For the longest time, my weight varied between 185 in the best of times to 205 in the less-best-of-times.
In 2020, things got worse – and I’m guessing they got worse for you too. I gradually threw out my L t-shirts, and standardized on XLs for new ones.
Last year, I started realizing that even my XL shirts were tight, and I gritted my teeth and started buying XXL t-shirts instead. The final straw was our recent trip to Hong Kong and Shanghai, when my luggage was delayed. I had to go shopping for t-shirts to get by, and stores didn’t even have XXL sizes. Asian people just aren’t that big, evidently.
When I came home, I talked to my doctor about Ozempic and Wegovy. I’d heard about how these new weight loss drugs made the whole thing easy, and how they just worked.
Except they were $2,000-$3,000 per month.
If you could even get them, which we couldn’t, because they were sold out everywhere.
I did a lot of research, talked to multiple doctors, and ended up learning a bunch about semaglutides. Now, I’m paying less than $400/month, the weight is just falling off (about 4 pounds per week), I’m eating & drinking less than half of what I did, and … I haven’t actually had to make any compromises, and I don’t feel hungry. It just works.
I started a new 1-hour online course to share what I’ve learned. The first 100 folks who use coupon code FriendsOfBrent get 50% off. The coupon entry is here during the checkout process:

I hope you enjoy it, and if you’ve got any questions about it, please feel free to let me know! I can’t believe how easy it was, and I wish I would have started it sooner.

25 Comments. Leave new
Sucks to see you sell out like this.
All the best though.
That’s an interesting take – why is this selling out, whereas selling training classes on SQL Server isn’t? I’m curious.
You seem to want to monetize everything these days. Instead of providing a genuine video explaining why you did this and what you went through, everything now sits behind a paywall. This isn’t a SQL server or a training course to help someone at their job; it’s something meant to help people who have a lot of conflicting views from doctors to South Park.
The current Brent doesn’t seem like the same person who would have opened up about his sexuality. Instead, it feels like it would have been a ‘You’ll never guess what I’m attracted to – $100’ video release.
Tim – feel free to check out the dozens of hours of free content I give away every month on my BrentOzar.com blog, on YouTube, on TikTok, the free scripts I maintain on Github.
When you’re done with that, let me know the name of anyone else in our industry – literally anyone – that gives away more free content every month.
I’ll be here. Go ahead. I’m waiting.
100% agree with that – I learnt a lot from your free materials before taking the paid courses.
If you spend a lot of time working on something there is nothing wrong with asking for some form of compensation. That “sell out” comment is BS.
One day we should all stop for a second and ask ourselves why all people working in IT are fat. Because we are all fat.
I will follow you and see how it goes. And thank you for sharing
My pleasure! I think a lot of the IT weight problem has to do with the sedentary lifestyle: sitting in front of a monitor for hours without moving.
speak for yourself… i m sitting 16 hours a day programming for 3 years now… fat lol
Good for you brother. It takes balls to admit publicly to what goes on in your personal life. Frankly, I love reading about it and wish you the best of luck.
As for the “sell out”…haters gonna hate. Frankly, and I do know this from experience, the biggest problem with ozempic/wegovy/semaglutide/mounjaro/et al is that these things are like miracle drugs, but you gotta do it right, have the right mindset, and be aware of the side effects (they are SEVERE in some cases). The fact that these things are so expensive (someone’s paying for them, whether it’s you or your insurance) and there’s really no “training” on how to do it right, well, it just shows how little everyone values the psychological component of how these things work. Frankly, whatever you charge for your video(s), it’s valuable just to follow someone from start to finish and learn from their journey. The fact that YOU are doing this service (for whatever price) is valuable to folks that are thinking about this but want to understand someone’s journey who is _similar to them_ and not just some hollywood celeb tryna take off a few pounds to look better for the camera…it means something.
Best of luck, thoughts and prayers, all that.
Dave – thanks sir! (Sorry about the delay, your comment went into spam, ironically, hahaha.)
The lack of training was what made me go create a course. I was just so surprised that I couldn’t hold out my credit card and buy a training course from somebody, anybody, who could walk me through this stuff.
Do I feel like an impostor? Of course – just like I do in databases. But at the end of the day, I know it took me a lot of time to put together the stuff I learned, and some folks will find that valuable. Some people won’t, and that’s okay.
And there it happened, Linkedin blocked all content from Brent because in my region (The Netherlands) you are not allowed to promote prescription medication.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: Dôh
HAHAHA, that’s wild.
I think all over Europe you cannot buy semaglutides or anything else without a prescription. I was astonished that you could enter in a pharmacy and just buy.
All over Europe you enter into a pharmacy only if you have a prescription.
What was your maximun weight? (I mean, when used XXL shirts)
I think you didn’t say it?
I do cover that in the course if it’s something you really need to know. 😉
Asking out of curiosity, because I weight around 235 pounds and even so XXL is too big to me hahaha (I’m 6’4″)
So then it would make sense that I was larger than that, eh? If you need specifics, by all means, feel free to join the course. Thanks!
“You seem to want to monetize everything these days”
This is such a bizarre take. First of all, Brent does not owe anybody anything. He has every right to make money just like we all do
Second, I would estimate that 90% of SQL server issues can now be solved, or at least clearly identified, thanks to the vast amount of SQL server content and free tools that Brent has gifted to the world!
My humble take, this seems to be a sociable problem these days where we reach to the medicine cabinet for “drugs” before addressing “lifestyle factors”.
Ignore the drugs, eat better, move more, and only go down the drug route as a last resort.
Using a SQL Server analogy, you’ve got a server running at 100% CPU, we don’t immediately go out and buy a bigger server, then a bigger server and keep repeating that again and again. We tune the server and feed it better queries first.
James – interesting, so you assume that I haven’t tried anything first and went straight to the drugs?
I see. Well, you know what they say about assume, don’t you James?
No, not you specifically Brent, I’m more referring to as I mentioned, it being a sociable problem with people and the health industry (doctors in general).
Again, James, you’re acting as if no one has ever heard of diet and exercise, and as if it’s easy for all of us.
Move along. This blog post isn’t for you, and your feedback isn’t welcome here. Thanks for understanding.
I know this is an older post, but Brent would you consider an updated post about your experience? Too much sitting around doing data things and eating fuel (cookies) has me bulking up over the last few years. I’d love to hear your experience with these GLP1 inhibitors.
Howdy! No, nothing’s changed – it works great, very happy with it!
Thanks Brent! Glad it’s working for you!