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Goodbye, Ozempic

theatlantic.com

41–50 of 89 posts

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#41
post #9

I’m delighted that there are all these new alternatives. Not only because I believe they will help people. But selfishly because I take .75 mg a week to help manage my glucose level and the weight loss users have made the drug hard to get (even though a dose as small as mine doesn’t help weight loss — in fact I’ve been gaining weight, something I have struggled to do). A couple of months go the drug stopped being bac…

You sure thats Ozempic? Sounds like Trulicity based on the dose.

I’m on a .25mg/week dose, so I wouldn’t discount the dosage report.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#43
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been debating whether to ask my doctor about trying it. My whole adult life I’ve been struggling with my weight and tried nutritionist, apps, you name it and can’t keep the weight off for more than a year. I hate vomiting so this is making me rethink. Thanks for sharing very helpful.

I personally take ozempic and have also prescribed it to ~150+ patients for diabetes. I've maybe had to stop it in ~8 patients for tolerability issues. We unfortunately usually dont get to hear many chiming in to say that they tolerated it just fine. I do (2mg/week), down 45lbs. Being heavy is really bad for you. Don't be so quick to write it off d/t the possibility of vomiting.

How long does the vomiting last if you have a bad reaction? More than a day?

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#44
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can make this change — the causes of obesity are not well understood. For the morbidly obese, exercise carries risk too — to joints and the heart, for instance. A large weight reduction (whether via GLP-1 antagonists, gastric band, or exogenous trauma) can both motivate and make easier other changes like the ones you advocate.

At the end of the day, isn't it just burning more calories than you take in every day to lose weight? If you can't exercise and are gaining weight, shouldn't you be able to reduce calorie intake until you start losing weight. I think we are organic machines, there isn't any magic involved.

There may not be any magic, but there is science advanced enough that we cannot tell the difference (the impact of personal microbiomes is largely unknown at this point).

And the reality is that simply taking in fewer calories will often cause your body to burn fewer calories because your body is meant to conserve energy for the times when it is needed to run away from the bigger predators.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#45
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been debating whether to ask my doctor about trying it. My whole adult life I’ve been struggling with my weight and tried nutritionist, apps, you name it and can’t keep the weight off for more than a year. I hate vomiting so this is making me rethink. Thanks for sharing very helpful.

Of course everyone's struggle is personal. For me, I have been listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast, reading Aubrey Gordon's new book, and learning that a lot of what we hold as fact or "common sense" about weight loss is untrue, that individual bodies respond very differently to the same diet and exercise schedule, and that a lot of the ideas around fatness are rooted in a cultural anti-fatness that views fatn…

> that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them

Yes, these issues have been studied and questioned. In traditional hunter-gatherer societies (people whose diet and lifestyle matches what humans evolved for), obesity is almost unheard of, as are diabetes and other metabolic diseases. But when these same hunter-gatherers adopt a modern lifestyle and diet, their rates of these diseases go way up. From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity is not a purely natural phenomenon, but caused in part by modern lifestyles.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#46
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can make this change — the causes of obesity are not well understood. For the morbidly obese, exercise carries risk too — to joints and the heart, for instance. A large weight reduction (whether via GLP-1 antagonists, gastric band, or exogenous trauma) can both motivate and make easier other changes like the ones you advocate.

At the end of the day, isn't it just burning more calories than you take in every day to lose weight? If you can't exercise and are gaining weight, shouldn't you be able to reduce calorie intake until you start losing weight. I think we are organic machines, there isn't any magic involved.

I agree and I'm not understanding the seemingly dissenting opinions in the larger comments. This is basic thermodynamics.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. You're not saying lifestyle choices are ineffective, you're saying telling people to make those changes is ineffective. Yes, that I would completely agree on.

I think you’re actually not very well informed despite being confident of your position. The body attempts to maintain stasis at a given weight. “Lifestyle choices” as a solution are essentially a constant uphill fight against your body and its signals. High probability of failure, because there is no point at which your body stops telling you to eat more to reach the weight it thinks you should be. I think now that…

You're absolutely right on all of those points. You have to eat less for a long enough period of time where the body adapts to that new, lower amount of calories. Then it becomes easier to maintain. But at the start it's really rough. Constantly feeling hungry isn't fun.

But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not doable. For the vast majority of people it is doable without any form of medication. It will be slow and uncomfortable, but doable.

I think that a prescription should be a last-resort option for people who genuinely have a condition that makes a traditional method not possible. There's a variety of reasons for that, from monetary ones to health concerns about being on something like these medications long-term.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#48

An alternative / replacement without the side-effects would be huge. Since I started 1mg / week of Ozempic, the phrase "power vomiting" has become part of my vernacular where it never was before. Just last night I was overcome by a round of puking that rivals stuff you'd see in a horror movie. :-( It doesn't happen often (2 times this year so far) but when it's bad, it's BAD.

I, personally, have actually been having pretty good results with berberine (yes, yes, I know its a TikTok trend right now). Its really helped control my hunger and I haven't noticed any side effects.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#49
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can make this change — the causes of obesity are not well understood. For the morbidly obese, exercise carries risk too — to joints and the heart, for instance. A large weight reduction (whether via GLP-1 antagonists, gastric band, or exogenous trauma) can both motivate and make easier other changes like the ones you advocate.

At the end of the day, isn't it just burning more calories than you take in every day to lose weight? If you can't exercise and are gaining weight, shouldn't you be able to reduce calorie intake until you start losing weight. I think we are organic machines, there isn't any magic involved.

A lot of people think that their daily calorie intake is lower then it actually is. A pill or injectable is not a cure to this problem, no matter how good they say it works.

Re: Goodbye, Ozempic

#50
From what I understand, Ozempic works by slowing down digestion and thus reducing appetite. If that is the case then wouldn't this be precisely evidence that caloric restriction is all you need to reduce obesity?
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