<story><title>‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04505-7</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AuryGlenz</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sorry, but I&amp;#x27;m a decently in shape person that tried semaglutide for reasons other than losing weight and I disagree.&lt;p&gt;While I&amp;#x27;m sure we all are a bit different satiety wise (and I&amp;#x27;ve found it greatly depends on how much I&amp;#x27;ve been eating overall recently), your experience on the drug is not what the rest of us feel like all the time.  It&amp;#x27;s unfortunately normal for our biology to basically want to shove calories down our mouths all the time.  I consciously pace my food intake every single day.  I just had a huge plate of nachos, some christmas cookies, and a pickle...and I could still eat more.  The only reason I ate that much is because I feel a cold coming on so I relaxed my usual limits.&lt;p&gt;The kind of &amp;quot;fullness&amp;quot; you get on semaglutide isn&amp;#x27;t natural.  I&amp;#x27;ve never felt like that my entire life.  The closest thing would be after something like a Thanksgiving meal, but that&amp;#x27;s more of a &amp;quot;my stomach hurts&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;I really don&amp;#x27;t feel like I can put more in my stomach.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;My sister in law is the skinniest, most in shape person I know.  She&amp;#x27;s 35, has had 3 kids, and has abs, an ass she clearly worked for, etc.  My wife (unfortunately) regularly compares herself to her and in this case also thinks like you, that it just comes naturally.  She gave me her old phone so I could test some stuff on it as I don&amp;#x27;t have an Android phone handy.  She didn&amp;#x27;t wipe it.  MyFitnessPal was on there, and she was limiting herself to 1400 calories a day.&lt;p&gt;Almost all of us work for it.  Truth be told, and please hold your downvotes for this, I get a little upset when the rest of you get to have insurance pay ridiculous sums of money for a medication that makes it easier for you than the rest of us, side effects aside, and you think it&amp;#x27;s simply evening out the playing field.&lt;p&gt;And it needs to be said in case my wife ever finds this: she&amp;#x27;s also ridiculously hot and even though she can&amp;#x27;t see it has, at times, been skinnier than her sister.</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>&amp;gt; It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it.&lt;p&gt;When I started taking semaglutide, I finally understood it. I&amp;#x27;d eat a salad... and be full and more than satisfied! I&amp;#x27;d look at a muffin right after lunch, and go &amp;quot;eh, better things to do with my time&amp;quot; instead of immediately having an overriding desire to eat eat eat. Before, I could eat half a pizza and still be hungry (way out of what my body needs); now, a slice is more than sufficient and satiety lasts well into the next morning.&lt;p&gt;GLP-1 agonists makes eating healthy trivial and automatic, instead of a dieting state where you&amp;#x27;re thinking about food literally constantly throughout the day for months or years on end.&lt;p&gt;Too many people are convinced that everyone has the same subjective experiences of hunger and craving, but it&amp;#x27;s simply not the case. Some people implicitly hold this idea because it&amp;#x27;s a convenient ideology that allows people to morally congratulate themselves for having a functioning satiety circuit.</text></item><item><author>danielvaughn</author><text>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.”&lt;p&gt;It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it.</text></item><item><author>windpower</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m also on one of these drugs (Tirzepatide) and have been for a few months. The first time I remember knowing I was fat was when a babysitter made fun of me for it at age 6. I&amp;#x27;ve been fat ever since and I&amp;#x27;m in my late 30s now.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve lost significant amounts of weight (60+ pounds) three times in my adult life, through simple calorie restriction (intermittent fasting, including before I&amp;#x27;d ever heard the term). Every time, I&amp;#x27;ve gained the weight back. At the beginning of 2022, I was the heaviest I&amp;#x27;ve ever been.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve accomplished very hard things in my life, including those that take sustained effort. Sufficient willpower isn&amp;#x27;t a problem for me in general. I honestly only ever hear &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s easy, just eat less and move more&amp;quot; from people that have never actually been fat. &amp;quot;I did it and I lost 15 pounds, no big deal!&amp;quot; and the like. 15 pounds is easy for me to temporarily lose too. I&amp;#x27;ve done it enough times I should know ;)&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve heard people say that the solution is to eat (healthy food) when you&amp;#x27;re hungry, and stop when you&amp;#x27;re full. The thing is, I&amp;#x27;m &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; full. I can eat until I physically can&amp;#x27;t eat anymore (not something I do regularly, of course), and as soon as my stomach has emptied a bit, I feel fairly hungry again. &amp;quot;Eat until you feel full&amp;quot; is literally a human experience I had never really had.&lt;p&gt;On this drug, I finally know what people are talking about. I still like food, and I still get hungry. But it doesn&amp;#x27;t dominate my thoughts. I eat, and don&amp;#x27;t feel like eating again for hours. I eat something that I&amp;#x27;d normally easily eat all of like a big burrito or whatever, and I feel quite full halfway through with no desire to finish. I&amp;#x27;m steadily losing weight, with none of the usual preoccupation with hunger, ascetic adherence to a strict calorie plan, etc. But above all, I feel like I must be experiencing what most thin people experience all the time. I&amp;#x27;ll be perfectly happy to take the drug for the rest of my life, though I do hope affordability improves.&lt;p&gt;As for side effects: I&amp;#x27;ve had some heartburn, but none of the other commonly reported side effects.</text></item><item><author>0xB31B1B</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29 BMI. This time I lost weight by doing an “eat every other day” diet. This was also extremely challenging, but easier than just counting calories and working out. After Covid and a lack of exercise I was back to BMI 30. I started taking tirzeparide this summer and have gone from BMI 31 to BMI 26 and still dropping. This is by far the easiest way to lose weight. The side effects for the first 3 months are quite bad, and include off and on strong nausea, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and constipation. I was eating &amp;lt;1k calories per day for a long time and feeling full. I expect to be on this drug long term. My blood work shows extreme improvements in cholesterol, BP, and other key health indicators. I believe that everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs for the longevity effects. They changed they induce in diet reduce the oxidative stress on the human body, even if the person is already thin.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_dain_</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;It&amp;#x27;s unfortunately normal for our biology to basically want to shove calories down our mouths all the time.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not for me.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;I consciously pace my food intake every single day. I just had a huge plate of nachos, some christmas cookies, and a pickle...and I could still eat more. The only reason I ate that much is because I feel a cold coming on so I relaxed my usual limits.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is completely alien to my experience.&lt;p&gt;I eat until I get full, then I stop eating. I do not have any difficulty whatsoever maintaining a healthy weight. I don&amp;#x27;t think about calories at all. I have no idea how many calories or nutrients are in anything I eat; I&amp;#x27;ve never paid attention to the that part of the label. It does not enter my mind for even a moment.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes I exercise regularly, sometimes I slip and get lazy for a while. Sometimes I eat a lot of fast food, sometimes I pull myself together and make better stuff at home. Throughout all this, my weight &lt;i&gt;does not noticeably budge at all&lt;/i&gt;. I&amp;#x27;ve been 20-22 BMI for my whole adult life.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Almost all of us work for it. Truth be told, and please hold your downvotes for this, I get a little upset when the rest of you get to have insurance pay ridiculous sums of money for a medication that makes it easier for you than the rest of us, side effects aside, and you think it&amp;#x27;s simply evening out the playing field.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t work for it. It doesn&amp;#x27;t mean I&amp;#x27;m a good and diligent person, it means I got lucky with my biochemistry and genetics. In another life, a different sperm would have met a different egg and I&amp;#x27;d end up with different alleles and I&amp;#x27;d end up fat.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t fair that I&amp;#x27;m living my life on diet easy-mode. If semaglutide can replicate this for people who aren&amp;#x27;t so genetically lucky, that&amp;#x27;s a fucking miracle.</text></comment>
<story><title>‘Breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04505-7</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AuryGlenz</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sorry, but I&amp;#x27;m a decently in shape person that tried semaglutide for reasons other than losing weight and I disagree.&lt;p&gt;While I&amp;#x27;m sure we all are a bit different satiety wise (and I&amp;#x27;ve found it greatly depends on how much I&amp;#x27;ve been eating overall recently), your experience on the drug is not what the rest of us feel like all the time.  It&amp;#x27;s unfortunately normal for our biology to basically want to shove calories down our mouths all the time.  I consciously pace my food intake every single day.  I just had a huge plate of nachos, some christmas cookies, and a pickle...and I could still eat more.  The only reason I ate that much is because I feel a cold coming on so I relaxed my usual limits.&lt;p&gt;The kind of &amp;quot;fullness&amp;quot; you get on semaglutide isn&amp;#x27;t natural.  I&amp;#x27;ve never felt like that my entire life.  The closest thing would be after something like a Thanksgiving meal, but that&amp;#x27;s more of a &amp;quot;my stomach hurts&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;I really don&amp;#x27;t feel like I can put more in my stomach.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;My sister in law is the skinniest, most in shape person I know.  She&amp;#x27;s 35, has had 3 kids, and has abs, an ass she clearly worked for, etc.  My wife (unfortunately) regularly compares herself to her and in this case also thinks like you, that it just comes naturally.  She gave me her old phone so I could test some stuff on it as I don&amp;#x27;t have an Android phone handy.  She didn&amp;#x27;t wipe it.  MyFitnessPal was on there, and she was limiting herself to 1400 calories a day.&lt;p&gt;Almost all of us work for it.  Truth be told, and please hold your downvotes for this, I get a little upset when the rest of you get to have insurance pay ridiculous sums of money for a medication that makes it easier for you than the rest of us, side effects aside, and you think it&amp;#x27;s simply evening out the playing field.&lt;p&gt;And it needs to be said in case my wife ever finds this: she&amp;#x27;s also ridiculously hot and even though she can&amp;#x27;t see it has, at times, been skinnier than her sister.</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>&amp;gt; It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it.&lt;p&gt;When I started taking semaglutide, I finally understood it. I&amp;#x27;d eat a salad... and be full and more than satisfied! I&amp;#x27;d look at a muffin right after lunch, and go &amp;quot;eh, better things to do with my time&amp;quot; instead of immediately having an overriding desire to eat eat eat. Before, I could eat half a pizza and still be hungry (way out of what my body needs); now, a slice is more than sufficient and satiety lasts well into the next morning.&lt;p&gt;GLP-1 agonists makes eating healthy trivial and automatic, instead of a dieting state where you&amp;#x27;re thinking about food literally constantly throughout the day for months or years on end.&lt;p&gt;Too many people are convinced that everyone has the same subjective experiences of hunger and craving, but it&amp;#x27;s simply not the case. Some people implicitly hold this idea because it&amp;#x27;s a convenient ideology that allows people to morally congratulate themselves for having a functioning satiety circuit.</text></item><item><author>danielvaughn</author><text>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.”&lt;p&gt;It’s so hard to eat healthy, I honestly cannot fathom how people do it.</text></item><item><author>windpower</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m also on one of these drugs (Tirzepatide) and have been for a few months. The first time I remember knowing I was fat was when a babysitter made fun of me for it at age 6. I&amp;#x27;ve been fat ever since and I&amp;#x27;m in my late 30s now.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve lost significant amounts of weight (60+ pounds) three times in my adult life, through simple calorie restriction (intermittent fasting, including before I&amp;#x27;d ever heard the term). Every time, I&amp;#x27;ve gained the weight back. At the beginning of 2022, I was the heaviest I&amp;#x27;ve ever been.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve accomplished very hard things in my life, including those that take sustained effort. Sufficient willpower isn&amp;#x27;t a problem for me in general. I honestly only ever hear &amp;quot;it&amp;#x27;s easy, just eat less and move more&amp;quot; from people that have never actually been fat. &amp;quot;I did it and I lost 15 pounds, no big deal!&amp;quot; and the like. 15 pounds is easy for me to temporarily lose too. I&amp;#x27;ve done it enough times I should know ;)&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve heard people say that the solution is to eat (healthy food) when you&amp;#x27;re hungry, and stop when you&amp;#x27;re full. The thing is, I&amp;#x27;m &lt;i&gt;never&lt;/i&gt; full. I can eat until I physically can&amp;#x27;t eat anymore (not something I do regularly, of course), and as soon as my stomach has emptied a bit, I feel fairly hungry again. &amp;quot;Eat until you feel full&amp;quot; is literally a human experience I had never really had.&lt;p&gt;On this drug, I finally know what people are talking about. I still like food, and I still get hungry. But it doesn&amp;#x27;t dominate my thoughts. I eat, and don&amp;#x27;t feel like eating again for hours. I eat something that I&amp;#x27;d normally easily eat all of like a big burrito or whatever, and I feel quite full halfway through with no desire to finish. I&amp;#x27;m steadily losing weight, with none of the usual preoccupation with hunger, ascetic adherence to a strict calorie plan, etc. But above all, I feel like I must be experiencing what most thin people experience all the time. I&amp;#x27;ll be perfectly happy to take the drug for the rest of my life, though I do hope affordability improves.&lt;p&gt;As for side effects: I&amp;#x27;ve had some heartburn, but none of the other commonly reported side effects.</text></item><item><author>0xB31B1B</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;7 years later, I had a bad ankle injury and regained weight to about 29 BMI. This time I lost weight by doing an “eat every other day” diet. This was also extremely challenging, but easier than just counting calories and working out. After Covid and a lack of exercise I was back to BMI 30. I started taking tirzeparide this summer and have gone from BMI 31 to BMI 26 and still dropping. This is by far the easiest way to lose weight. The side effects for the first 3 months are quite bad, and include off and on strong nausea, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and constipation. I was eating &amp;lt;1k calories per day for a long time and feeling full. I expect to be on this drug long term. My blood work shows extreme improvements in cholesterol, BP, and other key health indicators. I believe that everyone, even the skinny folks, should be on GLP1 drugs for the longevity effects. They changed they induce in diet reduce the oxidative stress on the human body, even if the person is already thin.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scarmig</author><text>&amp;gt; I consciously pace my food intake every single day. I just had a huge plate of nachos, some christmas cookies, and a pickle...and I could still eat more.&lt;p&gt;You give some thought to it every day, but do you think about it every minute? You could still eat more, but do you still have the same intrusive hunger to eat that you did before you started the nachos?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Almost all of us work for it.&lt;p&gt;Your claim here seems to be that you work for it harder than people who have less success. But do you have any actual evidence of that?&lt;p&gt;Like, can you truthfully say that to keep your presumably healthy BMI you overcome nearly constant thoughts about how hungry you are? Can you eat an entire pizza and &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; be hungry except it&amp;#x27;s physically painful to eat?&lt;p&gt;People vary in their experiences of satiety. Many people do manage to be thin without constantly feeling hunger; that&amp;#x27;s what being on semaglutide does.</text></comment>