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

[GapTshirtsAreShitQualityTheseDays]

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.

The opposing view is that for many people these drugs arnt needed and shouldn’t be taken becuse other drug free treatments would be better. That most people shoudnt be on these drugs for life and that we don’t know the long term harms. That many people are completely unaware / mis informed of how to maintain a healthy weight despite claiming to know and try everything. That more support should be put in place and the food industry overhauled. That the people making money out of keeping people fat should have a spotlight shined on them. That societies views to food and weight can be changed buy powers above if they chose to.
That this weight loss drug industry is incredibly sketchy and Wild West in who qualifies for these drugs and why and access to them.

But you don’t want to hear any opposing views to your own or discuss in any meaningful civilised way- it’s all put downs and insults. I’m not sure why?

Not at all! I’m interested to hear others opinions and experiences. As long as it doesn’t come with insults and put downs when I voice mine! Like you say, it’s hardly a level playing field on here is it?

You keep telling me "drugs are bad, m'kay" but you're not telling me what the alternative is?

WHAT "drug free treatments"? What ARE they? What is their success rate?

WHAT "support"?

You want the food industry overhauled and society's (not "societies") views overhauled?

OK, I'll just wait here til that happens then shall I?

It's only YOU who have had a post deleted due to insults! (Which I'm sorry that I missed but I gather you called me lazy)

I don't blame you at this point.

Medication is not a bad thing! I wouldn't have been able to leave the house today without it. I suppose I could have had more gumption and pluck as an alternative - an idea which makes me eyeroll so hard my eyeballs hurt.

@Arctangent how very dare you take medication?! You should "try drug free treatments", "get more support" and "get to the root of the problem".

😂😂😂

@WhiteLily1 you say "That this weight loss drug industry is incredibly sketchy and Wild West in who qualifies for these drugs and why and access to them."

In what way is it more of a "Wild West" and more "sketchy" than any of the other prescription online medications you can get from private online GP prescribers? Of which there are many and varied things available.

so why not just talk about your reduced knee pain ,ability to do a charity walk and to help your mum? Isn’t that what healthy is, not a picture showing a particular image? You’ve also made a number of digs and insults aimed at slim people despite now being one yourself ? Why the vitriol for people who have a different point of view….considering you posted in chat, did you expect everyone to come along and simply love your posts and your piccies? The jabs ARE the modern equivalent of the cabbage soup diet as it’s promoting an unsustainable means of losing weight…negating those people who envision themselves being able to stay on it for life, I’m not sure many would start on this path if they truly believe they will be on it for ever. The people who have the most chance of keeping the weight off are those who use the freed up head space whilst being on these jabs to learn other coping strategies and change their relationship with food. I’m reminded of another recent post, a woman who like yourself has lost a lot of weight, has reached her goal weight but is still carrying on because she hates her “ fat bum and wobbly thighs” . The last time I checked ,fat bums and wobbly thighs don’t kill anyone, rather a lot of people at a healthy weight have them..so again we are back to people aiming for something unachievable rather than learning what healthy is for their particular selves.

@untiltheend I imagine there's little validation in doing that. A nice visual has more impact but does nothing to tell us about health. People can be skinny and have arteries full of plaque for example. My Dds are skinny but their ability to walk at a decent speed for a distance is limited due to their dad ferrying them in a car instead of walking. Skinny doesn't equal healthy and OPs photos don't tell me anything except that she lost weight.

Here’s a study where dangerously obese people were intensively treated & supported for a year. They got therapy, expert help with their diet annd exercise and even the drugs that existed at the time. Do you know how much weight they lost? 28% lost 5kg or more (about 4% of their body weight). More that 70% didn’t lose anything significant or at all. And the drop out rate was huge. Very few people of any would have achieved even class 1 obesity let alone a normal weight. These were motivated people with lots of professional support. It didn’t work. They’d lose more weight in a single month with Mounjaro and transform their health after a year. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902487/#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20phase%202%2C%2030%25%20of%20patients%20who,loss%20than%20the%20absolute%20loss.

Who 3?

So what if people who don’t really understand the issue or the drug think like you?

It makes no difference. I don’t need people to think like me.

I certainly don’t start talking about how they just have mental problems if they don’t.

You have argued your point passionately l. Other people have also done the same. Yet you accuse people who don’t believe you as having mental health problems. You dismiss their point of view, try and back your up with false claims.

Then complain what you have done to other people is being done to you.

If you were happy with your choices, you wouldn’t be so annoyed at other people making a perfectly valid and legal choice for themselves.

Yes, there's nothing like mouthing meaningless platitudes to really motivate people and give them some gumption. It works every time. Oh no, wait.....

I'm not medically qualified but had an interesting chat with my oncologist at my check up recently. He said that the effects of Tamoxifen can definitely interfere with your hormonal balance (they're meant to in order to work) and that is why Tamoxifen is notorious for causing weight gain.

So it's obvious to me that different hormonal balances will affect different people's ability to lose weight. And that's without taking Tamoxifen.

Nah she called you something worse than lazy, so that's how much she thinks insulting people is nasty. Only when it's aimed at her.

Actually, it was me who reported your nasty, bullying posts. Bullies are the lowest of the low and there's no excuse for your behaviour on this thread.

Of course there actually WILL be a positive correlation between intelligence and MJ use. As intelligence tends to correlate with disposable income.

Being a healthy weight positively correlates with higher income and intelligence too, but as can clearly be seen by your posts there are always outliers.

The tone of the thread has become very nasty. People are allowed to have opposing opinions without being "thick", particularly when disucssing a medication that is relatively new in its current form with few studies into the long-term side effects of its use against obesity.

The more I read about this drug, its marketing, its users, and the worrying diets they are on now, the less safe I believe it is.

There should not be discount codes for medicines. It effectively turns something that has a potential side effect of death into a pyramid scheme. Influencers should not be pushing this any more than they should push paracetamol or antidepressants.

One poster on another thread struggles to eat 800 calories daily and can only manage it once or twice a week. She eats a lot less just after her dose. That's so, so dangerous without robust and direct medical supervision. If that is what this medication does, long term, it is only a matter of time before someone dies.

@Frequency I completely agree but going against the sunny uplands narrative will have you cast into the gulags.

@Frequency I agree about the discount codes. I deliberately use a supplier who doesn't do anything other than a one off referral code, no other discounts or recruitment bonuses. I will report people who are spamming the board with posts about discount codes.

That's all an issue for the GPhC to address, and they should act quickly if they consider social media and marketing to be unsafely promoting a prescription medication. It's not an issue with the injections themselves.

I also wouldn't judge the entire concept on the basis of one person's self reported diet on a chat forum whilst on Mounjaro. If it's the poster that I think you're referring to they are particularly short and have a much lower than average TDEE calorie requirement as a result.