Joshua Hunt wrote about GLP-1s, body change, and falling in love with fashion. It got me thinking about my own version of that story.
For me, restarting a weight-loss journey in 2023 with diet and exercise changes — and the support of a great nutritionist — felt essential if I wasn’t going to end up with a bevy of obesity-related illnesses. As I gained weight, my blood pressure went up as well. And while I wasn’t pre-diabetic, it could have been just a matter of time. When I started, I weighed 200 pounds. By 2024, I’d lost 25 pounds. But I still had more to go, and in 2025 I decided to add semaglutide — first compounded, then Wegovy.
I’m 166 now. Thirty-four pounds down overall. But the number on the scale isn’t really the story. The bigger change has been body recomposition — losing fat while building muscle from regular training. I can see it in how my stomach, hips, waist, and thighs have narrowed. My t-shirts are three sizes smaller.
As my body has become more proportional, my pleasure in clothes has grown — and so has my desire to play. During my heavier years — and I’m not thin now — my interest was in looking nice without drawing too much attention. My wardrobe was minimalist by design — t-shirts, cashmere sweaters, narrow jeans, a limited color palette. Safe. Nothing too loud Now that I’m trimmer, I’m more confident in my body, and that translates directly into having more fun with clothes.
It also translates into something practical: I now know that vintage size 16 petites will fit me well with certain brands at least 90% of the time. That’s new. That kind of predictability was never available to me before. It means I can search for clothes online and know whether they’ll fit before the packages arrive. And with more than 20 years of fashion available in the vast online vintage archive, I have a real choice now — not just what might fit, but what I actually want. The Custo Barcelona 90s crazy printed tops, the Ruti petite barrel pants, the tweed Talbots’ Petites jackets–none of them would have been in my closet when I weighed 30 pounds more.
Losing weight with the aid of GLP-1s — and becoming way more fit — has given me a new kind of body acceptance. Like many weightlifters, I’ve arrived at a mindset where what matters most is feeling strong and being strong. I’m not small, and I never will be. I could lose more weight, trim down further — but not in a way that compromises my energy or my strength.
Because I’m proud of my fitness, I don’t yearn to be smaller. I enjoy my body’s functionality, its new muscularity, and the way I sit and move in the world now.
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Best, Susan
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