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‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

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Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#951
post #938
post #574

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N of 1, but I've gone off it for months and maintained my weight.

How much did you lose, how long did you take it, and how long have you been off of it?

380->340 over 6 months. I was off for 6 months and maintained 340 with diet changes and exercise. You cannot go back to the old diet and expect to maintain. I'm back on now to lose some more.

Some other things I've learned:

Take the first shot on an empty stomach. Expect the first 3 days to be rough. Hunger is more than one sensation, and when you have severe calorie deficit, your body will feel very bad (at least at first).

It is critical to control your food environment - don't bring junk food home, don't go to restaurants too often.

I learned to slow down and enjoy the food reward, instead of trying to chase it. No words will tell you how to do this for yourself.

There is a feeling that I call "future hunger", where I don't feel bad, but I feel like I will in a while. In the past, my body and mind would get frantic when I felt this way. Now I have a very small snack and ask myself "do you feel bad right now, or do you feel like you're going to feel bad". Again, these words may not translate.

More than one serving of salty and sugary snacks should NEVER be within arms reach, and preferably not in the same room. Your mind will remember these snacks and oftentimes eat them without conscious effort.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#952

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TLDR: The modern obesity epidemic is mostly a mystery, things like higher caloric food, western diet bad don't tell the whole story. I think it tells more of the story than contaminants does. A candy bar is packed with calories and not that filling. This didn't exist a long time ago.

The article I linked is very thorough. It covers basic issues like that: "Today the rate of obesity in Italy, France, and Sweden is around 20%. In 1975, there was no country in the world that had an obesity rate higher than 15%. This wasn’t a steady, gentle trend as food got better, or diets got worse. People had access to plenty of delicious, high-calorie foods back in 1965. Doritos were invented in 1966, Twinkies i…

I love that series by Slime Mold Time Mold but I don't entirely agree with their conclusions. Sure, Doritos and Twinkies existed before 1980, but anybody who's been alive since the 60s or 70s can tell you that the food environment has changed dramatically in such a way that processed junk food is now much more accessible and makes up a larger portion of the average person's diet. There are probably multiple things going on that involve environmental contaminants, the food supply, and cultural attitudes towards food.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#953

I’m currently taking one of these drugs and it has been no less than a miracle in my life. I became obese when I was around 5, topping out around a 34 BMI. When I was 20 I lost a substantial amount of weight the old fashioned way (diet and exercise), and within 8 months I was BMI 23. Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. 7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29…

>longevity effects

Are you referring to any specific studies?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#954

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article I linked is very thorough. It covers basic issues like that: "Today the rate of obesity in Italy, France, and Sweden is around 20%. In 1975, there was no country in the world that had an obesity rate higher than 15%. This wasn’t a steady, gentle trend as food got better, or diets got worse. People had access to plenty of delicious, high-calorie foods back in 1965. Doritos were invented in 1966, Twinkies i…

I love that series by Slime Mold Time Mold but I don't entirely agree with their conclusions. Sure, Doritos and Twinkies existed before 1980, but anybody who's been alive since the 60s or 70s can tell you that the food environment has changed dramatically in such a way that processed junk food is now much more accessible and makes up a larger portion of the average person's diet. There are probably multiple things go…

Sure but they cover those aspects too. It may in fact be due to eating more processed food but only as a function of that introducing more contaminants into your body.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#955
post #136

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How was the process with insurance? About a year ago I tried to get on semaglutide and my insurer shut down every option. It was extremely demoralizing.

Check out compounding pharmacies or peptides.

What's the pricing you've seen?

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#956
post #843

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I was just saying the exact same thing to my wife yesterday. We’re both trying to lose weight, for the millionth time in the 20 years we’ve been together. Exasperated, I just said “I don’t get it. I was an artist who had no technical background, and was able to teach myself computer science and now I’m a highly successful engineer. I did that. And yet I can’t lose 10 pounds to save my life.” It’s so hard to eat healt…

You just don't want it bad enough. You like food more than you like being thin. That's all.

There’s clearly more to motivation, dependency, and even addiction than just how “bad enough” someone wants something.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#957

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https://www.prb.org/resources/for-women-in-the-u-s-obesity-l... . That correlation with income is almost entirely driven by women. Rich men aren't much thinner than middle class or poor men. Rich women are just a lot thinner than middle class or poor women. This tells a different story than cheap processed food.

Even your link ends with "Cheap Food, Unhealthy Food" and doesn't claim a refutation. It's' plausible higher income men aren't as concerned about healthy food as higher income women.

The claims I quoted were all facts. The article ends with a lot of interpretation of those facts that seem to be based on a lot of the authors priors and not at all based on good data.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#958

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I know what you mean. My doctor prescribed Naltrexone. The first day I took it I ate half my dinner and felt full for the first time in my life. As a middle-aged man I had never had that feeling before. Previously I assumed what people meant by feeling full is that you felt like you literally can't eat anymore. Unfortunately that stopped working for me after a few months. Hopefully this one will work better.

If that doesn't work out, I think they make a combination drug of naltrexone/bupropion if the naltrexone worked for you originally. The latter drug activates parts of the brain that are responsible for emesis and it works well with the reward blocking effects of naltrexone. Good luck either way.

Bupropion also helps increase dopamine and norepinephrine levels within the synaptic cleft. It was somewhat helpful for me when I wanted to reduce smoking. I was able to go from losing my mind if I went 90 minutes without a smoke to losing my mind after 3-4 hours without a smoke. I've heard anecdotal evidence from people I know that it helped with weight loss.

Personally, I can say that while Bupropion didn't help me lose weight that it did at least help me stop gaining weight. I've never taken it with naltrexone though. In fact, I'm long-term opiod agonist therapy for chronic pain developed in my early 20s. This actually has more or less the opposite effect of opiod antagonists such as naltrexone. They've definitely had a negative effect on my ability to lose or maintain my weight, although I seem to have achieved some kind of balance where my body plateaus after a certain weight.

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#959
post #479

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> Losing weight was extremely challenging and socially isolating. How was it socially isolating? I’m curious because I exercise and diet and this is not my experience. I understand it being challenging though.

Be overweight, bust out your healthy lunch at work. People will flat out tell you "Oh, it's so good you are trying to be healthy." So already you are being told that they thought you didn't care before and you have finally decided to make the "right" decision.

Slim people hear this in response to eating healthy food, too. In my experience, people are genuinely impressed/inspired to see healthy meals, or feel guilty about consuming junk they brought with them (so their comments are actually to themselves, small reminders that this is perhaps how they ought to be eating).

Re: ‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

#960
post #802

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Fat guy here: these side effects are pretty scary for somebody like me. 3 months of noticeably extra fatigue on top of my current baseline level of exhaustion seems to threaten serious psychological effects. 3 months of brain-fog sounds like a great way to get fired and really fuck up my life. If my "gastro situation" was noticeably worse than the unpredictable wildy-swinging nightmare it already is, I honestly have…

Another fat guy here. I haven't taken any of these drugs, but I stopped eating processed food (or anything with added sugar), avoided late night snacks, and lost around 30 pounds in 8 months as a result. I had the fatigue and such early in the process, but it sorted itself out eventually. The most important thing I recognized was that if I avoided eating late at night, I didn't feel awful waking up in the morning. I'…

> I'm embarrassed to say it took more than a year to change my behavior

That's nothing to be embarrassed about - I've taken decades to learn "easy" lessons". You should be proud you made the change and you can focus on the incredible results you have achieved!

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