5 ms·

For many people, the "underlying issue" is fundamentally just being too hungry for how they live. GLP-1s absolutely treat that.

faangguyindia 4mo ago
for many people the underlying issue is serious lack of education when it comes to nutrition. Not understanding calorie balance, not understanding calorie density of the food they eat. How many people know 1kg fat = 7700kcal that if they could create deficit of 7700kcal they could potentially lose 1kg bodyfat? Ofc, i know the relationship isn't that simple but for most people this roughly holds true. If you are eating granolas in breakfast, it may come across as a shock how many calories they pack, go ahead look it up many people believe that's a low calorie health breakfast option. Many people don't know 1g of carb or protein = 4kcal 1g of fats = 9kcal.
- crooked-v 4mo ago
  Being aware that there are deceptively calorie-dense foods doesn't help the basic equation there. Anecdotes are not data, but my anecdotal experience is that if I ate nothing but bulk vegetables whenever my hindbrain wanted food, I would still be eating over my maintenance calories every day.
  - faangguyindia 4mo ago
    What's your maintenance calories and how did you calculate it? Most people calculate it wrong.
    - crooked-v 4mo ago
      It's about 1800 KCal, give or take, on a day of sedentary office work. I'm deeply familiar with it after years of calorie tracking. My grocery shopping and meals, most cooked from scratch on a daily basis, are designed around it to keep at a stable weight. If what you actually mean to say is "you're wrong, there's no way you could eat like that", the response is "give me nothing but heads of lettuce with salt and pepper, and there are days when I could still continue eating them the entire day whenever my stomach isn't literally full".
      - faangguyindia 4mo ago
        1800kcal is low, average woman has 2000kcal maintenance while male 2500kcal. People with that low of maintenance calories are usually sedentary and undermuscled.
- dgabriel 4mo ago
  I understand calorie balance. I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now. I have logged every bite that goes into my mouth, and lived with a constant hunger for as long as I could take it. Then I ate until I felt satisfied and gained it all back. I know how many calories are in anything, and I can eyeball any serving size. I've been doing it for decades. When I take GLP-1s, I can just stop. My appetite and body maintains itself at a healthy weight, and I don't cry myself to sleep from either hunger or shame. I think I'm not the ignorant one.
  - faangguyindia 4mo ago
    I have no personal animosity toward you, but I've heard all this many times, so I'll respond accordingly. >I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now You can lose weight by crash dieting, which does not prove much. The first thing that comes to mind for people is simply: "I'll just eat very little and lose weight." It even works, but people quickly get results; it makes them miserable, and they gain it back. People get stuck between "eating too little" and "binge eating". >I have logged every bite that goes into my mouth, and lived with a constant hunger for as long as I could take it This proves you are sincere in calorie tracking, but it doesn't tell us much about what kind of deficit you were in. What were your maintenance calories, and how did you calculate them? What kind of deficit did you run over what time period? In my experience, while people know all these things, execution still requires knowing all the "gotchas". Going from 2700kcal calories to 1000kcal a day diet will make anyone hungry and miserable.
    - phil21 4mo ago
      > In my experience, while people know all these things, execution still requires knowing all the "gotchas". In my experience, people that think they know all the "gotchas" don't really know as much as they think they do. Knowing fat is calorie dense is great. Without context one would attempt to try to cut it out of your diet almost entirely. Sort of like what literally happened with the food industry in the 80's/90's and 00's. But then they would wonder why they are so hungry and likely consuming more sugars. Which is even worse for most folks due to glycemic index and how that interacts with hunger. A little bit of knowledge can be actively harmful. Common sense on this topic actually does far better than most who think they know better. Almost everyone knows what "healthy food" looks like without needing to know anything about much else. Education is not the issue.
- toast0 4mo ago
  Plenty of people can take this intelectual knowledge and turn it into eating behaviors that work for them. But this intelectual knowledge doesn't really help if your body is telling you it's hungry all the time and it's hard not to eat something. Better choices can help, because different calories deliver different satiety; but some people don't get much satiety no matter what they eat. Calories in vs calories out is true, but it's very hard to measure calories out, so it's sometimes helpful and sometimes completely unhelpful. These drugs seem to help a lot of people in different ways, but if the underlying issue is that they don't get the satiety signals they need to eat healthy amounts without it, of course it's not surprising that when they stop medicating, they stop getting the satiety signals. There's a lot of variance among humans, but everybody seems to want a one size fits all approach to eating. That doesn't work; you have to find all the things that work for some people, and then try the most promising options until you find something that works for you. Many people crave novelty, and anyway people change over time, so something that works for someone today might not work for them next year, etc.
  - faangguyindia 4mo ago
    >But this intelectual knowledge doesn't really help if your body is telling you it's hungry all the time and it's hard not to eat something. Better choices can help, because different calories deliver different satiety; but some people don't get much satiety no matter what they eat. Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry. Is it because you’re running a 1000 kcal deficit? Can your body really tell whether you ate 200–300 kcal less today than you did yesterday? Most of us can easily notice a 1000 kcal difference, but very few can reliably detect a day-to-day difference of just 200–300 kcal. What are your maintenance calories? Are they around 1800 kcal, where even a 300 kcal deficit puts you on a 1500 kcal diet? That’s very little food for many people. In that case, it may be better to focus on increasing your maintenance calories by becoming more active in daily life. Deficit = TDEE - Intake either drop intake or boost tdee or do both. If you managed to boost your tdee to 2500kcal, now a deficit of 300kcal means you eat 2200kcal day to day and 2200kcal isn't very little food making diet easy to follow. >There's a lot of variance among humans, but everybody seems to want a one size fits all approach to eating. I think there isn't as much variance as people like to believe, how many people you see walking around you with 3 eyes? and 4 hands?
- kube-system 4mo ago
  Bariatrics would be a much more simple discipline if it were a problem that could simply be solved with education. Education is the first step in any treatment, but it often fails to produce results alone.
- teliosix 4mo ago
  This idea that it is education is just so incredibly stupid. Everyone knows what they need do to loose weight. The problem is we have an environment that in every way promotes over eating and eating hyperpalatable food is pleasurable in the moment.
Affric 4mo ago
Right so it would seem increased physical exertion would be the answer. Yeah, humans should have more free time and do enough work or exercise each day to keep their body in shape.
- spudlyo 4mo ago
  One might think that weight loss is simply an energy balance issue. Sadly, it's far more complicated than that. You can burn 500-800 calories in an hour of cardio, and you can consume 500-800 calories of food in a few minutes.
  - faangguyindia 4mo ago
    If you are eating 2700kcal a day which is what an average male probably eats in West Why would you eat 2700+800 = 3500kcal? when you can do with 2700kcal?
    - tsimionescu 4mo ago
      Because you're feeling peckish. Because you hadn't had a good burger in a while. Because you saw a good looking pizza on TV and you can't order less than a full pizza. Because your mother made this good lasagna and would feel offended if you didn't eat a portion because you'd already eaten earlier. Because you're sadand tired and just don't want to also feel hungry, and eating a pack of oreos dipped in nutella is more pleasant than cooking a steak. Because you're feeling self-destructive and it feels good to ruin your diet and get that feeling of satiety that you've been denying for a while. There are a million reasons like this. You need quite consistent motivation in order to not overeat; overeating is the default for most overweight and obese people.
      - faangguyindia 4mo ago
        Never had this issue tbh, I maintain 12% bodyfat year around and cannot relate to people who just eat when there is no need to eat.
Barrin92 4mo ago
> the "underlying issue" is fundamentally just being too hungry for how they live operative phrase in that sentence "how they live". They need to live more active lives. And that's better than a weight loss drug because inactivity causes systemic disease beyond weight gain. GLP-1 drugs do to hunger what pain meds do to pain, but if you're overweight and your back is aching because you're sedentary the solution isn't a cocktail of drugs, it's to get off your ass, because that lifestyle is going to cause you biomechanical, metabolic and even cognitive issues down the road. There's disease you can't do anything about and need to treat with medicine, but if you're experiencing symptoms because your lifestyle is abusing your body change your life. There'll come a moment where there's no wonder pill to fix your issues and in that moment you're better of if you know how to actually get control of yourself. Which most import of all is going to give you the confidence that you can change. You don't want to be 50 years old and your only cope in life is praying that a pharma company mutes whatever symptoms plague you.
- netheril96 4mo ago
  > They need to live more active lives. When I become more active, I also become more hungry due to the extra energy consumption. The net effect is little weight loss and more often than not weight gain. While being physically active is beneficial to health in many ways, it does little for losing or maintaining weight, at least for me.
  - faangguyindia 4mo ago
    deficit = tdee - intake Active life = higher TDEE which means you can eat more food while still maintaining same deficit.
    - kube-system 4mo ago
      Exercise also stimulates digestion and triggers a hunger response in many people. This is why exercise without diet often fails to result in weight loss.
      - 4mo ago
herbst 4mo ago
Sounds like they eat the wrong things. So learning to eat properly and stopping with GLP after a while sounds more reasonable to me. Also that's how my mum got it in the swiss test run. It was never supposed to be long term, just to help change eating habits.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
  If telling people to eat better fixed obesity, we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic.
  - herbst 4mo ago
    I mean the idea is that GPT helps to reduce appetite while you learn to eat properly. Not to take GPT the rest of your life.
    - crooked-v 4mo ago
      Why not? If it doesn't have immediate side effects for a given person it's unlikely to have them later, and it will be dirt cheap as soon as the patents run out.
      - herbst 4mo ago
        > If it doesn't have immediate side effects for a given person it's unlikely to have them later Why would this sentence make any sense?
- sfifs 4mo ago
  Is this advice coming from personal experience of significant diabetes and weight reversal or just online reading informed opinion? Physiology & psychology are quite complex and individualized and "just do this.." doesn't quite work at any sustainable level when people have jobs, families, mortgage, sick children & sick parents to also manage at the same time.
  - 4mo ago

faangguyindia 4mo ago

for many people the underlying issue is serious lack of education when it comes to nutrition. Not understanding calorie balance, not understanding calorie density of the food they eat. How many people know 1kg fat = 7700kcal that if they could create deficit of 7700kcal they could potentially lose 1kg bodyfat? Ofc, i know the relationship isn't that simple but for most people this roughly holds true. If you are eating granolas in breakfast, it may come across as a shock how many calories they pack, go ahead look it up many people believe that's a low calorie health breakfast option. Many people don't know 1g of carb or protein = 4kcal 1g of fats = 9kcal.

crooked-v 4mo ago
Being aware that there are deceptively calorie-dense foods doesn't help the basic equation there. Anecdotes are not data, but my anecdotal experience is that if I ate nothing but bulk vegetables whenever my hindbrain wanted food, I would still be eating over my maintenance calories every day.
- faangguyindia 4mo ago
  What's your maintenance calories and how did you calculate it? Most people calculate it wrong.
  - crooked-v 4mo ago
    It's about 1800 KCal, give or take, on a day of sedentary office work. I'm deeply familiar with it after years of calorie tracking. My grocery shopping and meals, most cooked from scratch on a daily basis, are designed around it to keep at a stable weight. If what you actually mean to say is "you're wrong, there's no way you could eat like that", the response is "give me nothing but heads of lettuce with salt and pepper, and there are days when I could still continue eating them the entire day whenever my stomach isn't literally full".
    - faangguyindia 4mo ago
      1800kcal is low, average woman has 2000kcal maintenance while male 2500kcal. People with that low of maintenance calories are usually sedentary and undermuscled.
dgabriel 4mo ago
I understand calorie balance. I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now. I have logged every bite that goes into my mouth, and lived with a constant hunger for as long as I could take it. Then I ate until I felt satisfied and gained it all back. I know how many calories are in anything, and I can eyeball any serving size. I've been doing it for decades. When I take GLP-1s, I can just stop. My appetite and body maintains itself at a healthy weight, and I don't cry myself to sleep from either hunger or shame. I think I'm not the ignorant one.
- faangguyindia 4mo ago
  I have no personal animosity toward you, but I've heard all this many times, so I'll respond accordingly. >I've been on a diet since I was 12 years old, and am now approaching 50. I've lost and regained the same 60lbs about 4 times now You can lose weight by crash dieting, which does not prove much. The first thing that comes to mind for people is simply: "I'll just eat very little and lose weight." It even works, but people quickly get results; it makes them miserable, and they gain it back. People get stuck between "eating too little" and "binge eating". >I have logged every bite that goes into my mouth, and lived with a constant hunger for as long as I could take it This proves you are sincere in calorie tracking, but it doesn't tell us much about what kind of deficit you were in. What were your maintenance calories, and how did you calculate them? What kind of deficit did you run over what time period? In my experience, while people know all these things, execution still requires knowing all the "gotchas". Going from 2700kcal calories to 1000kcal a day diet will make anyone hungry and miserable.
  - phil21 4mo ago
    > In my experience, while people know all these things, execution still requires knowing all the "gotchas". In my experience, people that think they know all the "gotchas" don't really know as much as they think they do. Knowing fat is calorie dense is great. Without context one would attempt to try to cut it out of your diet almost entirely. Sort of like what literally happened with the food industry in the 80's/90's and 00's. But then they would wonder why they are so hungry and likely consuming more sugars. Which is even worse for most folks due to glycemic index and how that interacts with hunger. A little bit of knowledge can be actively harmful. Common sense on this topic actually does far better than most who think they know better. Almost everyone knows what "healthy food" looks like without needing to know anything about much else. Education is not the issue.
toast0 4mo ago
Plenty of people can take this intelectual knowledge and turn it into eating behaviors that work for them. But this intelectual knowledge doesn't really help if your body is telling you it's hungry all the time and it's hard not to eat something. Better choices can help, because different calories deliver different satiety; but some people don't get much satiety no matter what they eat. Calories in vs calories out is true, but it's very hard to measure calories out, so it's sometimes helpful and sometimes completely unhelpful. These drugs seem to help a lot of people in different ways, but if the underlying issue is that they don't get the satiety signals they need to eat healthy amounts without it, of course it's not surprising that when they stop medicating, they stop getting the satiety signals. There's a lot of variance among humans, but everybody seems to want a one size fits all approach to eating. That doesn't work; you have to find all the things that work for some people, and then try the most promising options until you find something that works for you. Many people crave novelty, and anyway people change over time, so something that works for someone today might not work for them next year, etc.
- faangguyindia 4mo ago
  >But this intelectual knowledge doesn't really help if your body is telling you it's hungry all the time and it's hard not to eat something. Better choices can help, because different calories deliver different satiety; but some people don't get much satiety no matter what they eat. Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry. Is it because you’re running a 1000 kcal deficit? Can your body really tell whether you ate 200–300 kcal less today than you did yesterday? Most of us can easily notice a 1000 kcal difference, but very few can reliably detect a day-to-day difference of just 200–300 kcal. What are your maintenance calories? Are they around 1800 kcal, where even a 300 kcal deficit puts you on a 1500 kcal diet? That’s very little food for many people. In that case, it may be better to focus on increasing your maintenance calories by becoming more active in daily life. Deficit = TDEE - Intake either drop intake or boost tdee or do both. If you managed to boost your tdee to 2500kcal, now a deficit of 300kcal means you eat 2200kcal day to day and 2200kcal isn't very little food making diet easy to follow. >There's a lot of variance among humans, but everybody seems to want a one size fits all approach to eating. I think there isn't as much variance as people like to believe, how many people you see walking around you with 3 eyes? and 4 hands?
kube-system 4mo ago
Bariatrics would be a much more simple discipline if it were a problem that could simply be solved with education. Education is the first step in any treatment, but it often fails to produce results alone.
teliosix 4mo ago
This idea that it is education is just so incredibly stupid. Everyone knows what they need do to loose weight. The problem is we have an environment that in every way promotes over eating and eating hyperpalatable food is pleasurable in the moment.

Affric 4mo ago

Right so it would seem increased physical exertion would be the answer. Yeah, humans should have more free time and do enough work or exercise each day to keep their body in shape.

spudlyo 4mo ago
One might think that weight loss is simply an energy balance issue. Sadly, it's far more complicated than that. You can burn 500-800 calories in an hour of cardio, and you can consume 500-800 calories of food in a few minutes.
- faangguyindia 4mo ago
  If you are eating 2700kcal a day which is what an average male probably eats in West Why would you eat 2700+800 = 3500kcal? when you can do with 2700kcal?
  - tsimionescu 4mo ago
    Because you're feeling peckish. Because you hadn't had a good burger in a while. Because you saw a good looking pizza on TV and you can't order less than a full pizza. Because your mother made this good lasagna and would feel offended if you didn't eat a portion because you'd already eaten earlier. Because you're sadand tired and just don't want to also feel hungry, and eating a pack of oreos dipped in nutella is more pleasant than cooking a steak. Because you're feeling self-destructive and it feels good to ruin your diet and get that feeling of satiety that you've been denying for a while. There are a million reasons like this. You need quite consistent motivation in order to not overeat; overeating is the default for most overweight and obese people.
    - faangguyindia 4mo ago
      Never had this issue tbh, I maintain 12% bodyfat year around and cannot relate to people who just eat when there is no need to eat.

Barrin92 4mo ago

> the "underlying issue" is fundamentally just being too hungry for how they live operative phrase in that sentence "how they live". They need to live more active lives. And that's better than a weight loss drug because inactivity causes systemic disease beyond weight gain. GLP-1 drugs do to hunger what pain meds do to pain, but if you're overweight and your back is aching because you're sedentary the solution isn't a cocktail of drugs, it's to get off your ass, because that lifestyle is going to cause you biomechanical, metabolic and even cognitive issues down the road. There's disease you can't do anything about and need to treat with medicine, but if you're experiencing symptoms because your lifestyle is abusing your body change your life. There'll come a moment where there's no wonder pill to fix your issues and in that moment you're better of if you know how to actually get control of yourself. Which most import of all is going to give you the confidence that you can change. You don't want to be 50 years old and your only cope in life is praying that a pharma company mutes whatever symptoms plague you.

netheril96 4mo ago
> They need to live more active lives. When I become more active, I also become more hungry due to the extra energy consumption. The net effect is little weight loss and more often than not weight gain. While being physically active is beneficial to health in many ways, it does little for losing or maintaining weight, at least for me.
- faangguyindia 4mo ago
  deficit = tdee - intake Active life = higher TDEE which means you can eat more food while still maintaining same deficit.
  - kube-system 4mo ago
    Exercise also stimulates digestion and triggers a hunger response in many people. This is why exercise without diet often fails to result in weight loss.
    - 4mo ago

herbst 4mo ago

Sounds like they eat the wrong things. So learning to eat properly and stopping with GLP after a while sounds more reasonable to me. Also that's how my mum got it in the swiss test run. It was never supposed to be long term, just to help change eating habits.

amanaplanacanal 4mo ago
If telling people to eat better fixed obesity, we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic.
- herbst 4mo ago
  I mean the idea is that GPT helps to reduce appetite while you learn to eat properly. Not to take GPT the rest of your life.
  - crooked-v 4mo ago
    Why not? If it doesn't have immediate side effects for a given person it's unlikely to have them later, and it will be dirt cheap as soon as the patents run out.
    - herbst 4mo ago
      > If it doesn't have immediate side effects for a given person it's unlikely to have them later Why would this sentence make any sense?
sfifs 4mo ago
Is this advice coming from personal experience of significant diabetes and weight reversal or just online reading informed opinion? Physiology & psychology are quite complex and individualized and "just do this.." doesn't quite work at any sustainable level when people have jobs, families, mortgage, sick children & sick parents to also manage at the same time.
- 4mo ago