Comment by jajko
2 months ago
I've heard this feedback on Ozempic et al from my wife who is a GP some 6 months ago, when I mentioned how US is too much in comfort zone and addicted to HFCS to actually lose weight permanently, ever, so in good old weight-losing fads fashion they will just throw money at the problem, experiencing somewhat variable success and who knows what bad side effects.
My wife told me exactly this - potentially all muscle mass loss (and she made sure I understood that 'all' part), yoyo effect once stopping, potentially other nasty long term/permanent side effects, and overall just a bad idea, attacking the problem from a very wrong direction. Just look at musk for example - he pumps himself with it obsessively and the results even for richest of this world are... not much there (or maybe his OCD binging would make him 200kg otherwise so this is actually some success).
Then all the folks come who say how to helped them kickstart a positive change, like its something against those facts above. All the power to you, just don't ignore facts out there and don't let emotions steer your decisions. You only have 1 health and it doesn't recharge that much, and that short time we have on this pale blue dot is significantly more miserable and shorter with badly damaged health.
> like its something against those facts above
I’ve seen multiple friends go from eating like shit, including chugging sodas, to not compulsively ordering dessert and no sodas in the house. I think all of them have since quit Ozempic, each seeing some rebound but nothing comprehensive and, most notably to your argument, not in the behaviour modifications.
The only way to lose weight without damaging oneself is to combine more exercise with less eating, which means becoming comfortable being hungry. Yes, it's difficult -- especially after developing bad eating habits over a long time -- but moderation is required in all things. It takes a long time to become overweight, so the ramp down to a leaner existence must necessarily take a significant amount of time, or there's going to be added risk.
Just like in programming, there is no silver bullet; there's only hard work.
That's true for an individual, but if you're looking at a population then you're seeing a situation where we have zero other solutions that are actually effective at curbing obesity. The only "natural" way to solve it is probably to overhaul our entire culture, redesign our cities and neighborhoods, et c., and that's not happening.
Skinny people move to the US and get fat. They're not skinnier back in their home country because they've got greater willpower or are harder workers, but because they aren't in the US. If harder work isn't why skinnier countries are skinnier, we shouldn't expect it to help us out of our problem, and indeed, we have nothing else we've studied that is terribly effective over time, and certainly nothing cheap enough to deploy on a large scale.
Again, yes, for an individual your perspective is the only thing one has (well... until these drugs) but looking from a policy level, it's useless.
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> The only way to lose weight without damaging oneself is to combine more exercise with less eating, which means becoming comfortable being hungry
No, not really. Yes, this is how you lose weight, but this is not how you have to be to be a healthy weight.
I'm thin, I don't exercise, and I'm not hungry. I feel great.
I can sit around and jerk myself off about discipline, but the truth is I have none. I have done absolutely nothing to be in this position, it's all luck and factors far beyond my comprehension.
if a drug is able to induce that same feeling in others, I say go for it. It sucks that a normal caloric intake translates to pain, hunger, and constant brain noise for a large segment of the population.
> addicted to HFCS
HFCS consumption (along with added sugar consumption in general) peaked in 2000 and declined steadily until 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38094768
It doesn't give me much confidence bringing it up at all in this convo. As if replacing HFCS with cane sugar (55% vs 50% fructose) changes anything about junk food.
Consumption of HFCS and added sugar are both down significantly since 2000, with the decline in the former driving the overall decline in the latter.