GLP-1 and Bone Health Support Group

9g Collagen with Calcium, D3, K2 and Magnesium

There's one thing I wish every woman in this group had known before her next weigh-in. I knew it. For 11 months I didn't say it. If you've lost 30 pounds or more on the weekly shot and nobody has ever sent you for a bone scan, this is for you. To the 3,100 women in our group: I owe you an apology. Every Wednesday I told you to celebrate the number on the scale. I left something out. And some of you have written to me since from a cast, or a walker, or the spare room at your daughter's house. So this is me, saying it on our public page, where I should have said it the first time. Before I get to what I left out, I want to be clear about what was true. Yes, it's true. The weekly shot changed my life. I'm 59, I'm down 46 pounds, and I'm still on it. My doctor runs my prescription, he keeps it right where it is, and I'm grateful for that shot every Wednesday morning. And yes, it's true that my knees quit aching on the stairs. I went to my 40th reunion without a cardigan. And it's also true that every before-and-after photo you posted in our group was real. Every "down 30!" Every woman who cried in the comments because she fit in an airplane seat for the first time in 20 years. I cried with you. I meant it. Yes. All true. Now to the part I left out. Most of you know I worked at a hospital. Most of you don't know what I did there. For 22 years I was a radiology technologist at a hospital outpatient center in Ohio. Most of those years I ran bone density scans. DEXA, if you've had one. You lie on a padded table, a long arm passes over your hip and your lower spine, and the screen fills in with grey shadows of your bones. More than 30,000 of them. I watched women get dressed after the scan and fold the T-score printout into quarters and tuck it into their purse like a parking ticket they didn't want to look at. I knew what was on those printouts before the radiologist did. That was my job. I wasn't allowed to tell you. I just watched you fold it. I retired two years ago. Last August I started the shot. Three months after that I started the group, because women our age needed somewhere to talk about it without a sister-in-law judging. You came. 50 of you, then 400, then 3,100. And the first thing I ever pinned was a post I wrote at my kitchen table at 11 at night. "Celebrate the number. You've earned every pound." I started Weigh-In Wednesday. I posted my number first every single week so nobody had to go first alone. You'd fill the thread by lunch. 300, 400 comments. Hearts on every one. Down 2. Down 4. Down 1.6, but it's still down, girls. Celebrate the number. That was my advice. Eleven months of it. Here is why it was wrong. The scale only counts what leaves. It doesn't know what that weight was made of. When you lose a lot of weight, especially fast, you don't only lose fat. In one big trial of a weekly weight-loss shot, nearly 4 in 10 pounds people lost were lean tissue. Not fat. Muscle, and the other parts that hold you up. A 2026 study of 255 people on the newer weekly shots found that the more weight they lost, the more bone they lost at the hip. And when you're eating far less, far fewer nutrients reach your skeleton. Some of you told me in the comments you were living on half a yogurt and a cheese stick. I put a heart on it. None of this is the shot's fault. I want to say that as loud as I said anything else. The shot did what it was supposed to do. It took the weight off. What it was never going to do was tell you what else was leaving with it. That was my job. I was the one with 22 years of grey shadows in my head. And here's the part I've been dreading writing. I knew. I knew that about 1 in 2 women over 50 will break a bone because of bone loss. I knew bone loss has no symptoms. None. It doesn't ache. It doesn't warn you. The first sign, for a lot of women, is the break. I knew that about 1 in 5 people over 65 who break a hip die within a year. I knew that more than 95% of broken hips start with a fall. And I knew my own mother. My mother, Opal, took a calcium tablet every morning for 30 years. I bought them for her. Big white chalky ones, in a little dish by her coffee maker. She'd tap the dish and say, "Not me, honey. I'm covered." When she was 74 she showed me the paper from her own bone scan and asked me what she should do. I looked at it for ten seconds. "Just keep taking your calcium, Mom." Twenty-two years in the scan room and that was all I gave my own mother. At 81, Opal stepped off the church van after Wednesday supper. One step down to the parking lot. Her hip went. She never went home again. She went from the hospital to a rehab place to a room with a TV bolted to the wall, and she died there at 82. So I knew. And I still wrote "celebrate the number" and pinned it to the top of a group of 3,100 women. Why didn't I say anything? Because I'd spent 22 years being the person who handed women bad news on a folded sheet of paper. I retired so I wouldn't have to do that anymore. Because the group was the happiest place I'd ever built. I didn't want to be the one to walk in and turn the lights on. Because I told myself somebody else would say it. Mostly, nobody did. Then the posts started. Darlene Fitch is 61. Some of you know her. She's the one who posted the picture from her grandson's basketball game in December, the only grandma in the gym in a sleeveless top. She was down 52 pounds. In January, Darlene was carrying a package in off her front porch. Three concrete steps. Her foot came down on the second one wrong. She put her hand out. Her wrist broke in two places. She posted a picture of the cast from the ER with her coffee in the other hand. The caption said, "Guess I'm clumsy now LOL." 214 hearts. Mine was one of them. I read "clumsy," I knew better, and I scrolled. Then Marisol Vega. Marisol is 58. She posted every Wednesday without missing one. She was down 44 pounds by her granddaughter's dance recital in March. She bought a new dress for it. She posted the dress. When her granddaughter came out in the yellow tutu, Marisol stood up to clap. She turned to get out of the row to take a picture from the aisle. One step down. The carpeted step at the end of the row. She went down in the aisle while 200 people clapped for 6-year-olds in tutus. She said she heard it before she felt it. Her daughter posted for her from the hospital. Hip. Surgery the next morning. Two pins. Marisol hasn't posted on a Wednesday since. She's living in her daughter's spare room now. The one with the treadmill they use to hang laundry. She can't do the stairs in her own house. She uses a walker to get to the bathroom. She told me in a message that the part she can't stand is that her granddaughter is scared to hug her. She's 58. Nobody told her. After Marisol, I did something I should have done months earlier. I searched our group. "Broke." "Fracture." "Cast." "Has anyone else broken something?" That last one came up again and again. Women asking it quietly, at 1 in the morning, in a group full of before-and-after photos. "Has anyone else broken something? I'm down 38 and I broke my foot stepping off a curb." "Has anyone else broken something? Fell on the ice, ankle. Down 41." It wasn't just you. I counted 63 posts since November. 63 women in a group I ran, asking the one question I was trained to answer for 22 years. And I hadn't answered one of them. It gets worse. In February, a woman in our group started a thread. I won't name her here. She'd lost 57 pounds. Her sister, who'd lost about the same, had broken her pelvis getting out of a bathtub. She asked one question. "Is anyone thinking about what we're losing besides fat?" By that night there were 140 comments. Women talking about their mothers. Their bone scans from years ago. The calcium they'd stopped taking because they were too full to swallow it. Some of it was scary. Some of it was wrong. Most of it was women finally asking. I deleted the whole thread. I told her in a private message that it was "getting too negative" and the group was "a positive space." I deleted the right question because it made me uncomfortable. That's the part I can't get out of my head at night. I had the training, and when a member did my job for me, I erased it. So here's what I'm telling you now. What I should have told you on day one. I'm still on the shot. If yours is working, I'm not telling you to stop anything. Your doctor runs your prescription. That hasn't changed. What's changed is the question. At my last weigh-in, I didn't ask my doctor how much I'd lost. I asked him, "What am I keeping?" Count what you keep. Not just what leaves. What you keep. That means protein first, lifting something, practicing the floor, and asking your doctor about a bone scan. I'll get to every one of those. But first you need to understand what bone actually is, because in 11 months I never once explained it to you. I'll tell you how my friend Bev explained it to me. Bev Tran and I ran scans side by side for 19 years. She's 60 and she still runs that room. Somebody at the hospital showed her Marisol's post. In April my doctor sent me for a scan, and Bev ran it herself, after the last patient. When it was done she sat me down on the padded table and didn't let me change the subject. "Jen. That's your group, isn't it." I said yes. "What do you think bone is?" she said. "Calcium," I said. "Mineral. I've stared at it for 22 years." "That's what the scan sees," she said. "That's not what bone is." She tore a strip off the paper roll on the table and drew it. Crossed lines for the frame. Dots for the mineral. Bone isn't a rock. It's a frame, made of collagen, with minerals laid down on it. About 90% of the protein in bone is collagen. The calcium sits on the frame the way concrete sits on rebar. "Our machine is built to measure the minerals," she said. "It's a grey shadow. It doesn't show you the frame." Bone is living tissue, she said. Most of your skeleton gets replaced about every 10 years. Your body is always tearing some down and building some back. And it builds out of whatever you're feeding it. Your body makes less collagen as you get older. After menopause, it drops faster. And for about five years after menopause, a woman can lose 1 to 2% of her bone every year. "So you've got women past menopause," Bev said, "eating a fraction of what they used to. And when they think about their bones at all, they're thinking about one word." "Calcium," I said. "Calcium," she said. "Mineral, with nothing to lay it on." I thought about my mother's little dish by the coffee maker. And here's the embarrassing part. I'd already made the same mistakes half of you made. All winter, I took the advice in the comments. I tried to fix it from the store. The calcium chews first, in December. The caramel ones. I could barely eat two of anything on the shot without feeling sick, and they were mineral anyway. Same thing I gave my mother. The protein shakes. One of you swore by them. I bought a case. I could get through about a third of one before I was full, and the rest went down the sink. Then the collagen, in January, because my hair was coming out in the shower drain. The pink tub with the woman's face on it, the one half of you have in your pantry. Two heaping scoops, a whole glass of water, and it was built for your skin. No calcium, no D, nothing for the minerals at all. Then a "joint" pill a member recommended. I read the back. About 1,000mg of collagen in a two-capsule serving. One gram. By the end of January I had four bottles on the kitchen windowsill. I'd forgotten all four by Thursday. After that night in the scan room I tried again. I doubled the chews. I added a separate K2 and a vitamin C. Six bottles on the windowsill now. Forgotten by the next Thursday. Bev came over for lunch on a Saturday in May. She saw the windowsill and held up the pink tub like a dead mouse. "Jen. What is this." I told her I'd failed at it, same as everybody. "Protein first," she said. "Real food first. Then this." She set her own bag on the counter. "It goes in your coffee. Every morning. Stop arguing with me." It was DensiaPlus. She's been putting it in her coffee every morning for a year and a half. She said after all those years of watching women fold up their printouts, she wanted one thing she'd actually remember every morning. I read the back the way we used to read a requisition. Every line. 9 grams of collagen peptides. Not a "blend." Not one gram in two capsules. Nine grams. Studies on collagen peptides commonly use 2.5 to 15 grams a day. Calcium, with vitamin D3 next to it, because without enough D your body absorbs only a small fraction of the calcium you take in. Vitamin K2 as MK-7, which activates a protein called osteocalcin that helps bind calcium into bone. Magnesium. About 60% of the magnesium in your body is in your bones. Vitamin C, which your body needs to form collagen. Zinc and boron. Collagen and the minerals, in one scoop. Unflavored. She stirred one scoop into my coffee. It tasted like coffee. Bev watched me drink the whole cup. I ordered that afternoon, and my own bag came the following Wednesday. "Your mother would have liked this," she said. I didn't answer her. I was thinking about that little dish by the coffee maker. Thirty years of chalky white tablets, and nobody ever talked to Opal about the frame. Including me. That was the part that mattered. On the shot I can get down a cup of coffee when I can't get down anything else. I want to be clear about one thing, the same way I want to be clear about the shot. Collagen isn't a complete protein and it doesn't replace protein-rich meals. My scoop is not my breakfast. It goes in the coffee. Then I eat two eggs, even when I don't want them. Protein first. It's been five months. I haven't missed a morning. Not one. The bag sits next to the coffee maker, and Rick makes my coffee before I'm up, so he puts the scoop in too. I eat protein first at every meal. Eggs. Greek yogurt. Chicken, even if it's four bites. Some mornings I don't want the eggs. I eat them anyway. Some mornings coffee is the only thing I can face, and I'm glad the scoop is already in it. I lift soup cans at the kitchen counter while the coffee brews. Rick laughs at me. Our daughter Kayla is an ER nurse, and she doesn't laugh. She says she sees women come in after a fall who couldn't get themselves up off the floor. "They all say the same thing, Mom," she told me. "I just tripped." So I practice. Every night before bed, on the living room rug. Down to my knees, down to the floor, and back up without grabbing the couch. The first week I needed the couch every time. Rick started doing it with me the second week. He's 62 and he's worse at it than I am. We both need the coffee table some nights. I go back for my own scan next spring. Bev's going to run it. I don't know what it'll say. Nobody can promise you that, and I'm not going to pretend I can. I've seen too many printouts. Whatever it says, I'll read it. I won't fold it into my purse. What I know is that I'm finally counting what I keep. I re-pinned the deleted thread last week. With an apology to the woman who started it. She wrote back and said, "About time, Jen." She's right. I messaged Darlene. She wrote back two words. "Thank you." I sent Marisol flowers and a card I rewrote four times. She hasn't written back. I don't blame her. I'll keep writing. And I took down "celebrate the number." Here's what's pinned now. Count what you keep. Protein first. Before the crackers, before the toast, before anything else on the plate. When the shot means you can only eat a few bites, make the first ones count. Lift something. Soup cans, a gallon of water, a bag of potatoes. Twice a week at least. Something heavier than your phone. Practice getting down on the floor and back up. On purpose. Put a pillow down if you need it. Most of us haven't done it in years, and the floor is exactly where a fall puts you. Ask your doctor about a bone scan. Especially if you're past menopause and down a lot of weight. Bring this post if you have to. If your doctor says you don't need one, fine. Ask the question anyway. Don't stop anything your doctor prescribed. The shot is between you and your doctor. This is about everything around it. Post your number on Wednesday if you want. Then post what you ate first that morning. Post the soup cans. Post a picture of you on the living room rug, getting back up. Those are the numbers I want to celebrate now. Weigh-In Wednesday is still there. I renamed it. It's Keep-It Wednesday now. And if you're the woman who asks, "Has anyone else broken something?" ask it at the top of the group, in daylight. I'll answer it. So will 3,100 other women. If you've lost 30, 40, 50 pounds and nobody has asked you what that weight was made of. If dinner fits on a saucer now and your vitamins haven't changed since 2009. If your bone advice is still one word. If there's a pink tub in your pantry or a shake in your fridge you couldn't finish. If you've ever typed "has anyone else broken something?" and deleted it before you hit post. If you've never had a bone scan. Or you had one years ago and folded it into your purse without reading it. If you can't remember the last time you got down on the floor and back up without grabbing something. If someone has called you clumsy lately. Including you. If you're past 50 and nobody, not once, has asked you what your bones are made of. It's not your fault. Nobody told you. I should have, on day one. I had 22 years of reasons to. To the 3,100 women in my group: I'm sorry. I'm telling you now. Celebrate the number if you want to. You earned it. Then count what you keep. I wrote the whole story up on one page: the scan room, the bathroom floor, what Bev drew on that strip of paper, and the one question I ask at every weigh-in now. It's the link under this post. DensiaPlus is 9 grams of collagen with calcium, magnesium, vitamin D3, vitamin K2 (MK-7), vitamin C, zinc and boron. One scoop in your morning coffee. That's the whole routine. Right now it's up to 70% off: buy 2 bags, get 1 free, or buy 3, get 2 free. It comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee, empty or full. Count what you keep. P.S. If you take a blood thinner like warfarin, talk to your doctor before starting anything with vitamin K, this included. Calcium can affect how some medications are absorbed, so ask your doctor or pharmacist about timing. Keep taking everything you've been prescribed. P.P.S. Marisol wrote back last night. One line. "My granddaughter hugged me Sunday." I've read it about thirty times. If you're in our group, go post on Keep-It Wednesday. Post what you ate first. P.P.P.S. Up to 70% off: buy 2, get 1 free, or buy 3, get 2 free. You have 90 days, and the guarantee holds whether the bag comes back empty or full.