Many here have expressed skepticism at GLP1s because they don't require the personal discipline of caloric deficit and might have unknown side effects.
So far, all the unknown side effects I've read about have been like this.
N of 1, but I had serious low drive/motivation side effects from Wegovy. Everything enjoyable became less enjoyable, from alcohol, to running, and after a couple of months, even getting out of bed. I lost weight slower than I had previously with old school calorie counting (most of which I have kept off to this day). Within a couple weeks of getting off it I was back to normal.
My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
> My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
Possibly some of them could also be unintentionally countering the impacts through things like self-medicating with caffeine.
I have no personal experience with GLP-1s but suddenly quitting caffeine after decades of daily use was pretty eye-opening in terms of how much it was boosting my baseline mood. And I'm not talking about being cranky for a couple of days after quitting, I'm talking about a very noticeable sustained change from when I was a frequent caffeine user to when I stopped having it altogether.
Speaking of which, nicotine is another effective weight loss drug. I have to wonder if some portion of the increase in median BMI (ignoring the morbidly obese) in America over the last 50 years is it becoming less socially acceptable to chain smoke.
Looks like it's typical to gain 5-10lbs when quitting smoking.
Edit: pulled up the data and there's been a 30lb increase in median weight in America, so (loosely guessing) the smoking effect is probably somewhere between 5 and 10% of that change.
> Speaking of which, nicotine is another effective weight loss drug.
Nicotine is a very useful drug that is sadly so very, very bad for you.
It has weight loss impacts, acts as a stimulant and is actually one of the better non-prescribed treatments for ADHD (as well as being super associated with schizophrenia).
After I got my ADHD diagnoses I noted that this was always called out in the literature, and I have been addicted to nicotine for the past 25 years or so (on a vape now, which appears to significantly reduce some of the bad side effects, but is still probably not good for me).
I felt something like that affect, though not very pronounced, for the first couple weeks. Since then I've felt completely normal. Life is way more fun now.
One thing that colors how I view it is that I am more in the "would like to lose 15 lbs" space than the "needs to lose 50 lbs" space at this point in my life. I have a BMI of 27 and ran a half marathon right when I first tried Wegovy, and I already weigh 30 lbs less than I did at my 2021 peak. My A1c is 4.6. I actually recently reached out to my doctor about trying a different GLP-1 and she told me that given my labs and that I haven't been gaining weight she doesn't feel right prescribing me one.
So I am a lot more picky about side effects than I would be if I seriously needed to lose weight or had diabetes.
With a BMI of 27 why would you try GLP-1s at all? I would also be less forgiving of side effects if I were in that situation.
But my BMI was like 39, and now it is ~25. My blood test results the last couple of years have been phenomenal. All of the extra cardiac testing I've done suggests I managed to dodge a lot of the effects of being obese, which is just genetic luck (heart disease does not run in my family, most of my immediate ancestors lived well into their 90s and all of them died of something other than heart disease, even though some were fairly overweight).
I have played a little roulette with GLP-1s lately because I am curious, and found that at my current weight (5'11" or so and 175lb) seems to be where my body is willing to go, and that's about it. I stalled out pretty abruptly, and if I increase the dose all I get are uncomfortable side effects and no real weight loss -- even though the discomfort pushes my caloric intake well into the "cannot get enough vitamins and minerals" level. It's remarkable. I was once 165 naturally but 30 years ago, and that just isn't a realistic goal any more, so says my body. This is fine, I feel very good now. Well, when I'm on the maintenance dose ;-). Then I have no side effects, I just live a normal life eating normal amounts of healthy food and having a way easier time exercising than when I was heavy.
Honestly I was finding the last 15 lbs to be stubborn, and had a borderline mild sleep apnea test that meant my doctor offered it and my insurance would cover it. I also wanted to see what all the hype was about.
I forgot about sleep apnea. I was struggling with adjusting to CPAP, and never really succeeded. After losing a fair amount using tirzepatide, I did a repeat sleep test and my sleep doc gave me the green light to put the CPAP in storage.
>But my BMI was like 39, and now it is ~25. My blood test results the last couple of years have been phenomenal
If you’d lost the weight without GLP-1s, your blood test results would still have been phenomenal. Most of the effect you are seeing is the result of lowered bodyfat% through calorie deficit.
now, in your case calorie deficit comes from GLP1 use but in others case it can come from sustainable dieting which is little more tricky execute properly than just injecting a drug.
Sounds quite a bit like when I started the probiotics I've been on for quite a few many years now: When I started these ones, I actually started feeling worse than before. Ultimately though, after IIRC about two weeks of feeling worse than before, things got better.
I started out being lethargic all the time (in hindsight: way, way too many years, I just didn't put 2+2 together on multiple symptoms!). Migraine headaches from certain foods as well as any amount of alcohol and even non-alcoholic beer for example, essentially anything that produces histamines (which certain foods as well as alcohol consumption does).
After the probiotics "fought and won the battle" against whatever was inhabiting my intestines before that, I felt totally fine. No more lethargy. Could eat all the histamine rich foods in the world (Roquefort, here I come again, you're soooo tasty! Maybe with a glass of red wine too) and be fine. Never looked back. Life is way more fun now.
I might want to get on GLP-1s to not like alcohol and too much Roquefort now, while still not being lethargic, lol!
It's not the caloric deficit, it's the insulin. Cells don't have caloric receptors, only insulin receptors. I created an info site about this. Managing your insulin have the same effects as GLP-1 meds.
all of the side effects that people are attributing to tirzepatide seem to be ones that are symptoms of losing a lot of weight quickly and eating a low calorie diet for an extended time.
hair loss is a symptom that fits into that category.
Crashing intakes tend to be self-regulating; you cannot really eat very little food for long periods without suffering.
GLP-1s make it very easy to crash your intake by simply injecting a higher dose, so the "negative effects" of crash dieting are easier acquire on GLP-1s for vast majority of population.
> don't require the personal discipline of caloric deficit
This reminds of a of Reddit thread I saw on r/cholesterol where a similar sentiment was expressed. Several cardiologists weighed in with comments to the effect that "personal discipline" has been tried for the last 50 years or so and has utterly failed to arrest heart disease and that, yes, GLP-1s are a miracle drug.
Yes, but the obvious is also worth noting that the nature of those statements is necessarily heavily biased.
Cardiologists are either looking at the broader population or the individuals more likely to lack that "discipline". The majority of people are healthy and have no problems maintaining their health.
Or you can just eat whole foods and do exercise. If you're an able bodied adult with a job, a basic understanding of the effects of foods with unnaturraly high sugar content, and even a slight care about your looks; then you really don't need personal discipline beyond what day-to-day life requires.
Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
Yeah GLP1s work, but it always boggles my mind how eager people are to jump on them over the alternative.
If you can wake up on time everyday, shower everyday, brush your teeth, read emails; how hard is it to not eat obviously trash foods?
Nobody's asking you to learn a high cognitive load skill or play a competitive sport. You don't even need consider counting calories. Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
No processed foods 6 days of the week. Jog for 10 minutes on days you're able to. Bodyweight squats. Short sprints if you enjoy them.
See how simple/doable those steps are? If you have the money for GLP1s and a fancy gym membership then by all means do whatever works, but acting like being fat in a first-world country is a difficult problem to solve is just strange.
> Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
sure! depends on the exact poll but 50% of americans have reported issues with being able to afford groceries. 1/8th of households have actual food insecurity. whatever, that’s not even the main problem i have with your reply
> See how simple/doable those steps are?
i’ve already lost weight without GLP-1s using food tracking, etc. you don’t have to condescendingly prescribe lifestyle changes to me. it wasn’t simple and often did not feel doable, even though i am able to brush my teeth every day (?)
the objection i have is pretending these are simple, repeatable, or obvious pieces of advice that can slot in to any ‘ol lifestyle if you just care how you look or whatever
i’m also amused you couldn’t help yourself from saying “just” again
> i’m also amused you couldn’t help yourself from saying “just” again
When most weight problems can just be fixed by just telling those people what's wrong with their diets, and actually offering them a simple solution, why not tell them that?
I'm also not American, and the people in my city I live in largely don't seem to have issues with not being obese, plenty also have food insecurity.
Food insecurity being equated to gaining weight is a hilarious leap in chain of events. Food education and upbringing, sure, but insecurity? Doesn't that mean food is harder to acquire?
> Food insecurity being equated to gaining weight is a hilarious leap in chain of events. Food education and upbringing, sure, but insecurity? Doesn't that mean food is harder to acquire?
nope. it’s literally called the “food insecurity and obesity paradox” and it’s observed in high-income countries [0][1][2][3]
maybe if you had ~just~ done some research you’d be better equipped to more empathetically consider other’s perspectives and experiences
>Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
This is nonsense.
Being fat takes literally no effort at all, all it takes is your discipline slipping a couple nights a week. Being a healthy weight takes (for some) perfect discipline every day, ignoring hunger, putting weight management before everything else in your life, etc.
I've worked physically demanding jobs in paralelll with both long distance running and weightlifting for about 15 years of my life, I've significant muscle mass and good enough cardio to run 15k any day without any particular prep, yet I've hovered around obesity mark for the last 10 years. And now as a parent, any effort to cook leaner food takes time I dont have, as does exercise.
I'm not on any weight loss drugs as I do not want to risk any negative side effects, already being a sleep deprived toddler-parent.
But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those that need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there. Spending your 20s-30s-40s struggling and failing to keep a healthy weight is a slow death of its own.
60 years ago obesity in every stable country was a tiny fraction of what it is today. Are people 10-50x less disciplined today? Really? Or are there just more incentives for processed food companies to sell you their crap? Are quick dopamine hits so easily accessible that people are becoming less driven? Is mainstream society not pressuring obese people enough to change course for being unhealthy?
Yes there's WAY more distractions today, and all those factors make it harder to navigate life practicing healthy habits, but you still have agency. The natural state of the human body is to use calories. The brain alone burns an astonishing amount of calories just thinking. Also no one's force feeding you anything.
There's plenty of countries with a lower "quality of life" index that barely have
obesity problems. Maybe the natural tendency of the human body is not to slowly get fat?
>Being a healthy weight takes (for some) perfect discipline every day, ignoring hunger, putting weight management before everything else in your life, etc.
Why does eating at maintenance calories require “ignoring hunger”?
If a guy is already 80 kg, at 10% BF, and their maintenance calories are 3,000 kcal, they can be perfectly happy and not in a state of hunger while eating 3,000 kcal.
I maintain 10% BF at an FFMI of 25; I am almost never hungry while eating at maintenance.
> But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people’s mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those who need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there.
Only if you are running massive deficits, which is what most newbies/crash dieters do. Emotional, knee-jerk-style dieting is not sustainable dieting.
>Many here have expressed skepticism at GLP1s because they don't require the personal discipline
Personal discipline required for sustainable dieting is overblown.
People mostly crash diet in the name of dieting, then suffer and blame this suffering on "dieting."
Proper dieting is rare.
Even the weight loss studies which people often quote on how dieting/exercised failed obese people run 800–1,200 deficits, which make even an experienced dieter uncomfortable.
I look at GLP1s in a similar way as I do statins. In many cases - otherwise unhealthy people take statins, when with some discipline the would not need the statins. I don't believe this- GLP1s and statins are simply tools in our healthcare toolbox that are VERY effective.
The thought that discipline would eliminate the need for statins or GLP-1s is a nice fantasy. It appears that all it does is increase stress on the patient and make them feel like crap because they're blaming themselves for something out of their biological control.
When I had high cholesterol, I tried diet, which didn't touch it. I tried 9 statins, failed on all of them. Niacin didn't work. And now I stab myself every two weeks with Praluent, and it works beautifully. I'm looking forward to fewer heart attacks.
Diet and exercise didn't bring down my blood sugar numbers enough, and I've tried several drugs that didn't work for one reason or another, but now the GLP-1s seem to work where others didn't.
> Vadim Gladyshev, a Harvard biologist who assisted Novo with its molecular measurements, said: "In an unhealthy population, I do think it's an anti-aging drug. But in a healthy population, no one knows."
I'm glad the article actually said what we're all thinking. It makes perfect sense that managing blood glucose and a healthier diet/weight would "slow biological aging" regardless of how it was done.
I'm only skeptical of GLP-1 because it seems unnecessary, but if it helps some people I guess it's their choice.
I kept reading and reading for that point to be made in the article, and it was burried right at the end. That's the most important part. It seems all the miracle benefits of GLP-1 so far can be explained by basically going on a diet.
Yep, the miracle is that your body already produces these hormones. The body can adapt quickly into a new healthier equilibrium and keep on trucking almost like nothing ever happened (talking like within less than a year). Losing some fat can be nice, but that's missing the point. Insulin resistance is the fundamental problem, and the cure for most is a set of fairly trivial changes to diet and lifestyle.
Eat less overall, fill up on fiber, take short walks after meals, and lift some (modest) weights to bring down glucose even quicker. You can even check your A1C at home with a finger prick in 5 minutes for little to no cost. Check it a few times a year, and you're set. The most significant dietary change is cutting carbs, and quite frankly most of the food to blame is bland garbage anyway. Nobody is even taking that food away. Just eat less of it, if you really must, and get a grip!
lifestyle changes like you envision are notoriously difficult. if I wanted to single one out, "eat less" is clearly non trivial, since every fat person ever is aware of it and has tried it, but "trying" is not the part that gives the result.
Overeating is an artifact of some other condition(s). Very few people stay fat or thin their entire lives. People fluctuate over the years based on where their head is at. I've done this myself.
All that said, the changes to diet and exercise really are trivial. It's just that people choose to express their mental state this way (possibly from ignorance). It's an arbitrary choice.
I use GLP-1 to control my weight, which was obese according to the BMI before taking it. I don't really care about the other benefits that may or may not be true or relevant to me, but I am deeply convinced that controlling my weight is massively beneficial for my long-term health and completely overweighs all my concerns about side effects.
Many people go from obese to normal weight without any GLPs using a sustainable deficit and gradually building an active lifestyle. Their lean mass also increases due to a better macro-distributed, balanced diet, lifting, and a higher activity level (good for boosting TDEE).
If it's the same study as the one that had this same finding that I dug into recently, then that's exactly what the study showed. People lost weight and slowed aging biomarkers, and the study deliberately did not control for this confounder.
I've seen semi-hidden advertising for GLP-1 drugs in the form of "you wouldn't blame people for being sick, so don't blame them for being obese and start treating obesity like any other illness".
I don't know why this sits so wrong with me - the message itself is legit but it's clearly GLP-1 advertising (the campaign isn't hiding that it's run by one of the GLP-1 companies). Maybe because overt advertising would be illegal in the countries where I saw this?
They bother me as well. I lost over 200 lbs without even a visit to a GP to discuss the issue. I did it with slow incremental change mostly to my diet.
Obesity sucks so I don't want to judge anyone for 'cheating' with these drugs, but I hate the idea of becoming dependent on a pharma corporation to treat something when lifestyle change would have worked.
In a few decades, we may look back on widespread use of GLP-1 meds as being as important as Fleming's finding that mold in the 20th century or John Snow's vandalizing the Broad Street pump in the prior century.
you're treating obesity as a moral failure which is not helpful to the people with the problem, not really supported by science, and frankly a not great position to hold in general. Stop thinking about "blame" in the context of health issues and maybe try to see what helps the people who live with those issues.
Weight loss requires a calorie deficit, and the average person has no training or education for this. Why would you expect them to be good at something they've had no education or training in? 40% obesity rate is not surprising when no education/training exists for average person.
ChrisArchitect | 20 hours ago
GLP-1 may slow biological aging
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132328
xnx | 19 hours ago
So far, all the unknown side effects I've read about have been like this.
andreshb | 19 hours ago
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/lawsuits-claiming-o...
ipsum2 | 19 hours ago
declan_roberts | 19 hours ago
Think of all the things they're not gonna be at risk for, not being diabetic now.
klipklop | 15 hours ago
annzabelle | 19 hours ago
My conspiracy theory is that a lot of people must be getting this global lowered reward sensitivity from GLP-1s but are ignoring the negative sides of that effect because they like being skinny.
georgemcbay | 18 hours ago
Possibly some of them could also be unintentionally countering the impacts through things like self-medicating with caffeine.
I have no personal experience with GLP-1s but suddenly quitting caffeine after decades of daily use was pretty eye-opening in terms of how much it was boosting my baseline mood. And I'm not talking about being cranky for a couple of days after quitting, I'm talking about a very noticeable sustained change from when I was a frequent caffeine user to when I stopped having it altogether.
elif | 18 hours ago
My entire life I have been underweight and also ridiculously hooked on caffeine. At work I would easily go through 5-8 cups of coffee in a day.
I quit caffeine to become a parent a few years ago and suddenly I am able to put on fat and muscle so much easier.
I think the fact that 95% of our society consumes one of the best weight loss drugs (caffeine) anyway really skews a substantial portion of the data.
annzabelle | 18 hours ago
Looks like it's typical to gain 5-10lbs when quitting smoking.
Edit: pulled up the data and there's been a 30lb increase in median weight in America, so (loosely guessing) the smoking effect is probably somewhere between 5 and 10% of that change.
disgruntledphd2 | 13 hours ago
Nicotine is a very useful drug that is sadly so very, very bad for you.
It has weight loss impacts, acts as a stimulant and is actually one of the better non-prescribed treatments for ADHD (as well as being super associated with schizophrenia).
After I got my ADHD diagnoses I noted that this was always called out in the literature, and I have been addicted to nicotine for the past 25 years or so (on a vape now, which appears to significantly reduce some of the bad side effects, but is still probably not good for me).
rootusrootus | 18 hours ago
annzabelle | 18 hours ago
So I am a lot more picky about side effects than I would be if I seriously needed to lose weight or had diabetes.
rootusrootus | 17 hours ago
But my BMI was like 39, and now it is ~25. My blood test results the last couple of years have been phenomenal. All of the extra cardiac testing I've done suggests I managed to dodge a lot of the effects of being obese, which is just genetic luck (heart disease does not run in my family, most of my immediate ancestors lived well into their 90s and all of them died of something other than heart disease, even though some were fairly overweight).
I have played a little roulette with GLP-1s lately because I am curious, and found that at my current weight (5'11" or so and 175lb) seems to be where my body is willing to go, and that's about it. I stalled out pretty abruptly, and if I increase the dose all I get are uncomfortable side effects and no real weight loss -- even though the discomfort pushes my caloric intake well into the "cannot get enough vitamins and minerals" level. It's remarkable. I was once 165 naturally but 30 years ago, and that just isn't a realistic goal any more, so says my body. This is fine, I feel very good now. Well, when I'm on the maintenance dose ;-). Then I have no side effects, I just live a normal life eating normal amounts of healthy food and having a way easier time exercising than when I was heavy.
annzabelle | 16 hours ago
rootusrootus | 7 hours ago
I forgot about sleep apnea. I was struggling with adjusting to CPAP, and never really succeeded. After losing a fair amount using tirzepatide, I did a repeat sleep test and my sleep doc gave me the green light to put the CPAP in storage.
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago
If you’d lost the weight without GLP-1s, your blood test results would still have been phenomenal. Most of the effect you are seeing is the result of lowered bodyfat% through calorie deficit.
now, in your case calorie deficit comes from GLP1 use but in others case it can come from sustainable dieting which is little more tricky execute properly than just injecting a drug.
rootusrootus | 7 hours ago
I've lost the weight several times over the last 30 years. The test results were never so dramatically improved. Your hypothesis may be wrong.
tharkun__ | 17 hours ago
Sounds quite a bit like when I started the probiotics I've been on for quite a few many years now: When I started these ones, I actually started feeling worse than before. Ultimately though, after IIRC about two weeks of feeling worse than before, things got better.
I started out being lethargic all the time (in hindsight: way, way too many years, I just didn't put 2+2 together on multiple symptoms!). Migraine headaches from certain foods as well as any amount of alcohol and even non-alcoholic beer for example, essentially anything that produces histamines (which certain foods as well as alcohol consumption does).
After the probiotics "fought and won the battle" against whatever was inhabiting my intestines before that, I felt totally fine. No more lethargy. Could eat all the histamine rich foods in the world (Roquefort, here I come again, you're soooo tasty! Maybe with a glass of red wine too) and be fine. Never looked back. Life is way more fun now.
I might want to get on GLP-1s to not like alcohol and too much Roquefort now, while still not being lethargic, lol!
wmf | 18 hours ago
lucianmarin | 19 hours ago
metadat | 18 hours ago
rootusrootus | 18 hours ago
You should tell the scientists about that, seems like they completely overlooked it!
dcrazy | 18 hours ago
nemonemo | 18 hours ago
chaos_emergent | 18 hours ago
hair loss is a symptom that fits into that category.
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago
Crashing intakes tend to be self-regulating; you cannot really eat very little food for long periods without suffering.
GLP-1s make it very easy to crash your intake by simply injecting a higher dose, so the "negative effects" of crash dieting are easier acquire on GLP-1s for vast majority of population.
jordanpg | 18 hours ago
This reminds of a of Reddit thread I saw on r/cholesterol where a similar sentiment was expressed. Several cardiologists weighed in with comments to the effect that "personal discipline" has been tried for the last 50 years or so and has utterly failed to arrest heart disease and that, yes, GLP-1s are a miracle drug.
sublinear | 16 hours ago
Cardiologists are either looking at the broader population or the individuals more likely to lack that "discipline". The majority of people are healthy and have no problems maintaining their health.
agos | 15 hours ago
sublinear | 14 hours ago
xnx | 23 minutes ago
3 out of 4 people are overweight or obese in the US.
elxr | 18 hours ago
Or you can just eat whole foods and do exercise. If you're an able bodied adult with a job, a basic understanding of the effects of foods with unnaturraly high sugar content, and even a slight care about your looks; then you really don't need personal discipline beyond what day-to-day life requires.
Being fat honestly takes more effort than being at normal weight for someone who's 100% able-bodied.
Yeah GLP1s work, but it always boggles my mind how eager people are to jump on them over the alternative.
tacitusarc | 18 hours ago
elxr | 16 hours ago
trial3 | 18 hours ago
elxr | 16 hours ago
If you can wake up on time everyday, shower everyday, brush your teeth, read emails; how hard is it to not eat obviously trash foods?
Nobody's asking you to learn a high cognitive load skill or play a competitive sport. You don't even need consider counting calories. Just stop eating things that aren't single (or few) ingredient fruit, meat, rice, potatoes, eggs, dairy, tomatoes, coffee, etc. Eat till you're satiated. Avoid added sugar / any sweet condiments.
No processed foods 6 days of the week. Jog for 10 minutes on days you're able to. Bodyweight squats. Short sprints if you enjoy them.
See how simple/doable those steps are? If you have the money for GLP1s and a fancy gym membership then by all means do whatever works, but acting like being fat in a first-world country is a difficult problem to solve is just strange.
trial3 | 16 hours ago
sure! depends on the exact poll but 50% of americans have reported issues with being able to afford groceries. 1/8th of households have actual food insecurity. whatever, that’s not even the main problem i have with your reply
> See how simple/doable those steps are?
i’ve already lost weight without GLP-1s using food tracking, etc. you don’t have to condescendingly prescribe lifestyle changes to me. it wasn’t simple and often did not feel doable, even though i am able to brush my teeth every day (?)
the objection i have is pretending these are simple, repeatable, or obvious pieces of advice that can slot in to any ‘ol lifestyle if you just care how you look or whatever
i’m also amused you couldn’t help yourself from saying “just” again
elxr | 16 hours ago
When most weight problems can just be fixed by just telling those people what's wrong with their diets, and actually offering them a simple solution, why not tell them that?
I'm also not American, and the people in my city I live in largely don't seem to have issues with not being obese, plenty also have food insecurity.
Food insecurity being equated to gaining weight is a hilarious leap in chain of events. Food education and upbringing, sure, but insecurity? Doesn't that mean food is harder to acquire?
trial3 | 10 hours ago
nope. it’s literally called the “food insecurity and obesity paradox” and it’s observed in high-income countries [0][1][2][3]
maybe if you had ~just~ done some research you’d be better equipped to more empathetically consider other’s perspectives and experiences
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5394740/ [1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/circ.152.suppl_3... [2] https://www.jandonline.org/article/s0002-8223(07)01616-1/ful... [3] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/378/1888/202...
hargv | 17 hours ago
This is nonsense.
Being fat takes literally no effort at all, all it takes is your discipline slipping a couple nights a week. Being a healthy weight takes (for some) perfect discipline every day, ignoring hunger, putting weight management before everything else in your life, etc.
I've worked physically demanding jobs in paralelll with both long distance running and weightlifting for about 15 years of my life, I've significant muscle mass and good enough cardio to run 15k any day without any particular prep, yet I've hovered around obesity mark for the last 10 years. And now as a parent, any effort to cook leaner food takes time I dont have, as does exercise.
I'm not on any weight loss drugs as I do not want to risk any negative side effects, already being a sleep deprived toddler-parent.
But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those that need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there. Spending your 20s-30s-40s struggling and failing to keep a healthy weight is a slow death of its own.
elxr | 16 hours ago
Yes there's WAY more distractions today, and all those factors make it harder to navigate life practicing healthy habits, but you still have agency. The natural state of the human body is to use calories. The brain alone burns an astonishing amount of calories just thinking. Also no one's force feeding you anything.
There's plenty of countries with a lower "quality of life" index that barely have obesity problems. Maybe the natural tendency of the human body is not to slowly get fat?
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago
Why does eating at maintenance calories require “ignoring hunger”?
If a guy is already 80 kg, at 10% BF, and their maintenance calories are 3,000 kcal, they can be perfectly happy and not in a state of hunger while eating 3,000 kcal.
I maintain 10% BF at an FFMI of 25; I am almost never hungry while eating at maintenance.
> But life is short, and cutting weight can fuck with people’s mental and physical health a lot before things get better, so for those who need it, 100% do whatever it takes to get to a healthy weight first and then figure it out from there.
Only if you are running massive deficits, which is what most newbies/crash dieters do. Emotional, knee-jerk-style dieting is not sustainable dieting.
xnx | 21 minutes ago
Why do you think people don't do that?
eli_gottlieb | 18 hours ago
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago
Personal discipline required for sustainable dieting is overblown.
People mostly crash diet in the name of dieting, then suffer and blame this suffering on "dieting."
Proper dieting is rare.
Even the weight loss studies which people often quote on how dieting/exercised failed obese people run 800–1,200 deficits, which make even an experienced dieter uncomfortable.
barking_dog | 6 hours ago
rickydroll | 5 hours ago
When I had high cholesterol, I tried diet, which didn't touch it. I tried 9 statins, failed on all of them. Niacin didn't work. And now I stab myself every two weeks with Praluent, and it works beautifully. I'm looking forward to fewer heart attacks.
Diet and exercise didn't bring down my blood sugar numbers enough, and I've tried several drugs that didn't work for one reason or another, but now the GLP-1s seem to work where others didn't.
As far as I'm concerned, they're essential tools.
nozzlegear | 19 hours ago
declan_roberts | 19 hours ago
You can get the stuff at a mall kiosk now.
sublinear | 18 hours ago
nozzlegear | 6 hours ago
hiop | 18 hours ago
nemonemo | 18 hours ago
sublinear | 18 hours ago
I'm glad the article actually said what we're all thinking. It makes perfect sense that managing blood glucose and a healthier diet/weight would "slow biological aging" regardless of how it was done.
I'm only skeptical of GLP-1 because it seems unnecessary, but if it helps some people I guess it's their choice.
negura | 18 hours ago
sublinear | 16 hours ago
Eat less overall, fill up on fiber, take short walks after meals, and lift some (modest) weights to bring down glucose even quicker. You can even check your A1C at home with a finger prick in 5 minutes for little to no cost. Check it a few times a year, and you're set. The most significant dietary change is cutting carbs, and quite frankly most of the food to blame is bland garbage anyway. Nobody is even taking that food away. Just eat less of it, if you really must, and get a grip!
agos | 15 hours ago
sublinear | 15 hours ago
There are plenty of trivial things people may never try. That doesn't change the fact that they are indeed trivial.
agos | 8 hours ago
sublinear | 5 hours ago
Overeating is an artifact of some other condition(s). Very few people stay fat or thin their entire lives. People fluctuate over the years based on where their head is at. I've done this myself.
All that said, the changes to diet and exercise really are trivial. It's just that people choose to express their mental state this way (possibly from ignorance). It's an arbitrary choice.
Gathering6678 | 18 hours ago
rootusrootus | 18 hours ago
dawnerd | 18 hours ago
dzhiurgis | 13 hours ago
IDK how to hide it from my partner tho. She'll be pissed to find out I spend so much on synthetic drugs.
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago
grokgrok | 18 hours ago
bitshiftfaced | 10 hours ago
tgsovlerkhgsel | 16 hours ago
I don't know why this sits so wrong with me - the message itself is legit but it's clearly GLP-1 advertising (the campaign isn't hiding that it's run by one of the GLP-1 companies). Maybe because overt advertising would be illegal in the countries where I saw this?
jpmitchell | 10 hours ago
Obesity sucks so I don't want to judge anyone for 'cheating' with these drugs, but I hate the idea of becoming dependent on a pharma corporation to treat something when lifestyle change would have worked.
ridgeguy | 15 hours ago
thefz | 15 hours ago
agos | 15 hours ago
sublinear | 15 hours ago
I'm not sure why we have to pretend they're not and blame the rest of the world or point out random edge cases.
agos | 6 hours ago
sublinear | 5 hours ago
faangguyindia | 8 hours ago