GLP-1 Reflection Questions: Food, Body & Wellbeing
From the Experts — by Jamie Marich, PhD
This resource is not designed to tell you whether you should or should not take a GLP-1 medication. That decision belongs to you in consultation with qualified medical professionals.
Instead, these questions are intended to help you explore your relationship with food, your body, health, weight, movement, and wellbeing—and to give you language for discussing these issues with your therapist and healthcare team.
Before Starting: Questions Worth Exploring
- What is motivating me to consider a GLP-1?
- What do I hope will be different in my life if the medication helps?
- How much of my motivation involves weight or appearance? How much involves pain, mobility, metabolic health, physical function, food noise, or quality of life?
- What messages have I received about my body from family, healthcare providers, diet culture, body-positive spaces, or other communities?
- Do I have a history of dieting, restriction, binge eating, purging, compulsive exercise, or other disordered eating—even if I was never formally diagnosed with an eating disorder?
- Are there parts of that history that my prescriber needs to know?
What would using this medication in a way that supports rather than harms my relationship with my body look like?
If You're Taking a GLP-1: Notice More Than Weight
Instead of asking only “Am I losing weight?”, consider:
- How is my pain?
- How is my mobility?
- How is my energy?
- Am I getting enough nourishment and hydration?
- How does movement feel?
- Am I able to do things that matter to me more easily?
- How often am I thinking about food?
- Can I recognize physical hunger?
- Can I recognize satisfaction or fullness?
- Am I eating less because I'm satisfied—or because I'm afraid to eat?
- Have foods become morally categorized as “good” or “bad”?
- Am I becoming increasingly rigid about calories, carbohydrates, protein, sugar, or other nutritional rules?
- Am I checking my body more often?
- Has the scale become increasingly important to me?
- Do I feel pressure to lose faster or become smaller?
- Am I comparing my body with other people's GLP-1 results?
- Can I notice changes in my body without making those changes a measure of my worth?
Are there any of these questions that I find particularly difficult to answer? Where might that difficulty be coming from?
Food Noise vs. Restriction
“I'm hungry, I'll eat—and then I can move on with my day.”
“I'm satisfied. I don't need to keep thinking about what's left.”
“Food is still pleasurable; it just isn't demanding so much of my attention.”
“I'm hungry, but eating means I'm failing.”
“Let's see how little I can eat today.”
“I shouldn't need food while I'm taking this medication.”
“If the scale isn't moving, I need to eat even less.”
When I eat less than I once did, what is happening internally? Am I experiencing satisfaction—or deprivation and control?
Watch for Old Patterns in New Clothes
A GLP-1 can change appetite, fullness, food preferences, and thoughts about food. For someone with a history of dieting or disordered eating, that makes curiosity especially important.
Consider talking with your therapist or treatment team if you notice:
- intentionally ignoring hunger
- increasingly rigid food rules
- fear of eating enough
- frequent weighing or body checking
- compulsive exercise
- exercising despite pain, illness, or injury
- intense anxiety when weight loss slows
- wanting medication increases primarily to accelerate weight loss
- avoiding social situations because they involve food
- feeling increasingly proud of how little you can eat
- old eating-disorder thoughts or behaviors returning
These aren't reasons for shame. They're information worth bringing into the room.
What Does “Working” Mean to Me?
Complete these sentences:
I will know this treatment is supporting my wellbeing if…
Changes that matter to me besides weight include…
Things I don't want to sacrifice in pursuit of weight loss include…
If I notice ______________________, I want to talk with my therapist or prescriber.
Questions I Can Bring to Therapy
- What am I discovering about hunger and fullness?
- What has changed about my food noise?
- Does eating less feel like satisfaction or restriction?
- How am I responding emotionally to changes in my body?
- Am I becoming more embodied—or more preoccupied with controlling my body?
- What happens emotionally when my weight doesn't change?
- Am I exercising because movement supports me or because I feel compelled to burn calories?
- Have I noticed grief, fear, excitement, guilt, or identity changes connected with losing weight?
- How are my experiences interacting with what I believe about body positivity, HAES, fat acceptance, or diet culture?
- Is this medication helping me live more fully—or is managing my body becoming another full-time job?
You don't have to hate your body to seek medical treatment.
You don't have to abandon everything you've learned from body acceptance or eating-disorder recovery because you're taking a GLP-1.
Weight loss doesn't have to become the primary measure of whether treatment is helping.
And experiencing less hunger or less food noise isn't automatically the same thing as restriction—but a medication that makes restriction easier can also make old patterns harder to recognize.
The goal isn't perfect eating.
The goal is developing a relationship with your body in which you can notice what it is telling you and respond with care.