You shouldn't take weight loss drugs. Learn about healthy eating, eat less and exercise more.

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This is like telling an insomniac "don't take tablets, just get more sleep"

I'm 41.
I have tried.

I KNOW all about healthy eating. Probably more than most slim people.
I don't have an emotional/binge eating disorder, I just have a bigger appetite than most people. I can only control it so long via willpower or low-carb diets. The drive to eat is the most powerful instinct known to man (except maybe breathing)

It's the weight loss medication that takes the edge of said appetite and ALLOWS me the space to make sensible decisions on food.

I've gone from 15 stone to 9 stone (I'm short). If these drugs had been invented 20 years ago, my life would have been much better.

And no, I didn't steal the drugs off a diabetic. I got private prescriptions for Wegovy and then Mounjaro which are only marketed for weightloss.

And yes I am quite prepared to take the drug forever if necessary.

And no, I don't care about the "potential unknown long term side effects" because they can hardly be worse than what I was facing with obesity.

And although exercise is beneficial for many reasons, it is a fairly trivial factor in weightloss.

I get what you mean about extreme hunger, my husband and I both feel the same. We are slim, but it's a battle every day!

Do you genuinely believe that everyone has the same appetite? That’s hilarious 😂

If you exercise too much, and don't take in enough energy to compensate for it, your body will likely compensate by shutting down/reducing NEET by making you feel tired and sluggish and therefore more likely to go to bed early or fidget less.

If you are obese you have plenty of stores of energy. I can see what you mean if you are a normal weight and rely on your intake for energy, but if you have several stone of stores, won't that be utilised before going down the reducing NEET route ?

Yes but this relates to leptin signalling - your brain receives signals from leptin as to what your fat reserves are. And leptin signalling for people with obesity is fucked from years of weight loss and gain.

This summary of Dr Jenkin’s work sums it up really well.

Not always. It depends how much of a deficit you create and how long you are in that deficit.

If you go too far into a deficit, for too long your body will respond by making you ravenous in order to avoid starvation. There's no trigger that makes you reach for a cream cake over a handful of raw cashews. That's where willpower and individual preferences come into it. If you love cream cake and hate cashews and you know there is a big fat eclair sat in the fridge or at the local shop, you're going to eat the cream cake. Fat is fat to our body, whether it comes from cake or whole foods. The brain is a different matter.

Personally, I'd be on the phone to Gregg's ordering 3 sausage rolls and a cheese and onion bake which is why I keep healthy snacks that I like to eat at home to reach for when the hunger becomes too much.

So why am Iosing weight by eating less calories ? Has my leptin signalling taken pity on me ? I am eating lower carb, just because shit carbs are my nemesis when it comes to appetite, so maybe that helps ? I am eating less insulin spikey foods ?

Cheese ! cheese is my go to if I get a rare hunger pang, I just don't grate it onto 4 slices of thick white sliced anymore

Because not everyone has leptin resistance. Which is part of the difference between someone being able to easily lose weight and someone who just can’t. And lower carb does impact on leptin signalling because of the lower insulin spiking foods.

The ‘truth’ doesn’t hurt me at all, nor does it many others, and that’s why I think you’re bitter about it. Because for you it’s a battle and you want everyone to feel the same way.

I haven’t tried ‘everything’, and I don’t have the mental energy to. So I’m taking this instead. I don’t care if you call me lazy or think I’m taking an easy way out by not doing all of your so-called ‘good ways’. I will still continue taking it, and losing weight, regardless.

You are deluded. As I said, if an average sized adult (average active ness ) ate 1500 calories and no more every day for a year they would maintain a healthy weight or gradually lose weight if overweight.
50 years ago people wernt gaining weight because of their hormones were they? People ate normal portions of healthy unprocessed food and by and large people were slim.
Honestly, I don’t know why everyone tries to go round the houses and make it so complicated. If you lots eat calorie dense processed food you will be fat. If you don’t you will be slim. That’s the nuts and bolts of it.

No becuse if you have depression you have a chemical imblance in your brain- you are mentally ill.

I'm really into raw fruit and nut bars atm but I have to be careful with those as they can be very moreish and quite high in calories. Although, even though they are processed shite that is marketed to us as healthy, I can stop eating raw fruit and nut bars before the box is empty, unlike chicken nuggets.

I also like Grabits when I need a quick, low-calorie source of protein. Boiled eggs and salt too.

If I'm craving something salty but am running out of calories I'll have a cup of soup. If I'm just peckish and not really needing protein or craving a particular flavour I generally have fresh fruit.

I find if I have a drink of water, I discover I was actually thirsty and not hungry. I find if I forget to take water to work and so don't have a drink for 4-5 hours, I feel slightly 'hungrier' when I stop for lunch, which probably just means I am a bit dehydrated ?

Not read the thread but 3 months on Mounjaro, started at 85kg, now 74k. I've gone from Obese to Overweight and I'm the lowest weight I've been in 16 years I've discovered I've overeaten sweet foods because I have hypoglycemia.

My blood sugars are regularly low but have gone untreated or acknowledged by Dr,s until last week when I hit 2.1 ( I had food poisoning and admitted to hospital).

I now understand why my weight ballooned, I had an illness I was unaware of. Mounjaro has given me a different relationship with food, I understand what I'm eating and why.

I'm with you OP, if this means staying on it or life, so be it, my health has improved more in 3 months than the last decade of trying.

OP. You say you know a lot about food and nutrition. Tell me this, why do you feel hunger? Have you any idea?
And feeling hunger isn’t bad. As humans we are meant to be hungry. You should take your hunger on a sliding scale from -10 to +10. -10 is starving. +10 is full to feeling sick. You only eat when you get to -5 hunger. So yes, you feel hungry. Eat slowly. You need to physically stop and pause every few mouthfuls to check how full you feel. Stop at +5.

The trouble is most people are eating such bad processed foods that it totally messes up signals in the brain telling us what we need to eat and how much. We are so used to snacking that we don’t feel proper hunger. Sugar and processed carbs will completely wreck your appetite, weight and relationship with food.

You need to eat unprocessed foods. And stop at +5. Ban all processed sugar and wheat. Chuck it all out. It does work. And you feel a million times better after the first couple of weeks.

I suppose because taking drugs haven’t been around long to me is risky. Yes it’s risky to be obese too I get that but these drugs arnt meant it be taken for life. Once the weight is off you are meant to stop taking them.
The problem is you haven’t fixed the root cause of over eating and haven’t retrained your brain to make the right choices food wise. So when you come off you will just slip back.

Thanks for the weight loss advice that I originally learned at weight watchers in about 1999 @WhiteLily1

You really have no idea. You are so lucky.

It only works if it works for OP and she's already said it doesn't. The weight loss drugs do work for her. There's no point goading her onto something that works for you that OP cannot stick to. It is not going to work for her in the long-run because she can't stick to it.

She can stick to the weight loss drugs, therefore that is what works for her, and it will make her healthier overall.

She's not pushing you to take them so why are you trying to force your diet on her?

I diet by eating circa 800-900 calories a day of mostly pre-packed, processed food. It works for me, I lose weight, I feel better and I don't get unbearable hunger pangs does that mean it is healthy and should I start pushing other people down the spiral of restrictive ED?

I dunno, as a fat person I'm not keen on the idea of taking new drugs for weight loss. Who knows what the side effects may be, they haven't been around long enough.

Why do you think these drugs aren't meant to be taken long term? And why do you think they're risky?

I feel like talking to @WhiteLily1 is like talking to a brick wall so I think I will just stop!

The drugs ARE meant to be taken indefinitely. They literally DO fix the root of the problem.

Why you want to send us all to fat camp to be re-educated and given therapy and then live a life where we battle and struggle everyday...I do not know. I suggest it is YOU who has an actual problem with food and who might benefit from education and therapy. Why are you so keen to see people suffer?

Ok ... I had depression. My weight which had been static for years suddenly shot up and i gained 3 stone within a few months.

The only change? Going on anti depressants, the side effects are weight gain. So what does someone do if in your opinion theyre allowed to be depressed but not fat, but it was their depression that made them fat?

Living in a fatphobic society makes my depression worse.

I have more idea than you know and it’s far too much to write in here.
Ive been very overweight in the past and think about food constantly. It’s a daily struggle becuse I always want to eat junk food and sugar.
To be honest you sound like a complete childish dick who’s stomping their feet and saying I will do this or else. And no one can stop me to nerrr.
Grow up. Get some back bone. If you want to take some fairly unknown drug for the rest of your life then go right ahead. However don’t pretend that you can’t lose weight via any means or that you know everything, because you really dont.

I agree. This determination that people must struggle to be slim, that they must suffer to lose weight smacks of sadism to me.