I started this site because of my mom, and because I was furious.
She was 52 when she started gaining weight she couldn’t explain. Ten pounds, then fifteen. She was running five days a week. She’d been eating the same way she had for twenty years. Her doctor did bloodwork, shrugged, and told her to cut carbs. She cut carbs. She gained three more pounds.
Six months later, a different doctor ran a full thyroid panel and found her TSH was sitting at 8.4. She had Hashimoto’s — an autoimmune condition that affects women at something like seven times the rate it affects men. Her first doctor hadn’t tested for it because, and I’m paraphrasing here, “her weight gain wasn’t that dramatic.”
She was on the right medication within two weeks. She felt human again within a month.
I was already working in health journalism by then — I’d been covering medical research out of Nashville for a few years, mostly for regional outlets. But that experience with my mom changed what I wanted to write about. Because the more I dug into women’s metabolic health, the more I kept finding the same thing: women’s biology is routinely treated as an inconvenient complication of male biology, rather than its own thing worth understanding on its own terms.
GLP-1 medications hit my radar around 2022. Semaglutide, tirzepatide — the trial results were remarkable enough that I started going through the actual data instead of just reading the press releases. And the gender breakdown was striking. Women were losing more weight than men — 16.4% versus 12.0% in the STEP 1 trial. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a meaningful difference. But almost nobody in the popular coverage was talking about it, because almost nobody in the popular coverage was asking.
So I started asking.
What I actually do here
I’m a health journalist. My job is to read the studies, separate what they actually show from what the headlines claim they show, and write that up in a way a real person can use. That’s it. I’m not a doctor, not a pharmacist, not a nutritionist. But I’ve been reading medical literature for close to a decade, and I know how to tell a well-designed trial from a press release dressed up as one.
Everything on this site links to primary sources. If I make a claim, there’s a citation underneath it. If the evidence is mixed or the data is thin, I say so. I’m not interested in being cheerleader for any particular medication — I’m interested in what’s actually true and what that means for women specifically.
The women part matters. A lot of GLP-1 content online is technically accurate but practically useless for women because it doesn’t account for PCOS, perimenopause, thyroid disease, menstrual cycle effects on appetite, or any of the other biological realities that shape how these medications work in a female body. I try to write the guide I wish had existed when my mom was trying to figure out what was happening to her.
Why I write about telehealth providers
Fully disclosing: this site participates in affiliate programs with telehealth providers. When you click through and sign up with one of them, I earn a commission. I want to be straightforward about that.
Here’s why I still think it’s worth telling you about them: for most women, telehealth is the only realistic path to GLP-1 treatment. The pharmacies charge $800 to $1,500 a month out of pocket for brand-name versions, insurance coverage is inconsistent and bureaucratic, and many primary care doctors still haven’t caught up with the research. Telehealth providers that work with compounding pharmacies can get you the same active compound for $100 to $200 a month, with an actual licensed prescriber reviewing your case.
I’ve looked at a lot of these services. Some are better than others. The ones I recommend have real medical oversight, clear protocols, and don’t just fire off a prescription to anyone who fills out a form. The affiliate relationship doesn’t change that evaluation — it means I only recommend the ones I’d tell a friend about, because those are the only ones worth writing about.
A few things I won’t do
I won’t tell you what dose to take. That’s a conversation between you and a prescribing provider who knows your health history. I can tell you what the research protocols look like and why slow titration matters, but I’m not your doctor.
I won’t tell you GLP-1 medications are for everyone. They have real side effects, real contraindications, and real questions about long-term use that the research is still answering. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something harder than I am.
And I won’t write a puff piece about a vendor just because they have an affiliate program. I’ve turned down a few. It’s not worth it.
Where to start
If you’re new here and trying to figure out whether GLP-1 medications make sense for you, start with the main guide. It covers how these compounds work, what the clinical data actually says about women’s results, and how the three main options compare.
If you have PCOS, the PCOS guide is probably more useful — the mechanism of action is a bit different and the benefit profile is broader than just weight loss.
If you’re in perimenopause or past menopause, start with the menopause piece. The metabolic dynamics are different and worth understanding before you start.
And if you want to skip the reading and just talk to a provider, the vendor overview is the practical next step.
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Charlotte Reed is a health journalist based in Nashville. She covers women’s metabolic health, GLP-1 research, and the gap between clinical evidence and public health communication. Her work focuses on primary sources and sex-differentiated outcomes in weight loss research.