The weight-loss jab that reversed my fatty liver AND helped my lifelong back pain: I just wanted to stop the food noise – doctors were stunned by the results

Karen Holman was eight years old when her life split in two.

Her eldest sister, the one she adored most, was killed in a car accident at 18. There was no counselling and no real conversation about trauma. In the 1970s, you were expected to carry on.

‘I really believed everyone I loved was going to die,’ Karen tells the Daily Mail.

She grew up in Perth and Geraldton in Western Australia, the youngest of five girls, always near the beach and constantly outdoors. On the surface, she was active and capable. Inside, she was anxious and grieving.

‘I was a really sad kid,’ she says. ‘But nobody knew.’

Food became a quiet comfort. Not dramatically, not consciously, just slowly over time into adulthood.

‘I didn’t think I was worth good food,’ says Karen, now 53 and living in Melbourne.

‘I’d make sure my daughter ate well. I’d spend money on quality food for her. But I didn’t feel like I deserved that same care.’

Over the decades, trauma layered upon trauma. Crohn’s disease in her twenties. Steroid treatment that changed her body. A marriage breakdown when her daughter was five. The sudden death during COVID of her best friend, whom she tried to resuscitate. Another sister dying from cancer after fighting it four times.

By her early 50s, Karen was carrying grief that made her feel older than her years.

‘I just stopped caring what I ate,’ she says. ‘I was exhausted. I had PTSD. I didn’t value myself.’

The weight crept on. At her heaviest, she reached 88kg (13st 12lbs, or 194lbs) on her 164cm (5’4 frame). She avoided mirrors. She even refused to be in photos with her granddaughter.

‘That breaks my heart now,’ she says. ‘There are hardly any photos of me with her when she was little because I just didn’t want to be seen.’

Karen has lived with a chronic back injury her entire life, the result of a car accident as a baby. It has always been present – manageable but persistent. As her weight increased, so did the strain, particularly in her work as a dog walker.

‘By the end of the day I’d be lying flat on the floor,’ she says. ‘Some days it was crippling.’

Then came the diagnosis that frightened her more than the pain.

In 2018, persistent upper abdominal discomfort led to an ultrasound. It revealed fatty liver disease. Blood tests confirmed abnormal liver markers.

‘It was a wake-up call,’ she says. ‘You read about what can happen if it progresses. I was scared.’

Fatty liver disease, now often referred to as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, occurs when excess fat builds up in the liver. It is strongly linked to obesity and insulin resistance and can, in some cases, progress to inflammation and long-term liver damage if left unmanaged.

Karen tried to address it alone. Keto. Juicing. Cutting sugar. Cutting dairy. Restarting each Monday with renewed determination.

‘It would work for a little while,’ she says. ‘Then something would happen and I’d fall off again.’

By 2023, after losing another sister to cancer, she found herself facing a confronting thought.

‘I didn’t want to be the next sister to die.’

In September 2023, Karen began medically assisted weight loss through telehealth provider Mosh, which combines GLP-1 medication with structured lifestyle support.

She started on Ozempic and later transitioned to Mounjaro under medical supervision. She made a deliberate decision to lose weight slowly, increasing doses cautiously and focusing on sustainable changes with the support of a drug that decreased the ‘food noise’.

‘I didn’t want to shock my body,’ she says. ‘I wanted it to last.’

Within four months, she had lost 12kg. By December 2023, repeat blood tests showed her liver markers had returned to normal levels.

‘They told me I had reversed the fatty liver disease,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’

Today she fluctuates between 58kg-60kg (9st 2lbs/128lbs – 9st 6lbs/132lbs), a loss of close to 30kg (4st 10lbs/66lbs) in total. Her chronic back condition remains, but the difference is tangible.

‘It hasn’t disappeared,’ she says honestly. ‘But it’s so much better. I can run up hills again. I can sprint with the dogs. I can keep up with my granddaughter and she gets tired before I do.’

Patients often describe GLP-1 medications as quieting ‘food noise’ – the constant background pull towards eating. Karen felt that change almost immediately.

‘It gave me space,’ she says. ‘I could actually think before I ate.’

Dr Kieran Dang, Chief Medical Officer at Mosh, says that experience reflects what is happening biologically.

‘These medications act in three key areas,’ Dr Dang explains.

‘They slow stomach emptying so you feel full for longer. They act directly on appetite centres in the brain to reduce hunger. And they improve blood sugar regulation.’

In practical terms, the brain stops sending urgent hunger signals.

‘It essentially turns down those biochemical signals,’ adds Dr Dang. ‘Otherwise you are fighting against your own biology, which for most people is extremely difficult.’

For Karen, that biological shift allowed her to confront something deeper. Emotional eating had been part of her coping mechanism for decades.

‘When people experience trauma or stress, eating can activate pleasure centres in the brain and provide short-term relief,’ notes Dr Dang.

‘Breaking that cycle is hard because it is biological as well as behavioural.’

Karen did not rely on medication alone.

A recent University of Melbourne study analysing data from nearly 10,000 Australian adults found that people using weight loss medication alongside structured lifestyle support lost 30 to 35 per cent more weight over six months than those using medication alone.

Dr Dang says the findings reinforce what clinicians see in practice.

‘Medication is effective, but combining it with exercise programs, dietitian access, goal-setting and habit-tracking leads to better outcomes,’ he says.

‘It is about building sustainable behaviours while weight is coming off.’

Karen believes that wraparound support has been crucial in helping her taper her medication gradually without regaining weight.

‘They don’t just stop you,’ she says. ‘They help you adjust mentally as well, which is important when you’re scared of putting it back on.’

Public debate around GLP-1 medications continues, with some critics describing them as an easy way out. Dr Dang rejects that view.

‘Obesity is not a willpower issue,’ he says.

‘It is a chronic medical condition driven by biochemical signals in the body and brain. Treating it is no different to treating high blood pressure.’

Research consistently shows that losing five to ten per cent of body weight can improve blood sugar control, cardiovascular risk and liver fat levels. Greater losses can produce further metabolic improvements.

For Karen, the shift has been both physical and emotional.

‘I feel like I’m finally the person I always wanted to be,’ she says.

She is back in photos. She has energy at the end of the day. She feels proud when she looks in the mirror.

After a lifetime of carrying grief in her body, she feels lighter. And this time, she says, it feels different.

New to DailyMail+? Here are our most-read stories from the past week

I saw Celeste Barber’s marriage split coming years ago. I’ll never forget that painful day in the Qantas lounge. It all makes sense now: AMANDA GOFF

MAFS INSIDER: The leaked emails Channel Nine don’t want you to see: Brook sent a legal letter begging dinner party from hell be pulled from the air – producers’ response will shock you

Sweet revenge for salon owner whose husband ran off with Kristin Fisher. Plus, hunky Kennards Hire heir responds to split talk – and Sydney’s worst diva wants an intern: THE GROUP CHAT

The night MAFS lost control: How ‘quiet drinks’ at Icebergs ended with weekly drug tests, broken relationships and the cast in lockdown – and ALI DAHER witnessed everything

Revealed for the first time: the secret past of Gus Lamont’s intensely private grandmother Josie – and how she is the scion of an influential and respected family

Expelled and labelled a ‘monster’: School insider reveals the tragic lives of the autistic Clune boys before they were killed by their ‘sleep-deprived’ parents in a quiet Mosman Park cul-de-sac

AMANDA PLATELL: No one seems to dare say it, but William is the monarchy’s next big problem

Melbourne’s ‘It couple’ split rocks high society as they wipe each other from Instagram less than two years after their lavish wedding – and one of them leaves Australia

MAFS INSIDER: Brook’s desperate bid to wipe ‘toxic’ dinner party scenes after ‘crossing a line’… Plus, Gia’s vicious new feud as she vows to ‘dismantle’ marriage

Grace Tame was untouchable. Now the forces that protected her are gone. What was once whispered about her can now be said out loud: PETER VAN ONSELEN