Risking a flaming but jealous of those on weight loss injections

[Notmyfinesthours]

I’ve specifically not put this in the weight loss section as I’d rather hear from those who aren’t dieting or thinking about it. Might help me find perspective better.

I am not overweight. I never have been.
I have however had what feels like a lifetime of making sure this is the case.

I suspect many women feel like me. Brought up to fear being fat or greedy or ‘let myself go’ as if it were the worst sin.

Ive skirted close to or actually been in the midst of orthorexia for most of my adult life. Always saying no to pudding, finding the latest food that will fill me up but not have too many calories and fixating on it before I find the next one. Exercising most days, fitting it in by missing lie ins or nights in front of the fire.

Fretting in pregnancy, menopause and any ill health leading to immobility that it might trigger weight gain.

you get the picture? Self flagellation is big driven by an instilled fear of being fat given to many in my generation (I’m 58) (and yes I know I should address this first- I am trying but the media doesn’t help)

Several of my friends and family are big eaters, always seem to have the toastie and cake when we are out and by their own admissions do little exercise. They have often jokingly talked about being slimmer but say they like food too much and ‘have no willpower’ and can’t be bothered to deny themselves for the sake of a few dress sizes.

I know it’s more complex than that but they basically enjoy life in the way it should be enjoyed to my mind and accept they will be a bit larger bodied. I’ve actually always really admired this as an attitude or at least been a bit jealous of it.

But with the new weight loss injections several of them have dropped weight significantly and are so slim and delighted.

I just feel so cheated. Like I’ve been so careful for so long and they haven’t but they get to be slim just with an injection.

I know it’s more complicated, I know it costs them money, might have risks etc but it’s clear so many celebs are doing the same and it feels like it’s not going to be more commonplace.

Why is this making me feel cheated and am I just an awful person?

Except these thing happen when people don’t use them.

You think it’s a new thing since weight loss drugs? You think people haven’t said these sorts of things before these weight loss drugs arrived?

That in itself proves you don’t know what you are talking about.

Again, maybe think about why it’s so important for you that people who have lost weight must be in the wrong.

Perhaps people have a good reason to be "paranoid" when there are people like you circling them round. It can't be genuine paranoia when there's a good reason for it - the thoughts didn't exist from nothing.

Ive been stopped on the stairs at work by people that I dont really know or talk to that well, they obviously know me, to tell me 'my god you're wasting away, you mustnt lose any more!!'

That is not paranoia, that is not 'making conversation', I barely know these people!

It doesnt bother me as such but its an observation

Except the situation I described above was after losing weight through diet and exercise. No medication.

Well maybe they think you look too thin. I agree it's rude to comment on people's weight, but sometimes people just talk shit. Can't you just enjoy your weight loss?

Too thin… yet not as thin as them.
Oh I do enjoy my weight loss. Doesn’t mean I can’t talk about people’s reactions to my weight loss on a thread about people’s reactions to other people’s weight loss.

Who said that poster wasn’t just enjoying their weight loss.

You admit it’s rude to comment on anyone’s bodies. So why can’t people feel a certain way about it?

My instant interpretation of this was that she has body image issues, too - as in, you can't possibly aspire to my weight, I look awful!

I mean, she's your friend and it's your conversation, but just possibly ...?

I don't work at weight management or struggle with my weight. My 'set' weight is 5-7kg more than it was before disability, antidepressants and menopause: reasonable, considering I no longer exercise. I'm fat & shapeless but still in the 'healthy' BMI. I never diet because I had anorexia in my long-ago youth. I eat cake and have an unreasonable fondness for biscuits and chips (rarely together!)

I'm a chain smoker. The last of a literally dying breed.

It surprises me how rarely smoking gets a mention in weight loss threads! People spamming us with photos from the 1970s and before, incorrectly stating nobody was overweight, fail to mention the prevalence of smoking. Smoking's a natural appetite suppressant and alters the metabolism - similar to the injections, only smellier and more dangerous.

As well as being a pretty effective weight loss drug, smoking's a displacement activity; I've always recognised that I smoke even more when I'm hungry (or have any other discomforting feeling). I've got to stop it, and I'm terrified of the uncomfortable feelings - including food cravings.

Why am I writing this? Well, for one thing I guess I want to be heard. And I'd like to point out that many of you oversized people would, in the past, have puffed away on Philip Morris's finest instead of sticking Wegovy needles in your tummies. GLP-1s are better.

Another facet of this conversation is that we have, perhaps, got too used to the idea that we shouldn't have to face continual struggle. This has never been true. Appealing as it is, it's a lie. People using the injections sacrifice edible pleasures; so do people dieting without them. We smokers sacrifice differently.

Before you ask, I'm about to start a course of hypnotherapy to help with my 'radical acceptance'. If it doesn't work well enough, I'll try a fraudulent GLP-1 prescription (last resort, given prior eating disorder). They reduce other cravings, too. Or, you know, I could carry on destroying my lungs, teeth and social life!

That sounds really tough. Good luck giving up.

The other thing about the 70s and 80s is that food in the UK just wasn't as nice or as appetising as it is now. I practically have ptsd from 80s school dinners which I refused to eat. Now there is tasty food available on every corner.

All true, @BiscottiPerCena, and thank you.

Edited on realising your username is "Biscuits for Dinner" 😋 Yes, please!

I’ve had this every day for the last couple of months from a colleague…”you’re wasting away!” She has a daughter who went through anorexia, so I’m putting it down as a kind of automatic response on her part.

Another colleague who hadn’t seen me in a while cocked her head at me this week and said “are you alright?”

I’m not even at the lower end of BMI for my height now - they just only know me as the overweight person who joined the company 18 months ago. I want to shout at them “this is exactly how I looked all my adult life until perimenopause, a parent with dementia, a return to uni, 2 jobs, bereavement and grief, and young kids all coincided! This is how I’m supposed to look!”

And quite a few of who judge people on injections and think weight gain will never happen to them, may get a rude awakening…

Yes same here, Im right at the top of a healthy BMI, Im really not thin or skinny or wasting away or whatever other phrase people use.

@Garlicbest you make a very interesting point about smoking being an appetite suppressant widely used, some women also used other drugs like amphetamines prior to the invention of these weight loss drugs.

The idea no-one struggled with their weight prior to our current generation is very much false, although the prevalence of hideous non-food food has increased exponentially, and it's so cheap compared with actual food.

@Faldodiddledee Joanna Lumley was sent by modelling agency for weight loss injections in 60s/70s & yes remember friends Mums getting amphetamines from Drs re: losing weight in 80s.

@User14March I did not know that about Joanna Lumley. There's always been a huge pressure on women in the public eye and celebrity worlds to conform, even Marilyn Monroe had plastic surgery. I don't envy them their public scrutiny- but in the past, they probably had to work out many hours a day and eat very little to attain that celebrity thinness. Now they don't (if they do take weight loss injections which I'm guessing the majority do) and ordinary people might end up looking like them, it's going to be less special. They also feel the need to fill their faces up again to compensate against ageing whilst very thin, which is again, something I wouldn't want to do.

I don't envy celebs at all, I look at Nicole Kidman and just think- why? But I know why, I'm glad it's not my life, and I can just joggle along being at the low end of overweight BMI and feeling just fine.

@Faldodiddledee I think a sculpted body will become a thing as it represents £ of time, money & leisure.

@User14March if that's the case, I'm going to look very impoverished indeed!

I think they’ll be life changing for a lot of obese people.

Your post was refreshing to read. How are you doing with the smoking?
I'd be interested to know if you ended up using a GLP-1 to help you stop smoking?

I find these drugs amazing, the way they work on the brain fascinates me.

I started back on mounjaro on Sunday, and I can sort of take or leave food at the moment, it's a level of peace I'm not used to. It's usually on my mind what I'll eat next.

Hi OP
Can you not just get the weight lose injections privately? I completely understand about the misery of living with constant hunger in order not to get fat. If you take the injections, that might go away and make you much happier and life easier to live ?

@Kendodd the OP can't get the injections privately because she isn't overweight, let alone obese. Going private doesn't mean you can bypass the prescribing criteria that are specified by the MHRA. Your BMI needs to be over 30 (or over 27 in some specific circs) in order for it to be prescribed.