‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

> Not that hard to stop yourself from going to the store again or ordering more

Well, actually...

I'm fat. Like BMI 40 fat. Most of my life I have been fat. I was laughed at in school for it, as far back as I can remember. It probably wasn't all that bad when I think back. Certainly not as bad as now. But I was the fat kid in class, and I felt like the fat kid.

Anyway, I have lost a lot of it at a few points. Once by going to a place with more disease than I could handle. Months of intermittent diarrhea helps apparently. And once I reduced intake to about 1200 kcal per day for a year, combined with walking around for 5 hours everyday. I got to BMI 26 or something. Not very obese, but still overweight. It felt amazing to be able to do a lot of things, but it also took a LOT of time and effort.

But then I got a job, and kids. And I started to backslide. Just an hour per day walking during my commute, instead of 5 during the day... And oh, that pastry looks gooood. Slowly at first, with intermittent periods of faster backsliding because life required a bit more from me.

I got it back faster than I lost it.

I have re-lost it a few times after that. Each time the losses are a bit less, and the peaks get a bit higher. I always gain it back faster than I lose it. And annoyingly, initially, gaining it back feels way better than losing ever does. Like finally laying down after a day of strenuous work. Or like the first breaths of fresh air after being cooked up in stale air for a while.

During my losing periods the things you describe help. Keep the food away, and you don't have to expend effort to not eat it. I even enjoy the healthy stuff.

But that's not how it is during my gaining periods, oh no. I get bored with the good food, and start craving the bad. I go to the shops to buy stuff. A small packet of candy at first, or a pastry. But that spirals out of control quickly. Soon I start scheming:

* How can I get the food without my family noticing?

* If I go to multiple shops I can buy twice as much without looking like a greedy fuck.

* Oh, and I won't be able to go tomorrow, so I should make sure I have supplies for the day.

* And eating only candy makes me sick, so I should also buy crisps so I can alternate and keep eating.

I'm in gaining mode now. I ate a box of Pringles, a box of cookies, and a box of candy, just today. In addition to the regular meals with my family. I'm here. I see myself doing this, but I can't seem to stop. Until it runs its course. After a few months or a year or two, I can usually cycle back into a losing mode for a few months.

A doctor might help, but I'm not going. The medical state of the art of dealing with obesity seems to be "just don't". A consult seems pointless and humiliating.

I've learned to take and make fat jokes, and other than that to not think too much about this. My BMI will probably keep oscillating higher and higher, and I guess that means I'll get some obesity disease at some point. Maybe that'll stop it, but I'm not confident it will.

I guess we all have our issues, and this seems to be mine. C'est la vie.

I’m sympathetic to anyone who feels they “need” to take these, and wants to encourage others to do the same. I’m sure they work wonders for obesity, and that’s great. But we cannot get something for nothing, so I have to wonder: at what cost?

A poster below me said that, at a population level, diet and exercise do not work. That’s mostly true. Most people don’t permanently change their diet and other lifestyle long term. I think that ignoring that they do work in the short term, and could work in the long term if adherence were better, overlooks something important.

Moving past that, we are an obese population. Or, at least, very overweight. Supposing diet and exercise do not work, what are we to do? I’d propose we look toward rectifying the causes. There are innumerable environmental factors today that make us fat: pollution, drug side effects, food advertising, alcohol, social pressure, widespread sedentary jobs and lifestyle, etc., etc., etc. If we focused on solving the problems that are making us obese, we wouldn’t need these drugs (or at least, not nearly to the extent we do). We used to live in a world like that. We know what it looks like. We know the consequences. We know our bodies and society can tolerate that world, and that it would solve our issues. Why not aim for a return?

Instead we will opt for another technical solution to our technical problem of obesity, causing all manner of unknown risks later on, and falling back to another technical solution to that technical problem. We will continue to layer on technique after technique to patch holes in the solutions we left in our last layer of solutions. The holes will grow larger and larger as we stack on more layers with more holes, and solutions will grow smaller and smaller as technology grows ever more specialized. The cycle is not sustainable.

I don't think _everything_ comes down to genetics, but a lot of stuff does, including the attributes you mentioned here.

It's generally perceived as awkward to not eat when you're with others in a place that's specifically for eating

I've done keto for three months and my body's ability to process fat has completely changed. I honestly think were never meant to eat as many carbs as we do in a day.

It sounds like a very similar symptoms except only for the first few weeks of Keto. Ketosis is where the body starts to use fats to produce its own sugars for the blood rather than relying on carbs to suppliment.

Anyway I'm off keto now and I find myself capable of burning fat simply by being more physical. It's really weird.