If you are on weight loss injections, what do you make of this article?

This post nails it.

Because to do that, the problems with a food industry that profits off selling people shite would need to be addressed, and they won't. I admire the work of Chris van Tulleken and others who have highlighted the dangers of UPF, but the approach is no different to the usual willpower based one you see with every other diet - don't eat UPFs. The solutions are still individual and not societal.

You're bang on, don't get me wrong. I started regaining lost weight as I posted upthread after I started being less careful with my diet, and allowed more convenience foods to slip in where I'd strictly avoided them while actively in treatment for Type 2 and losing weight. I know these foods are kryptonite for my blood sugar levels and will go back to avoiding them. But I don't think everyone understands this. I see people at work who are on jags just eating tiny portions of UPF rubbish, and I want to shake them. But they believe in "eat less, move more" and it works to lose, so they don't see a problem.

This was what the research evidence said all along, so shouldn't surprise anyone.

So many people keen to knock wli.

Some with entrenched views on excess weight as a moral failure meaning fat people must repent and suffer to lose weight.

Some think of excess weight as stupidity and fat people need to learn what healthy eating means.

Some who have never been seriously over weight and mistakenly believe their own patterns of hunger must be universal.

Some parts of the traditional diet industry who see their profits disappearing.

Some who are anti “big pharma” conspiracy theorists.

Some who think we are all the same as the idiots buying from dodgy sellers on fb etc, and/or those who really don’t need wli and are wanting their “beach body” and copying moronic celebrities and so called influencers.

Everybody losing weight in whatever manner can put weight back on.

Seriously - how do you think people lose weight on WLI?
Sure, a small number are just starving themselves to lose as many numbers as quickly as possible. They are the ones who are wilfully ignorant about their bodies and will never learn healthy habits. Most people are increasing exercise (made a lot easier to do by fat loss) and changing their diets. The fact that it's extremely difficult to maintain this after coming off the medication doesn't mean they didn't make the changes in the first place!

Are there big studies that a) define 'traditional diet and exercise and b) compare a group of people who have lost weight this 'traditional' way with people who have taken GLP-1s without in any way modifying their diet and exercise? Because it's very easy to talk in woolly, generalising terms about weight loss and that applies to media reporting as well as people voicing their opinion. But what data we do have, what big weight loss studies that are actually credible and backed up, tell us the same thing: no matter what method you use to lose weight, almost everyone regains it plus a bit more. There is no established 'traditional' method with proven long-term success in the real world. Obesity is multifactorial and actually very complex, and there isn't a straightforward solution that has been shown to work over three years, five years, much a lifetime. GLP-1s are the most promising breakthrough we've ever had, a genuine game-changer so far. I'm very hopeful about them because they are truly different and because nothing else actually works, I'm sorry to say - not for the majority and not in the long term.

That’s how I’ve lost weight. The injections have made it possible for me to stick to a dramatic change in my diet: prior to this cravings would take over. But ultimately it is the diet that’s done it.

I maintained perfectly well off the jabs within 1-2kg of my lowest weighy after going on injections for Type 2 diabetes. I lost 3 stone, and reversed the Type 2 with diet, exercise and the lowest dose of Mounjaro for 12 months. Once off it, I had to keep to the same high protein, moderate carb diet, not too much alcohol, very few white carbs, sweets/treats, etc, and a regular exercise routine. It was a fairly strict regime, but better than diabetes and cheaper than paying for jabs. When those routines fell off the wagon due to stressful events, weight regain started and I went back in the prediabetic range, so will be restarting treatment to gain control over my blood sugar levels again and reestablish the good habits that reversed it before.

Access to restart treatment is important to prevent the regain getting out of hand, I'm pleased to have been able to nip it in the bud early, and to be able to afford it, because the NHS won't prescribe until I get much fatter and sicker.

This is what I thought, but the hunger that kicks back in was insatiable for me, I literally could of ate a horse

I stopped 6 months ago and have put on around about 2lb (I blame Christmas!). I weigh weekly and cut if appropriate. My friend who took it the same time as I did has also put on a couple pounds. She also does the same.

I stopped them in October after losing 60lb. I have put back on 3lbs and been pretty stable since. I want to lose another 3 stone ish so will give them another go shortly.

I'll move to tablets and be on them for life.

No, but people who come off weight loss jabs do regain weight faster than those who lose weight through traditional diet and exercise based strategies. This suggests it's probably a good idea to lose weight by changing diet and exercising.

It’s very true for me but was always true about any diet I have been on.

I wonder if the regain is faster because the weight loss achieved is larger than would’ve been achieved otherwise so the rebound effect is bigger.

I haven’t gone back over my original starting weight because I have restarted the medication before that has happened but I do think I probably would, which is what has happened in previous yo-yo diet cycles.

Those people have said I’m sure the drugs will become cheaper over the years and I do think the weight gain problems of middle age are reduced in old age so maybe not for all of life.

It's absolutely not evidence of that at all!!

I thought it was common knowledge and
well documented that the majority regain the weight lost, this is the evidence that people haven’t changed their lifestyle or habits

It's not always about bad habits but simply about eating too much. You can eat as healthily as you like but if you eat too many calories you will gain weight.

I think mounjaro etc has sadly shown a lot of people how little they really need to eat, especially in middle age.

Whether intended or otherwise this does come across as a bit of a gotcha.

Most people who have lost weight on WLIs haven’t spent their entire lives just gaining weight. If you were to picture a graph it wouldn’t be a steady line going up but a zigzagging one, up and down, often quite dramatically. For my part, I spent pretty much the whole of my twenties and the first five years of my thirties gaining and losing the same two and a half stone.

The shocking headline that ‘most people who lose weight on a diet gain it again’ is not the revolutionary headline perhaps the guardian thinks it is. It is true of just about every popular and unpopular diet or weight loss method you can think of: weight watchers and slimming world, meal replacements, low carb, clean eating.

I am not convinced that getting to the root of the psychological aspect is the answer either. I don’t need a counsellor to tell me why I eat too much! And it’s funny when people triumphantly say how expensive it would be to be on them for life - indeed, about the same as therapy, but I bet if I said I needed therapy and it was saving my life people would support that.

It’s so tiresome. Just let me be happy FFS.

You might be on too high a dose, or wegovy may not be suited to you. Total appetite suppression isn't advisable, and it's something you should discuss with your provider as simply not eating will lead to the muscle and bone density loss other posters have mentioned, and that will create more problems including weight regain.

I’m on MJ and I know this is a real possibility but also I feel like if I don’t try then I won’t know if I’m one of the ones who will or won’t out it back on - and it’s got to be worth a go because of the health impacts.

I also exercise regularly, I’m not trying to lose shed loads of weight because I know it won’t be realistic for me to maintain, and I’m not eating a tiny amount of calories on it.

I’ll be honest I’ve not changed my diet yet, just eating smaller portions, but only started in November and then had Christmas so I’ve always had in mind that I’ll use Jan/ Feb to start healthier habits and I’ll also make sure I’m on MJ long enough that those habits have become the norm. I plan to track calories long term, MJ has just made it possible for me to get into that habit.

As I say it may well all go on but at least I’ll know that I’ve tried and my only options are to stay on it for life or accept being obese and the health issues that comes with that.

I think this is partially true. I am a distance runner so have learned to use simple carbs strategically, eating around my runs and treating them as fuel. Post run, and on strength training days I prioritise proteins, essential fats and veg.

That describes most diets. I have a great deal of experience of all of them! Go on any MN weight loss thread and you will see examples of obsessive and unsustainable behaviour. No one has really come up with an alternative, I'm afraid.

I can only say personally that I do not go as low as 1200 calories, in fact I do not calorie count at all. This is one useful thing I have gained from the many years of therapy and psychological intervention I have had to try to find this balance you mention. But therapy didn't work any better for me than intermittent fasting or Jillian Michaels' The Shred or anything else I've tried (which, by the way, is everything). It has let me leave calorie counting and some other painful and damaging behaviour behind, but it never helped me lose weight or maintain weight loss. In order to not be obese anymore, having fought this battle since my pre-teens in every possible physical and psychological way imaginable short of surgery (the only intervention I've never tried), I take the injections and they work, and I intend to be on them forever. I don't believe there is another solution to obesity for many others like me.

I'm on Wegovy but have found the nausea/lack of appetite means Im just not interested in any food, healthy or otherwise. So I'm not building any good habits on the eating front. I'm just not eating much. So I fully anticipate when I come off wegovy I will have difficulties when the hunger pangs return.

I have a couple of friends who are doing well after and they are using fasting and found it is the easiest way.
I cant afford the jabs but have lost over a stone over the last year through fasting. Its the easiest way for me to control the endless food noise.

I don't understand why dieticians and doctors aren't addressing the fact that simple (bad) carbs are responsible for the craving of more and more and never feeling full etc.
All this 'food noise' people talk of is caused by this.
The jabs are just a crutch with a load of side effects that who knows what will cause in the future.