Comment by tick_tock_tick
7 hours ago
> It's much more effective to address the obesity problem on the front end.
Is it? GLPs cost literally pennies to manufacture in bulk. The government could easily justify a trillion to just buy the rights and give it away for free and still come out ahead on healthcare cost savings.
Everything your suggesting sounds like a lot of work by comparison.
GLPs require some good dietician advice to be given and followed to be effective, otherwise you are just trading off obesity for an eating disorder. You really have to do both, provide the high protein + high fiber food alternatives and the GLP to make cheating less likely.
Have you taken them? Because I see this “you still need virtue^Wdiscipline” refrain a lot, but it doesn’t match my experience or that of many others I know who use GLP-1s.
For me, I lost 50 lbs not exercising and not actively managing my diet. I felt better and all my biomarkers got better (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.). Later, I started to exercise and cleaned up my diet because I wanted to. Healthy food just tastes better now, and moving my body is satisfying rather than tiring. They are the closest thing to magic I’ve ever experienced.
I'm talking from direct experience here. Although I'm over 50 (years, not lbs) so that definitely can make my experience different from yours (assuming you are younger, but that's just an assumption, my health/body could also be different).
Also, constipation and muscle loss are real issues. Protein and exercise will help with muscle loss (well, I haven't really started weight training yet, just aerobic), but you need to up your water and fiber intake or you could be in for a very hard time. I'm glad that this didn't happen to you, and that you didn't have to take an emergency trip to the drug store to figure out what an enema was (and how to use it, ouch).