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.

I think wrapped in apparent concern for those who take it is moral approbation. I’ve seen on these threads disdain for the obese and the cost of caring for them. Now a drug has come along that seemingly also protects against the worst obesity can cause which surely is amazing. It must be under medical supervision though. Teaching of nutrition taken seriously in schools from nursery upwards would help a lot.

Wow. Imagine if people said the end is nigh when we came out with any other drug. It’s been tested. It’s preventing diabetes heart attacks etc. so what if people use it to stay thin. And to say it’s diverting money. No it’s not. It’s preventing disease from being overweight.

I’ve used Wegovy since January. I put on 4.5 stone in the last 3 years due to menopause and emotional eating, as I was going through a difficult time in my life.
I was technically obese with my bmi. I was also having weight related health issues.

I have had a few minor side effects. Intermittent headaches in the first month, occasional nausea…but nothing overly problematic.

I’ve tried to lose weight before but could never sustain the diet to reduce my weight to a healthy level. It was a real struggle.

In the time I’ve been taking Wegovy I’ve lost over 3 stone and it’s been easier to do this, as your appetite is suppressed. I also find the foods you want to eat changes. I really don’t fancy chips/cakes etc. I think my relationship with food is changing and I’m exercising alongside the medication. Once at my goal weight, I’m hopeful that my good eating habits and exercise will keep the weight off. Medication is not an easy fix but it’s a huge help.

The online pharmacy checks my Id and needs a current picture. My only concern really is people with eating disorders accessing the medication but there are some safeguards in place with most online pharmacies.

To me, it’s a better alternative to surgery. Wegovy has been great for me and has really eased other health issues.

@Menora thank you for sharing your experience. I plan to calorie count for life using my fitness pal and track steps/fitness. I will also weigh and log my weight- no excuses.

I never really ate takeaways/ restaurant food and ready meals very often anyway…although I did have an office snack habit. So I don’t have to overhaul my diet significantly, because my lifestyle was already pretty healthy.

I don’t think I will be able to stay on track without tracking so I’ve resigned myself to doing it for life. Since starting Mounjaro I’ve had a 91 day streak of logging which I’ve never managed before. It’s easy and I am confident I can continue this indefinitely. I agree that I wouldn’t be able to do this sustainably without calorie counting but others might be able to.

Good luck with your ongoing maintenance journey- we’re lucky to have people around like you, so we can learn from your experience.

You're not getting it.

It is easier but from a starting point of having an 'obese' brain. An obese brain virtually doesn't recognise the fullness in the same way as a standard brain. An obese brain is prone to cravings as well, far more than a standard brain.

Imagine an obese person in a hole trying to dig their way out. Weight loss medication brings them out of a hole and onto ground level. Your level.

Your healthy brain recognises far easier when you don't need more food. Your cravings of course exist but they are not as intense as for an obese person. In other words, it's still challenging but easier to manage temptations.

Medication brings obese people to a level playing field whereby they can concentrate on losing weight not starting from a lower position but from the same place as you. It doesn't magically shed the stones for them - eating less and healthy and moving achieves that. Exactly in the same way as it happens for you.

@PurplePansy05 you win the internet.

@Moretti76 I appreciate you taking it the way it was intended and I do wish you luck. This was a great starting point for me, and it has the chance to be for many others too.

I am not anti the drug at all. I am against wasting your time and money on something that isn’t a magic potion, get involved, make changes, this is your chance. We aren’t all helpless NPC’s not in control of our own lives. Use the drug as a tool/guide to change your life for the better, otherwise what’s the point? You will waste thousands of pounds, do what most of us dieters do and get complacent at a lower weight before you know it you are back to square 1. This has happened on virtually every single other diet known to man, these drugs are not exempt from having to put in the work long term. If you do get down to your goal weight and only taking a small maintenance dose, you will get hungry again

The medicine is legal and available and it works so why not? I am on week 5 of Moujarno and have lost 1st 4lbs and I’m very happy. After years of slimming world this is the only thing that has worked. It is very easy to say eat less and move more but to do it is another matter. People are fat shamed and now they are being shamed for trying to loose weight. Soon this will become the normal way to loose weight and I for one think it is a good thing and don’t understand people’s objections to it.

I hear you. Years of crash diets, which led to an ED, weight going up and down...now I'm in my 50s and I cannot lose weight. I can put it on just by eating normal amounts of normal food though. Pretty sure I've buggered my metabolism too. Hypothyroidism doesn't help and I'm not sure only having a bowel movement a couple of times a week does either. I'm sure I'm carrying a couple of stones of shit around 🙄😂

I am hungry all the time. I think about food constantly, it dominates my thoughts. I eat compulsively like an addict. When I take the drug, I feel ‘normal’. I don’t feel I need to have food in my mouth all the time. I want to eat 1 biscuit, not a packet. It’s mind blowing, and I now understand why many people without weight problems can’t understand. My brain is no longer constantly signalling food food food. I don’t intend on taking it forever, but for now I am grateful.

That's true for lots of things though, many with diabetes, heart disease etc don't change their lifestyle either.

When there's an option like this where some people on the medication very much will take all the advice on board and take advantage of the opportunity to try to be as healthy as can be, then it can't be ruled out just because others don't follow the advice.

There are plenty of Alcoholics on medication to reduce their desire to drink, and I'm sure plenty of them don't go to AA or therapy either, that doesn't mean that the medication shouldn't be available, because there are many others who will take full advantage of the possibility of living a healthy life again.

@Menora Can I ask how you're finding the maintenance phase?

@kkloo I never said in any of my post I didn’t think the drug should be used, I said that my concern is people getting trapped cycling on it, beholden to very high costs and not making changes. Most other medication is either free if you have a long term condition (diabetic) or it is on a prescription cost. This one is not. This one is different, it’s expensive so people will stop using it when they can no longer afford it or justify it as they are at healthy weight. I am putting my view over that this will happen if you are complacent and do not engage with using it as a tool to change your life. I’m talking from my own experience of having used it. Your old life is gone. You have a new life now. You have to change

@ChitChatKittyKat I have to monitor everything I eat and exercise even when I don’t want to. I cannot go back to how life was for me before when I was over eating and sedentary it was slowly killing me. I am still losing weight just very very slowly but I am ok with that. I am 4kg from my overall goal having lost 29kg total. I am in a kind of losing very slowly/maintenance and it’s fine it’s just a lot of effort but this is my new life now. I’ve accepted that

Hello just popping back to share the latest Mounjaro thread for any interested newbies - one of the most supportive (and busiest!) threads you’ll find on mumsnet! Come join!

I’ve name changed so you won’t be able to spot me, (ps I’m not the thread OP I haven’t posted yet) but lots of people to chat to and ask questions:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight_loss_chat/5080755-continuing-mounjaro-thread-10

I think the way this is going to go soon is there will be more studies on weight loss medication and the NHS will roll it out wider because the benefits and savings will be huge, as long as they outweigh the risks. I also think they'll conclude this medication can be taken for life, much like statins or insulin are by some. Obesity is a chronic illness, an obese brain will always be obese unfortunately. It needs lifelong management and it's important to recognise this.

@Flossyts I completely relate to this. I remember a few years ago. My friend and I bought four Danish pastries, ate one each and put the two remaining ones in a drawer. After about half an hour I asked her how often she had thought about the two danish. She said not at all, whilst I had not been able to think of anything else in that time. It's like a horrible dull ache, it's like a compulsion to itch a scab, it's like an alarm clock going off constantly. There's no other way to describe it.

Think you’ve been signposted now - and I think conflating the evidence that high protein diets pose significant health risks with an endorsement that we should eat highly processed carbs is the binary, uncritical thinking that just fuels the vitriol on this type of thread.

Moderate portions of healthy protein combined with healthy, natural carbs (fruit/veg/salads) is hardly radical, is it?

I asked the Gp to refer me for weight loss treatment, I thought I might get this drug but turns out I am going to be doing slimming world online.. I was really disappointed- but after watching quite a few YouTube clips of these celebrities who are on this drug, really glad I am not getting it. Some people say they feel incredibly nauseous, couldn’t think of anything worse, some look incredibly ill, one famous celebrity looks so thin, she looks terminally ill 😩just gonna give it my all on slimming world, & live with my fat face for now

I'd also be thinking of it constantly. When I was a child my sister and I would visit our cousins at Easter. My sister and I would eat our eggs within a day or two. My cousins would barely touch theirs. They just weren't especially bothered.

@GiganticArkReadywithHottub I was also like this. I am sure I would think about it now still occasionally but I also have got a really strong use of mindfulness and distraction I am able to use when faced with something like this. For people who can’t afford the drug or don’t want to take it, there is hope to overcome these feelings and behaviours. I also know I can’t ‘afford’ to eat it because I am following a calorie plan and 2 pastries would be too many as I have other meals to factor in that day, I would talk to myself to accept I had one, it was very nice I enjoyed it so there is another one for tomorrow if I can map out that day to fit it in. I had never planned out my day in food properly before but now I have X at meals 1,2 and 3 and X amount of snacks and then that is it. Every day. So I do make the most of them. I still love food but I also love having money and I have to budget for that too, I can’t go spending money I don’t have, I see calories the same way now.

@Comedycook this is psychological, I don’t believe it’s physiological. It’s a desire/compulsion

Oh my god you have perfectly described what I feel. Thankyou!
People who aren't that into food don't get it. I've known many people who just don't think about it, it's just a fuel source.
I wonder if it's a genetic thing or learned behaviour. I do know families where they've had kids who are the two extremes

If it’s not physiological, why would a drug that synthesises the satiety hormone fix the problem?

Yes but in young children who both have free access to the chocolate easter egg...why do two siblings both have a compulsion to eat it and the other set of siblings both not particularly care about it...can eat a small piece and then forget about it?

It's definitely genetic. My mum is food is fuel, underweight. I had no contact with my bio dad or any other member of his family. All I remember of my childhood is constantly thinking about food and being hungry. Met him at 13 and he was massive. Ate huge amounts. Loved home cooked food, wine, bread. All my faves.