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.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2024/sep/ucl-demographers-work-debunking-blue-zone-regions-exceptional-lifespans-wins-ig-nobel-prize

Apparently a lot of the data re blue zones was found to be inaccurate…..

”Finally, Dr Newman debunked the popular idea of ‘Blue Zones’ as regions of exceptional longevity and healthy lifestyles. Many, if not most of the centenarians in the ‘Blue Zone’ have turned out to be alive in the government records but were deceased in reality”

@TheNorthernTights thanks, I will read that.

I wonder how the Blue Zones would measure up if we looked at overall health/weight rather than longevity?

@Frequency good question. But also - how are we defining “health”? And can we try to separate health & a number on the scales?

I’ve been on a long old journey of being fat, (like, most of my life) trying every diet going, exploring body positivity, including & embracing the “weight is irrelevant” arguments.
For the last 9 months I have focussed on trying to eat well; adding in the right amount of protein, fibre, vitamins & minerals etc.

Mounjaro has been helping me do this more successfully now for 6 weeks.

@TheNorthernTights good for you! I hope it works out for you.

I sometimes feel so sad. I spent 40 years battling this thing and thinking I was greedy/weak when actually...I just needed a pharmaceutical helping hand.

Hopefully one day obesity will be a thing of the past.

Next problem I would like them to solve for me - actual permanent hair removal.

@GapTshirtsAreShitQualityTheseDays - I get what you mean about feeling sad. I spent years hating myself and feeling like a complete failure. It was actually reading Why We Eat (Goo Much) that changed that feeling to anger. I threw out every diet related book I had. And I had them all! I got so angry at the diet industry and I suppose looking back also angry at myself. For believing all the shit.

So I gave up dieting. Just tried to eat healthy foods and move more. Was walking 10km a day at one point. Still didn’t lose weight!

I read about Saxenda and the appetite suppression aspect but as I don’t actually have a huge appetite I didn’t go down that route as I thought it was probably just another waste of money.

Then I read about Ozempic and the effect on insulin. So I researched it and tried it. It was a bit of a miracle. For me the initial weight melted away. It was as if something was switched in my body. Something was working properly. I stalled after a while. Kept going though. Tried to come off it but gained weight so went back once Wegovy came available. Worked well and I lost what I had gained back but then that stalled a bit too. So I stopped again to see what would happen. It’s actually been a bit scary. The carb cravings are back. In fact it’s more a compulsion. Appetite is increased. Food noise is back. I’m finding it harder to just want the healthy unprocessed foods I had been wanting.

I am about to fill in the Boots consultation for Mounjaro.

If I was told I needed statins or blood pressure medication or HRT I would take those. So why not a medication that seems to switch something in my body that doesn’t work as well as it does in others?

I am one of four sisters. I’m the only one with a weight problem. There is some research that counts diabetes as an auto immune disorder. And there are some family members with various auto immune disorders. So maybe with me (and millions of others) our weight issues are some form of auto immune disorder. I am sure that research will go further along that track and hopefully there will be more knowledge around that. After all semaglutide was developed for diabetes. It also caused weight loss which is why Wegovy was developed and marketed. But semaglutide obviously works differently to other more traditional diabetic medications. So I think it’s obvious that there are other factors.

In fact thinking about it Dr Jason Fung doesn’t agree that obesity causes diabetes. I think I remember his belief is that insulin resistance and its effects on the body cause pre diabetes and it’s that that causes obesity.

There is so much more to come in this area of research and treatments for obesity.

God I know, @Peridot1 . The MONEY I have spent on special foods/diet magazines/books/supplements/clothes in every dress size. You must be taking tens of thousands over the years. So the cost of MJ pales into insignificance.

In future hopefully obesity will just be viewed as a medical condition like any other and we can finally get rid of the moral judgement.

People will look back in horror at the way we treated fat people. A bit like how we look at how we used to put people in circuses and laugh at them.

In fact, I used to find getting called "fat" by a random man/teenager in the street a lot less irritating than the patronising head-tilt bollocks we have experienced on this thread - which in fact was what the thread was all about in the first place.

I'm desperate to find an effective permanent hair removal treatment too. I shell out £98 every 6 weeks for waxing which is a bit bonkers, I know. But my body hair is quite pale so I'm not convinced that laser will work on me?

@Arraminta bloody hell that's dedication! And you still have to put up with regrowth.

I'm apparently the ideal candidate for laser - pale skin and dark hair. Did fuck all for me, even though I tried a few different machines - in salon AND at home.

I fantasise about a day when it's a bit like getting your ears pierced - your mum just takes you one random day for the full body laser (it's a futuristic machine and you stand in it for 10 seconds - ONE AND DONE!)

I’m the ideal candidate for laser with pale skin and dark hair but it just kept growing back after 12 sessions! They blamed my hormones and I had them checked out and nope, fine!

Have you noticed pretty privilege now you’ve lost the weight? You are clearly an intelligent, articulate woman but were you treated less so before? I’ve noticed a hugeeeee difference by both men and women in how I’m treated.

Really sorry if you’ve mentioned upthread but what is your height and what were your daily calories to lose the weight. I’m 5’3 and I’m so unfit a short walk is all I can manage. Thanks for the tip about Mounjaro being better, I had a consult with my aesthetics provider who I trust and going ahead and starting with it.

Combining any legume with grains makes a complete protein. That's probably why beans and rice became a staple in a lot of third world countries.
That's how people on vegan diets manage to get enough protein. It's not as good as animal protein though. It contains all the essential amino acids which makes a complete protein, but the so-called nonessential amino acids are actually more important than they were assumed to be in the past.

The American Heart Health Association have actually done a lot of research into the benefits of a vegan diet and have found that a diet low in animal proteins and high in plant proteins is actually better for your heart.

I'm not sure what plant protein sources they are using, I've not looked into it that much because I have no intention of going vegan, but it is interesting.

What we need to remember is when we look at foods and nutrition they are not just doing one thing to the body. Yes, animal proteins contain amino acids which are good for us, but they also contain saturated fat, which is not good for us.

Ultimately, 99.99% of research shows that a good diet is one that is high in plants.

We should also remember that research is usually flawed. Researchers tend to look at one outcome and ignore everything else. There have been studies that prove smoking lowers the risk of one particular cancer, so should we all start smoking because it's good for us? This also happens in food studies, they'll look at one aspect of health and ignore everything else, so yes, this good thing might happen if you eat X, but also this bad thing is gonna happen if you eat too much X.

Glad to be of assistance! I'm not sure about "aesthetics provider" tho - is this person a doctor or prescribing nurse? As opposed to a beauty therapist?

Not sure about "pretty privilege". I have good hair and teeth and no wrinkles so far at 41 but I'm overall fairly average looking. I did have an argument with a random man in a supermarket a couple of weeks ago and did enjoy the fact he only called me a "fucking bitch" and not a "fat fucking bitch"

I'm 5ft 2. I don't really count calories and it depends what dose I'm on and how recently I've injected but I think they have been 1000-1500. Don't worry too much about exercise initially, especially until you get used to any side effects like nausea.

Good luck!

Fuck right off.

I have arthritis in every joint of my body. It even affects my eyes sometimes.

Yes she’s a nurse prescriber whom I use. I’ve found some of them know more than doctors through life experience and having been in it twenty years sometimes have more experience. She’s never sold it to me or mentioned it to me.

I guess with the pretty privilege I’m just reiterating with some of the rather demeaning comments on here, whether you are treated more like a person worthy in society, rather than lazy and uneducated - I actually had a friend who hadn’t seen me in four months tell me every time she sees me she worries for my health and do I know what I’ve done by piling all this weight on. Like it’s completely lost on me.

I think I’m obsessing over calorie counting at the minute so that’s good to hear you are a similar height. I know exercise doesn’t help with losing weight very much - again obsessing to tone so i don’t get flabby.

Thank you for the positive encouragement, hopefully in a months time the scales will be moving in the right direction!

That's true, though saturated fat is not as terrible as was once thought. A diet high in plants absolutely is best and the research is very conclusive on that.
I'm on doctor's orders to eat a diet high in the best quality protein, so veganism is out. I can't eat most grains, so getting enough protein on a vegan diet would not be possible.

I did read an alternative theory about plants in the "Lion Diet"/"Carnivore Diet".

Basically that a lot of plants are poisonous to humans. And they are not as essential as we think. I mean cavemen didn't eat them much did they?

I reckon in order of preference it goes:

1. meat/fish
2. fats/dairy
3. plants/nuts/seeds
4. grains

Were cavemen human? I've never understood why that argument is used. I'm fairly sure cavemen were Neanderthals and had a different physiology from us. Also, I am 100% certain that a trip around Asda does not in any way count as hunting and gathering.

Modern hunter-gatherers typically eat diets high in plants, nuts, berries, and seeds.

The research into the effect of fruit and veg is fairly robust in agreement that more = better.

Can you live without veg? Yes.
Should you? Probably not unless you want to die of fatty liver disease or heart attack.

Yeah, there are all kinds of theories. The evidence that a diet high in plants is beneficial is overwhelming.
Early humans actually ate a lot of berries, nuts and seeds. It's not true that they ate only meat.
The only population that existed on a diet of only animal products is in the far north where nothing grows. The indigenous people of those areas evolved specifically to be able to live on that diet. That's why diabetes is an epidemic among northern indigenous people. They more trouble metabolizing carbs than the more southern populations. If they stick to a traditional diet they are much healthier.
So unless you are a northern indigenous person I doubt you could be healthy on an all animal product diet.

Protein powder as a health food is hilarious! Have they looked at the ingredients? 😩 Awful.

But what is a ‘health food’? And where has anyone said it’s a health food? I might have missed it?

and which protein powders? There’s thousands. Many with entirely different ingredients to the next. Some have flaxseed in, which is an excellent source of fibre as it has both sociable and insoluble fibre. Does that even out the ‘bad’ food.

This sort of thinking is part of the diet culture that fucks people up. The term ‘health food’ means nothing. Like ‘good food’ and ‘bad food’ means nothing.

Any food eaten in high enough quantities can be damaging. Lots of people have died or made themselves ill eating a ‘healthy diet’.

Protein powder is designed to do one thing. Get large amounts of protein in. It’s not meant to be someone’s only source of food or protein. Is it classed as ‘good’ because it achieves its aim (putting a large amount of protein in the body) or bad because of all the other stuff that goes in it?

Then on the scale of protein powders are some good and some bad? Depending on other ingredients?

The poster that was quoted was wrong. Vitiating intake and levels and electrolytes consumption is very much talked about and the 2 diets mentioned do not require medical supervision at all. The same as any diet, medical supervision is recommended but not required.

Then let’s weight protein powder against obesity. What’s worse for someone’s health? Having one protein shake a day to help you get to a healthy weight? Or being obese? Or losing the weight but not getting enough protein in because you don’t want the downsides of shakes?

Or maybe the saying ‘only the dose makes the poison’ might apply.

Here's my fitbit weight graph for the past nearly ten years. As you can see I've lost weight a few times through willpower but it always creeps back on.

I'm happy I found this thread.

I'm 42 and been on a diet since I was 13. I have been every size from an 8-18. I once lost four stone. When I was slim to remain so took absolutely huge amounts of my brain space. Hope that makes sense. I can do it...I can lose weight. What I can't cope with is the constant constant thinking of food. Like you op...I have a big appetite. I often joke its sheer willpower that keeps me at a size 16 and not more. As an example, dh and I went for lunch....I had a three course meal. I left the restaurant feeling peckish FFS.

Anyway...I've now ordered my injections and can't wait to start. I just want the food noise to stop.

@Comedycook go for it! In a couple of months you'll feel like a different person!

Cheers to science!

@GapTshirtsAreShitQualityTheseDays love your tag name and totally agree with that statement! 😂Same goes for their jeans!

Have spent couple of hours reading the thread, I guess the comment right at the beginning by someone who said you should stop injecting the jabs once you've reached the overweight category and "At that point you should take your chances with the rest of us" got me hooked (Karen much?). And then that Whitelily1 who constantly contradicted herself, joined by Legotherapy, who went from confused to a forum police, it got quite entertaining 😆

I've been using Wegovy since March, lost 2 stones within 3 months and then have been plateauing since July, when I started second round of 1.7 mg, hoping it would work and avoiding the huge cost jump. Moved to 2.4 mg in August and nothing, then introduced Intermittent Fasting and saw some weight loss. I guess my body had reached the new set point weight and decided it's quite comfy here. Still overweight though, but should I take my chances with the rest of "us"? Nope, I switched over to Mounjaro in September, first month on lowest dose has been feeling like before Wegovy kicked in, i.e. food noise and hunger are back - I also have big appetite and as soon I feel even tiny bit of hunger, all my thoughts are occupied about food - what, when, how - until I have eaten. Haven't lost anything, but haven't gained either, probably because continuing with IF few days a week. Let's see what the next dose up will bring. I'm definitely in it for long term, as the switch from Wegovy to MJ has shown, without the therapeutic dose, I will not be satisfied with small portions and have to use all my will power and head space (and IF) to eat less to even stay at the same weight, let alone lose some weight.

Oh, and I do eat healthy stuff 90 % of the time - fresh veg with good protein, home cooked (courtesy of Green Chef or Mindful Chef), low carb, no UPF at all except a bit of chocolate after dinner or glass of wine. I walk 8-10 KM every day (dogs) and do resistance training 3-4 times a week. Did most of it before Wegovy, but with smaller portions and no food noise it finally worked. I just need to push past this (hopefully temporary) plateau and lose the final 1.5 stone to reach healthy BMI and learn to maintain it, with or without MJ.