Comment by sethhochberg
6 days ago
High-protein everything is riding the wave of GLP-1 popularity right now. Doctors are begging people on that class of drugs to chase protein targets more similar to what might have previously been reserved for heavy weightlifters just to prevent muscle wasting.
As a result, the entire packaged food industry is pumping up protein numbers and marketing it as the primary attribute of the food (where they might have previously marketed low fat or low sugar or whatever else in the past).
So, saturated market... but certainly one people are investing in now.
Can verify. Am on a GLP-1 drug and I eat seek much more protein and fiber than before.
Don't forget the US administration jumping on the train and throwing the full weight of the diet culture, sorry "Healthy eating" clique at "Ending the war on protein" as an absurd part of the culture war.
Very fun. The only war on protein I have been a part of is personally removing hundreds of pounds of protein from circulation. By eating it. I think I'm winning.
I hear the most ironic stuff on glp from the people I know on it. So doctor is obviously a reasonable person with an interest in making people healthy, not trying to set up glp addicts, and are encouraging better diet and increased exercise while eventually tapering and getting them off the glp entirely as the final end goal.
The whole time they are telling me this I can't help but wonder what the hell is the point of the glp1 here? You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow. So its like there is no point. Might as well just rip the bandaid off, diet and exercise, get there 6 months slower, while not taking the glp. Like wouldn't you want to actually increase muscle mass while burning fat?
If you are 3-400+ pounds, quickly shedding 100+ pounds makes exercising MUCH easier, and the accompanying loss in appetite will HOPEFULLY teach you better portion sizes. Countless morbidly overweight people have tried for years/decades to lose weight, without success, and GLPs allow them to bootstrap the process.
Yes, CICO, blah blah, but overcoming food addiction by asking people to eat less is like forcing a smoker who wants to quit to work at a cigar bar or something. You can't just not buy food, especially if you have a family you have to feed.
When you talk about morbidly obese usually that is when you start seeing egregious portion sizes. Like multiple plates of food. Multiple big macs. I'm pretty sure they are aware that a portion is just one big mac and probably not the largest fries and coca cola. GLP isn't much of a helper in that I don't think, and makes me think whenever they go off the glp they will just go back to multiple portions since the issue circles back to willfully ignoring recommended portions.
But that being said everyone I know on GLP (only like 3 people admittedly) isn't close to obese. Maybe at most 40-60lbs overweight. And again all getting the recommendations for diet and exercise interventions, which they are all starting up, but begs the question whether they could have just lost those couple dozen pounds starting up diet and exercise without having to go on the drug. Especially as the drug isn't actually "doing" anything like raising resting metabolic rate to physically burn more calories, but instead slowing digestion and making you feel as though you are more full to trick you into taking in less calories.
> while eventually tapering and getting them off the glp entirely as the final end goal
It's an honourable goal but the evidence isn't great for that
> You still have to improve diet and regularly exercise anyhow
You don't have to. Should though.
When the drugs are working as intended, you'll lose weight without 'trying' to improve your diet, exercise will speed up the weight loss, but isn't strictly necessary for it to "work". Encouraged, sure, but you'll get weight loss from the appetite suppression alone.
The 'high protein' advice is because a lot of glp1 consumers had poor diets to begin with, and they're catabolic drugs. Combine that with reduced appetite and you're at risk of insufficient protein consumption to maintain whatever muscle mass you started with.
Because long-term calorie restriction is 100x harder than popping a pill and downing a protein-and-fiber shake, and you can't outrun a burger but you can outlift a calorie deficit, so lumping them all together under "improve diet and exercise somehow" is a nonsensical rhetorical flourish / troll move?
I believe all glp are intravenous on the market currently unless some oral one is out now. Not sure what you are saying about trolling, I was genuine.
I lost weight the regular way. You don't understand how much will I expend to not continuously eat. The strategy I deploy: I never have ready-to-eat anything home, I cook everything just before I eat it, I chose ingredients based on their satiety index, I always have something to drink. I fast 5 days every year to 'reset' my grahlin levels (it still hurts, even if it's way less than it used to). I'm still at 26 BMI, so overweight (from 33 to 28 in 3 years, from 28 to 26 in 5).
I have a very good support system. Not to brag, but my parents are amazing, my family have a small amounts of doctors who helped me getting through it at first. My siblings are great too, and my SO support me despite my quirks. I love sailing, which is a great way to loose weight. And I'm a SWE, the easiest job there is when you're not bad at it, that makes good money without real responsibilities or stress. It was still fucking hard. If glp1 can help people less lucky than me, let them have it.
I realize there are probably a lot of low hanging fruit in my own consumption habits that let me generally coast into healthy BMI that for a lot of people, nonobvious tradeoffs might block. I'm a water and black coffee drinker for example. That puts me up a good couple hundred calories on the day compared to people who might reach for something sugary instead. I'm active every day, exercise, and play sports, another couple hundred calories from that. That's not even getting into the actual eating and I'm up probably well over a thousand calories on a lot of people a day.
The “easily constrained” people like the person you are responding too don’t understand. I’m not sure they ever will.
Ive also done it the right way, and it was literally easier, by far, to get a masters degree while working 40 hours a week than it was to drop from 250 to 175. Incomparable. The constant mental pressure to eat, to eat more, to search the cabinets, to stop at x on the way home, etc.
I’ve heard “wow sounds like a severe addiction” yeah no shit. It’s an addiction to a substance you MUST have 2-3x a day. Imagine if you needed alcohol twice a day to live.
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