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I don’t want this to come out insensitive or from under the rock, but why is taking a drug a novel & cool idea (all of a sudden/recently) as opposed to good old

I don’t want this to come out insensitive or from under the rock, but why is taking a drug a novel & cool idea (all of a sudden/recently) as opposed to good old fashioned working out and not eating more than what you need? okay, this drug is all kinds of great and it’s the next best thing since green grapes, still not eating more and workout is better than taking drugs that effect your brain right? Are doctors required to explain this before prescribing this in US?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
apsec112 2y ago
Saying that the cure for obesity is to eat less is like saying that the cure for heroin addiction is to stop using heroin. It's both clearly true, and also useless.
- chrismarlow9 2y ago
  The cure is to teach from an early age about impulse control, moderation, and how to spot signs of addiction in yourself early. This goes for: Social media Drugs and alcohol Food Or literally any other addiction. I don't think this is a useless thing to discuss.
  - soulbadguy 2y ago
    And yet most obese people are no more addicted to food than you are addicted to oxygen... It's so bizarre how many people will pretzel their way into moralistic non sense to find a solution to what is clearly a medical problem. Obesity as far as we understanding it now is an hunger regulation problem. For unknown reason a lot of people still feel the need to eat even when their body is clearly in calory surplus. No amount of of impulse control or moderation can make you override billions of years of evolution and not eat when you are starving... if we could... society would be a very different place
    - WA 2y ago
      My theory is that consuming sugar makes you more hungry. You can eat until you're full, but if you eat desert or a sugary snack a little later, it makes you feel less full and you can eat more. As if your brain notices the sugar source and switches into "full loading mode" and craves more of this historically rare resource. > And yet most obese people are no more addicted to food than you are addicted to oxygen... Most obese people seem to be addicted to sugary food, soft drings, desert and all that, which then triggers more eating. In addition, it might be a gut bacteria thing. If your gut is used to processing lots of sugar, you crave it even more and fighting your gut microbiome requires way too much impulse control and moderation. The solution might be to recognize this mechanism, remove all sugar from the diet and find a way to control impulses for a few weeks until the gut bacteria changed. Drinking water and chewing sugar-free gum helps me to remove food cravings temporarily with no downsides. But... I have a normal weight.
      - scotteric 2y ago
        I think insulin resistance from excess calorie and carbohydrate consumption has a lot to do with it. One of the symptoms of hyperglycemia is increased hunger, since glucose is staying in your blood stream instead of getting into your cells. 1/3 Americans have prediabetes, and more than that are probably developing insulin resistance.
    - wiseowise 2y ago
      > For unknown reason a lot of people still feel the need to eat even when their body is clearly in calory surplus. Boredom, stress, unhappy life, happy life, laziness - it could be anything. You know what it couldn’t be? Exercise. I’m yet to see a person working out hard and eating at the same time.
      - cthalupa 2y ago
        > I’m yet to see a person working out hard and eating at the same time. No, but plenty of people have their hunger stimulated by exercise and eat too much after. You simply can't fix being overweight or obese with exercise alone in the vast majority of people. Even if you don't believe in the constrained total energy model that a good chunk of metabolic research PhDs think is at least somewhat true and instead believe solely in the additive model, exercise stimulates hunger and it's far easier to eat 1000 calories than burn 1000 calories. You have to do both and exercise doesn't automatically make the other easy.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    Ok, in the US start talking about food addiction seriously and see what happens. Do you remember how long it took to get tobacco mostly banned in the US? Do you remember how much the tobacco industry played the skeptic and introduced bunk science into the mix? Well Coca Cola, Pepsico, Nestle, and all the other junk food companies have been on this game for years now. Want to change school curriculum?, well your political opponent has $100,000-$1,000,000 more than you from the make people fat industry. Meanwhile there are a crazy number of attack ads against you for being a crazy commie that wants to control peoples lives, you socialist bastard, you're against freedom.
  - dleink 2y ago
    The presently addicted and obese thank you for your service to the future.
- indiebat 2y ago
  Heroin changes brain chemically, it's (more) serious addiction than obesity, again being a little insensitive to obese people, but they're bad in comparison. And there are degrees of truthfulness & wrongness right! About the point you're making, two generations before you and me, people where fit, more attentive & generally healthy (outside vaccines that prevent diseases now & positive effects due to advancements in medicine), what changed? Not as platitude, but go from first principles, the choices you make everyday effects your mind (& the time you spend on particular activities), and if they aren't life affirming (for lack of better words), in due time you limit your options (ie less choices from your mind, bad food or less bad food or multiple bad ways to spend your time?), till you proclaim from high top mountains 'oh god, I'm helpless without acceptance from some higher power!' This isn't to say, I'll be as preachy and asshole(ish) to a friend or someone I care about in similar need, I'll probably say 'seek medical help etc' like you. But thinking things through & arriving at truth is important, don't you think? This is different to mental strength or controlling yourself etc, it's more about self reflection & freedom through discipline, respecting your life, decisions & thoughts more than your impulsive emotions in an ever distracting world, that kind of thing.. I don't think I'll change your mind or this will come across in good faith, that's okay, I'm in a reflective mood, and it's awfully chilly outside :-)
  - soulbadguy 2y ago
    > About the point you're making, 2 generations before you and me, people where fit, more attentive & generally healthy (outside vaccines that prevent diseases now & positive effects due to advancements in medicine), what changed? Air pollution, water quality, pestecide, food/produce quality, plastic particule everywhere... I find this perspective so bizarre. Whats the most probable in 2 generation of exponentially increasing and barely regulated technological changes : culture has change so dramatically as to change human nature and makes us all lazy... or... something in the environment/food chain is having phisiolical/biological effects...
    - indiebat 2y ago
      People living in country side & eating from organic farming, they're doing alright (similar to our closest ancestors), but that's beside the point Cultural change over 2/3 even 10 generations will not significantly alter your biology. Pollution & disintegration in modern world you're referring to, they do have negative effects on our health, but it's not the whole story and they possibly cannot have effects on your decisions about what you eat and how you spend your time right? I'm particularly referring to obesity caused by over eating, bad life style etc (not the other rare serious persistent irreversible kind that happens as side effect of more serious ailments or genetics)
- wiseowise 2y ago
  Well, of course if you’ve been jacking heroin for 30 years and all your veins are destroyed beyond repair it’s useless. It’ll take as much, or even more, to return back to normal.
codingdave 2y ago
Because not everyone has willpower and discipline. People who do have those strengths often think it is just as simple as saying, "Just take care of yourself", but it is not that easy for many people. High blood sugar also increases cravings, which makes it even harder, bringing on a downward spiral. This drug can help break out of that spiral and fix the craving/willpower problems.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  what you say is mostly true, but I will point out that it does not break any spiral. It’s frequently reported that as soon as you stop taking Ozempic, the weight comes back immediately. so unless one resolves the underlying problem, you will be on this drug for life.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    That's not unique to Ozempic and (while I know you didn't make this specific argument, but others in this subthread have) is a piss poor reason to tell someone they shouldn't give it a try.
    - lurking_swe 2y ago
      i don’t disagree. Just pointing out that (obviously) this should be a last resort drug. AFTER someone has tried lifestyle interventions for a few years IMO. The problem is when someone does NOT put in the effort to talk to their doctor, meet with a dietician, learn about healthy eating, and put in an honest effort to improve their life before just popping a pill. That said, i think it’s great that’s it’s helping people who otherwise would just be obese and have many other health issues due to that. It’s a big risk factor.
  - mrshadowgoose 2y ago
    This isn't the revelation you think it is. Chronic medical conditions require lifetime treatment. That isn't news to anyone. It's funny how obesity is the only chronic medical condition that garners a huge volume of your particular kind of comment. Would you be mentioning this for someone prescribed a diabetic, blood pressure or cholesterol medication? Statistically, likely not. So maybe take a step back, and examine why are you so averse to other people losing weight with medication.
xvedejas 2y ago
Most people don't work out enough, or don't eat well enough. If we had some kind of intervention that would easily cause people to work out, we would use that intervention. If we had some kind of intervention that would easily cause people to eat well, we would use that intervention. The reason working out and good diet are good is because of good health outcomes. If we have some kind of intervention that skips straight to the good health outcomes, we would use that intervention. It seems like Ozempic is _that_ intervention, so we will use it. I will likely choose Ozempic for myself once it is available to me.
rootusrootus 2y ago
I want everyone who says this to submit a picture. Just wearing gym shorts, so we can get a good look. I assume nobody making this a moral issue will have so much as love handles. Because if they do, why aren't they working out harder and eating a bit less? I've met plenty of skinny fat people who think they're healthy.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Man, some folks just don't want to be held to the same standard they want to hold everyone else to. Cowards ;-)
Modified3019 2y ago
Telling people they are morally bankrupt sinners (slothful and gluttonous) and heaping guilt and shame on their shoulders has unsurprisingly failed to stop the issue. Why do you think that telling people to “just stop being fat” will suddenly start working?
cschneid 2y ago
In 2021 I lost a good chunk of weight the old fashioned way. From 250ish to 215. I did it with "good old fashioned working out and not eating more". It was a miserable, white-knuckle experience. I was eating healthy food, enough calories (moderate but sane deficit), but the only thing I thought about at all moments was getting to the next meal. What snack is low enough calories to have to make it. It was miserable. As soon as I let up a bit, everything unraveled and I found myself back in the 250s by the start of this year. Now I'm on Tirzepatide (Zepbound), and I'm back to 235ish, and trending lower. I still work on eating healthy, but now I'm not just HUNGRY at all moments. My life continues, and I only have to make individual healthy choices at meal times, and grocery times, rather than a constant struggle at all waking moments. It's seriously a big difference.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  > I still work on eating healthy, but now I'm not just HUNGRY at all moments. I think this is something a lot of people pushing back against the GLP-1 agonists don't realize because they don't experience it: back before I started Mounjaro (another GLP-1 agonist) I was constantly hungry if I hadn't eaten a meal in the last 45 minutes. Absolutely zero hyperbole there - I once went to an all you can eat buffet, ate until I was over full, came home, and within about an hour and a half of that I was snacking on something because I was hungry. Not peckish. Not "feeling like a snack". Hungry to the point where that feeling intruded on my every thought until it was sated. After starting Mounjaro that's GONE. Gone gone. I now have to set an alarm to remember to eat. It's absolutely phenomenal and likely the reason why I'll live past my forties instead of being stuck in that same cycle and dying of the effects of obesity.
  - pton_xd 2y ago
    > Absolutely zero hyperbole there - I once went to an all you can eat buffet, ate until I was over full, came home, and within about an hour and a half of that I was snacking on something because I was hungry. I don't have any eating issues but that reminds me of the first time I went on a 7-day cruise. There's nothing to do on the ship, and the food is free and pretty tasty, so... I basically ended up at the buffet eating and drinking all day long. Sausage and egg biscuits, banana bread, pot roast, steak, pasta, fried rice, cinnamon buns, they had everything. I was stomach-busting full, every minute of every day. I'd gorge myself on a huge plate of Indian food from the buffet, and then a few hours later head to another deck for a lobster dinner. Not to mention, drinking coffee, beer, and wine the entire time. It was kind of insane. And what was crazier was after a few days of this routine I got used to it, and even looked forward to eating more food the next day. It was sort of like directly embracing one of the seven deadly sins to the maximum extent possible. I'm not sure what that experience means other than it seems like the the human body can comfortably arrange itself into a habitual downward cycle fairly rapidly.
DrillShopper 2y ago
I don't think I've ever seen someone seriously put forth the argument "all you need is Ozempic". For context: I am an overweight type 2 diabetic. I lost about 70 lbs before my doctor started me on Mounjaro (another GLP-1 agonist). My diet and exercise routine were far from perfect, and it took me about a year to lose that weight. My doctor started me on Mounjaro, both for type 2 diabetes and weight loss. I have lost 20 lbs in about a month on it, which means I will lose three times the weight if that pace keeps up (very unlikely). When my doctor and I discussed starting Mounjaro (which the doctor suggested, not me) he made it very, VERY clear that diet and exercise were important things to work on as the weight came off. The key there is that the pace of weight loss will not keep up as the body's caloric needs reduce due to that weight loss. So naturally a GLP-1 user will plateau if they do not adjust their diet (and potentially exercise routine, though diet is much more important) as the weight comes off. You know what really makes it easier to have the energy to a healthy meal, to work out, and to take care of yourself? Losing weight! You know what helps form those healthy habits in people who did not form them during childhood? Reduced cravings for calorie dense food! Both of those things are where Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs shine. It gives the person on them the space to make those changes without cravings, without feeling hungry, and at a faster pace than they could do naturally. So yes, in the short term, these drugs are a great catalyst for change, but I don't see many medical professionals saying "oh just stick someone on Ozempic for life and that's that!" because for the vast majority of people who would use those drugs for weight loss cannot achieve their goals with just the drug alone.
honkycat 2y ago
Why doesn't everyone play piano? Why isn't every person a super athlete? Why doesn't everyone meditate 40 minutes a day? Why doesn't everyone study super hard in school and become an engineer or doctor or lawyer? The hard truth: Not everyone is capable of those things. Period. 40% of the US population is considered obese. That is a HUGE number. At a certain point, you can no longer blame individuals. There is something wrong, and we identify it as an environmental problem. So if we have a drug that will make a huge amount of people healthy, what is the downside? And for the record: Ozempic affects appetite so they eat better, that is part of the drug.
- s5300 2y ago
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- wiseowise 2y ago
  > Why doesn't everyone play piano? Why isn't every person a super athlete? Why doesn't everyone meditate 40 minutes a day? Why doesn't everyone study super hard in school and become an engineer or doctor or lawyer? The hard truth: Not everyone is capable of those things. Period. We’re not talking about world class athlete. There a mile difference between world class athletes and not obese.
raincom 2y ago
Treat human beings or any organisms as biological machines. Here, many chemicals (hormones, for instance) regulate many processes in such machines. Whatever one has eaten so far, genetic history, environment, etc have changed hormones to a level where the model of dieting and working out doesn't work any longer. So, semaglutide and tirzepatide work on such regulatory hormones (GLP-1, GIP). In other words, what this research tells us that humans are not controlled by their personal will.
vundercind 2y ago
Willpower and discipline don’t seem to be what keeps other countries skinnier than the US (and most of them are also getting fatter…) so I don’t know why we expect that to get the US out of this mess. Evidence: people from skinnier countries move here and consistently get fatter. It’s a societal/environmental problem, if we’re talking about “what would a policy fix look like?” and not “what can I personally try to do to save myself despite being up against a societal/environmental problem?”
potta_coffee 2y ago
It's just human nature. This is the health equivalent of trying to turn lead into gold. It's my unproven opinion that the negative effects of these treatments are understated and this will be a passing fad.
Eumenes 2y ago
> why is taking a drug a novel & cool idea https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/post-your-pill-trend https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/post-your-pill-tre... drug companies have spent millions on destigmatizing pharmaceuticals. its a superpower, apparently. a large swath of this userbase convinced themselves they have adhd and need medication for it. changing tabs on your chrome browser or not being able to do "deep work" = i have an uncurable disease and i require legal meth, for life. you can see how this translates to ozempic. silicon valley/tech culture has prioritized get rich schemes, cure alls like adhd meds, you don't have to eat just drink soylent for every meal, etc. ozempic falls in line nicely there, and i think among this community and others in this vein, you'll see alot of support for it. its sad, because tech/programmers/IT people use to be very contrarian and open minded. you get in trouble for saying things like "personality responsibility", "discipline', "self-control". > Are doctors required to explain this before prescribing this in US? doctors famously aren't trained on nutrition or fitness. ironically the prestige is being a specialist, not well rounded. strange.
connicpu 2y ago
Completely missing the point of GLP-1 agonists. The point is that it breaks the cycle by giving you the willpower to eat less. It doesn't magically make the calories you eat not contribute to your weight, it just makes it easier to eat less and still feel full. It also counteracts insulin resistance, which is another problem inherent to obesity.
orangecat 2y ago
Why are we bothering with contraception and STD vaccines when people should just not have sex unless they're trying to get pregnant?
- wiseowise 2y ago
  I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people in certain circle who’ll share the same view.
OfficeChad 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago

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apsec112 2y ago

Saying that the cure for obesity is to eat less is like saying that the cure for heroin addiction is to stop using heroin. It's both clearly true, and also useless.

chrismarlow9 2y ago
The cure is to teach from an early age about impulse control, moderation, and how to spot signs of addiction in yourself early. This goes for: Social media Drugs and alcohol Food Or literally any other addiction. I don't think this is a useless thing to discuss.
- soulbadguy 2y ago
  And yet most obese people are no more addicted to food than you are addicted to oxygen... It's so bizarre how many people will pretzel their way into moralistic non sense to find a solution to what is clearly a medical problem. Obesity as far as we understanding it now is an hunger regulation problem. For unknown reason a lot of people still feel the need to eat even when their body is clearly in calory surplus. No amount of of impulse control or moderation can make you override billions of years of evolution and not eat when you are starving... if we could... society would be a very different place
  - WA 2y ago
    My theory is that consuming sugar makes you more hungry. You can eat until you're full, but if you eat desert or a sugary snack a little later, it makes you feel less full and you can eat more. As if your brain notices the sugar source and switches into "full loading mode" and craves more of this historically rare resource. > And yet most obese people are no more addicted to food than you are addicted to oxygen... Most obese people seem to be addicted to sugary food, soft drings, desert and all that, which then triggers more eating. In addition, it might be a gut bacteria thing. If your gut is used to processing lots of sugar, you crave it even more and fighting your gut microbiome requires way too much impulse control and moderation. The solution might be to recognize this mechanism, remove all sugar from the diet and find a way to control impulses for a few weeks until the gut bacteria changed. Drinking water and chewing sugar-free gum helps me to remove food cravings temporarily with no downsides. But... I have a normal weight.
    - scotteric 2y ago
      I think insulin resistance from excess calorie and carbohydrate consumption has a lot to do with it. One of the symptoms of hyperglycemia is increased hunger, since glucose is staying in your blood stream instead of getting into your cells. 1/3 Americans have prediabetes, and more than that are probably developing insulin resistance.
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    > For unknown reason a lot of people still feel the need to eat even when their body is clearly in calory surplus. Boredom, stress, unhappy life, happy life, laziness - it could be anything. You know what it couldn’t be? Exercise. I’m yet to see a person working out hard and eating at the same time.
    - cthalupa 2y ago
      > I’m yet to see a person working out hard and eating at the same time. No, but plenty of people have their hunger stimulated by exercise and eat too much after. You simply can't fix being overweight or obese with exercise alone in the vast majority of people. Even if you don't believe in the constrained total energy model that a good chunk of metabolic research PhDs think is at least somewhat true and instead believe solely in the additive model, exercise stimulates hunger and it's far easier to eat 1000 calories than burn 1000 calories. You have to do both and exercise doesn't automatically make the other easy.
- pixl97 2y ago
  Ok, in the US start talking about food addiction seriously and see what happens. Do you remember how long it took to get tobacco mostly banned in the US? Do you remember how much the tobacco industry played the skeptic and introduced bunk science into the mix? Well Coca Cola, Pepsico, Nestle, and all the other junk food companies have been on this game for years now. Want to change school curriculum?, well your political opponent has $100,000-$1,000,000 more than you from the make people fat industry. Meanwhile there are a crazy number of attack ads against you for being a crazy commie that wants to control peoples lives, you socialist bastard, you're against freedom.
- dleink 2y ago
  The presently addicted and obese thank you for your service to the future.
indiebat 2y ago
Heroin changes brain chemically, it's (more) serious addiction than obesity, again being a little insensitive to obese people, but they're bad in comparison. And there are degrees of truthfulness & wrongness right! About the point you're making, two generations before you and me, people where fit, more attentive & generally healthy (outside vaccines that prevent diseases now & positive effects due to advancements in medicine), what changed? Not as platitude, but go from first principles, the choices you make everyday effects your mind (& the time you spend on particular activities), and if they aren't life affirming (for lack of better words), in due time you limit your options (ie less choices from your mind, bad food or less bad food or multiple bad ways to spend your time?), till you proclaim from high top mountains 'oh god, I'm helpless without acceptance from some higher power!' This isn't to say, I'll be as preachy and asshole(ish) to a friend or someone I care about in similar need, I'll probably say 'seek medical help etc' like you. But thinking things through & arriving at truth is important, don't you think? This is different to mental strength or controlling yourself etc, it's more about self reflection & freedom through discipline, respecting your life, decisions & thoughts more than your impulsive emotions in an ever distracting world, that kind of thing.. I don't think I'll change your mind or this will come across in good faith, that's okay, I'm in a reflective mood, and it's awfully chilly outside :-)
- soulbadguy 2y ago
  > About the point you're making, 2 generations before you and me, people where fit, more attentive & generally healthy (outside vaccines that prevent diseases now & positive effects due to advancements in medicine), what changed? Air pollution, water quality, pestecide, food/produce quality, plastic particule everywhere... I find this perspective so bizarre. Whats the most probable in 2 generation of exponentially increasing and barely regulated technological changes : culture has change so dramatically as to change human nature and makes us all lazy... or... something in the environment/food chain is having phisiolical/biological effects...
  - indiebat 2y ago
    People living in country side & eating from organic farming, they're doing alright (similar to our closest ancestors), but that's beside the point Cultural change over 2/3 even 10 generations will not significantly alter your biology. Pollution & disintegration in modern world you're referring to, they do have negative effects on our health, but it's not the whole story and they possibly cannot have effects on your decisions about what you eat and how you spend your time right? I'm particularly referring to obesity caused by over eating, bad life style etc (not the other rare serious persistent irreversible kind that happens as side effect of more serious ailments or genetics)
wiseowise 2y ago
Well, of course if you’ve been jacking heroin for 30 years and all your veins are destroyed beyond repair it’s useless. It’ll take as much, or even more, to return back to normal.

codingdave 2y ago

Because not everyone has willpower and discipline. People who do have those strengths often think it is just as simple as saying, "Just take care of yourself", but it is not that easy for many people. High blood sugar also increases cravings, which makes it even harder, bringing on a downward spiral. This drug can help break out of that spiral and fix the craving/willpower problems.

lurking_swe 2y ago
what you say is mostly true, but I will point out that it does not break any spiral. It’s frequently reported that as soon as you stop taking Ozempic, the weight comes back immediately. so unless one resolves the underlying problem, you will be on this drug for life.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  That's not unique to Ozempic and (while I know you didn't make this specific argument, but others in this subthread have) is a piss poor reason to tell someone they shouldn't give it a try.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    i don’t disagree. Just pointing out that (obviously) this should be a last resort drug. AFTER someone has tried lifestyle interventions for a few years IMO. The problem is when someone does NOT put in the effort to talk to their doctor, meet with a dietician, learn about healthy eating, and put in an honest effort to improve their life before just popping a pill. That said, i think it’s great that’s it’s helping people who otherwise would just be obese and have many other health issues due to that. It’s a big risk factor.
- mrshadowgoose 2y ago
  This isn't the revelation you think it is. Chronic medical conditions require lifetime treatment. That isn't news to anyone. It's funny how obesity is the only chronic medical condition that garners a huge volume of your particular kind of comment. Would you be mentioning this for someone prescribed a diabetic, blood pressure or cholesterol medication? Statistically, likely not. So maybe take a step back, and examine why are you so averse to other people losing weight with medication.

xvedejas 2y ago

Most people don't work out enough, or don't eat well enough. If we had some kind of intervention that would easily cause people to work out, we would use that intervention. If we had some kind of intervention that would easily cause people to eat well, we would use that intervention. The reason working out and good diet are good is because of good health outcomes. If we have some kind of intervention that skips straight to the good health outcomes, we would use that intervention. It seems like Ozempic is _that_ intervention, so we will use it. I will likely choose Ozempic for myself once it is available to me.

rootusrootus 2y ago

I want everyone who says this to submit a picture. Just wearing gym shorts, so we can get a good look. I assume nobody making this a moral issue will have so much as love handles. Because if they do, why aren't they working out harder and eating a bit less? I've met plenty of skinny fat people who think they're healthy.

rootusrootus 2y ago
Man, some folks just don't want to be held to the same standard they want to hold everyone else to. Cowards ;-)

Modified3019 2y ago

Telling people they are morally bankrupt sinners (slothful and gluttonous) and heaping guilt and shame on their shoulders has unsurprisingly failed to stop the issue. Why do you think that telling people to “just stop being fat” will suddenly start working?

cschneid 2y ago

In 2021 I lost a good chunk of weight the old fashioned way. From 250ish to 215. I did it with "good old fashioned working out and not eating more". It was a miserable, white-knuckle experience. I was eating healthy food, enough calories (moderate but sane deficit), but the only thing I thought about at all moments was getting to the next meal. What snack is low enough calories to have to make it. It was miserable. As soon as I let up a bit, everything unraveled and I found myself back in the 250s by the start of this year. Now I'm on Tirzepatide (Zepbound), and I'm back to 235ish, and trending lower. I still work on eating healthy, but now I'm not just HUNGRY at all moments. My life continues, and I only have to make individual healthy choices at meal times, and grocery times, rather than a constant struggle at all waking moments. It's seriously a big difference.

DrillShopper 2y ago
> I still work on eating healthy, but now I'm not just HUNGRY at all moments. I think this is something a lot of people pushing back against the GLP-1 agonists don't realize because they don't experience it: back before I started Mounjaro (another GLP-1 agonist) I was constantly hungry if I hadn't eaten a meal in the last 45 minutes. Absolutely zero hyperbole there - I once went to an all you can eat buffet, ate until I was over full, came home, and within about an hour and a half of that I was snacking on something because I was hungry. Not peckish. Not "feeling like a snack". Hungry to the point where that feeling intruded on my every thought until it was sated. After starting Mounjaro that's GONE. Gone gone. I now have to set an alarm to remember to eat. It's absolutely phenomenal and likely the reason why I'll live past my forties instead of being stuck in that same cycle and dying of the effects of obesity.
- pton_xd 2y ago
  > Absolutely zero hyperbole there - I once went to an all you can eat buffet, ate until I was over full, came home, and within about an hour and a half of that I was snacking on something because I was hungry. I don't have any eating issues but that reminds me of the first time I went on a 7-day cruise. There's nothing to do on the ship, and the food is free and pretty tasty, so... I basically ended up at the buffet eating and drinking all day long. Sausage and egg biscuits, banana bread, pot roast, steak, pasta, fried rice, cinnamon buns, they had everything. I was stomach-busting full, every minute of every day. I'd gorge myself on a huge plate of Indian food from the buffet, and then a few hours later head to another deck for a lobster dinner. Not to mention, drinking coffee, beer, and wine the entire time. It was kind of insane. And what was crazier was after a few days of this routine I got used to it, and even looked forward to eating more food the next day. It was sort of like directly embracing one of the seven deadly sins to the maximum extent possible. I'm not sure what that experience means other than it seems like the the human body can comfortably arrange itself into a habitual downward cycle fairly rapidly.

DrillShopper 2y ago

I don't think I've ever seen someone seriously put forth the argument "all you need is Ozempic". For context: I am an overweight type 2 diabetic. I lost about 70 lbs before my doctor started me on Mounjaro (another GLP-1 agonist). My diet and exercise routine were far from perfect, and it took me about a year to lose that weight. My doctor started me on Mounjaro, both for type 2 diabetes and weight loss. I have lost 20 lbs in about a month on it, which means I will lose three times the weight if that pace keeps up (very unlikely). When my doctor and I discussed starting Mounjaro (which the doctor suggested, not me) he made it very, VERY clear that diet and exercise were important things to work on as the weight came off. The key there is that the pace of weight loss will not keep up as the body's caloric needs reduce due to that weight loss. So naturally a GLP-1 user will plateau if they do not adjust their diet (and potentially exercise routine, though diet is much more important) as the weight comes off. You know what really makes it easier to have the energy to a healthy meal, to work out, and to take care of yourself? Losing weight! You know what helps form those healthy habits in people who did not form them during childhood? Reduced cravings for calorie dense food! Both of those things are where Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs shine. It gives the person on them the space to make those changes without cravings, without feeling hungry, and at a faster pace than they could do naturally. So yes, in the short term, these drugs are a great catalyst for change, but I don't see many medical professionals saying "oh just stick someone on Ozempic for life and that's that!" because for the vast majority of people who would use those drugs for weight loss cannot achieve their goals with just the drug alone.

honkycat 2y ago

Why doesn't everyone play piano? Why isn't every person a super athlete? Why doesn't everyone meditate 40 minutes a day? Why doesn't everyone study super hard in school and become an engineer or doctor or lawyer? The hard truth: Not everyone is capable of those things. Period. 40% of the US population is considered obese. That is a HUGE number. At a certain point, you can no longer blame individuals. There is something wrong, and we identify it as an environmental problem. So if we have a drug that will make a huge amount of people healthy, what is the downside? And for the record: Ozempic affects appetite so they eat better, that is part of the drug.

s5300 2y ago
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wiseowise 2y ago
> Why doesn't everyone play piano? Why isn't every person a super athlete? Why doesn't everyone meditate 40 minutes a day? Why doesn't everyone study super hard in school and become an engineer or doctor or lawyer? The hard truth: Not everyone is capable of those things. Period. We’re not talking about world class athlete. There a mile difference between world class athletes and not obese.

raincom 2y ago

Treat human beings or any organisms as biological machines. Here, many chemicals (hormones, for instance) regulate many processes in such machines. Whatever one has eaten so far, genetic history, environment, etc have changed hormones to a level where the model of dieting and working out doesn't work any longer. So, semaglutide and tirzepatide work on such regulatory hormones (GLP-1, GIP). In other words, what this research tells us that humans are not controlled by their personal will.

vundercind 2y ago

Willpower and discipline don’t seem to be what keeps other countries skinnier than the US (and most of them are also getting fatter…) so I don’t know why we expect that to get the US out of this mess. Evidence: people from skinnier countries move here and consistently get fatter. It’s a societal/environmental problem, if we’re talking about “what would a policy fix look like?” and not “what can I personally try to do to save myself despite being up against a societal/environmental problem?”

potta_coffee 2y ago

It's just human nature. This is the health equivalent of trying to turn lead into gold. It's my unproven opinion that the negative effects of these treatments are understated and this will be a passing fad.

Eumenes 2y ago

> why is taking a drug a novel & cool idea https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/post-your-pill-trend https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/post-your-pill-tre... drug companies have spent millions on destigmatizing pharmaceuticals. its a superpower, apparently. a large swath of this userbase convinced themselves they have adhd and need medication for it. changing tabs on your chrome browser or not being able to do "deep work" = i have an uncurable disease and i require legal meth, for life. you can see how this translates to ozempic. silicon valley/tech culture has prioritized get rich schemes, cure alls like adhd meds, you don't have to eat just drink soylent for every meal, etc. ozempic falls in line nicely there, and i think among this community and others in this vein, you'll see alot of support for it. its sad, because tech/programmers/IT people use to be very contrarian and open minded. you get in trouble for saying things like "personality responsibility", "discipline', "self-control". > Are doctors required to explain this before prescribing this in US? doctors famously aren't trained on nutrition or fitness. ironically the prestige is being a specialist, not well rounded. strange.

connicpu 2y ago

Completely missing the point of GLP-1 agonists. The point is that it breaks the cycle by giving you the willpower to eat less. It doesn't magically make the calories you eat not contribute to your weight, it just makes it easier to eat less and still feel full. It also counteracts insulin resistance, which is another problem inherent to obesity.

orangecat 2y ago

Why are we bothering with contraception and STD vaccines when people should just not have sex unless they're trying to get pregnant?

wiseowise 2y ago
I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people in certain circle who’ll share the same view.

OfficeChad 2y ago

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