People who think weight loss injections are cheating

[AuntieDote]

I've seen this viewpoint over multiple threads recently, and I'm just really curious to understand it a bit more because it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

What do you think people using the injections are cheating at?

As in - what's the competition and who are they gaining an unfair advantage over? What do you think the rules of being allowed to lose weight are/ should be?

Is it more important to you that overweight people/ those struggling with obesity lose the weight, become healthier, reduce the burden on the NHS, stop taking up more than their allocated amount of space in the world, or just stop doing whatever it is that upsets people so much about the existence of fat people -- or is it more important that they struggle and suffer whilst doing so?

Or would you secretly prefer them to remain fat so you can feel superior?

Is it that you feel you've worked really hard to either lose weight, keep it off or never put it on in the first place, so nobody else should be allowed to achieve this without the same amount of struggle?

What do you think the weight loss injections actually do, and do you not recognise that those on them are also doing all the usual things people who are trying to lose weight e.g. modify their eating, exercise etc? Does it not count that they're doing these things because it's made easier in some ways by the drug?

What types of weight loss support or tools are not 'cheating'? e.g. I used hypnosis once and it worked for a bit, to the point that I felt pretty much the same way I do with the injections i.e. reduction in food noise and compulsion to snack etc. It didn't last anything like as long, but it worked for a time - was that cheating?

Would it still be cheating if they weren't as effective as they are?

FWIW, I really couldn't care less if people think I'm cheating - who cares? Who does it impact only me and my bank balance? If someone said here, press this button and you'll be a healthy BMI overnight and stay there forever I'd press it with both hands and not give a shit about how anyone felt about it.

But it's just the logic of it that baffles me - I've never seen it as a competition and have never felt like getting to or being a healthy weight only counts if it's done in a certain way - I suppose I'm not much interested in what size anyone else is or what they do to get that way, so I can't imagine for a second ever thinking another person was 'cheating' - only ever being happy for them if they're happy and hopefully healthy too.

People lose weight because they are eating less because the injections are mimicking the ‘feeling full’ hormone

yes exactly. Obese populations have been demonstrated through research to have about half of that hormone when compared to non obese populations and replacing the hormone deficit with the mimick helps people to lose weight, (regardless of counselling or changes in mental health/ mood).

That’s not to say that all people deficient in that hormone will be obese, or that all obese people will have that hormone deficit - as with all medical conditions there is variability in symptoms/ effects.

I don't think it's cheating but I am a bit envious as not allowed it. Weight has pretty much always been in the healthy range but that range for me is 3 stone wide and I feel good from about the midway point down. Now I'm older I find myself towards the top of the range so would like to lose 1-1.5 stone and finding it impossible. So i want some.

Not true, my doctor said 6 mths and the rest is up to me. This is a tool for me to lose the weight, I'd say I'll have it gone in 3 mths, have another two stone to go, I eat well and maintained my weight for the last year, just couldn't lose any, so hopefully if I lose the weight I'll ne able to maintain, no way would I want to be on this drug for life

I'm not a medical doctor im a medical scientist ( with a PhD) and most of my research is on the link between hormones ( mostly estrogen) and depression. However even though I'm not expert I can read and critically analyse scientific literature.

I mispoke it is not classes an endocrine disease but is characterised by endocrine dysfunction.

There is a deficit in GLP1 in obesity, here is the paper that shows it

www.nature.com/articles/ijo2015220#Fig1

The food you eat wildly affects your hormones, improve your relationship with food, improve your hormones.

Obesity is new, processed food is new, the majority are not born like this, it’s what they put into their body.

Thank you.

I mispoke it is not classes an endocrine disease but is characterised by endocrine dysfunction

could you explain the distinction?

So this is where my comment is aimed at. Not those with significant amounts of weight to lose.

The food you eat wildly affects your hormones

yes sure. But however people end up obese- it doesn’t change the nature of the dysfunction or how to treat it .
Same as any disease- most of which are caused by a combination of congenital vulnerabilities which intersect with environmental factors .

There is no good evidence that obesity is effectively treated by mental health interventions; obesity is however extremely effectively treated with the use of drugs to correct the effects of an endocrine deficiency.

Yes, I hope to be on it for life (unless there are better drugs developed). It has helped me dramatically.

According to the endrocine society it is not an endrocine disorder, so you did more than misspeak with your blanket statement.. It is linked , for some , just some, yes.but that doesn’t make it an endrocine disorder,

This is what I mean, folks are googling and talking nonsense. posting links they don’t understand, And quite clearly would never ever be invited to speak as an expert on the subject. Let’s face it.

Obesity
January 24, 2022
Obesity is a chronic (long-term) medical disease whereby the body carries too much body fat. By 2030, it is projected that 1 in 2 Americans will have obesity (defined as a Body Mass Index, or BMI, of >30 kg/m2). Both overweight (BMI >25 kg/m2) and obesity can make it more likely you will develop other diseases. These problems include, but are not limited to, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, fatty liver and more serious forms of liver disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, gallstones, high cholesterol, gout, and certain types of cancer. Obesity can make many other medical problems harder to treat, lead to increased disability, and even raises the risk of early death. Obesity is sometimes associated with stigma, which can affect a person’s mental health, quality of life, and lead to biases in how people with obesity are treated.
Endocrine Connection
Obesity is a very complex metabolic disease and not a problem of willpower or self-control. Having obesity or being overweight is not the patient’s fault, obesity results from a complex biology whereby the body increases the amount of fat it wants to hold on to. As a result, people with obesity may crave more calorie-dense foods and are more likely to store extra calories as fat. The result is weight gain, or more specifically, an increase in the amount of fat the body wants to carry. The reasons for this are not yet well understood but some of the contributors are thought to be unhealthy diet, unhealthy muscle, lack of sleep, disruptions in circadian rhythm, and weight gain-promoting mediations, among others.
Some medications may cause weight gain, such as those used to treat diabetes, psychiatric illnesses, neurologic disorders, or inflammatory conditions. Your doctor may be able to suggest a different medication that has less effect on weight gain.
There are some hormone imbalances that can contribute to weight, such as hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid gland) or Cushing’s syndrome (high cortisol levels). These are uncommon causes of obesity.

I think only time will tell and follow up at 2 years, 4 years etc obviously hasn’t happened yet. There is a lot of talk on here about how the injections suppress food noise. So once the injections stop, that will return won’t it. How will people tackle that. None of my concern obviously but for the purposes of a discussion thread, I am wondering. It’s also why I think in the longer term, regaining weight will be an issue for people. I wish you luck with maintaining your happy weight when you reach it.

Regaining weight is ALWAYS an issue, what ever the method of weight loss. So not sure why this is a worry specific to GLP1 agonists.

And 2, 4 year etc follow ups have been happening, as GLP1 agonists have been on the market for 20 years now, with extensive clinical testing before that.

"It’s the made up excuses that get slimmer peoples backs up or those that have to keep calories in check or can not eat as much for the rest of their lives. Food noise is a major one, what on earth even is food noise. Il tell you what it is, its cravings, everyone has them and you have to ignore them, eat sensibly and just deal with it. Food noise has been made up as an excuse for over eating"

Its very easy to call peoples reasoning "Made up excuses" however that's easy to say when you have clearly never experienced it.
Food noise is so much more than cravings! Food noise completely takes over your thoughts and disrupts your concentration. If I am working and a wave of I need to eat x comes into my head I won't be able to concentrate until I have done it. There are times where the compulsion to eat something is so strong and it will be something I know will make me unwell. I will still eat it and spend an evening on the loo or being sick. That's just not normal. I have battled my whole life with my weight. I will loose 2 stone and pile it all back on and some more. Now I am at a point of needing to lose 6+ stone. I have lost 2+ stone every other year of my adult life. I have probably lost my entire body weight over the years! It's relentless. As a result, I have completely stopped looking after myself because society has made me feel like a disgusting failure of a human. I don't deserve nice thing, or to look nice and the cycle of hate towards myself perpetuates!

I have been on the injections for a week and they have already made a massive difference. I am still getting cravings. Like oooh I really fancy a packet of crisps, however, now I can actually say "no, you're not having them" and my brain listens and poof I stop thinking about them. Before it would take every ounce of willpower to stop myself from having them and even then a lot of the time it wasn't enough.
I am doing some therapy along side it to start addressing the underlying reasons for the eating and to try and start to love myself again.

I don't think you realise how miserable it is being fat and enduring the way society looks at you and that isn't even enough to stop you from eating yourself to death!

This is why I’m not going to use them - I don’t want the side effects. I’ll plod along losing a pound a week at slimming world. And my BMI is lower than 30 so I don’t think I’m eligible?

But - I think they seem to be a good option for people with more to lose. I don’t think they’re that different to nicotine patches - do people think smokers trying to quit are cheating if they use those? Surely not.

While it lasts. It’s expensive and can’t be kept up with. The dose has to be gradually increased because people will eventually ignore that feeling and emotionally eat or eat the wrong foods in higher amounts. It’s not miracle drug, it’s a new problem in the making.

emotionally eat

?

Yes I did say in my post its not an endocrine disorder in the previous statement. I also said I am not an expert in this particular topic.

However it is a disease where there is abundant endocrine dysfunction. Leptin one of the key hormones in regulating feeding is imitated in obesity. Here's a review on it https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.01027/full

Also as I said in my previous post and linked the post there is a dysregulation of GLP1 with it being diminished in response to food and at points half the levels seen in a non obese population. The endocrine targets for obesity are huge and expanding.

For me, food noise isn't necessarily about hunger, but was a call to get a quick dopamine fix through food (and alcohol). Now I don't have the noise, I am finding my feelings rather than numbing them, and I can imagine once I have been on the drug for the months it will take me to lose the weight I need to, I will have formed new ways of dealing with things. It's already happening - I have a stressful job which has led me to overeat in the past but now I don't have the food noise, I am e.g. going for a walk rather than diving into the fridge.

There is, I believe, some science around forming new habits over time so they stick based on repetition so I am thinking this is what I am aiming for rather than remaining on the drug.

😳

There are already cases of people who have lost all their weight on the drug on the lower doses. It's not a given that you go up through the strengths available. Some stay on a maintenance dose, some come off it. Again, it's down to the individual's reaction to it.

I've lost 3.5 stone and I'm still on the second out of the six dose strengths, (I'm actually still between the lowest and second dose as the second strength is too powerful for me in terms of appetite suppression). Which is quite nice financially DH hasn't made it past the second strength yet either and has lost more than 4 stone. Some people do just seem to respond to it at pretty low doses, whereas others require going up sometimes all the way. It seems to be highly variable, which in itself is interesting as I wonder what that kind of variance says about how individual bodies handle hunger and appetite suppression in the first place.

Maintenance for me will probably begin with lowest dose and starting to stretch length of time between jabs out and see.

After what will be about five months of being on MJ, which is when I am likely to hit 23 or so BMI, my body physiologically is no longer used to eating much sugar, is used to eating small portions, protein heavy meals, etc. So it'll be interesting to see what that feels like as medication reduces.

If I do have to remain on a very low dose for the foreseeable I'll do that though.

But why does it matter that some people choose to use a GLP1 agonist to fight this
If you read my posts properly, you'll see that I say I'm supportive of it, from a public health perspective. I just try to explain why people might not show great enthusiasm when obese people lose the weight thanks to the drug.

Does the hormone imbalance cause the obesity or does the obesity cause the hormone imbalance? To be honest I can't find a clear answer to this in the literature
Thank you for your honesty. I think that's what would very interesting to find out.

Also at which stage of life, as in what's the trigger, because if some obese people were always obese, mainly were not up to a certain age. Similarly, obese people can suddenly lose many stone in a short time, say if ill. Does it mean that this is purely do to a change in GLP1.

In all honesty, I don't believe it. I think it's a comforting thought to blame it all on an hormone, but I'd be comfortable with being proven wrong.

I don’t understand your logic, 95 percent of people on slimming world regain the weight and more. It is one of the biggest dieting cons there is. And the diet advice is appalling with all the Syns and free food.

it is also dangerous, as the free food is mainly carbs and it is critical people get enough protein in when losing weight, to maintain muscle.

where as evidentially on the drugs, 14 percent regain is the average. A tiny fraction of the regain on slimming world. And you can stay on for life. As well as eat normally and not stuff yourself with pasta , potatoes and muller lights.

it makes no sense to me to use slimming world. I’ve two friends on it, they’ve been doing it for bloody years, always going back as as soon as they eat normally and not all the fat free, sugar free, crap and free food, they gain loads of weight. Once of them is fatter than ever.

It’s not specific to them. I’m just not convinced they are the miracle cure people think they are. Obviously they are successful short term, what about long term. Especially for people who stop using them. They may have been on the market for 20 years but isn’t that largely in relation to diabetes.

For weight loss, there doesn’t seem to be data over a number of years. Just the 12 month mark. Unless I’ve missed them? I believe that weight loss will only be sustained with long term use of the injections (for the majority of people). Which is why I said people will be on them for life. Time will tell.

This is not why the dose is increased , good grief are people just making stuff up and posting it 🙄