I wanted to lose weight to be a better father for my 4 kids. Thanks to Zepbound, I'm down 80 pounds.
'It was a miracle,' Rasmussen tells Yahoo Life. But the miracle turned to tragedy; all four babies died within about an hour of their births. Grief overwhelmed Rasmussen not only mentally but physically too, and before long, his weight reached nearly 300 pounds. 'Weight gain through loss is a real thing,' he says.
The Rasmussens eventually had four children, each born as a single pregnancy. Fatherhood and career success — the couple own and operate several long-term care facilities in Idaho — have helped Rasmussen heal. But the weight he gained amid his grief hung stubbornly on. He tried diet after diet, but none of them were sustainable. Instead, he sat out of family ski trips and worried about being around as his kids grew up. 'When you have so much weight to lose, it becomes daunting,' he says.
And then his doctor prescribed him a GLP-1. For our series On My Weigh, Rasmussen details how, in the year since he started taking the medication, his life — and his look — have transformed.
Name: Ryan Rasmussen
Age: 46
The method: Zepbound, 12.5 mg. I was one of the first to try Rybelsus, a pill form of semaglutide, but it made me horribly sick, and you had to take it like half an hour after waking up. I wasn't doing that. I went off it after like three weeks.
The goal: I have four kids, ages 11 to 16. They love to ski, but that was hard for me. So being a better father and being able to be there for my family — that was the goal.
Progress report: It's been just over a year since I started on Zepbound, and I'm down 80 pounds. I'm spending more time outdoors with my kids, and I've realized that you can be a foodie and still be healthy!
Before I started taking Zepbound, I would wake up very hungry. It's not something I could say no to. I'm pretty sure I was prediabetic and I always had high blood pressure, so I'd wake up with headaches. Now my hunger level is at a 1 or 2 when I wake up.
There's a local gas station that's like a watering hole. I would go there many mornings a week and have biscuits and gravy with friends or for breakfast meetings. It was heavy eating with no real controls. Now, I've cut out breakfast in favor of a Fairlife protein shake.
I like to look good. But when you're big, it's very difficult to dress well. Just finding clothes in size 2X or above is very hard. Being able to dress with purpose in the morning since starting on Zepbound has been probably one of the most enjoyable things for me and one of the best things for my mental health. And my wife says that I'm taking better care of myself in other ways too, in my morning routine.
It's funny, the CFO [chief financial officer] of my company is my same age and he's been healthy. But as he gets older, he's getting all these aches and pains. And I'm feeling the same things, but I'm coming from heavy to light. We're at the same exact point in life, but approaching it from opposite ends. In some ways, I feel like I'm aging backward. AnnaLynn is used to being the pretty one in our marriage. She's like, 'I didn't marry him for his looks, obviously,' and now she's having to back off of that a little bit.
Before starting a GLP-1, eating was just a huge part of my business and social life. I went out to lunch daily and we'd go out with friends at least once every other week. At the beginning of my experience with Zepbound, I stopped going out for lunch with friends or colleagues altogether. But I realized later that giving up the social aspect of those things was too hard. So now, I figure, I'm going to have to be in those situations no matter what, so I had to figure out how to make healthy choices in those settings. Soda was probably my biggest weakness before. But the beauty of this GLP-1 medication is that I now crave water instead of soda.
I'm not craving food from a specific restaurant anymore. So if someone else wants to go to a certain place that doesn't have anything healthy, I know I'm going to be OK with taking just a bite or two. But the time we spend talking in those lunches hasn't decreased; I'm not more anxious to get out of there and a lot of our work still gets done over lunch. I just needed the break at first to separate myself from the temptation and to understand that the effects of the medication on my appetite would be sustainable.
Now I know that even if I overeat occasionally, I'm going to win long-term with this GLP-1. When I tried Atkins before, if you go off for a little while, you just want carbs, and to go back on the diet feels impossible. With this, you can have one 'bad' meal and then quickly get back to eating healthy and making good decisions again.
We live near Yellowstone, in a beautiful part of Idaho near the Snake River. I'm out with the kids all the time now, four-wheeling and walking. We're experiencing the outdoors a lot more, which helps with seasonal depression. Skiing has become the answer for us to get out in the winter.
But when I was 250 pounds, it was dangerous to go down the ski hill. Now I feel like I can actually do that. Although, I did go off a ski jump with AnnaLynn and tear my MCL, a ligament in the knee, so maybe losing weight hasn't proven to make skiing safer. But it's definitely allowed us as a family to do more healthy activities.
My wife and kids are the five people that my world revolves around, so there's no way they wouldn't know about my weight loss journey and be a part of it. We framed my being on a GLP-1 as 'Oh, Dad's not that hungry, but let's go eat at this restaurant.' AnnaLynn is a marathon runner and has kept the kids in shape, but I think they've probably worried about me in the past when I was bigger.
AnnaLynn says she could tell the kids noticed when I was gaining momentum and were so excited for me, seeing the change in my overall outlook on life. It's been great for my relationship too. We smooch a lot more these days, and the kids hate it! Their friends have even noticed the change in me. My daughter Charlotte — who goes by the nickname Charlie — had a friend over and they did the TikTok challenge where you bake a cake and while you're eating a piece, you say, 'Hear me out.' Her friend said, 'Hear me out, but Charlie's dad is attractive!' Charlie was a good sport and laughed about it.
Our town is pretty small, so there aren't a lot of restaurant choices, but we would go out for pizza and barbecue a lot. But we hardly go there anymore and try to avoid heavy meals like that. Instead, AnnaLynn is cooking more at home now, and she makes sure to include more vegetables so there are healthy options on the table. But she also makes some higher-calorie options because we have two boys who are 15 and 16. We have to make sure they're getting their caloric needs met, while there are pared-down options for me. She often makes grilled chicken with a veggie side as well as some mashed potatoes and gravy so the boys can load up on calories and bulk.
She is a wonderful cook and she used to make a lot of desserts. When I was big, I would ask her to make those things. But when I stopped asking for them after starting Zepbound, the kids stopped asking too. So we're all doing a lot less late-night snacking.
We're self-employed and my insurance didn't cover Zepbound. But my pharmacist helped me find a coupon that cuts the monthly cost in half. It's still about $500 a month, but I think that the cost might be offset by what we save on food expenses. Although, on the other hand, we're a family of six, so we're still looking at $130 for a meal for all of us.
My first master's degree was in gerontology, so I think a lot about people's health as they age. To see lifespan go down in the U.S. while it's going up or at least maintaining in nearly every other country, that's really worrisome. And those are the people — elderly folks — who I deal with every day. I've heard that for the first time in a long time the obesity rate has decreased in the U.S. and our average lifespan increased for the first time in a while. And being healthy in the last stages of life is huge too. A lot of people don't want to live longer because they're not healthy. I work with a lot of people in memory care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients, so I know that too much weight and too little weight are major contributors to those diseases. I have hope that GLP-1s can help me and others live longer, healthier lives.
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