Chrissy Teigen reveals using Ozempic to lose weight after pregnancy loss, calls it 'frustrating and torturous'

Model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen has revealed she used Ozempic for weight loss after a pregnancy loss in 2020.

American model Chrissy Teigen has revealed that she turned to Ozempic for weight loss to lose her "pregnant belly" after suffering a pregnancy loss in 2020. During an episode of her podcast Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen, with author Johann Hari, the 39-year-old made candid confessions about her experience with Ozempic, a weekly injectable typically used to manage type 2 diabetes.

Chrissy Teigen had a complicated experience with Ozempic after a pregnancy loss.

Radhika Bhirani

In a following Instagram post, she wrote: "I first started taking Ozempic after the loss of our Jack. There I was, existing in a body that didn’t feel like mine, with absolutely nothing to celebrate - just the constant reminder that this body that once carried life for 20 weeks, was now just a... sad reminder."

Chrissy Teigen is married to singer-rapper John Legend, with whom she has four children - Luna Simone, Miles Theodore, Esti Maxine, and Wren Alexander. In 2020, she had revealed that they had lost their son Jack at 20 weeks due to a pregnancy complication.

While sharing her health struggles during the recent podcast, she said: 'I had two babies and then I lost a baby a little over 20 weeks. And then my body was just completely stuck. It was like in shock almost. When I had lost that baby at 20 weeks, I had probably gained an extra 40 pounds that I wasn't comfortable with.”

"I remember way before people were even talking Ozempic, before it was like a celebrity thing or talked about, I had tried it for maybe, like a year or so, and noticed no results for three, four months. Zero. Not a pound lost. And then all of a sudden, was finally able to lose the weight that was so reminding me of the baby that I had lost," she added.

Teigen also opened about the challenges that came with taking Ozempic. When 'Magic Pill' author Hari shares his experiences with the drug, Teigen shared that “it was frustrating for me because I know that logically you need food to have energy.”

According to people.com, she described eating on Ozempic “like force-feeding sometimes just so I could go about my day and go about my job. And that, for me, is almost torturous: not being hungry at all and consuming food... I hate that. I love being hungry. I love craving food. I love desiring food. I get so excited to make it, to try it, to taste every part of it … Until I got that right dosage, it took a while before I would even get feelings of hunger."

While Ozempic is being considered a 'magic pill' for weight loss enthusiasts, it is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for weight loss.

Does Ozempic help in weight loss?

Ozempic is a brand name for semaglutide, a prescription medication developed by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. It was initially approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

This medication belongs to a class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists (glucagon-like peptide-1), which mimic how the natural hormone GLP-1 works in the body. It supports blood sugar level regulation by stimulating insulin secretion, slowing down digestion and reducing cravings.