So now you might get free weight loss without making any effort at all, but you'll also look older in the process?
I have to say, my father has been taking it, and I noticed that he does look older all of a sudden...and his weight loss also plateaued. I thought it was just my imagination, but maybe not.
There are win-win tradeoffs. Vitamins, for instance. If you're running a vitamin deficiency, there isn't a downside to increasing your intake of that vitamin. (Curing acute dehydration via IV is another shortcut that just works.)
The Ozempic story, for me, has been more about how we almost seem to be reflexively against the idea of a win-win. A lot of people want there to be a tragic downside to the drug for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.
Because apparently a surprising number of people can't calculate bodyweight doses.
It's well known that people treat fat people worse; I constantly wonder how aware people are of their own biases?
For what it's worth I've been fat before and I've been in shape before. I have my own biases that are beyond the scope of this comment. Never taken one of these drugs but only because of cost/access; I'm actually curious to experience them. If they work for people, I say they should take them.
As for exercise, it has many benefits but is a fairly minor contributor to weight loss. I am doing a bit of a hardcore diet at the moment (helped a ozempic competitor), lost 20kg/44lbs in 3 months, and I noticed no difference in change in weight whether I do 1h of exercise bike daily (max resistance) or whether I do a week without.
But if there's a way to lose weight without major lifestyle change, it threatens that tidy moral barometer. Someone might look virtuous without actually being so. Cognitive dissonance ensues. So they hope and wish for anything to catch out and punish these "cheaters."
Because humans spent some hundred thousand years on earth with no fat human in sight, and only around 3-400 with the ultra obese. It's unnatural.
Cars, computers, and cellphones are unnatural. If you can get over those, you can get over recoiling in atavistic horror from people who don't meet your beauty standards.
They are not a part of, or the whole human body
It's easy, substitute the obese with the smokers demographic. Imagine them whining that they smoke because it's an environmental issue, that they just can't do otherwise, that it's a metabolic issue and not a willpower one, a genetic thing, lack of access to alternatives... anything besides their own will.
I wonder how taking a medicine for the rest of your life is a win-win when there are places in the world where obesity is almost non existent and it's been proven to be largely lifestyle related. Besides, semaglutide just makes the subjects crave less, reinforcing the willpower role in weight loss.
I have read people in this forum state that if they eat less, they gain more weight for some unknown genetical issue, like thermodynamics do not apply to them.
You have to keep a clear head as an early adopter in some things, and be aware of incentives. Remember, the pharma company pushing the drug/treatment to market is out to make money first. Having a knock-on problem down the line to fix also serves that purpose, and in fact, has been a tactic employed by other notorious pharma manufacturers. Lest we forget the lessons of the opioid crisis do quickly.
We all look 10-15 years younger than we are (35-45s).
But we're also not dropping 150-200lbs or whatever number you're potentially referring to to where skin would stretch. But prolonged, constant rapid dropping hasn't bothered our skin. I'm complimented all the time on mine.
https://old.reddit.com/r/wrestling/comments/2r9nwy/whats_the...
As someone who is quite strong and fit, but has a family history of obesity, and who has been packing on the kilos into their 40s - I've recently started with ozempic and it's a breakthrough drug. The incessant never ending demand to eat, that voice which never goes away and pervades every part of the day and task, the call which is almost impossible to ignore ore even after months of dieting and managing macros - it got moderated down from a 10/10 volume to about a 2/10 volume. I've started dropping the gut fat, and 6 weeks in my energy is coming back up to levels it was at 10 years ago.
I'm hoping that this isnt a permanent solution, but that it permits me to reset my bodies relationship with food, insulin, fat accumulation and hunger signals in the long term as the signalling cells senesce, the fat is reduced and demands less maintenance, etc.
That's not an accurate statement. Over the past year I have averaged 2 hours of aerobics per day (~1500 active CAL). And I've simply buffeted my way eating multiple portions per day and haven't gained any weight.
It have a lot to do with a lot of exercises - it has little to do if you just had little exercise. It's all about the caloric balance, and it takes a lot of exercise to skew that balance while it's a lot easier to eat more.
This is just the latest [1][2] evidence for the obvious muscle wasting that will happen to a human body that is starved of protein and micronutrients. The muscles under the skin are being cannibalized for protein that’s missing in the diet and other biochemical processes that restore them are starved of the nutrients they need to function.
In my experience, it turned down the reward feedback for calorie dense food, and I would usually now prefer something like a lentil daal over a Dominos.
In my experience, the average American is looking at restaurants like McDonalds, Dominoes/PizzaHut, a local burger joint, and a "fancy" place like Olive Garden. They wouldn't be able to get something healthy like lentil daal if they wanted to, with the closest equivalent being a McDonald's salad.
or even more boringly: almost only bad things get called side effects rather than being redefined into the benefits
[1]: https://journals.lww.com/tcmj/_layouts/15/oaks.journals/down...
"Caffeine — a major component of many varieties of coffee and tea — has been identified as a possible trigger for heartburn in some people. Caffeine may trigger GERD symptoms because it can relax the lower esophageal sphincter (LES)."
I don't get GERD from Mate tea or energy drinks. So I think it's not the caffeine. Since they both contain high amounts of caffeine, even higher than black tea.
I've noticed that if I eat more fiber I can somewhat mitigate this. But it needs to be consistent. Not just a little extra fiber before coffee.
BTW a high-fiber diet can be a natural ozempic by raising GLP-1 levels.
My father also had headache his whole working life on Sundays, not realizing that drinking coffee all week days but not on the weekend, that was probably coffee withdrawal that was giving him a headache by day 2.