A doctor lost 50 pounds on a healthy diet and another 30 pounds on Mounjaro. She says weight loss drugs may be the 'easy way out' — but so what?

• Dr. Betsy Grunch has lost weight both on a healthy diet and later on a buzzy GLP-1 medication.
• She says that drugs can indeed make weight loss easier, but there shouldn't be a stigma around that.

A doctor who has lost weight both by following a healthy diet and by taking Mounjaro said the attitude that it's wrong that such drugs make it easier for people to lose weight stops them from getting the help that they need.

Dr. Betsy Grunch, a neurosurgeon specializing in spine surgery, had struggled for years to lose weight and keep it off on fad diets. But after educating herself about nutrition, in 2018 she started intermittent fasting — consuming all her food in a six to eight-hour window — and eating a high-protein diet. She was able to lose 50 pounds and keep it off for four years.

In 2023 she decided she wanted to lose a few more pounds after plateauing, but felt it wouldn't be possible without making her intermittent fasting window even smaller, which felt too restrictive and unhealthy.

After consulting her doctor, she lost another 30 pounds off-label on the diabetes drug Mounjaro, which is now marketed for weight loss as Zepbound. These medications are part of the buzzy class of appetite-suppressing drugs called GLP-1s that include Ozempic and Wegovy, which have come to mainstream attention over the past year. An estimated 9% of Americans will be taking one of the drugs by 2030, according to JP Morgan.

"It was really kind of life-changing to me because it was just so easy and so natural to lose weight," Grunch told Business Insider of taking Mounjaro. "It just came off so quick and almost effortlessly really."

GLP-1s have reignited debates around willpower and weight

The rise of GLP-1s has shifted perspectives on weight in the medical field and wider society, as obesity and overweight are recognized as health conditions requiring treatment like any other. In turn, many people who previously struggled to lose weight without medication feel vindicated that an apparent lack of willpower wasn't actually to blame.

At the same time, the drugs have reignited debates around the "right" and "wrong" way to lose weight, rooted in the idea that thinness is a virtue and weight loss needs to be punishing to be done correctly. Research shows that such anti-fat bias can make it harder for larger people to get the right medical care.

That view also ignores the nasty side effects including nausea and constipation that GLP-1s can cause, which mean some people quickly come off them, and the fact they can alter a person's relationship with food in profound ways. People on such drugs are also required to eat a healthy diet and exercise, which is made easier by GLP-1s turning off the "food noise" in some patients' heads.

People shouldn't be judged for taking weight loss drugs

When Grunch, who shares insights into her life with her 1.8 million Tiktok followers, started losing weight, viewers speculated she was on weight loss drugs and accused her of taking the "easy way out."

And Mounjaro did indeed make losing weight easier — Grunch said it just "poured off" her. But to Grunch, it shouldn't be difficult to access medication that improves lives, and yet she regularly sees people too embarrassed to ask for help with weight loss because of stigma.

"That's like being shamed about taking blood pressure medicine," Grunch said. "Obesity and being overweight is a health condition and it should be treated and respected just like every other diagnosis that we treat people for. And I hate that people feel like they have to keep it quiet or be ashamed of taking it because we certainly don't treat other diseases that way."

Amid growing pressure on social media, Grunch decided to speak up about taking Mounjaro.

"The more and more frequent those comments were, almost on every single post I put up. And so I was like, 'You know what? F this, I want to be open and honest about it,'" Grunch said.

The video, which has 2.1 million views, was refreshing and relieved her stress, she said, and she wants more people in the public eye to open up about using GLP-1s.

Oprah Winfrey, for example, told a panel in last September that she thought weight loss drugs were "the easy way out," but revealed she was taking one in December.

"The fact that there's a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for," Winfrey said.

Grunch is treated differently in a smaller body

As well as sparking interest on social media, Grunch's weight loss has changed how her patients view her.

Before losing weight, Grunch would often feel awkward educating patients on the importance of being fit and maintaining a healthy body weight, she said.

"No one ever said anything to me, but I was like, I'm the pot calling the kettle black here," she said. "I can't educate my patients properly and expect them to implement changes that I can't do myself. So that was also a big motivation to me."

While she believes some patients take her advice related to their general health or weight more seriously because she is thinner, which she says isn't right but is the reality of weight stigma, others feel they can open up to her because she understands them.

There is a huge amount of research, such as this 2014 study, showing that shaming people into weight loss doesn't work, and in fact leads to further weight gain.

People are more likely to lose weight healthily when they are given guidance and encouragement as opposed to being judged and bullied, and this is the approach Grunch takes with her patients.

Having struggled to lose weight and tried many fad diets, taken up intermittent fasting and had success, only to plateau and then take weight loss medication, Grunch can relate to many of them.

By sharing her experience with Mounjaro, she hopes to help as many people as possible improve their health without shame.