Emmett’s gut was a gnawing, scratching hole of want. Hunger—the little-h variety—hit him the moment
he opened his eyes, a sharp-toothed ache of satisfying torment. Feel the burn. Usually he awoke bloated
from the previous night’s overindulgence—and he had overindulged, capping off his dinner with Aaron
with a drive-thru burrito and half a tray of Lizette’s homemade magic bars. He’d passed out feeling like
he’d swallowed a bowling ball.
Now he was ravenous, his stomach shrunken and empty. And because his stomach felt small, he felt
small, lighter in every sense of the word. He went into the bathroom and sat. A hearty shit was usually
good for a pound or two. Then he stripped down to his underwear and st epped onto the bathroom scale,
giving it a second before he peeked at the number.
He pawed at his eyes. There was no way. Three hundred sixteen pounds. He’d lost six pounds.
Overnight. He st epped off the scale, let it clear, and st epped back on. Same result. The third time he tried,
he’d lost another pound.
“What the fuck?” “Everything okay in there?” Lizette called through the door. “Fine!” He couldn’t tell
her, not until he was sure it was real. He put the scale away and squared up to the mirror.
He liked what he saw, but knew better than to trust the feeling; on a three- hundred-pound frame, six
pounds barely showed. He was imagining it, his mind playing tricks. But he couldn’t deny the drape of
his shirt, slightly baggier than it had been when he put it on. Had it stretched in the night, or was the
Obexity finally working its magic?
Perhaps the bigger question was: If this was day one, how much more could he expect to lose?
Appendix J—Health Journal
PARTICIPANT DETAILS TRIAL ID: OBXII202305 PARTICIPANT NO: 82941 DOB: 12/8/94 SEX:
M HT: 5'11" START WT: 323 LBS Date of Entry 6/12/23 Current Weight (lbs.) 297 Lost to Date
Calculated BMI BMI Category 26 Lbs.
41.4 Morbidly Obese Please describe your physical, mental, and emotional state as pertains to this
clinical trial. HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, I know that’s probably not the helpful, scientifically
measurable response you’re looking for, but seriously WTF!!!???!!!! XD It’s been a little over three
weeks since my first dose of Ema C-8, and ho boy, is the weight really coming off! It took a while to see
results, but I’m averaging about a pound a day at this point, which is just like... impossible... but
somehow not, because I bought a new scale just in case the old one was having a seizure or something
and it said the same thing. This is really happening!!!
I can definitely feel it in my body—my stomach doesn’t hang down as far over my belt, and my sides are
smaller too. Not to mention my clothes. I’ve already dropped down to 3 XL, and even that’s pretty roomy.
What’s crazy is I haven’t changed my eating at all. If anything, I’m eating MORE. Every morning I wake
up feeling hungrier than the last. It reminds me of how I felt when I was on h CG and only eating 500
calories a day, but now I’m eating ten times that at least.
Obviously I’m still pretty big and only my best friend/roommate has really noticed, which to be honest is
a little disappointing. But also I get that losing 26 lbs. when you’re morbidly obese is like losing 5 or 10
lbs. when you’re average weight—it’s there but not in your face. You almost have to be looking for it to
notice.
And although I feel sooooo happy about how much progress I’ve made, not much else has changed. Like
the other day, I was working at the store and a woman rang for help with a set of sheets. They were right
there on the bottom shelf, but she had a baby and didn’t feel comfortable getting down on the floor to
reach them. So there I was, down on all fours, pulling my shirt down over my butt crack. Understandably
the woman felt awkward and went to look at something down the aisle. I thought she’d taken her boys
with her, so I let go of my shirt to grab the sheets and flinched as a cold finger poked down into my crack.
“Ezra!” the woman shouted, her five-year-old still standing over me. She rushed over and snatched him
away
by the wrist, but it was ME she was glaring at. I was humiliated and angry. She hadn’t even apologized
for his behavior! She didn’t even take the sheets!!! Then my life flashed before my eyes twenty minutes
later when our store manager, Rick, pulled me aside and said a customer had complained that I’d exposed
myself to her young son! I was a gibbering wreck. I rushed to explain what had happened, that it wasn’t
like that, it was an accident... He burst out laughing. He already knew, had seen the whole thing unfold
on the security cameras. The woman hadn’t even said anything—he was “just messing” with me.
But the next time my ass crack made an appearance in the store, he said, it would be an automatic
write-up. Now you can see why I call him Rick the Prick. Hopefully if Obexity ke eps on working like it
has so far, incidents like that will be a thing of the past. For the time being, the jury’s still out. You drop a
lot of weight at the start of any weight loss program. The real test comes a few weeks, a month, two
months in. It wouldn’t surprise me if pretty soon I hit a plateau or even start putting weight back on. I
don’t see how it’s scientifically sustainable for me to eat this much and ke ep losing.
But please, be my guest and surprise me!!! I really, really hope you do.