The Nasty Lie That Is Aging Your Face
There is a nasty lie quietly aging your face—all of our faces. Even if you are considering losing some weight, or if you are already on the popular weight loss drugs, you need to know what has just changed. Everything has shifted.
First, let us look at the greatest bait and switch Hollywood has ever pulled. For years, the culture preached one sermon: body positivity. You remember the icons—Lizzo, Ashley Graham, Jameela Jamil—all pushing back against impossible beauty standards. They told us curves are beautiful. They said stop glorifying thinness. And then, the switch flipped. The moment the first needle hit an arm—the Ozempic needle—the same culture that told you thinness was oppressive went quiet. Suddenly, many of them got thin when it became possible.
Now look at the red carpets. Sharon Osbourne openly warns people about Ozempic: I got too thin. Whoopi Goldberg admitted on national TV, I used a GLP-1. Joy Behar bragged about losing 25 pounds on the skinny shot. Even Serena Williams is publicly discussing major GLP-1-related weight loss, despite having access to the best food and trainers in the world. But here is the nasty lie big pharma does not want you to see: while waistlines are shrinking, faces are liquefying, hollowing out, losing collagen, losing fat, becoming gone. When you lose weight at warp speed, you look old.
What is the magic number? Ten pounds. If you lose ten pounds, for many of us the face sculpts nicely—nice cheekbones, a little hollowing along the jawline. That looks better. But after ten pounds, you often need volumizing injections in the face. If someone knows they are going to lose weight, even before starting, it is wise to pretreat them with biostimulators if they have a public face. Because we do not look fit after ten pounds—we look depleted.
Big pharma loves this. They are already building the solution to the problem they created. People on these drugs have a hard time coming off, and when they do, the weight goes back up. So many are on them for life. Meanwhile, the filler companies are selling $700 syringes to fill the face. But here is where it gets even more interesting: we are now entering the era of the triple drug.
If you are on a first-generation GLP-1 or considering one, you need to know this. Generation one was Ozempic—eat less, lose weight. Generation two was Mounjaro—stronger and faster, but much the same. Now, generation three: Retatrutide, known as RETA. It is FDA-approved later this year, but available now under the table, so to speak. Many of you are already on compounded versions. This one does not just kill your appetite; it also includes glucagon. The first generation was GLP-1, the second added GIP, and now this one adds glucagon, forcing your body to burn harder than ever before. Yet interestingly, it does not seem to have the same facial wasting effects as its predecessors. It is a different formulation.
Then there is generation four, and this is where it gets wild. Big pharma knows you are looking frail. They know you are losing muscle—including facial muscle. So now they are testing combinations to engineer your body composition, to increase muscle while you are on the drugs. Imagine losing fat, slimming down, but gaining muscle. This is the myostatin dream. Myostatin is a protein that normally puts the brakes on muscle growth. Lowering it can allow muscles to grow larger and faster. In real humans, the results and safety are still being studied. But think about it: a drug that lets you lose weight, get thin, and gain muscle. All the things we want. And of course, big pharma will want you on a subscription plan for life.
But until that Frankenstein future arrives, here is the brutal reality: if you lose weight too fast—and I stress that, because it is part of the key—your face will tell on you. The miracle injection comes with a tax. To survive this era without looking like a ghost, you must do the boring stuff too. Slow the loss down. Eat your protein: a gram per ideal pound of body weight per day. Lift heavy in your workouts. Hollywood made thinness a trend again. Big pharma made it an injection. But once your facial structure is gone, you are not talking about skincare anymore. You are talking about restoration, and that is a much darker game. A facelift removes skin, but you still need volume.
The future is not how thin you can get. The future is: can you get thin and not look old? Right now, for most of Hollywood, the answer is no. Keep your skin and body beautiful, healthy, and vibrant by remembering that true transformation respects the pace of nature—and the wisdom of your own face.