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A vaccine only takes a few doses, plus they're pretty cheap. Worst case scenario you get a booster every year. These drugs stop working the second you drop taki

A vaccine only takes a few doses, plus they're pretty cheap. Worst case scenario you get a booster every year. These drugs stop working the second you drop taking them

PapaPalpatine 2y ago
As a former user, “the second you stop taking them” isn’t totally accurate. It does take a few weeks for the effects to wear off and appetite to return.
- martin_a 2y ago
  I've started using them a few weeks ago, how was your success with them?
  - cm2187 2y ago
    It's down to how much of a diet you do (the drug only manages your appetite). I went hardcore and lost 40kg in 3 months, almost "effortlessly". One meal a day, no sugar, 45min cardio daily. Now trying to figure out where the floor is and planning a progressive reduction in dose/frequency over the next few months. I am lucky I had no side effect and I increased the dosage only sparingly, but people react differently.
    - martin_a 2y ago
      Wow, that is crazy and like a 3.500 kcal deficit a day. That's heavy and I'm glad it worked for you! I struggle with cardio, simply don't like it, am more into lifting heavy stuff... :-D What weight did you start out from? 40-50 kg is what I'd like to lose after all, I think.
      - cm2187 2y ago
        133kg to 93kg. But I am a big guy, 188cm, so I think my absolute min weight would be 87kg, perhaps a bit more now that I am older. To be honest I do the cardio mostly to stay healthy, I am not convinced it contributes much to the weight loss. I had to pause the cardio twice for a week while on holidays and lost the same amount of weight those weeks. I do take vitamins supplements though. In term of meal, I take some supermarket ready meal, typically pasta. So it's not even an unpleasant diet. But just that for the day, no dessert. I think cutting sugar is key. I do allow myself a glass of red wine in the evening. Now I am no doctor, I don't necessary recommend it, it is just that it worked for me, and allows to make an intense but concentrated effort. Another downside of a fast weight loss like that is loose skin, will probably take a few more months and some weight lifting to remediate that.
  - PapaPalpatine 2y ago
    Very successful. I used it as an opportunity to change my lifestyle and eating habits. I stopped eating processed foods and cut nearly all my sugar intake. It was a total lifestyle change and I lost 40 pounds in the process. I’ve been off of it for nearly a month, kept off the weight so far, and never felt better.
    - martin_a 2y ago
      Glad it worked for you! I found that with less appetite there's less cravings, that seems to help me to transition to better food. I hope the effect stays that way.
  - phil21 2y ago
    Nothing else I've taken so far has changed my life in such an immediate and drastic manner. It's why I'm all over these threads in a desire to help dispel misinformed social-media fueled FUD. There are legitimate concerns to be had, but what most people repeat even on HN are downright Facebook meme quality level. That said... For me, I went from 276lbs to 162lbs at my lowest in about 9mo on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound). 85% of the loss was in the first 100 days. I was putting in all the effort I possibly could aside from taking the drug, but I attribute the drug for most of my actual long-term success. It made things I had tried to do in the past (eating healthy, eating properly sized portions, regulating my snacking/late night binges, drinking) much easier. I call it a PED for dieting. Losing the weight also made exercising at first tolerable, and these days downright enjoyable and something I look forward to on training days. Since I hit my lowest I have put on about 25lbs of lean muscle mass by hitting the gym for resistance training at a regular consistent schedule. When you see the results I did so rapidly in one direction, it's highly motivating to know you can "put in the work" and see results in the other. I'm now about 187lbs at 5'11" with a body fat percentage of just under 12% from my latest DEXA scan. I plan to try to stabilize at around 11% or so, since the studies on it show 12% is where the major long-term health benefits start to accrue. After that I will begin to focus on increasing my VO2MAX (e.g. cardio fitness) as much as possible. I'll be at 2 years from starting Tirzepatide this coming March. The drug in combination with lifestyle changes can work wonders. I am but one example, and not much of an outlier at this point. I used to worry about "outing" myself when I first started taking it, but after seeing the results I did and having friends ask me what the hell I was doing to see such success I realized I could no longer pretend it was "eating less and moving more" - I didn't want to be part of the problem. Hope it helps someone reading this!
cm2187 2y ago
Yeah but you are not meant to do a diet your whole life either, they help you make a diet. If people revert to unhealthy habits after that it is on them. But there is a difference between fasting to lose weight (where you are hungry, very hard to sustain) and a stable diet (where you do not have to fight hunger).
- ifyoubuildit 2y ago
  You kinda do though. Ideally dieting isn't some activity you do for a little while and then go back to inhaling oreos. Instead you find a long term sustainable lifestyle that doesn't cause you to steadily gain weight.
  - cm2187 2y ago
    I think you are confusing "dieting" and "sustainable lifestyle". Dieting is starving yourself to lose weight. That's not sustainable and those drugs help a lot. But once you are on target weight, you can switch to a sustainable lifestyle where hunger is much less of a problem, just resisting the temptation of the oeros. But that's not hunger, that's gourmandise.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      > Dieting is starving yourself to lose weight. No it's not. Diet is just what you eat. It can be healthy or unhealthy.
    - ifyoubuildit 2y ago
      I don't think so. Starving yourself is a specific diet. I think of dieting just as being intentional about what you consume.
dartharva 2y ago
> Worst case scenario you get a booster every year. Only a conjecture, since as OP said, the long-term effects haven't been studied for us to be so sure.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The long-term effects of COVID are pretty darn obvious, though. I know two people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis from the 2009 flu epidemic and it's nasty. The vaccine was widespread enough that we've got a reasonable upper bound on on the COVID vaccine worst case to make the cost/benefit analysis an easy call.
paulkrush 2y ago
They(you know: those people) need to find a vaccine that does the same thing as these GLP-1s. It seems termination shock is becoming a bigger issue with these new products as time goes on.
Spivak 2y ago
* They're expensive right now because there's a shortage. * Once the actuaries see the long term data I imagine insurance companies will foot the bill entirely for them as a cost-saving measure. The only thing strong enough to override a doctor's "I bet it's your period" is "I bet it's your weight." * It is genuinely far far easier to maintain weight than lose it. Your body establishes a new set-point and you +/-10 lbs around it naturally. Can't speak for these drugs specifically but after losing 100lbs my appetite adjusted, got higher energy, far less effort to do (well everything) but working out especially.
- cm2187 2y ago
  Though in the UK they cost something like £200 a month, I am saving that in food just by fasting while on those drugs, so it kinds of pays for itself.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    Oh I was considering the $200/mo to be the expensive price. Yeah name brand you can pay $1k/mo but I don't imagine most folks going that route over the generic given the choice. But yeah, that's a good point I suppose. Fewer side effects than meth that's for sure.

A vaccine only takes a few doses, plus they're pretty cheap. Worst case scenario you get a booster every year. These drugs stop working the second you drop taking them

PapaPalpatine 2y ago

As a former user, “the second you stop taking them” isn’t totally accurate. It does take a few weeks for the effects to wear off and appetite to return.

martin_a 2y ago
I've started using them a few weeks ago, how was your success with them?
- cm2187 2y ago
  It's down to how much of a diet you do (the drug only manages your appetite). I went hardcore and lost 40kg in 3 months, almost "effortlessly". One meal a day, no sugar, 45min cardio daily. Now trying to figure out where the floor is and planning a progressive reduction in dose/frequency over the next few months. I am lucky I had no side effect and I increased the dosage only sparingly, but people react differently.
  - martin_a 2y ago
    Wow, that is crazy and like a 3.500 kcal deficit a day. That's heavy and I'm glad it worked for you! I struggle with cardio, simply don't like it, am more into lifting heavy stuff... :-D What weight did you start out from? 40-50 kg is what I'd like to lose after all, I think.
    - cm2187 2y ago
      133kg to 93kg. But I am a big guy, 188cm, so I think my absolute min weight would be 87kg, perhaps a bit more now that I am older. To be honest I do the cardio mostly to stay healthy, I am not convinced it contributes much to the weight loss. I had to pause the cardio twice for a week while on holidays and lost the same amount of weight those weeks. I do take vitamins supplements though. In term of meal, I take some supermarket ready meal, typically pasta. So it's not even an unpleasant diet. But just that for the day, no dessert. I think cutting sugar is key. I do allow myself a glass of red wine in the evening. Now I am no doctor, I don't necessary recommend it, it is just that it worked for me, and allows to make an intense but concentrated effort. Another downside of a fast weight loss like that is loose skin, will probably take a few more months and some weight lifting to remediate that.
- PapaPalpatine 2y ago
  Very successful. I used it as an opportunity to change my lifestyle and eating habits. I stopped eating processed foods and cut nearly all my sugar intake. It was a total lifestyle change and I lost 40 pounds in the process. I’ve been off of it for nearly a month, kept off the weight so far, and never felt better.
  - martin_a 2y ago
    Glad it worked for you! I found that with less appetite there's less cravings, that seems to help me to transition to better food. I hope the effect stays that way.
- phil21 2y ago
  Nothing else I've taken so far has changed my life in such an immediate and drastic manner. It's why I'm all over these threads in a desire to help dispel misinformed social-media fueled FUD. There are legitimate concerns to be had, but what most people repeat even on HN are downright Facebook meme quality level. That said... For me, I went from 276lbs to 162lbs at my lowest in about 9mo on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound). 85% of the loss was in the first 100 days. I was putting in all the effort I possibly could aside from taking the drug, but I attribute the drug for most of my actual long-term success. It made things I had tried to do in the past (eating healthy, eating properly sized portions, regulating my snacking/late night binges, drinking) much easier. I call it a PED for dieting. Losing the weight also made exercising at first tolerable, and these days downright enjoyable and something I look forward to on training days. Since I hit my lowest I have put on about 25lbs of lean muscle mass by hitting the gym for resistance training at a regular consistent schedule. When you see the results I did so rapidly in one direction, it's highly motivating to know you can "put in the work" and see results in the other. I'm now about 187lbs at 5'11" with a body fat percentage of just under 12% from my latest DEXA scan. I plan to try to stabilize at around 11% or so, since the studies on it show 12% is where the major long-term health benefits start to accrue. After that I will begin to focus on increasing my VO2MAX (e.g. cardio fitness) as much as possible. I'll be at 2 years from starting Tirzepatide this coming March. The drug in combination with lifestyle changes can work wonders. I am but one example, and not much of an outlier at this point. I used to worry about "outing" myself when I first started taking it, but after seeing the results I did and having friends ask me what the hell I was doing to see such success I realized I could no longer pretend it was "eating less and moving more" - I didn't want to be part of the problem. Hope it helps someone reading this!

cm2187 2y ago

Yeah but you are not meant to do a diet your whole life either, they help you make a diet. If people revert to unhealthy habits after that it is on them. But there is a difference between fasting to lose weight (where you are hungry, very hard to sustain) and a stable diet (where you do not have to fight hunger).

ifyoubuildit 2y ago
You kinda do though. Ideally dieting isn't some activity you do for a little while and then go back to inhaling oreos. Instead you find a long term sustainable lifestyle that doesn't cause you to steadily gain weight.
- cm2187 2y ago
  I think you are confusing "dieting" and "sustainable lifestyle". Dieting is starving yourself to lose weight. That's not sustainable and those drugs help a lot. But once you are on target weight, you can switch to a sustainable lifestyle where hunger is much less of a problem, just resisting the temptation of the oeros. But that's not hunger, that's gourmandise.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > Dieting is starving yourself to lose weight. No it's not. Diet is just what you eat. It can be healthy or unhealthy.
  - ifyoubuildit 2y ago
    I don't think so. Starving yourself is a specific diet. I think of dieting just as being intentional about what you consume.

dartharva 2y ago

> Worst case scenario you get a booster every year. Only a conjecture, since as OP said, the long-term effects haven't been studied for us to be so sure.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
The long-term effects of COVID are pretty darn obvious, though. I know two people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis from the 2009 flu epidemic and it's nasty. The vaccine was widespread enough that we've got a reasonable upper bound on on the COVID vaccine worst case to make the cost/benefit analysis an easy call.

paulkrush 2y ago

They(you know: those people) need to find a vaccine that does the same thing as these GLP-1s. It seems termination shock is becoming a bigger issue with these new products as time goes on.

Spivak 2y ago

* They're expensive right now because there's a shortage. * Once the actuaries see the long term data I imagine insurance companies will foot the bill entirely for them as a cost-saving measure. The only thing strong enough to override a doctor's "I bet it's your period" is "I bet it's your weight." * It is genuinely far far easier to maintain weight than lose it. Your body establishes a new set-point and you +/-10 lbs around it naturally. Can't speak for these drugs specifically but after losing 100lbs my appetite adjusted, got higher energy, far less effort to do (well everything) but working out especially.

cm2187 2y ago
Though in the UK they cost something like £200 a month, I am saving that in food just by fasting while on those drugs, so it kinds of pays for itself.
- Spivak 2y ago
  Oh I was considering the $200/mo to be the expensive price. Yeah name brand you can pay $1k/mo but I don't imagine most folks going that route over the generic given the choice. But yeah, that's a good point I suppose. Fewer side effects than meth that's for sure.