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Years ago before it was popular my doctor gave me an rx for it and I tried it, I knew it was a game changer, but those side effects? Might have just been me but

Years ago before it was popular my doctor gave me an rx for it and I tried it, I knew it was a game changer, but those side effects? Might have just been me but I could not tolerate the nausea. In the end I didn't need Ozempic, I just started working out several times a week and holding myself accountable to my eating habits. I think for the majority of people diet and exercise is enough. But for those who need more help, even Oprah, it's a miracle drug.

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
> I think for the majority of people diet and exercise is enough As far as I understand it, in the wild for the majority of the people there’s very little evidence that obese people can diet and exercise themselves to a healthy weight. It just statistically doesn’t happen very often. For whatever reason, they need the hormone regulating drugs.
- ejb999 3y ago
  They can, they just don’t want it enough to make the necessary sacrifice. I agree it doesn’t happen much, but that isn’t because it can’t work, it does for almost everyone that can make permanent change in their diet and lifestyle, most people just want the easy way out.
  - skepticATX 3y ago
    I have to agree. I don’t think that being obese is a moral failing at all. But caloric deficit does result in weight loss. Anyways, there are plenty of other benefits that come from exercise and a healthy diet, besides weight loss. Hopefully these drugs can be used as part of a more holistic improvement in lifestyle, and not as a sole treatment.
    - orwin 3y ago
      I was clinically obese (32 BMI when I checked, I think it could have been higher). The hunger when on calorie restrictions was debilitating, making it impossible to work in the afternoons. The thing that helped was a complete, week-long fast (I had 13 weeks of PTO per year so sacrifing 2 wasn't a huge deal then), that I prepared with my family (lot of them are either doctors or PT). The second day was worse than when I dislocated my ankle, except in my whole body, without the adrenalin/shock to help with the pain. The pain came in waves. Once that passed I was mostly fine, and the third day until the last I was mostly functioning (I tired easily, and couldn't work or really exercise, but I was mostly fine and could go out and walk). If I knew those drug existed, I think I couldn't have passed that second day, and taken those instead.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
    I mean quite literally something is wrong with obese people that statistically they cannot “want it enough”, like an addiction. The fact that obese people suddenly are able to “want it enough” when they take a hormone regulating drug points to this imo. It’s unhelpful to simplify this into a will thing, because it just doesn’t make sense that fat people love eating so much they’re totally cool with losing their feet to diabetes. That’s clearly something deeply wrong with the fat person, in the way that something is clearly wrong with a hoarded out house, or a homeless gambler.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Yeah but shut up. Talking about things that are feasibly solved with willpower as if they should be achievable because people ought to be able to willpower their way through any plausible challenge is just bullshit. The world is full of people who are so eager to say that they did it ergo everyone else is just being lazy. But just… shut up. Everyone has different circumstances. Things that are very mentally hard are very mentally hard and we don’t need to pretend otherwise. It’s complete bullshit and moral high grounding. It’s not helpful in the slightest. It’s not an easy way out. It’s a way out.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      Also we’ve stacked our whole culture against health and nutrition. Just compare 7/11 in the US vs Japan. This goes far deeper than saying everyone just needs to pull a small easy lever in their life. To come back from the brink in the US you have to win the fight every second of the day forever and inoculate yourself against a world poised against you.
    - SamPatt 3y ago
      1 in 50 obese people being able to escape obesity on their own is still tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Telling people who've lost weight through willpower to just shut up is rude and unhelpful. I lost 90 lbs through diet and exercise. When I say that others could do what I did - which is true for many - I often get people asking me for advice, which I give. What's wrong with that?
      - amazingman 3y ago
        Telling people who couldn't muster the sustained willpower to lose weight through diet and exercise that they "just didn't want it enough" is rude and unhelpful. It's a little bit like telling bereaved parents they didn't pray hard enough for their deity to save the child. I'm happy for you, and hopefully the advice you're giving isn't some form of willpower woo-woo. The hard truth is that you were lucky; none of us can truly account for why we did or did not succeed at a practically achievable long-term goal. If the other 49 obese people had the capability to will themselves to health, they would have done so.
  - AlisdairO 3y ago
    Why shouldn't they want the easy way out? I was obese twenty years ago, and lost the weight via diet and exercise. Keeping that weight off is the single hardest thing I have ever done, and a battle I still have to consciously fight every single day. Why should it be that difficult? So that I can pass some kind of purity test? The fact is that the food we eat has evolved over time, and is too hard to resist overconsuming for a large fraction of our population. If we can create more addictive food, why not create antidotes? If we could easily treat alcohol addiction with a pill, would we tell alcoholics to just apply willpower instead?
  - sigilis 3y ago
    I’ve seen figures that show that 98% of overweight people cannot lose and maintain weight loss. For obese people, the numbers are horrifyingly worse: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/ If at best only one in fifty can do such a thing, when the entire world is screaming at them to do so then you must re evaluate your position that it’s about just making some changes and having it all work out. Becoming a normal weight is just not something that you can expect for most currently obese people to achieve. The facts were have seen do not support the idea that it’s something that people can knuckle down and do in the majority of cases. Whether the causes are biological, social, or whatever it’s something that we have not been able to even slow down as a society yet. The article mentions the abject failure of decades of efforts from doctors, government and individuals that have lead only to greater rates of obesity. Even these drugs won’t be enough, given the best results in studies only show something like a 20% loss after more than a year. For many obese people, that leaves them still obese but $15k poorer if their insurance doesn’t cover the drug. If you managed to lose a bunch of weight, congrats. But the experience is not generalizable, unfortunately. It’s really not for lack of effort on anyone’s part.
    - nyokodo 3y ago
      > the best results in studies only show something like a 20% loss after more than a year The health benefits of losing that amount are enormous. In fact, they may get ~80% of the health benefits of a healthy fat percentage. Their blood pressure will plummet, their salt intake will drop, they’ll eat less sugar but more lean protein (it’s common to crave it). Because of this their blood work will improve and they’ll be at significantly lower risk of diabetes and heart disease etc. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the waaaay better!
  - paulpauper 3y ago
    Even if they can, the easy way out is sometimes better anyway. Not everytign has to be a struggle if it does not need to be.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    You can say the same thing about sex and contraceptives. It's probably way easier to abstain from sex than food. Yet no one is blamed for taking 'the easy way out' and using contraceptives instead. Why the double standard?
  - amazingman 3y ago
    What a cruel usage of the term "just". None of us is lucky enough to want what we should want in every important facet of our lives. If you "just" wanted something enough to make "the necessary sacrifice", then you were lucky.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  the word "can" doing a lot of heavy lifting here. from a practical vs theoretical standpoint
chris-orgmenta 3y ago
My view into the issue like this: Until this is part of state education (i.e. nutrition, exercise, stoicism, personal care, hygiene - Whatever - are 'appropriately' into syllabuses), we can't expect everyone to take care of themselves. 1. There will always be parents/guardians that are unable to teach this - That's why the education and children arm of government exists. 2. Ignorance IS an excuse here (people can't know that they don't know, if they don't even know that they SHOULD know!) 3. Even if we were to clamp down on unhealthy food advertising etc., our bodies still crave sugar binging etc. So regardless of success in that area, state education is still the keystone. But that's it... I just don't know where to go from there. Is state education getting better at teaching these life skills over time? (Personal finance too, while we are at it). Are there things I could be doing to amplify this message? Is this the correct angle, even? Congratulations on such a massive achievement by the way!
- nyokodo 3y ago
  > Until this is part of state education State sex education has been saturating youth in all the sex related artificial interventions while treating self-control as unrealistic at best and religious nonsense at worst. When do you think we’ll get an eruption of stoic self denial virtue from the state?
  - chris-orgmenta 3y ago
    I'm not optimistic, no. Not sure what nation's syllabus you refer to though, I would guess that it is USA based (edited because my wording seemed weird and pointed)
    - nyokodo 3y ago
      > Not sure what nation's syllabus you refer to though There’s no need to bring gender ideology into this, the analogy is perfectly valid just referring to prophylaxis, hormonal medication, implants, and abortion. Those are commonly taught in schools around the globe.
      - 3y ago
MattGaiser 3y ago
> I think for the majority of people diet and exercise is enough. On a population level, it has failed miserably. Sure, some can force themselves through the process, but that number is not that many.
paulpauper 3y ago
Might have just been me but I could not tolerate the nausea. Being nauseous is a very effective appetite killer

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

> I think for the majority of people diet and exercise is enough As far as I understand it, in the wild for the majority of the people there’s very little evidence that obese people can diet and exercise themselves to a healthy weight. It just statistically doesn’t happen very often. For whatever reason, they need the hormone regulating drugs.

ejb999 3y ago
They can, they just don’t want it enough to make the necessary sacrifice. I agree it doesn’t happen much, but that isn’t because it can’t work, it does for almost everyone that can make permanent change in their diet and lifestyle, most people just want the easy way out.
- skepticATX 3y ago
  I have to agree. I don’t think that being obese is a moral failing at all. But caloric deficit does result in weight loss. Anyways, there are plenty of other benefits that come from exercise and a healthy diet, besides weight loss. Hopefully these drugs can be used as part of a more holistic improvement in lifestyle, and not as a sole treatment.
  - orwin 3y ago
    I was clinically obese (32 BMI when I checked, I think it could have been higher). The hunger when on calorie restrictions was debilitating, making it impossible to work in the afternoons. The thing that helped was a complete, week-long fast (I had 13 weeks of PTO per year so sacrifing 2 wasn't a huge deal then), that I prepared with my family (lot of them are either doctors or PT). The second day was worse than when I dislocated my ankle, except in my whole body, without the adrenalin/shock to help with the pain. The pain came in waves. Once that passed I was mostly fine, and the third day until the last I was mostly functioning (I tired easily, and couldn't work or really exercise, but I was mostly fine and could go out and walk). If I knew those drug existed, I think I couldn't have passed that second day, and taken those instead.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  I mean quite literally something is wrong with obese people that statistically they cannot “want it enough”, like an addiction. The fact that obese people suddenly are able to “want it enough” when they take a hormone regulating drug points to this imo. It’s unhelpful to simplify this into a will thing, because it just doesn’t make sense that fat people love eating so much they’re totally cool with losing their feet to diabetes. That’s clearly something deeply wrong with the fat person, in the way that something is clearly wrong with a hoarded out house, or a homeless gambler.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Yeah but shut up. Talking about things that are feasibly solved with willpower as if they should be achievable because people ought to be able to willpower their way through any plausible challenge is just bullshit. The world is full of people who are so eager to say that they did it ergo everyone else is just being lazy. But just… shut up. Everyone has different circumstances. Things that are very mentally hard are very mentally hard and we don’t need to pretend otherwise. It’s complete bullshit and moral high grounding. It’s not helpful in the slightest. It’s not an easy way out. It’s a way out.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    Also we’ve stacked our whole culture against health and nutrition. Just compare 7/11 in the US vs Japan. This goes far deeper than saying everyone just needs to pull a small easy lever in their life. To come back from the brink in the US you have to win the fight every second of the day forever and inoculate yourself against a world poised against you.
  - SamPatt 3y ago
    1 in 50 obese people being able to escape obesity on their own is still tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Telling people who've lost weight through willpower to just shut up is rude and unhelpful. I lost 90 lbs through diet and exercise. When I say that others could do what I did - which is true for many - I often get people asking me for advice, which I give. What's wrong with that?
    - amazingman 3y ago
      Telling people who couldn't muster the sustained willpower to lose weight through diet and exercise that they "just didn't want it enough" is rude and unhelpful. It's a little bit like telling bereaved parents they didn't pray hard enough for their deity to save the child. I'm happy for you, and hopefully the advice you're giving isn't some form of willpower woo-woo. The hard truth is that you were lucky; none of us can truly account for why we did or did not succeed at a practically achievable long-term goal. If the other 49 obese people had the capability to will themselves to health, they would have done so.
- AlisdairO 3y ago
  Why shouldn't they want the easy way out? I was obese twenty years ago, and lost the weight via diet and exercise. Keeping that weight off is the single hardest thing I have ever done, and a battle I still have to consciously fight every single day. Why should it be that difficult? So that I can pass some kind of purity test? The fact is that the food we eat has evolved over time, and is too hard to resist overconsuming for a large fraction of our population. If we can create more addictive food, why not create antidotes? If we could easily treat alcohol addiction with a pill, would we tell alcoholics to just apply willpower instead?
- sigilis 3y ago
  I’ve seen figures that show that 98% of overweight people cannot lose and maintain weight loss. For obese people, the numbers are horrifyingly worse: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539812/ If at best only one in fifty can do such a thing, when the entire world is screaming at them to do so then you must re evaluate your position that it’s about just making some changes and having it all work out. Becoming a normal weight is just not something that you can expect for most currently obese people to achieve. The facts were have seen do not support the idea that it’s something that people can knuckle down and do in the majority of cases. Whether the causes are biological, social, or whatever it’s something that we have not been able to even slow down as a society yet. The article mentions the abject failure of decades of efforts from doctors, government and individuals that have lead only to greater rates of obesity. Even these drugs won’t be enough, given the best results in studies only show something like a 20% loss after more than a year. For many obese people, that leaves them still obese but $15k poorer if their insurance doesn’t cover the drug. If you managed to lose a bunch of weight, congrats. But the experience is not generalizable, unfortunately. It’s really not for lack of effort on anyone’s part.
  - nyokodo 3y ago
    > the best results in studies only show something like a 20% loss after more than a year The health benefits of losing that amount are enormous. In fact, they may get ~80% of the health benefits of a healthy fat percentage. Their blood pressure will plummet, their salt intake will drop, they’ll eat less sugar but more lean protein (it’s common to crave it). Because of this their blood work will improve and they’ll be at significantly lower risk of diabetes and heart disease etc. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the waaaay better!
- paulpauper 3y ago
  Even if they can, the easy way out is sometimes better anyway. Not everytign has to be a struggle if it does not need to be.
- belltaco 3y ago
  You can say the same thing about sex and contraceptives. It's probably way easier to abstain from sex than food. Yet no one is blamed for taking 'the easy way out' and using contraceptives instead. Why the double standard?
- amazingman 3y ago
  What a cruel usage of the term "just". None of us is lucky enough to want what we should want in every important facet of our lives. If you "just" wanted something enough to make "the necessary sacrifice", then you were lucky.
hackernewds 3y ago
the word "can" doing a lot of heavy lifting here. from a practical vs theoretical standpoint

chris-orgmenta 3y ago

My view into the issue like this: Until this is part of state education (i.e. nutrition, exercise, stoicism, personal care, hygiene - Whatever - are 'appropriately' into syllabuses), we can't expect everyone to take care of themselves. 1. There will always be parents/guardians that are unable to teach this - That's why the education and children arm of government exists. 2. Ignorance IS an excuse here (people can't know that they don't know, if they don't even know that they SHOULD know!) 3. Even if we were to clamp down on unhealthy food advertising etc., our bodies still crave sugar binging etc. So regardless of success in that area, state education is still the keystone. But that's it... I just don't know where to go from there. Is state education getting better at teaching these life skills over time? (Personal finance too, while we are at it). Are there things I could be doing to amplify this message? Is this the correct angle, even? Congratulations on such a massive achievement by the way!

nyokodo 3y ago
> Until this is part of state education State sex education has been saturating youth in all the sex related artificial interventions while treating self-control as unrealistic at best and religious nonsense at worst. When do you think we’ll get an eruption of stoic self denial virtue from the state?
- chris-orgmenta 3y ago
  I'm not optimistic, no. Not sure what nation's syllabus you refer to though, I would guess that it is USA based (edited because my wording seemed weird and pointed)
  - nyokodo 3y ago
    > Not sure what nation's syllabus you refer to though There’s no need to bring gender ideology into this, the analogy is perfectly valid just referring to prophylaxis, hormonal medication, implants, and abortion. Those are commonly taught in schools around the globe.
    - 3y ago

MattGaiser 3y ago

> I think for the majority of people diet and exercise is enough. On a population level, it has failed miserably. Sure, some can force themselves through the process, but that number is not that many.

paulpauper 3y ago

Might have just been me but I could not tolerate the nausea. Being nauseous is a very effective appetite killer