OK I'm convinced, weight-loss drugs are Incredible and will change the world

[AliceAbsolum]

DH has been on them for a couple of months and they've changed our lives for the better. He's an over eater/ mild binger and generally quite obsessed with food. Never managed to keep weight off.

Now he's happy, calm, doesn't think about food, eats like a 'normal person' and it's freed up so much space and joy in our lives.

Apparently in the future it'll be a pill you can either take that day or not, e.g. Most days but not Christmas day. Incredible!

Yes I know people get side effects and they don't work for everyone, etc. But I'm very impressed.
Apparently they also help alcoholics and other addicts as they work on the reward centre's of the brain. Amazing.

Started in May, lost 3 stone so far. Another stone to go. I could never have done it without MJ - menopause and hrt put paid to that!

I mean this with kindness but…who has told you that once you’re a healthy BMI you won’t be able to buy it anymore?? If you’re genuinely devastated by that false information I suggest you research which pharmacies will prescribe maintenance doses, because several now are. Others will follow suit.

No. First that risk hasn't been shown to happen in humans, it's from studies on rats and hasn't been replicated in humans. Secondly even if it is a risk, it's a small risk increase on a small risk in the first place v reducing the risk of many other cancers with far worse outcomes on average that are a result of obesity. Being obese is a big risk factor for cancer.

@JustGettingColourBack that’s sounds exactly like me. I’ve actaully
managed to address a lot of my mental
issues around food to the point I can now maintain. However the minute I try and get into deficit everything kicks off again and so far mounjaro is helping me hit that deficit without rebound behaviours. People have no idea how hard it is when you disordered eating goes back to childhood and what an uphill battle it can be. It’s why the eat less move more tribe make me incandescent with rage.😂

I think they are absolutely fantastic but to tread carefully. I say that as someone with lifelong constant food noise but who manages through absolutely iron will to maintain an ideal weight, so I could have sour grapes about it, but don't - not for a second. And also, importantly, as the mother of a 22 year old who has had severe consequences to a Covid vaccine (five hospital stays so far over the past 2.5 years, continual worry) and was one of the very few, very unlucky young men to suffer that way. So I know the risks of being a guinea pig, but also that generally, they can do huge good for society.
\what I really hope though is that the quality of people's meals can improve so it's less of a problem to start with.

GLP1s have been around for decades. We are not guinea pigs.

Can you expand on the link you see here please?

it is your assessment that people on weigh loss medication can still eat large quantity of UPF but still lose weight? How so?

people on weight loss medication eat a lot less than they previously did. It’s not a car of it allowing you to eat crap - it’s an appetite suppressant.

just interested in your views here - as they seem contrary to the science

@ACR7
Yes you can change provider and stay on the same dose or step up to the next. You could change supplier every month if you wanted. You just have to fill in the questionnaire and also add proof of your previous prescription (photo of label on box showing your name and dose)

Here is a good price comparison site for Mounjaro. There is another site too but I can’t remember what it’s called.

monj.co.uk/discount-mounjaro-price-list/

I have health anxiety so it's mainly that I guess. I know my weight could kill me, I start every day thinking I'll be good, today is the day. Then I get hungry and it all goes to pot.

I don't think I have any gastro effects from being obese though? My digestive system seems to work quite normally.

They are actually interfering with my mother's ability to digest her morning pills, and she's only on a very low dose. She takes her pill cocktail for a few complex conditions and the injections actually make her nauseous. Sorry for the TMI but she can vomit up all of the pills 12 hours later and they seem mostly undigested. It's wreaking havoc with her treatment, I'm not sure she can continue like this. It's literally switched her stomach off and food just doesn't get digested. Her rate of weight loss is alarming rather than encouraging.

Eating too much food, regardless of whether it is ultra-processed or not, is what leads to weight gain for the majority of people. These peptides are hoped to help individuals make lifestyle changes whilst losing weight to promote the development of healthy habits. Eating 200 calls over TDEE will make you gain weight. That's a side effect of overeating.
People are battling the food and drink industry, marketing is a strong tool to encourage people to snack and drink.

It's kind of scary how many people are sitting waiting (and hoping) for fatties on MJ to get cancer one day as a punishment for them not losing weight in the most arduous way possible.

I have been on wegovy since beginning of January and I have a bit more than 3 stones. I was really sceptical to start with but honestly my journey so far has been great. Very little side effects. More energy ! I’m definitely happier ! I hope it will be less expensive in the long run

Try fasting I have managed 18 hours and even 24 hours fasting since being on MJ 2.5mg dose.

Your fat distribution does indicate you have a metabolic disorder.

Fasting is suppose to help with metabolic disorders. Mastering it and making it a regular habit while on MJ is something I am trying to achieve.

There’s quite a few people on this thread asking if they can be obtained with a normal BMI.
Why would people with a normal BMI want to take novel drugs to be thinner?
They can cause pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and other life threatening adverse events. They are not licensed for people with normal BMI, with good reason. Because of the risk benefit analysis.

I can't link to the whole article sadly, but here is an abstract regarding muscle loss as a result of GLP-1 drugs. I want everyone to be a healthy weight for all the myriad health gains but free lunches are never free in the longterm so think we should exercise caution. Just because a drug is safe at one dose for one indication does not make it safe at all doses for all indications.

www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00272-9/abstract?hss_channel=tw-27013292&dgcid=twitter_organic_comment24_landia

They are truly incredible - it’s like a switch has flipped in your brain and you change from a person who thinks about food all the time, to a person who can go hours without thinking of food. I so wish all of the ‘you just need to eat less’ crew could experience how that feels!

I don’t think people realise that you have to follow a diet plan when on them though, to stay healthy. If you don’t plan it gets to mealtimes and you just cannot think of what to eat, for the life of you. If you have something planned or prepped you may not fancy it, but as soon as you start to eat, it’s the most delicious thing as it has the ‘sauce’ of genuine hunger. I didn’t know true hunger for years while in the grip of BED, and now it’s improved my enjoyment of food no end

Thank you for replying.
It was Zava who made this clear in their communication with me when I fist started using MJ in May. I contacted them with a few questions about long term use once healthy BMI is achieved, and this was one of my questions.
So what you're saying has given me a new hope!
Do you happen to know how long people will be able to stay on a maintenance dose for? As in, how long pharmacies will be willing to keep prescribing for once people are in a healthy BMI? Or is it too early days to know at the moment.
If Zava won't prescribe long term maintenance doses, will other chemists do this for me even though I'd be at my healthy BMI by then?
Sorry for all the questions, im tryto find long term answers.
Thank you.
(Edited smartphone typos)

Ah May was still quite early in the Mounjaro game and things have moved on since then! Oushk have a fantastic range of options for maintenance plans and none of them appear to have a time limit on them 😌 that’s where I plan to go for maintenance. The Family Doctor (I think) say that they will continue to prescribe maintenance unless your BMI goes below 19. More pharmacies are now working to develop their maintenance plans - I’m very confident that by the time I reach a healthy BMI there will be a wide range of options. You can switch from providers at any time as long as you can evidence previous prescriptions.

If it helps with adhd maybe they'll prescribe it me in time despite my BMI being 21.

It was me who said that, but I was responding to the handful of people who are a stone or half overweight and asking if they can get it.

I wasn't referring to the likes of yourself who can get it legally under 30 due to other medical issues.

I have a question about food noise.

My weight has always been in the healthy range. However, now I am in my 50s and in the perimenopause, my weight has started to go up. The only way I can keep it in the healthy range is to essentially keep my calorie intake lower, avoiding ‘treats’ Monday to Thursday unless I am socialising. And then what I eat what I want on Friday to Sunday.

However, from Monday to Thursday, I do think about food a lot. I almost fantasise about what I am going to eat at the weekend. It takes huge amount of willpower not to eat snacks as normal on those days. However, it does work and my weight is still very much in the healthy range. And my cholesterol and glucose levels are good. Though if I’m socialising, I will eat normally with friends, even if it is early in the week.

So on the days that I am ‘dieting’, and obsessing about snacks (but not eating too much of it), is this what people call ‘food noise’? It’s something have only read about over the last year.

@TheSilkWorm
My point was how we used our evolved 'smartness' to create edible non-food, full of nasties engineered to be addictive for money.
That created the issues, and the solution - the medication- is also absolutely driven forward by how profitable it is.
Certainly a modern problem and only in parts of the world.

"This substantial muscle loss can be largely attributed to the magnitude of weight loss, rather than by an independent effect of GLP-1 receptor agonists, although this hypothesis must be tested."

The abstract says it is likely the muscle loss is linked to the weight loss, not the drugs. Anyone losing the same weight might expect the same muscle loss and anyone listening to any serious advice on weight loss over the last 10 years or so will have heard the same warning re muscle loss and - therefore - the importance of keeping up with high levels of quality proteins and including muscle developing exercises to counteract this.

I know this sounds defensive but honestly, almost all the arguments I see against these drugs are either founded in misunderstanding of weight/weight gain/weight loss (often based on the popular knowledge of the 80s and 90s) or are arguments against weight loss itself. Weight loss has lots of benefits but it also has downsides. Once you are overweight, all the mechanisms in your body work hard to keep you that way - to not let go of your surplus. Bodies have evolved to maitain the status quo, even when the status quo may be harming them. Muscle loss is one of them...

Lower muscle mass = lower metabolism - lower calorific requirements = body more likely to survive a starvation period. In evolutionary terms, a high muscle % and low body fat % isn't much good. It's too expensive to maintain and too vulnerable to food shortages.

In the end, all any of us can do is pick the option that seems most right (or least wrong) for us.

Obesity science has moved on so far in the last decade or so (which is why we are now seeing these drugs emerge like this) and everything we seemed to learn about weight 'back in the day' is constantly being shown to be false by obesity scientists. Or, at least, they are adding vital context and additonal details that show, clearly, weight is not the simple maths game we all thought it was.

The fact types of this drug have been used in diabetes care already is reassuring. Means they have been subjected to decent trials.

I do feel uncomfortable about the upselling by companies, sharing of discount codes etc. It is not a model of prescribing we use here, unlike the US say, where medication is advertised in commercial breaks. it’s a shame the meds can’t be accessed via the nhs. Though maybe I wish I had shares in MJ ;-)