Launch HN: Fella (YC W20) – Tackling men's obesity using medication and coaching

Extreme hunger, like others said. I'd class it as a subset of impulsive behavior, which is basically your primitive brain doing it's caveman shit and not listening to you, the conscious mind.

Apparently some people don't have this problem, which makes me incredibly envious (or would if I could feel anything).

It's this nagging thought of "JESUS CHRIST YOU'RE GONNA DIE IF YOU DON'T EAT A LOT RIGHT NOW!"

I've experienced it after hard days at work (construction), multi hour lifting, cycling 50km. Same shit every time. Surprisingly, unlike what my dumbass brain says, I don't die if I eat only a little and just go to sleep.

Counting calories didn't work btw. It actually made it worse as my primitive brain would know it's "starving".

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I don't know how young you are. Great story, but, sorry, no. Every single weight loss program claims exactly what you claim. And they all deliver pretty much exactly the same results. My guess is that about 10 to 20 percent of weight loss program participants achieve sustainable life-long objectives, keep the weight off and change their lifestyle. The rest are in a range between utter failure and yo-yo diet programs to some short term success, no long term behavioral modification and ultimately, a return to their prior state or worse.

Every single bullet point you list requires one thing that you cannot control --nobody can: A personal decision to change. And no pill is going to force this decision.

Look, maybe you are well-meaning, however, what you are looking to do here is no different from the myriad weight loss supplements out there. I know people who made millions peddling Garcinia Cambogia, Forskolin and other weight loss supplements on Amazon. I know people who swear by the stuff. I would be willing to bet that, statistically speaking the results are not very different from almost any other purported solution.

At the end of the day, the day weight loss isn't difficult at all.

In its harshest form its as simple as eating less. Even if you eat junk, if you eat less, you lose weight. Physics.

A more sophisticated approach is to learn and decide to eat better. In both cases no exercise is required beyond normal activity.

Even a person who is confined to bedrest --no exercise at all-- will lose weight if they consume less matter than their bodies process into energy and excrete. My mother passed away a couple of months ago. A couple of months before that she simply did not want to eat very much at all. The amount of weight she lost was incredible.

The issue with obesity is bad food, unhealthy eating habits being promoted from childhood and a situation where adults almost can't escape all the things that make them sick.

And yet, after all of that, it becomes a matter of making a decision. And it is a very difficult decision to make for most. To use an analogy, it takes far more effort to help someone who becomes a drug addict than to guide them down the right path from early childhood. That also happens to be far better for society.

To use a business parallel: You can build the best hotel, have the greatest and most amazing rooms, serve incredible food and have amazing customer service. And yet, you cannot force people to take a vacation.

And so, all the bullet points in your argument sound fantastic. If you go to Jenny Craig, or Weight Watchers, they pretty much claim exactly the same things. And their road to success is paved with the sorry bodies of the millions of people who thought they found magic, only to end-up exactly where they started --or worse.

The right solution isn't a pill. Its investing time, money and effort to change what we are doing about food and how we are destroying our kids health by not acting with their best interest in mind.

That said, congratulations. With YC's backing there's probably no doubt your startup will have a unicorn-scale exit. If there's one market segment were the same story can be used again and again to make billions it is the weight loss industry. So, again, congrats. Brilliant move.

Maybe the beliefs come from experiences of different 'types' and the types cause the beliefs?

> Your scolding of a clinically proven weight loss approach for not being what you did is solipsistic and ignorant.

Far from ignorant. It is an absolute fact --thermodynamics-- that no human being needs a pill to lose weight. So, stop with the holier-than-thou come-back and think.

This is no different from selling crap weight loss supplements to people. Why? Because they do not need that either. The fact that something is clinically proven means nothing. Why? Because people don't need it.

> Your approach is, like the others, one among many that will work for some people.

It isn't my approach. I only had to lose about 30 lbs. I could have done that going back to strength training, which was I was into before the pandemic hit. I decided to see if there was any merit to what my wife, the MD, was telling me.

Major "duh" moment: Of course it had merit! And of course it can work for absolutely everyone!

And, guess what, it does not cost $150 per month. No pills necessary.

The problem with obesity, particularly in the US, is systemic. Our food is unmitigated garbage and we train our kids to eat and crave this garbage from early childhood times. By the time they become young adults they are well on their way to a life of dealing with weight problems and a straight line into diabetes and other ailments.

You can't fix inflammation from food with pills, unless you want to be popping them for the rest of your life and end-up with other problems because of it.

This is going to sound weird: I am always astounded by how much I have learned by raising and training GSD's (German Shepherd Dogs). Stay with me for a second.

One of our GSD's developed a very serious problem a number of years ago. His skin smelled horrible and he lost all hear from his chest and belly. His coat looked dull, almost dead.

Not knowing what was going on I sought advice from our vet. He suggested I take him to a veterinary dermatologist. $2,500 and bunch of shots and pills later, we went home with a plan. Pop pills every day. Get this magical shot once a month.

Sure enough, in about four weeks his coat was nice and shinny again, his skin didn't smell and hair started to come back to his chest.

Back we went for another shot and more pills. This was running about $600 per month. The dermatologist said he'd have to be on this program for the rest of his life. Wow.

I decided to reach out to a number of GSD groups and breeders. A theme emerged from these conversations very quickly: Change his food. He is having allergic reaction to his food. Stop the nonsense the dermatologist is selling you.

So, I did. I figured I could try for a couple months and, if nothing changed, go back to the treatment.

We went with a high quality food with twice the protein content and far less junk carbs, etc.

Less than a month later this dog was in what I might describe as the best shape of his life. He looked great, was happy, didn't have smelly skin, his coat grew back on this chest and belly and was pretty much the picture of a healthy dog. This was many years ago. He has been on this better-food diet every since and looks and feels wonderful.

We have lost sense of just how important good food is for our bodies and minds. We accept that the garbage we buy at the market and restaurants is normal. Well, it isn't. This is the problem. The vet dermatologist was administering a government approved drug to my dog. It worked. And yet that was not really the solution, because it did not address the underlying problem. And that's the issue I have this startup. It isn't a solution. At all. Nobody needs this to lose weight.