Context:

  1. I am almost 400 lbs
  2. I’m also being tested for sleep apnea
  3. I am diagnosed with binge eating disorder, which I’ve been taking Vyvanse for as well as for my ADHD
  4. I’m on the lowest dose of Zepbound, which will titrate up over time
  5. I’ve been on it a few days
  6. I gained quite a bit of weight after starting a microdose of estrogen, so there’s aspects of that in play as well
  7. I somehow managed to get my insurance to cover it with a copay of $15 for 4 weeks of meds (I went in expecting the price to be a prohibitive barrier and ready to be let down so this was a great surprise)

It’s kind of hard to describe how night-and-day it is. I had to google how quickly the effects happen because I thought I was gaslighting myself. Within hours of my first injection, I went from being unable to feel hunger until I was starving and being unable to feel full until my stomach hurt to being able to stop eating whenever I wanted. I can eat a normal amount of food and feel full. No nausea. No metal taste. None of the side effects that people complain about so far. I still enjoy the food. But for the first time in years I can stop thinking about food and having it invade my sense of free will.

All I can say is that if this is a normal relationship to food, everyone who’s ever implied I just wasn’t trying hard enough can go fuck themselves.

  • SootySootySoot [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    6 months ago

    I fully accept and support anyone using medication that they want and that makes their lives better, big whoop to that always.

    But, I would be amazed if obesity affected a meaningful number of people after say 10 years in a post-capitalism world. Capitalism has meant that:

    • Advertisements designed to exploit our monkey brains at every turn. Buses, TV, road signs, buildings, doors, phones, all the internet etc. you know the drill. We are CONSTANTLY being told to eat, this alone fucks people up more than they realise.
    • Food is coloured to make you eat more. It has additives that make you eat more. Most soft drinks are designed to make you thirstier. Companies explicitly poison their food to make people consume more.
    • Eating fresh, healthy food is effectively impossible. Every store bought apple you buy will be years old, and never tastes as good as a fresh one. Similar principles across the board - everything you eat has been stored for ages and thus tastes way, way, way worse. There are so many fruit and veg I thought I hated, for years, until I realised stores were just selling me rotted shit.
    • Government recommendations of nutrition are just straight up anti-scientific. The food pyramid is misinformation designed to make people eat more. It’s explicitly acknowledged that scientifically accurate education could make GDP fall significantly, because it might stop people overconsuming. When you start seeing it, you’ll notice every bit of food advice is “Eat MORE x” instead of “Eat less Y”.
    • Lobbying by the likes of nestle has pushed government recommendations for babies’ daily caloric requirements to significantly higher than anything scientifically supported. It has also pushed for all means to reduce breastfeeding. This means they get to sell more baby food, has hugely increased obesity in babies, and consequently fucks peoples’ brains and bodies up for life when it comes to food.
    • Let’s not get into that “you need to exercise to lose weight” is bordering on a myth, once again constantly being said by food companies.

    et cetera et cetera I could write on this for days. We live in a world that deliberately fucks people up and their whole lives at every turn because selling more food = money. Again, to be fully clear, full support to anyone who finds GLP-1 inhibitors to let them be healthier and happier.

    Obesity is virtually entirely caused by people who are chasing profit by exploiting and honestly outright abusing peoples’ minds and bodies.

      • SootySootySoot [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        I’m late to reply, but YES. There is still emerging, vague data that artificial sweeteners may actually fuck up your body’s response to sugar in very poorly understood ways.

        The idea being that when you taste sweetness, your body starts doing stuff to prepare for sugar - secreting gastric acid, making insulin, etc. but when the sugar doesn’t actually arrive, it gets confused and starts adapt - instead learning to NOT react properly to sugar, so that it fucks you up even worse than just having excess sugar. The small initial studies suggest (possibly very significantly) exacerbating diabetes, obesity, fatigue, acid reflux, while preventing you getting what your body needs from sugars.

        Still very preliminary and hard-to-pin-down research, but the plausible mechanism could result in (possibly unrevertable?) inability to healthily digest your food.

    • VibeCoder [they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      GOOD POST

      The only thing I’m skeptical about is that 10 year timeframe. 10 years for a massive decrease in childhood obesity? Absolutely. But for the adults that already have it, obesity is a disease and it’s not something you can propagandize your way into getting better.

    • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      And on the exercise point, our society is designed to make getting exercise inconvenient as well as profitable. Car industry fucked our cities and made them terrible places to live and of course no one can walk to work or the store. Sidewalks are non existent.

      So getting exercise becomes a personal responsibility. You have to pay $40/mo to a gym (usually a big chain one) that you probably have to drive to. If you don’t do that, you are just “lazy”.

      Walkable and bikeable cities with public transit that gets people to their jobs and schools means you get a decent level of exercise every day. Building green spaces that are accessible and not just in the gentrified town center is another reason to go outside and get a little walking. Throw in some of those outdoor bodyweight gyms interspersed throughout communities and you can go for a little evening walk, get some pullups or whatever in, and improve your mental health at the same time. Also connect to your community.

      What society makes easy is what most people are going to do most of the time, and only the wealthy can afford a healthy lifestyle with nutritious food, green spaces, and the opportunity to exercise. The working poor don’t have the time, money, or even access to these places and the easier option that capitalism has made available is fast or convenience food.

      In the mean time, increasing access to glp-1 drugs is a great option, as well as making sure people have access to the essentials like insulin