‘I’ve lost over a stone on Ozempic, but with one more still to go and a global shortage, what now?’

It was the reflections in parked car door windows that used to get me. I’d be walking past, glance down and think: “I can’t be that big, surely?” But whichever family member I happened to be walking with at the time would confirm the reflection didn’t lie. I was over 50 and I’d got used to being over 15 and a half stone. I could still play football, but being a good passer I’d given up running as I’d wheeze a lot and my asthma would kick in. If I filmed anything quiet on my phone, I’d really hear my breathing on it. So much so, people started to notice and comment on it, too. I didn’t beat myself up about it, though. It was mildly depressing; I wished I was thinner, but I wasn’t in a war with my weight. I just came to accept that it was probably just how it would be.

As a child, I had been super skinny because I was frequently terrified of eating. I’d mostly only eat chips, cheese, sweets and dried bread and wouldn’t go near anything I wasn’t sure of. Even chocolate sponges at school would be ignored if they had custard on. Adults would tell me off for being faddy but later in life, an addiction therapist explained I’d probably had an eating disorder, childhood anorexia nervosa.

That early diet of sweets, fizzy drinks and white bread gave me a lifelong relationship with sugar. When I stopped drinking in my early 30s, it didn’t take long for me to redirect my wages from the vineyards of Chablis to the factories of Cadbury’s. The Twirl bar had just been launched, and my weight has been up and down, all over the place ever since.

I do know that I was last super fit 18 years ago when I was turning 40, getting divorced, boxing and playing football twice a week. I was also training an hour a day for eight weeks for a Men’s Health magazine feature. But since then, my metabolism has ground to a dawdle, and my motivation to stay slim has gone with it.

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But it was on a holiday two years ago in Cinque Terre, the beautiful coastline in northwest Italy beloved by hillwalkers, that I found the impetus to change. I was travelling with my girlfriend by boat from picturesque seaside village to village when we got chatting to two women backpackers in their 20s who were doing the full coastal walk. I was telling them how much I admired their efforts when my girlfriend pointed out I was talking like a pensioner. Given I could still play football, she said, I should maybe forsake the boat and walk the four kilometres (2.5 miles) back from Vernazza to Monterosso.

It wasn’t the distance that was going to be the problem, it was the near-vertical steps out of town. I genuinely worried that they could do me in, but given she’s 16 years younger than me, incredibly slim, and that this suggestion seemed to be coming from a caring unspoken place, I figured I’d give it a go.

Thirty-five minutes later, my legs were shaking, my breathing was dramatic and passing walkers looked concerned. But when I finally reached the high-but-level cliff-side path, I was fine, and the satisfaction I felt really stayed with me.

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Back home, I bought some Renpho digital scales and started high-intensity training for 20 minutes three times a week with a mate in his garden. My weight notably started to drop away, but grazing while working from home meant it would also easily pile back on. I was in a great restaurant called The Fig Rye, refusing dessert, when the friend I was with told me she’d been using Ozempic injections to lose weight between having a baby and getting married. She looked great, so I took the number of the registered nurse who’d been helping her and did some research. It was still quite new and I kept looking for the dreaded “it gives you cancer” line that seems to come with anything too good to be true. But I didn’t find it so I ordered the injections to jab myself in the stomach four times a month.

But I couldn’t do it: I’m too squeamish. So my girlfriend, Em, my neighbour, Penny, and my friend, Helen, all accepted the maternal role of injecting me instead. I did ask my grown-up son, too, but he was as squeamish as me.

At first, I experienced what felt like mild seasickness, but after seven or so days, there was just a sort of numbness where previously there’d been sugar cravings. Ozempic works by causing the stomach to empty more slowly, so you feel fuller for longer, and as I couldn’t face eating as much, my meal portions started to get smaller. It wasn’t long before people started noticing the weight dropping off too. My girlfriend was really surprised to feel the bottom of my ribs where my gut used to stick out, and I could get into some really nice Sunspel shirts that I’d bought but had quickly outgrown.

With less weight to carry, I found it easier to walk long distances without becoming breathless and soon started one-on-one football training with Shaz at London Futsal Stars. All of this had been brilliant until about eight weeks ago when I was caught up in the global shortage of Ozempic and suddenly my supply dried up.

Since then, I haven’t had an injection, and although I’m still eating smaller portions, I’ve also had two massive relapses. One time was after my son Billy’s 10th birthday party last week, when there were sweets everywhere and I went on a binge. The other was the week before after a night of Diet Coke at the pub triggered a craving for bags of Minstrels and Jelly Babies, which I had to eat together. It tasted great and then it felt terrible.

A study funded by Novo Nordisk, the company that manufactures Ozempic, found that after a year, participants gained back two-thirds of the weight they had lost. I have lost over a stone and a half, so I’m now doing whatever is possible to keep my weight down. I take chromium tablets mid-morning and mid-afternoon, which help reduce my need for a sugar hit, and I’ve started a food diary with a thumbs-down emoji for anything bad. Last Monday had nine thumbs down; yesterday just one. My meal sizes are still much smaller, and my weight is steady; I’m only about three pounds heavier than my lowest on the jab.

I have also risen to the challenge set by my eldest son to run the 5km he does every day. In fact, I’m doing much more and wouldn’t mind some help to shift another stone. There’s an NHS call-out for people to go on a long-term trial into something similar to Ozempic, which I’m going to apply for. But until the supply issue is sorted out, I’m going to have to hope smaller meals and running will be enough to see me right.

Ultimately, Ozempic gave me the kickstart I needed, and my physique has changed so much that after I posted on Instagram about running recently, people have said it has inspired them to give it a go too.

The most important thing has been realising my mind, as well as the jabs, could help me make the changes I needed to make. Time will tell if I can now do it on my own.

Animal House by James Brown is now available in paperback