to think WLI have given many people huge health improvements despite the remarkable number of people on MN who are anti WLI for no good reason

[MountainStorm]

There seem to be endless anti WLI threads on here filled with misinformation, faux concern, and thinly disguised jibes at overweight people. I don’t really understand the motivation but that’s another issue.

On the other hand, many people have seen huge improvements in their health, confidence and wellbeing from using WLI. I certainly have.

So I wanted to ask AIBU to say that WLI have given many people huge health improvements and to ask what health improvements have you personally experienced on WLI?

For me

• been able to reduce antidepressant medication
• improved fitness, don’t get so tired or out of breath when walking

It's a chat forum, we share our views and opinions. Once again on a 3mile dog walk I've passed many other dog walkers but no obese ones.

It's a shame that people are injecting meds without addressing lifestyle issues first.

@LadyTangerine "It's a shame that people are injecting meds without addressing lifestyle issues first."

Why on earth do you think that people haven't tried, sometimes for decades, to address "lifestyle issues"?? And, why is injecting meds an issue? Would it be better if it was a tablet? And, who the hell cares if obese people go for WLI as a first attempt at losing weight? What is the actual issue with that?

Never mind that using WLI actually enables people to do what you want them to do, which is making the damn lifestyle changes.

You really don't understand what it's like to have a different metabolism or set of circumstances to you? I walked miles daily ate well, did all the right things until I couldn't take the screaming hunger anymore and ate too much. I lost weight until my body hurt from hunger that it all piled back on and more. I am not stupid or weak. Every other area in my life is a testament to my strength and resilience. I just needed a bit of help to sort it out and when it became available I took responsibility. I paid for my medication and followed the instructions to the letter. It freed me from the screaming because I'm fine being a bit hungry, I'm fine denying myself but you're right. I can't cope with my body shrieking at me alone. Mounjaro is a miracle to me and millions of others. It'll save so many people from suffering and all you can do is bitch that we didn't try hard enough. Do you really think anything you say is worse than what I called myself? Do you think you're a good person just naming truths? You haven't got a clue @LadyTangerine

'Why on earth do you think that people haven't tried, sometimes for decades, to address "lifestyle issues"

Because as I've said from my example I've never seen obese dog walkers and I walk different routes and different places. Granted this may just be a fluke and overweight people do work briskly for miles in the wind and the rain but as I've said I've never seen it.

Again, I'm pleased that WLI work! It is great that we now have definitive proof that meds, illnesses and joint pain do not cause obesity, the amount you eat does. It must be motivation for those who think that diets don't work, surely?

That’s weird because I’ve had a dog for years who I walk every day and as I said, I used to be obese, despite all the walking

And I am still obese - with a dog - an energetic breed at that! And it is proven that exercise alone does little for weight loss, it is as everyone says, what you eat or more accurately, how much. I’m not on WLI but to quieten the “screaming hunger” as a PP so accurately called it would be such a game changer, no wonder people are succeeding.

I take anti anxiety medication - will likely do so for life - quietens the screaming OCD type anxiety. It’s no different! I tried all the self help and counselling I could get but it was only when I started meditation that I felt different. Not cured or without the need for effort, but more psychologically peaceful. I believe that is what I might get from WLI, if they were freely available to me like my anxiety meds are. Meantime I continue to try daily to stay in a calorie deficit, and fail often especially as it’s getting harder to keep motivated as my weight is more stable and I’ve stopped losing, though I need to as I say I am still obese.

@LadyTangerine Right, so you think that I haven't tried addressed my weight ever, for decades, because you haven't seen anyone obese whilst dog walking. Do you think that's really a rational thought process? Clearly obese people have tried, usually they succeed for a while, and then various things derail and weight then goes back on. Often more than was lost. This cycle repeats.

Meds, illness and joint pain can and do cause obesity, clearly they do, as they are all barriers to exercise and to eating to maintenance levels consistently. That's a no brainer surely. If you can manage to think beyond a simplistic concept of direct cause and effect, of course. Taking meds doesn't directly cause weight gain, they either cause water retention temporarily, and/or they make it more likely for people to slightly over-eat and then gain weight. Ditto for illness and pain. And also stress, poor sleep, poor mental health, etc etc.

And you can shove your smug comment about "It must be motivation for those who think that diets don't work, surely?". This idea that obese people are all just weak willed idiots again. We know diets work. The issue is with consistently sticking to them for long enough to achieve meaningful weight loss in a way that is sustainable.

I think it’s pretty pointless continuing to argue with someone who cannot conceive that ‘eat less, move more’ is not the solution to obesity.

It's a shame the only exercise obese people are allowed to do is dog walking, isn't it? But that is the rule. I don't have a dog so have always had to make do with using weights at home and hoping nobody grasses me up.

I use a treadmill at home, so that doesn't count. I wonder if I borrowed a dog to sit next to me whilst I run whether that would be sufficient?

Its just a snapshot example.

WLI work by suppressing appetite so people eat less and lose weight proving the amount consumed causes obesity not medical conditions. I'm not sure why some of you are so upset at this fact?

Not very bright to attempt to draw any wider conclusions from it then.

I’ll write it in crayon for you.

Yes losing weight can be achieved by eating less. However, the reasons why it is difficult to eat less are complex and wide reaching.

Some people naturally produce less glp1 so feel hungry all of the time
Some people are on medication which increases appetite
Some people have issues which mean they cannot exercise but their appetite is unchanged
Some people have high levels of cortisol either through stress or trauma or mental health issues which mean they eat more and their body is determined to store fat.
Some people work shifts which is proven to wreck metabolism and make people crave easy calories.
Some people are just tired, sad or in need of love.

All of these, and many more, are the reasons people don’t eat less. WLI remove the hunger and compulsion elements from most of these.

That’s exactly why they work.

It’s really not hard to understand, you just get your kicks out of pretending you don’t. Maybe have a biscuit.

I am not upset by this. I am surprised that you cannot move beyond a really simplistic thought process or even acknowledge the point that I am making.

Yes, simple physics means that in order to gain fat you need to eat more calories than you use. Now, the next step in this thought process is to think about why people eat more calories than they use. Medical conditions absolutely do cause people to eat more calories than they use, for the reasons already explained. It is evidently hard for people to consistently fight against those barriers to losing weight. If you are lucky enough to have over eaten simply down to not particularly paying attention to your calorie totals, then you have very few or no barriers to reducing your calorie totals and you may well find it easier to lose weight than someone with medical conditions, pain, stress, poor sleep, mental health issues etc etc. Obesity itself, once acquired, causes metabolic issues that are themselves a barrier to losing weight. Fun for those of us who were obese as children, before we were fully responsible for our own diets and lifestyle.

....and 50 years ago we didn't have an obesity crisis.

Even though some people naturally produce less glp1 so feel hungry all of the time
Some people have issues which mean they cannot exercise but their appetite is unchanged
Some people have high levels of cortisol either through stress or trauma or mental health issues which mean they eat more and their body is determined to store fat
Some people are just tired, sad or in need of love
How can this be explained?

Well, nigh on half the population smoked. The 70s are actually a great example of how helpful it is to obesity rates for millions of adults to be taking an appetite suppressant. Some unfortunate side effects, admittedly.

Is it really that difficult for people to comprehend? People have not got greedier or lazier over this time. The proportions of people who would tend to overeat is probably about the same. What has changed is the environment and society that people are in. Developed countries have significantly changed over the last few decades - people work in more sedentary jobs, car ownership is higher and so people drive more and walk less, high calorie low nutrient food is available in abundance with ease 24/7 for most people, and yes fewer people smoke. So, those with a tendency to overeat for whatever reason now find it very much easier to do so, and combined with a general reduction in activity levels, we have a population whose weight is increasing.

@SilenceInside all that has changed is the type of coping mechanism. Some people here just aren't very educated and probably not very interested in different subjects. They probably experience an ego death if they had to consider another person's point of view.

'WLI remove the hunger and compulsion elements from most of these.
That’s exactly why they work.'

Which is exactly what I've been saying. You eat less via whatever means using wli appetite suppressants or god forbid going hungry and you lose weight. You needn't 'write it in crayon' for me it's others who are refusing to accept this simple fact.

There is a huge amount of research on the effects of ultra processed food on changing our body chemistry and GLP-1 in particular. Billions of pounds has been invested in developing and marketing foods which are cynically designed to make people eat more of them. It’s a vicious circle which is rigged against people.

now WLI have come along to challenge that and everyone is up in arms and falling over themselves to blame the individual for taking responsibility for their own body.

there is a huge correlation between the rise of obesity and the invention of corn syrup for example.

Obviously you will say we should just not eat UPF and you grow your own food and shop at the local butcher but not everyone’s lives work
like that.

if there wasn’t mass obesity 50 years ago surely you have to agree there must be societal factors, rather than everyone just got lazy or greedy.

Always worth noting that the only example we have of a society managing to reverse obesity rates is the US, in the last couple of years. Their food culture and laws are horrifying, but what they did have during this period was increasing WLI access.

Try replacing your argument with pain killers.

Loads of people aren’t in pain, or only a bit, so why the need for pain killers. You deal with it via whatever means by using pain killers or God forbid people could just be in pain and put up with it.

LadyTangerine has posted numerous posts arguing against a strawman argument that no-one on this thread is making - that cutting food intake and calories does not result in weight loss.

No-one here believes that cutting food intake and reducing calories does not result in weight loss.

The issue with obesity is that it is difficult the cut food intake and reduce calories consistently once obese (and if other factors are present - medication, disability etc). This is where WLI are useful. The fact that WLI work does not, as LadyTangerine suggests, prove that they are unnecessary.

For some unknown reason, LadyTangerine feels the need to continually correct the false belief that cutting food intake and reducing calories does not result in weight loss, despite the fact that no-one believes this.

It’s a shame because 1) this was an interesting thread before descending into strawman arguments and b) it’s not a very complicated thing to grasp so it’s deeply frustrating to see someone not understanding it (unless it’s deliberate?).

TLDR Everyone knows that reducing food intake/calories results in weight loss. The difficulty is in reducing food intake/calories consistently. WLI help people do this. The fact that they do so successfully does not prove that they are unnecessary.

It's a chat forum, we aren't carrying out a national audit.

Ok another example. I walk to our local shop it's a good 20 min walk there and back and guess what i don't see overweight people doing that either. I see them in their cars but walking? Nope.

Quick fixes are great and I hope wli proves a longterm solution for the obesity crisis but lifestyle and mindset needs to change to. What can we do to get people to move more now the eat less thing is proven to be effective?