Everyone just hates fat people

[mamabeeboo]

Yes I'm fat and yes I'm taking the WLI.

I've had it out with a friend of a friend during a catch up dinner yesterday and I'm fuming.

I've lost some weight and still have a good 5 or so stone more to go before I'm anywhere near the 'normal' BMI category. So no, I'm not wasting away or disappearing, or losing weight too fast.

The mistake I made was being honest about the jabs. But I stand by it, I think it's important to get healthy, regardless of how you do it, just get there.

ANYWAY, this person has suddenly decided to feel concerned for my health, now that the loss has become noticeable. With some silent nods from others about how you should 'just eat less and move more'. No shit is that what was supposed to do?!

A big discussion about:
just have willpower
just have smaller portions
do it the normal way, you don't know what you're putting into your body
it's not healthy
just put down the fork
it's about dicipline
it's not really losing weight though, is it (huhh??)
it's more rewarding to do it the normal way so you can feel achievement

It's gotten me thinking of how so many people just hate fat people. You want us to pay for being fat, to suffer at the gym doing workouts we don't like or can't do with joint pain and back pain etc. You want us to 'just have willpower' like it's that easy. You want us to try all the diets and fail so you can feel superior with your 'discipline' and that you 'look after your body'.

You hate the fact that these WLI have levelled the playing field.

I said all this yesterday and it became very frosty. These aren't my friends, I was there for the birthday girl, but I won't sit there and take it.

I'm posting because I'd love to hear what you might have heard when talking about WLI. (Or if anyone agrees with the above 🤔)

The majority of who @PalePinkPeony. The majority of all people, or the majority of obese people. Because if you mean the latter, you are mistaken (see above post re Cleveland Clinic).

Why would you take a drug to stop smoking and then keep smoking? One of the ways WLI work is by allowing people to make changes to their diet. It would be extremely difficult to take them and not change the way you were eating.

" you take the drug but still smoke daily. the stopping smoking drug when ceased being taken gives you exactly the same cravings of smoking that you had before you started taking it. Oh and also the drug gives you multiple side effects short and long term, that may possibly outweigh the risks of smoking."

I mean, this is mad. You do take Varenicline whilst you're smoking, that's what you're supposed to do... You take Mounjaro/Wegovy whilst continuing to eat... because you need to eat of course. If you stop taking Varenicline you will have the same response to smoking as you did before, because it doesn't make a permanent change to how your brain reacts to nicotine. Ditto for WLI and over eating. It has the risk of side effects, it doesn't just give you all the side effects, both short and long term. Many people don't get any side effects, and the vast majority don't have any long term issues. None of which outweigh the risks of smoking or remaining obese in the case of Mounjaro/Wegvy. Obviously, because these medications were reviewed and approved by the MHRA and the possible risks of side effects are more than outweighed by the health benefits of losing weight/stopping smoking. None of these drugs would have been approved for use if that wasn't the case.

Don't you think it would be plain weird to go on a thread about stopping smoking and go on about how you should only stop smoking by going cold turkey, because using medication is wrong and dangerous and not going to work because you'll just start smoking again afterwards.

You’re basing it on what works for YOU. There is no scientific basis for this whatsoever. I’ve seen similar claims made about keto, about carnivore or whatever diet the person making the claim wants to promote. Lots of obese people stick to very healthy diets but have uncontrollable urges to binge eat and one binge can then undo all progress made for the past few weeks. Unless you’ve walked in the shoes of an obese person you really don’t know what you’re talking about. You really don’t.

My example was probably poorly worded but was meant to say the two things arnt comparable. No I don’t think it would be right to go on a smoking thread and tell people not to use stop smoking drugs IF I was certain as I could be that the effect of the drug don’t outweigh the effects of smoking.
But the two arnt comparable. Smoking as I’ve said directly harms others so really that’s enough to make it non comparable. Even harmful drug would be more ‘worth it’ because others are being harmed by smoking including children. A child is not directly harmed by her uncle walking around the house being obese for example.
Also, when you stop smoking the addiction to nicotine wanes and then disappears. That will never happen with food as we will always need to eat.
A more comparable argument would be ‘I’m injecting an anti smoking drug that makes me smoke 10 per day rather than 20 and makes me want 5 of those 10 to be herbal cigerettes with 1/4 of the nicotine’ I know this medication might have long and short term side effects to my pancreas and gall bladder. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when I come off the anti smoking medication and my lungs have improved to their target - but my cravings will be the same as before I started taking it.

pros and cons which is what we are discussing - surely

When taking WLI you still need to eat obviously. Many people are not adopting a healthier diet sadly when taking this. Yes they are eating less. But less of what. A packet of quavers and a small sausage roll all day and then that’s it because they don’t feel like eating any more. How is that going to help long term?
Does the jab educate you into what to eat long term- a complete diet overhaul? Does it come with nutrition support? Does it magically make you love salad and grilled chicken? And even if it does make you magically love salad and grilled chicken do you still love it when you stop the medication?

Many people are not adopting a healthier diet sadly when taking this. Yes they are eating less. But less of what. A packet of quavers and a small sausage roll all day and then that’s it because they don’t feel like eating any more.

Where the hell are you getting this from @PalePinkPeony? The recesses of your fevered imaginings, I can only assume.

You have literally no idea what you're talking about. You have no idea, and you refuse to listen to the many people who are trying to tell you what it's really like. I feel sorry for you, if I'm honest. Must be difficult to live with such a rigid and judgemental mindset.

There are people on this thread who I think would absolutely do that. Depressing.

What do you mean ‘what it’s really like?’ Ok so you know everyone in the uk who is taking these jabs do you? I know and haven seen what some people eat on these and it’s not healthy food in some cases
Goodness, and you have the gall to spout the word judgemental with a post like that. You have no idea what I’ve seen or know.

The good news, @PalePinkPeony is that the medication has been comprehensively tested and that evidence thoroughly reviewed over a lengthy multi-stage process to determine that yes, the benefits more than outweigh the risks. That is not in doubt unless you are choosing to object to all of that evidence and process.

Many people are not adopting a healthier diet sadly when taking this. - how do you know that it is "many" people? And even if some people are, they are still losing weight which will be of benefit to them. They may find it hard to maintain without WLI, but they can continue to take them whilst they figure out what will work for them. It might take them a few attempts, but I don't begrudge them that.

Does it magically make you love salad and grilled chicken - actually, for a lot of people it does put you off refined carbs, fatty and sugary food and makes simple fresh food much much more appealing. I haven't eaten a packet of crisps in 10 months, nor any kind of pastry item. I just want clean protein sources and lots of fresh veg. Maybe I won't when/if I stop taking WLI, but after a year or more of eating like that, there's a pretty good chance I can stick to it. Mainly because it hasn't felt like a chore, or a restriction or a punishment for that length of time. So I'm not desperate for unhealthy foods because I feel like I've been denying myself for that length of time. I feel like the hold those things had on me has been well and truly broken. But maybe I'm just an idiot, you know better than me, and I'll be straight back onto the Chinese takeaway and icecream the moment I stop!

Of course we are. Because fatties are stupid as well as well as morally inferior remember 😂
Luckily we have plenty of judgey posters here to teach us that sausage rolls are not a health food.

Have you not read any of the hundreds of posts on this thread then? What an admission.

No I don't know everyone on WLI (what a weird thing to say) But I can read and listen. Why can't you?

I take it you have actually noticed this thread is in WLI and not AIBU?

I love salad and grilled chicken. I eat very healthy with little processed food and on Mounjaro I eat a healthy balanced diet and around 1800 calories a day, mainly unprocessed and freshly cooked meals. My problem is binge eating. I have cravings that have seen me resort to digging food out of the bin and eating it and basically eating whatever crap I can get my hands on. When I have a binge episode I eat 7000 + calories a day, I feel sick and disgusted but can’t stop and in the moment I can’t stop myself doing it. Then I revert to my healthy diet and hope it doesn’t happen again too soon.
Mounjaro makes the urge to binge go away. I can eat like a normal person on it.

@Finallydoingit24 When you were binge eating, why didn’t you exercise more willpower, discipline, and determination? You clearly didn’t try hard enough. I never binge ate, I just said no and stopped myself. If I can do it, so can you.

The jabs essentially work like an antidepressant in that they affect mental state. If you aren't hand wringing that antidepressants don't educate a person or cause them to love joyous activities or solve whatever problem may be causing the depression if it's situational, then there's no reason to hand wring about these.

They offer help to shift a mental state, which in itself can be the catalyst a person needs to make whatever wider changes are also necessary. They may come with side effects and there may come a point where the better option is to stop taking them, as with antidepressants. Nobody says antidepressants are used as a magic solution to become happy with no effort (unless they're so ill-informed that they have nothing to contribute to the discussion). It's understood that they're a potential tool to help with a particular issue. Of course it would be ideal if nobody needed them but we live in the real world.

😂 yeah I know. My bad but part of the reason was that I really really wanted to spend lots of money on a drug that I don’t actually need (because I could just exercise willpower). That’s just the way I roll.

Woohoo to those of you so fortunate to have metabolic and hormonal levels within normal range.

Woohoo to those of you who think "willpower, discipline and determination" can overcome biological reality.

Woohoo to those of you who can be so virtuous, yet have little to no understanding of emerging scientific discoveries, and little to know appreciation or empathy that not everyone is the same as you.

@HansHolbein that a very unkind comment. Hardly supportive, just plain nasty.
I'm assuming you have never had food issues?

I read it as sarcastic.

@Finallydoingit24 I felt like such an arsehole writing that. Imagine actually thinking that about another person and writing it down, like some people on here.

Like I said before, people should be grateful for the health (and mental health) state they are in now. Anything can change that in an instant.

We might be fat and stupid we’re not but what we definitely have is compassion and empathy. I’m so glad I have that within me. Nothing is ever black and white.

I did too, hence my jokey response

@HansHolbein is the creator of the fabulous WLI bingo card - they very much understand both food issues and the unhinged comments that WLI generate. Sarcasm can get lost in writing though.

I knew I should have added a disclaimer

Oh yeah I took your comment as entirely tongue in cheek by the way! But yeah it’s grim how some people think about fat people.
I was watching a documentary about weight loss the other day and a bariatric surgeon (who understands that “just be disciplined” is rubbish) said “if we treated and talked about any other sector of society the way we treat and talked about fat people, we’d probably be in jail” and it really rang true.

I think it’s also worth saying that many women find the goalposts shift somewhat as they get older. If you haven’t found maintaining a healthy weight difficult in your younger years, the chances are that will
change during perimenopause and post menopause. What has worked for you in the past may well not continue to do so and perhaps weight loss drugs may be something you have to consider in the future.