Mullinax started exercising in addition to her injections. She became a fan of the elliptical machine for its minimal impact on her already stressed joints. She also branched out with her food choices by adding more produce and eating smaller portions.
“I started adding more fruits and vegetables and trying new things,” Mullinax said. “I found out I love hummus. I tried to have less quantity at meals and cut back on snacks. I feel like I was a stress eater and bored eater. I had that urge to eat all the time, but now I don't have the urge unless I'm hungry.”
Mullinax was prescribed an anti-nausea medication to take as needed but rarely felt any side effects from the medications. One thing she did experience was thinking about food less and less.
"When I first started, food was all around me, and on this, you can think about other things,” Mullinax said. “Now that I’m into a routine, it’s easier to turn down unhealthy choices.”
However, not thinking about food can cause some other side effects like nausea and dizziness from not eating enough food or drinking enough water. Newcom encourages her patients to keep a mental or written checklist of what they consume and when.
So far, Mullinax has lost a meaningful amount of weight and can share clothes with her teenage daughter. Her confidence has also been on the rise.
“My youngest daughter was like, ‘No offense mom, but you were so big,’ ” Mullinax said. “Beforehand, I was down all the time. Sometimes I look at the mirror, and now I'm like, ‘Wow.’ This helped give me more confidence.”
Mullinax expects to continue taking semaglutide long-term to help her get to her goal of 160 pounds and stay there. She understands this will be a life-long medication to maintain her weight loss.
“I feel like I have more energy,” Mullinax said. “I feel like I can keep up with my kids now. I just did blood work, and everything's perfect for my age. I'm blessed for that.”