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I'm curious -- do you have any brain fog? Are you able to exercise? When you exercise, do you wind up eating more, i.e. the caloric amount that you exercised?

I'm curious -- do you have any brain fog? Are you able to exercise? When you exercise, do you wind up eating more, i.e. the caloric amount that you exercised? I've never had any psychological difficulty with losing weight. I don't care if I'm hungry. But what happens when I eat less and lose weight is that I have trouble concentrating. The glucose my brain needs just isn't there. And if I do physical activity, forget about it -- my blood sugar is going to my muscles and I'm unproductive for hours afterwards as I just can't think. Also, if I go to the gym, my muscles take a week to recover instead of a couple of days, because they're just not getting the glucose they need to repair themselves. I don't hear any of these complaints from GLP users though, which baffles me. Not eating enough affects us in lots of ways besides just being hungry. How has it been for you?

op00to 2y ago
No brain fog. I walk at a very brisk pace ~6 miles a day. My calories are far less than before I started. I have to be very careful to have enough protein. When I exert myself, the recovery period is the same time as before.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat per day? I get so confused because the small amounts of food that people talk about eating on GLP, don't seem like enough to sustain themselves long-term. Are they exaggerating? Or do they talk about not eating dinner, but that's because they had 1,700 calorie lunch at the burger place? Or is that just during weight loss, and then once a target weight is hit, they're eating like a normal (healthy-weight) person again? I just genuinely don't understand how people are surviving with the diets they describe.
  - op00to 2y ago
    Yes, I calorie track around 1900 calories average. Maybe up to 2000? They are probably losing muscle mass!
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Oh, OK. So depending on your height, that sounds fine. So you're still eating plenty, but the point is that you no longer have any desire to over-eat? And so at a restaurant you still order and eat, but the food just doesn't mean "enjoyment" the way it used to? That makes a lot more sense then. If food becomes more about removing a negative feeling of discomfort, than a positive feeling of deliciousness, right then overeating would never make any sense. Thanks!
      - op00to 2y ago
        Yeah, I am 6’2 and broad chested etc - I am consistently losing like 2 pounds a week, give or take. If I am less active like due to illness, that slows down. I think any faster than that, and I’d be worried about crashing back to my old weight or other side effects. I went out to eat today, and enjoyed my food. I didn’t order a big burger, but a smaller sandwich. I had a bite of an appetizer, but not more than a bite. Still super enjoyable, but it might be even better now because I don’t feel like a fat pig afterwards due to reasonable portion size. I am food motivated like a dog, for whatever that’s worth.
      - loeg 2y ago
        Good food still tastes good. You're just less hungry.
  - phil21 2y ago
    > I just genuinely don't understand how people are surviving with the diets they describe. Because obese folks have stored energy reserves. The body is really good at adapting and using them. I was attempting to be at a 1k/day calorie deficit during my peak weight loss phase. I typically met or beat this target, usually eating around 1200-1600 calories/day plus a lot of walking - 25k steps/day minimum as an absolute non-negotiable. I'd check my step counter before bed, and put pants back on and go for a "midnight" walk if I was under my count for the day. The first few weeks were quite hard, but it was pretty smooth sailing after that. Lots of naps. After that I was tired some days, but not overly so. I peaked at about 30lbs/mo weight loss for ~3 months, then tapered off to 5-10lbs/mo for my final 30ish I had to lose. I don't really suggest anyone else attempt to "crash" their program like I did - but it's how my brain operates. I need immediate and obvious results, and those turn into a feedback loop for me. Being a bit more tired each day was perfectly acceptable for the goals being achieved. That said - I wish I had started resistance training when I started my dieting program. I took it up at the very end of my weight loss, and it took me about 9mo to get back to roughly the same lean muscle mass as I had before I lost weight. I'm still working on min/maxing body comp about 18mo later. The best weight loss program is the one that works for you. Pretty much full stop. It's going to be highly individualized. Some folks will do much better with a small deficit for a few years, but I know from experience that would never work for me. I think a lot of the stuff you see on-line about "forgetting to eat dinner" is exaggerated and folks starting off on the drugs being amazed at it. Very few people will post a "well, I'm a bit less hungry" type of result. Everyone I know on them eventually became somewhat habituated to this sort of effect, but everyone is highly different. For me, I considered Tirzepatide a performance enhancing drug for my diet. I still went to bed hungry most nights - it was just far easier to chain together days and weeks of doing so on the drug vs. off. It still took a lot of willpower and habit building for me to pull it off at that level.
  - loeg 2y ago
    > Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat per day? My baseline was in the ballpark of 3000-4000 cal/day. I'm losing about 5 lb/month, or 1.25 lb/week; assuming it's all fat, that's a 4400 cal/week deficit or ~625/day. 600 cal a day less is kind of a lot! Some people starting fatter than I was take bigger doses and have bigger deficits. > Are they exaggerating? In my experience: I'm not hungry for breakfast at all. Lunch: I try to have it, definitely have it if I exercised. (But if I didn't exercise it's pretty easy to just ignore hunger signals and eat my first meal at dinner.) Dinner is like, smaller than it was when I wasn't on the drugs. And then some post-dinner snacking. I'm on the low end of the Rx dose range (2.5-15mg/week); on a higher dose, eating even less is plausible. > Or do they talk about not eating dinner, but that's because they had 1,700 calorie lunch at the burger place? 1700 cal meals are mostly out of the question for me on these drugs. Your gastric emptying is slowed down, so you just can't house big meals in the same way. > Or is that just during weight loss, and then once a target weight is hit, they're eating like a normal (healthy-weight) person again? Yes, I think this is a big piece of it. To actually lose weight, you need to eat less than the sustainable steady state.
ragazzina 2y ago
> But what happens when I eat less and lose weight is that I have trouble concentrating. The glucose my brain needs just isn't there. This is crazy, I have the completely opposite effect. On keto + calorie restriction I feel much more alert and sharp.
- DrBenCarson 2y ago
  Well yeah in ketosis your brain is running on a different energy source
- mac-mc 2y ago
  It's because people are different, sometimes on a genetic level. What works well for one person does not work well at all for another, like the parent commenter, I do not work well without carbs. Keto puts me in a low-energy, semi-depressed state, while eating +80% of my calories as starch led me to lose about 15lbs of fat and now I'm the lowest body fat % I've ever been in my adult and teen life and my HOMA-IR went from 3 to 1.6!!!! And my genetics also showed this to be the case too!
  - relaxing 2y ago
    Can you elaborate on the genetics part? What were the relevant SNPs?
    - mac-mc 2y ago
      It got a bit complicated; it was a long research project, and it led to me starting my current company, Patchwork. Currently, it's at a few hundred. https://www.patchworkfood.com https://www.patchworkfood.com
loeg 2y ago
No brain fog, but in my experience it does impact exercise (similar to any other caloric deficit). Both maximal efforts (e.g., heavy barbell squats) and endurance (hours on the bike).
PeterStuer 2y ago
Your muscle repair would come primarily from protein. I used to train quite intensely and this protocol worked for me (timings matter): - 45 mins before workout: small bowl of oatmeal with milk - 30-0 mins before workout start: 1 liter of water pre-hydration - During workout: 1/2 liter of water per half hour of intense cardio training, less so for resistance - Straight after workout: double black espresso coffee (high caffeine) - Hit sauna for extensive slow cool-down, drinking one sports drink (sugars and electrolytes) - hour later: full meal of mainly lean protein Never had issues with muscle pains or "fog". If you go really deep beyond your usual sustain, feeling physically exhausted and needing rest afterwards is normal. Eating your way through it is not the way to go.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > Your muscle repair would come primarily from protein. This is a common misconception. Yes, muscles are made from protein, and so you need additional protein to provide new "building blocks". But the process of muscle repair uses a far greater amount of glucose to actually do the work of assembly. Estimates are generally that you need something like 10x as many calories from carbs/fats to build muscle, compared to the actual protein required. So no -- muscle repair actually comes primarily from glucose, if you're measuring calories. But the point is that you need both. If you eat plenty of protein but your blood sugar is low, the muscle growth/repair will be extremely slow, or just not happen at all. Also, your protocol is entirely about the workout. I'm talking about the 48h afterwards, when the growth actually occurs in response to the stresses incurred during the workout.

op00to 2y ago

No brain fog. I walk at a very brisk pace ~6 miles a day. My calories are far less than before I started. I have to be very careful to have enough protein. When I exert myself, the recovery period is the same time as before.

crazygringo 2y ago
Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat per day? I get so confused because the small amounts of food that people talk about eating on GLP, don't seem like enough to sustain themselves long-term. Are they exaggerating? Or do they talk about not eating dinner, but that's because they had 1,700 calorie lunch at the burger place? Or is that just during weight loss, and then once a target weight is hit, they're eating like a normal (healthy-weight) person again? I just genuinely don't understand how people are surviving with the diets they describe.
- op00to 2y ago
  Yes, I calorie track around 1900 calories average. Maybe up to 2000? They are probably losing muscle mass!
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Oh, OK. So depending on your height, that sounds fine. So you're still eating plenty, but the point is that you no longer have any desire to over-eat? And so at a restaurant you still order and eat, but the food just doesn't mean "enjoyment" the way it used to? That makes a lot more sense then. If food becomes more about removing a negative feeling of discomfort, than a positive feeling of deliciousness, right then overeating would never make any sense. Thanks!
    - op00to 2y ago
      Yeah, I am 6’2 and broad chested etc - I am consistently losing like 2 pounds a week, give or take. If I am less active like due to illness, that slows down. I think any faster than that, and I’d be worried about crashing back to my old weight or other side effects. I went out to eat today, and enjoyed my food. I didn’t order a big burger, but a smaller sandwich. I had a bite of an appetizer, but not more than a bite. Still super enjoyable, but it might be even better now because I don’t feel like a fat pig afterwards due to reasonable portion size. I am food motivated like a dog, for whatever that’s worth.
    - loeg 2y ago
      Good food still tastes good. You're just less hungry.
- phil21 2y ago
  > I just genuinely don't understand how people are surviving with the diets they describe. Because obese folks have stored energy reserves. The body is really good at adapting and using them. I was attempting to be at a 1k/day calorie deficit during my peak weight loss phase. I typically met or beat this target, usually eating around 1200-1600 calories/day plus a lot of walking - 25k steps/day minimum as an absolute non-negotiable. I'd check my step counter before bed, and put pants back on and go for a "midnight" walk if I was under my count for the day. The first few weeks were quite hard, but it was pretty smooth sailing after that. Lots of naps. After that I was tired some days, but not overly so. I peaked at about 30lbs/mo weight loss for ~3 months, then tapered off to 5-10lbs/mo for my final 30ish I had to lose. I don't really suggest anyone else attempt to "crash" their program like I did - but it's how my brain operates. I need immediate and obvious results, and those turn into a feedback loop for me. Being a bit more tired each day was perfectly acceptable for the goals being achieved. That said - I wish I had started resistance training when I started my dieting program. I took it up at the very end of my weight loss, and it took me about 9mo to get back to roughly the same lean muscle mass as I had before I lost weight. I'm still working on min/maxing body comp about 18mo later. The best weight loss program is the one that works for you. Pretty much full stop. It's going to be highly individualized. Some folks will do much better with a small deficit for a few years, but I know from experience that would never work for me. I think a lot of the stuff you see on-line about "forgetting to eat dinner" is exaggerated and folks starting off on the drugs being amazed at it. Very few people will post a "well, I'm a bit less hungry" type of result. Everyone I know on them eventually became somewhat habituated to this sort of effect, but everyone is highly different. For me, I considered Tirzepatide a performance enhancing drug for my diet. I still went to bed hungry most nights - it was just far easier to chain together days and weeks of doing so on the drug vs. off. It still took a lot of willpower and habit building for me to pull it off at that level.
- loeg 2y ago
  > Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat per day? My baseline was in the ballpark of 3000-4000 cal/day. I'm losing about 5 lb/month, or 1.25 lb/week; assuming it's all fat, that's a 4400 cal/week deficit or ~625/day. 600 cal a day less is kind of a lot! Some people starting fatter than I was take bigger doses and have bigger deficits. > Are they exaggerating? In my experience: I'm not hungry for breakfast at all. Lunch: I try to have it, definitely have it if I exercised. (But if I didn't exercise it's pretty easy to just ignore hunger signals and eat my first meal at dinner.) Dinner is like, smaller than it was when I wasn't on the drugs. And then some post-dinner snacking. I'm on the low end of the Rx dose range (2.5-15mg/week); on a higher dose, eating even less is plausible. > Or do they talk about not eating dinner, but that's because they had 1,700 calorie lunch at the burger place? 1700 cal meals are mostly out of the question for me on these drugs. Your gastric emptying is slowed down, so you just can't house big meals in the same way. > Or is that just during weight loss, and then once a target weight is hit, they're eating like a normal (healthy-weight) person again? Yes, I think this is a big piece of it. To actually lose weight, you need to eat less than the sustainable steady state.

ragazzina 2y ago

> But what happens when I eat less and lose weight is that I have trouble concentrating. The glucose my brain needs just isn't there. This is crazy, I have the completely opposite effect. On keto + calorie restriction I feel much more alert and sharp.

DrBenCarson 2y ago
Well yeah in ketosis your brain is running on a different energy source
mac-mc 2y ago
It's because people are different, sometimes on a genetic level. What works well for one person does not work well at all for another, like the parent commenter, I do not work well without carbs. Keto puts me in a low-energy, semi-depressed state, while eating +80% of my calories as starch led me to lose about 15lbs of fat and now I'm the lowest body fat % I've ever been in my adult and teen life and my HOMA-IR went from 3 to 1.6!!!! And my genetics also showed this to be the case too!
- relaxing 2y ago
  Can you elaborate on the genetics part? What were the relevant SNPs?
  - mac-mc 2y ago
    It got a bit complicated; it was a long research project, and it led to me starting my current company, Patchwork. Currently, it's at a few hundred. https://www.patchworkfood.com https://www.patchworkfood.com

loeg 2y ago

No brain fog, but in my experience it does impact exercise (similar to any other caloric deficit). Both maximal efforts (e.g., heavy barbell squats) and endurance (hours on the bike).

PeterStuer 2y ago

Your muscle repair would come primarily from protein. I used to train quite intensely and this protocol worked for me (timings matter): - 45 mins before workout: small bowl of oatmeal with milk - 30-0 mins before workout start: 1 liter of water pre-hydration - During workout: 1/2 liter of water per half hour of intense cardio training, less so for resistance - Straight after workout: double black espresso coffee (high caffeine) - Hit sauna for extensive slow cool-down, drinking one sports drink (sugars and electrolytes) - hour later: full meal of mainly lean protein Never had issues with muscle pains or "fog". If you go really deep beyond your usual sustain, feeling physically exhausted and needing rest afterwards is normal. Eating your way through it is not the way to go.

crazygringo 2y ago
> Your muscle repair would come primarily from protein. This is a common misconception. Yes, muscles are made from protein, and so you need additional protein to provide new "building blocks". But the process of muscle repair uses a far greater amount of glucose to actually do the work of assembly. Estimates are generally that you need something like 10x as many calories from carbs/fats to build muscle, compared to the actual protein required. So no -- muscle repair actually comes primarily from glucose, if you're measuring calories. But the point is that you need both. If you eat plenty of protein but your blood sugar is low, the muscle growth/repair will be extremely slow, or just not happen at all. Also, your protocol is entirely about the workout. I'm talking about the 48h afterwards, when the growth actually occurs in response to the stresses incurred during the workout.