Getting skinny on weight loss meds takes a fat wad of cash.
And Staci Rice is working double-time for the petite payoffs.
“I’m making money to afford semagultide,” Rice, 42, who works three jobs to afford the expensive injectables, explained to her over 14,000 TikTok fans.
Classified as a GLP-1, appetite-suppressing medications, semaglutide is the active ingredient in anti-obesity jabs like Wegovy, and in the anti-diabetes drug Ozempic.
Both prescriptions can cost users upwards of $1,200 a month without insurance.
Budgeted folks feigning for the slenderizing shots have turned to the black market, as well as social media marketplaces, hoping to score discounted versions of the hot commodities.
But Rice, from Georgia, tells The Post that she took a less slightly questionable route.
In May 2022, at a cool $499 per three-month supply, the married mother of one lost an impressive 64 pounds, shrinking down from 207 pounds to 140 pounds in eight months on a compounded GLP-1. It’s a less pricey form of the meds that’s not FDA-approved.
“It was awesome,” said Rice, who’d battled with unwanted bulge since elementary school. “It was the first time ever that something actually worked.”
Following her drastic weight loss she struggled with sagging skin and the dreaded droopy “Ozempic butt,” leaving her newly-taut body looking drab.
So, to celebrate her svelte success, the millennial underwent a $18,500 mommy makeover — a multi-part cosmetic procedure which included a full tummy tuck and breast augmentation — in April 2023.
She depleted her life savings for the operation, monies she had spent years stashing as a “rainy day” fund.
“I had a lot more confidence after that surgery,” Rice told The Post with a laugh. “It was the first time I wore a two-piece bathing suit since middle school.”
However, in January 2024, finances became “tight” for Rice, a life insurance specialist, and her family, making it difficult to purchase semaglutide. She had already begun reducing her dosages, cutting back on the weekly injections to maintain, rather than lose, weight.
“I was miserable, almost depressed at my former job,” Rice said. “I’d forget to take the medicine. Then, I eventually stopped taking it all together.”
“I’d say to myself, ‘Alright, I’m gonna restart the medicine,’” continued Rice, crowning herself the “queen” of self-sabotage. “Then, every day would come and I wouldn’t take it.”
After a few months without the drugs, her “food noise” — constant, intrusive thoughts about grub that’s said to silenced by weight loss meds — came back with resounding force.
Rice, a recovering sugar addict, began eating more sweets and regaining weight.
Regain after discontinuation is an unfortunate, yet common side effect of the popular pharmaceuticals.
Artemis Bayandor, 41, lost 15 pounds in six months when she started taking Wegovy in August 2021. However, once she stopped the $1,400 per month shots, the brunette beefed up again.
“The weight started coming on like never before,” Bayandor said at 246 pounds. “I was insatiable. And I’ve never been that way. I was so hungry. It was crazy the way it felt.”
“It was awful, it’s still awful.”
Rice, who added on 26 pounds in six months, echoed those sentiments.
“I noticed that I had put weight back on and I wasn’t too happy about it,” she said. So, I got a side hustle to help pay for the GLP-1.”
Her new gig in digital marketing supports her weight loss meds dependency.
“I’m staring all over again,” said Rice, now at 176 pounds. She’s currently on a $305, 10-week semgalutide regimen.
“It’s going really slow this go-round, but I’m hoping to get back down to 150 [pounds] with some exercise,” she said.
And to ensure that her coffers remain full — and that the flow of those chub-zapping aids stays steady — the worker bee’s recently taken on yet another job as a professional wellness representative.
For the post, Rice shops weight loss management programs to businesses, schooling company execs on the benefits of offering specialized healthcare options to their employees.
“Obesity is a disease, and, for me, the medication is for life,” she said.
“[Working multiple jobs] might not be worth it to some,” added Rice. “But to me it is.”
“You can’t put a price on your health.”
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