All these weight loss drugs... surely we are heading towards disaster?

[shellswirl]

So as we all know there are various weight loss drugs that have become very popular in recent months.

It seems like the whole of Hollywood is using it.

Even regular people are spending huge amounts of money on it from online pharmacies.

I get that these drugs might be useful for certain people with real medical conditions, but really a lot of people are using it as a quick fix to be thin.

With no consideration to side effects or future health. And without thinking about what happens when you stop it?

Surely the best way to lose weight involves no drugs. No fad diets. But exercising more, moving more, eating a balanced diet. Retraining your brain and finding food and exercise you enjoy.

I say this as an overweight person too! Surely there are other ways.

If every other person is taking these drugs won't there be a huge pool of people to monitor side effects etc?

Aibu to say the whole thing makes me feel very uneasy.

@User14March ah thank you for being kind.
I actually hated the vulgar one more. Said by a toxic man.
I have have a bmi of 31 now after losing five stone. I was offered a gastric sleeve. Sadly I became too ill to have it.
The Lisa Marie tradegy put me off anyway. I might try the MJ if my consultant agrees. And tbh I don't mind paying for it.

Human bodies are extremely complex and don’t like to be in calorie deficit or to lose weight. At a certain point - way before you’ve edged out of obesity - your body will start to make you much hungrier and at the same time cause you to expend less energy. When you restrict calories you actually develop a lower body temperature which not only reduces the amount of calories you burn but also increases your appetite (which is why people often want to eat less when they are hot). Almost nobody (bar a few outliers like Posh) can fight escalating hunger and a slower metabolism indefinitely.

No, not for many.

I put on 3 stone going to the gym 5 times a week and eating healthily, doing the same as I'd done for years. Perimenopause brought it on for me, my body craving oestrogen that is contained in fat cells.

To lose any weight at all I need to only have 1000 calories a day which I found impossible to do long term. Wegovy makes it possible for me to eat very little and therefor lose weight.

@Youdontevengohere I have told her that I would have surgery pronto. We are good friends and we tell each other things as they are. She's planning plastic surgery next year.

@Movinghouseatlast that’s so interesting on oestrogen!

Wegovy 1mg - I could up my dosage I suppose, but honestly pretty happy where I am for the first time in years.

i was always very active, and I think a series of illness and injury is part of what started the weight gain (I find I crave healthier food when active, so diet does deteriorate when I can’t exercise). The real killer I think has been hormonal changes due after pregnancy/ heading into peri, which has made it so difficult to drop weight once it appears. In my 20s and 30s I might put a few pounds on, but then lost it pretty readily with a bit of focus on diet and exercise. In my 40s those same changes had zero impact - to see any loss I had to drastically cut calories in a way that made me physically ill and meant mentally every thought revolved around food - not really sustainable with other life responsibilities. Wegovy has made weight loss feel like my 20s again - I focus a bit more on diet and exercise, but it isn’t an all consuming endeavour.

So it’s not the quick, easy fix you thought then?

@Babadoobiedoo how liberating, fantastic. Hormones seem to be the kicker & mean will power harder to find. 30s/40s even, with focus, those few pounds lost in a week. Late 40s/50s stick like glue.

Good for you. My weight loss journey wasn’t meant to be a race, though. I achieved my target weight (and then some) without having to obsess over every mouthful or even track calories at all. I get to eat intuitively (I eat exactly what I want when I want it), which makes me happy, more pleasant to be around and allows me to put all that diet energy back on the rest of my life.

if you are enjoying your journey and are happy with it, that’s great. I took a different path, got my results, and am happy with that. Isn’t it wonderful we both are successful and happy.

People are saying that it’s better to lose weight through a lifestyle change/diet/exercise than with medication (or DRUGS). Fine, that may well be the case. But people, for whatever reason, aren’t doing that, hence the sky high levels of obesity we’re currently seeing. So the correct comparison at the moment isn’t weight loss medication vs lifestyle change, it’s weight loss medication vs obesity. And so far no one has come up with any ways in which we can persuade the obese population to undertake the necessary lifestyle change that would render the weight loss medication obsolete.

I thought I would pop back as this morning was the end of my second week and the day I gave myself to weigh in - I’ve lost 8lb I don’t know where from because I look the same so I’m hoping it’s the horrible fat that sits around my organs that’s going.

@Poppysmom22 which dose & drug?

This.

Which is why all the comments about whether people are making enough effort, whether everyone would lose weight if they just did X and Y all miss the point. People don't.

I'm not saying Ozempic etc are the best options. I don't know enough about them. But what we can be sure of is that the other things people have recommended as alternatives are already failing.

@User14March mounjaro it’s week 2 so I’m on 2.5mg

Yes, my menopause specialist told me this. I had been trying to lose the weight for about 6 years!

Obviously it doesn't happen to everyone but it's why many post menopausal women put on weight, particularly round the middle.

Exactly. We're surrounded by food, it's easily accessible, and most people don't have the willpower to resist in the long-term.

And it's getting worse - food delivery apps aren't helping society, but what is the government doing about this? Nothing.

@Movinghouseatlast no one has ever put that simply, thank you.

I suppose the real question is about whether using a ozempic to lose weight means that you lose more muscle than if you lost weight without it?

There’s no reason that would be the case, as the mechanism for losing weight is the same. You eat less.

The weather makes it much harder in UK, it’s SO much easier in warmer & sunnier climes & my body seems to adapt better there? What’s that about I wonder.

That is interesting about the oestrogen I’m at the same life stage and I’ve had the same experience.

As you get older other subcutaneous fat depots lose their ability to store fat so it all goes around the middle and around the internal organs.

@User14March im the same on holiday I love salads and grilled meat and fish and fruits at home all I think about is bread and stew and cheese roast potatoes

You make a good point about some people on statins, but many could eat better diets. Like your husband, it is my genetic makeup and hormones that cause me to overeat. It’s a biological drive I can’t control despite trying very very hard to. I don’t feel I have control of it actually. I think it’s inevitable as I never feel full. I’m always hungry and thinking about food.

I think obese people can’t control their diets and weight. Their hormones cause them to overeat. Often not by much at all. I cook from scratch and eat plenty of vegetables and low fat protein/ minimise carbs but my hormones drive me to seek out food- it might only be 100 calories a day over my calorie target due to my willpower …. But it’s enough to make me pile on weight slowly over many years.

It’s well documented that this is the experience of many obese people. Mounjaro is like a switch- the food noise stops and I can easily eat my healthy balanced diet of 1,400 calories per day. I imagine this is the experience naturally slim people have- they enjoy modest amounts of food, feel full and stop eating. It’s a revelation for me! Why would I not take a medication which does this for me? I’d be stupid not to wouldn’t I??!

The mechanism for eating less is not the same though.