I Will Not Do This Alone

Apparently it does take a village. I know how that sounds. But I’ve been at this long enough to mean it.

I lost 110 pounds. Then I re-gained 35. And what I’ve figured out in trying to find my way back is that I will not do this alone.

When it comes to metabolic health, there is so much to unlearn. And so much to learn. Years of conventional advice that didn’t work. Habits baked in long before I understood what they were doing to me. And somewhere underneath all of it, the emotional and nervous system wiring that made change feel impossible even when I knew what to do.

I’ve been doing this work since 2023. Went from a size 20 to a size 8. Brought my A1C down from 10% to 5.0% (it was as high as 13.3% a few years earlier) and came off insulin injections, Metformin, high blood pressure medicine. I off-ramped Mounjaro GLP-1 injections after six months. I did it on a tight budget, which I mention because I want you to know: this doesn’t require a lot of money, expensive programs, and supplements. That part I figured out.

It started with a book. The Diabetes Code by Dr. Jason Fung was the first thing that made sense of what was actually happening in my body — why conventional care kept failing, and what could change.

When his newest book, The Hunger Code, came out in March, I had a quiet moment of recognition. I submitted a testimonial last year. I’m pretty sure I’m “Kathy” in chapter 5. If you read it and something sounds familiar, it might be me.

The books gave me the framework. They were necessary. They were also just the beginning.

In the summer and fall of 2023, I worked with Nicole Henley as my somatic coach.

I already knew, going in, that the inner work was central to this. Not a side issue. Not a bonus add-on. The metabolic and the emotional are not separate systems. I needed someone who understood that. Nicole’s work helped me start to feel that in my body, not just understand it in my head.

It was the beginning of a kind of inner work I’m still expanding.

I also listened to a lot of audio books. A lot. Books on nervous system regulation, trauma, nutrition, healing. I was working with a tight budget, so I checked out audio books from the library and had a one-credit-a-month subscription with Audible. Here’s a list of most of the books I’ve read. I need to add some of the more recent ones.

Exercise became part of my life during this period, too. And I want to be clear: not as a weight loss tool. That framing never worked for me and I stopped using it.

I moved because it was good for me. Because it changed how I felt. Because it was mine.

That distinction matters more than it sounds.

I joined the online community at The Fasting Method in April 2024. They’re co-founded by Dr. Jason Fung and Megan Ramos. What I found there wasn’t just protocols. It was people who are in the middle of their own messy, non-linear work.

I showed up for the live online community meetings. I spent time in the forum. I was even a guest on the TFM podcast (Episode 188). This spring, I made the investment to join Coach Heather Shuker’s 12-week “Make It Stick” maintenance course through TFM. Being in community with others who are working on the same thing — not just learning the protocols, but learning how to live it — has been genuinely useful.

From TFM, smaller circles formed, too. I’m in a couple of WhatsApp groups with people I met through the community. We check in. We hold each other through the patches that don’t feel like progress.

These connections didn’t happen automatically. I had to show up to find them. They’ve become some of the most honest conversations in my life.

In January, I became a member of Maggie Battista’s community, The Altar.

The Altar is spiritual practice work. Cacao rituals. Kundalini activations. Ancestor readings. Sacred calendar practices. It lives on Substack, with live Zoom gatherings and an optional WhatsApp group. It has nothing to do with blood sugar.

And it has everything to do with why this time feels different.

I knew going in this would matter to me. It wasn’t a surprise. It was an instinct I finally trusted. Because the work isn’t just metabolic. It’s not just about what I eat or when I fast. It’s about showing up as all of me.

I’ve stopped wearing headphones on my walks.

For a long time, every walk was a podcast. Every walk was a chance to absorb more — more strategies, more research, more content about healing. That wasn’t nothing. A lot of what I absorbed genuinely helped.

But lately I’ve been letting the walks be quiet. And when I do listen to something, I alternate: something useful, then something purely for enjoyment. I recently finished Peter Wolf’s memoir, Waiting On The Moon. J. Geils Band frontman. Boston rock royalty. I wanted to know more about the man behind the music. Highly recommended!

Last weekend, Count Zero, one of my favorite bands, celebrated their 30th anniversary. I was outside the venue when I ran into someone I hadn’t seen since around 2018. I said hi. He didn’t recognize me. “It’s me, Sooz!” He laughed and said “You’re a fraction of Sooz!”

That was goddamn swell to hear. Even with knowing I’m still working my way back.

Music has been part of my life since the early 2000s, when I started one of the first music blogs and spent years doing concert photography. I stepped away for a while. I’m making my way back out now — seeing shows, running into familiar faces. That community was always there. I just needed to show up again.

Last year was hard. And I let it impact the scale and body composition numbers.

My financial situation left me carrying a lot of shame and embarrassment. I was technically around community — TFM was there, I showed up to some Zooms — but I wasn’t really in it. There’s a difference between being around people and letting them in.

My A1C jumped up to 5.7%. Working to get it back to 5%.

In January, my partner and I reunited. We both regained weight last year. He’s committed to working on his health in a similar way that I am. I’ve learned I can be friends with people who have different relationships with health and wellness. That’s fine. But I want a partner who is in it with me in the same way. That’s happening now.

What I’m working toward, alongside all of this, is getting more comfortable with abstinence — with the reality that there are foods that are essentially poison to me, and that I cannot moderate them. Not won’t. Can’t. That’s not deprivation. It’s clarity.

Community helps me hold that clarity. Not forever in crisis mode, but supported. Witnessed.

Community isn’t an add-on to the protocols. For me, it is the protocol. The science matters. The framework matters. But so does belonging somewhere. So does being seen.

It’s All Happening is a newsletter about my health and wellness expedition: Type 2 Diabetes remission, significant weight loss, and off-ramping a GLP-1 medication after six months. Written from inside the process, because the process doesn’t end. New to what I’m writing about? Start here.