Kate DeAraugo has opened up about using Ozempic for weight loss following her impressive 12kg slim down.
The singer, who won Australian Idol in 2005, has been documenting her journey on TikTok and says her experience was ‘nothing but fantastic’.
But she recently detailed the downsides of the medication as she revealed the best and worst things about taking the weight loss wonder drug.
‘The best part about being on Ozempic, for me, wasn’t necessarily the obvious one of weight loss. Of course, that was great. I did manage to lose about 12kg in the space of roughly four months, but that wasn’t the best part for me,’ she said.
‘Hands down, the best part of being on Ozempic for me was the freedom from food noise.
‘I have struggled and battled and wrestled and suffered with food noise my whole life. It’s constant. It’s from the minute I wake up in the morning to the minute I go to bed at night. I’m thinking and obsessing about how I’m not going to eat, how I am going to eat, what I’m going to eat, what all of that bulls**t that goes on every day for me, and the medication just took it away.’
Kate, who is currently pregnant with her second child, added that no other diet or weight loss operation she’s tried took away that ‘noise’.
‘Yes, of course, they physically stopped me from being able to overeat, but they didn’t take away that insanity around food in my head for me, and Ozempic did that,’ she said.
‘I was still able to eat normally, I got hungry, I wouldn’t be able to overeat. But I just wasn’t consumed by the thoughts of food. Food just became food, and when I ate, I was hungry, I ate until I kind of felt full, and then that was it, and I didn’t think it about it again until I got naturally hungry.
‘So I had nothing but incredible experiences. And would 100 per cent go back on the medication if I felt like I needed to after I have my baby.’
However, in another video, Kate mentioned the downsides of weight loss drugs that no one seem to talk about, especially after they stop taking it.
She told her followers that she experienced significant fatigue while taking Ozempic, which she believed might have been due to poor nutritional habits rather than the medication itself.
‘The worst part about being on Ozempic for me, honestly, was probably the fatigue,’ she said in a clip.
‘I don’t know if anybody else got that, but I would find in the afternoons, I would feel incredibly tired.’
Although she had some initial nausea, Kate said it was not severe or persistent.
‘I didn’t really suffer with a lot of nausea. I got a little bit in the first week or two while I was getting used to it, but it certainly wasn’t intense or debilitating,’ she continued.
‘So it was probably the fatigue. To be honest, I’m not sure if that was the medication or the fact that I probably didn’t use the time that I was on the medication as wisely as I should have.
‘I didn’t implement more nutritionally dense foods and all of those kinds of things I still would reach for the sugary, processed, quick fix, quick hit, kinds of foods, which obviously weren’t giving me the probably the energy that I needed and leaving me with quick highs and quick crashes.’
After stopping her Ozempic medication to try for another baby, the ‘food noise’ she had experienced previously returned rapidly.
Her symptoms were as severe as they had ever been, which she said was distressing.
‘The food noise did come back for me pretty much as soon as I’d stopped taking the medication, and it was as big and as bad and as loud as it ever had been, which was super devastating for me,’ she said in another TikTok video.
‘Sadly, when I came off all the food, noise, Insanity, binge eating and all the shitty behaviours came straight back, and that, coupled with pregnancy weight gain, I have put back on all the weight that I lost and then some.’
Kate previously revealed she battled a binge eating disorder in high school after she struggling to feel comfortable in her own skin.
Opening up about the disorder on her new podcast Why Do I Feel This Way?, she confessed she would hide and lie to people about the food she was eating.
‘Binge eating for me started really young. From maybe even the age of five, I was hiding and lying about my eating and my food,’ Kate said.
‘That was my first way of regulating those emotions and those out of control feelings of not being comfortable in my skin.’
Last year, Kate told 9Honey that finding fame on Australian Idol helped fund her addiction to methamphetamine.
She said she saw drugs as a ‘solution’ to her struggle with social anxiety and body image issues during her time performing with The Young Divas.
‘I guess, if anything, maybe I was earning a bit of money at the time, so I was able to support quite a big habit quite quickly,’ she said.
‘I’d suffered with social anxiety and insecurities and all of that stuff all through my teenage years and when I met drugs just in a social setting, it felt like my solution in that minute.’
Kate added her addiction not only tore her life apart, but caused strife in the lives of those she loved.
She found herself at rock bottom in 2017 after pleading guilty to possessing ice, drug driving and weapons offences.
Avoiding conviction, the star was placed on a community corrections order and has since made every effort to rehabilitate herself and transform her life.
If you, or someone you know needs support relating to eating disorders, please call The Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673. In an emergency, call 000.
