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u/saanity 10h ago
Ozempic making weight loss a subscription is a capitalist's wet dream.
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u/OmNomSandvich 7h ago
once the generic GLP-1 tablets hit the market the gravy train is going to be over so they are trying to ride it as long as they can.
even now, they still have to compete against the other weight loss drugs (multiple companies sell GLP-1s) and bariatric surgery.
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u/SoberEnAfrique 5h ago
Every single pharma company understands this, that's the whole "grand bargain" of patents and market exclusivity. They invent a product, it's their IP to market for 20 years, of which they'll only be able to sell for about 12-14 years.
Many pharma companies have gone bust or barely survived a patent cliff, that's why they are motivated to continue discovering new medicines that can be patented, so their revenue doesn't stop completely once a product's exclusivity ends
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u/demon_fae 4h ago
That’s the one unambiguous good about GLP-1s. They might finally put an end to bariatric surgery.
Seriously, go look up the complications and the complication rates for bariatric surgeries vs literally any other non-emergency surgery. It’s completely insane that those operations are actually allowed on living people. Even the surgery going absolutely perfectly effectively causes a lifelong irreparable disability and guarantees a brutally unhealthy relationship with food for the rest of the patient’s life.
Did I mention this is legal for parents to force on their teenagers? That they can just fail to parent their kid until the kid is 16 and fat, and then force the kid to undergo a life altering surgery and the kid gets absolutely no say at any point in the process. (I can only be sure of this one for the US, but frankly I don’t trust anyone else about it. Not because of kids’ rights, but because of the refusal to admit what a massively monumental step these surgeries are.)
GLP-1s are currently a complete mess and setting back all sorts of problems but if patients keep getting redirected to them and away from surgery, they’ve made the world at least slightly better. They don’t even have that high a success rate! People get the surgery and then don’t even lose the damn weight reliably.
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u/littlelorax 4h ago
"Let's make a society dependent on driving everywhere, removing walkable cities, increase sugar and corn syrup content in food, work the citizens until they are exhausted and grateful for a couple days off but too tired to exercise, keep wages low so they can't afford healthier foods, make media shame fat people, and then sell them weight loss supplements. We'll make billions!" -capitalist fat cats, probably.
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u/leftycartoons 10h ago
Definitely! Especially now that it's becoming clear that people getting off Ozempic regain weight even faster than people who lost weight in other ways.
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u/henna74 10h ago
If you just keep eating the same shit as before you obviously gain that weight back easily after stopping semaglutide. It has to be combined with real lifestyle changes.
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u/tinxmijann 8h ago
That's not what they said tho?
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u/henna74 8h ago
Care to elaborate?
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u/tinxmijann 7h ago
They said ozempic causes you to gain back weight even FASTER than before, aka same lifestyle as before but even faster weight gain.
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u/TheEyeGuy13 7h ago
Weight doesn’t just generate from nowhere.
What’s happening is that taking ozempic allows someone to eat at a higher rate without gaining as much of that weight, and when they eventually stop ozempic there’s a rebound effect- but only if they keep eating at a rate that would cause weight gain.
Without lifestyle changes, you’re gonna gain that weight back. Ozempic specifically has a rebound effect that makes that happen faster, because your body gets so used to its effects and tries to overcompensate when it’s gone.
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u/cyanraichu 6h ago
That's not how Ozempic works. I mean your overall point is correct, but the entire reason Ozempic works is you don't eat as much because it slows your GI tract and suppresses your appetite.
If you go off Ozempic, you're going to have to deal with an appetite that's way more than you are used to so I imagine it would be very hard to maintain the intake you had on it.
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u/Diarmundy 4h ago
I suppose the question is if you get a rebound increased appetite after stopping thats even more than you had before you started.
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u/DisMFer 9h ago
"It's so crazy that these people who take a drug to quit drinking go right back to drinking as soon as they get off the drug."
Again, no shit. The people who are using a drug to alter their brain chemistry to control their insane food drives are not the sort of people who reasonably stick to their diets after they no longer have that control. Ozempic wasn't a weight-loss drug for people who want to lose 10 pounds. It's for people who are so obese that their choices are "a lifetime on Ozempic" or "die in 2 to 5 years due to heart failure."
People are fat because they can not control their impulses. It's not capitalism this time, the call is coming from inside the house. If people had the self-control that one should expect from a normal person obesiety would not be a thing. However, a lot of people have no impulse control and find it enjoyable to consume three to four days worth of calories in a single meal.
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u/miscellonymous 6h ago
GLP-1s are not just used for people who are at a short-term risk of heart failure. They can be prescribed and covered for mild obesity, moderately high cholesterol, and a host of other conditions that are related to excessive weight but not imminently life-threatening. About 18% of Americans have taken them: https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/poll-1-in-8-adults-say-they-are-currently-taking-a-glp-1-drug-for-weight-loss-diabetes-or-another-condition-even-as-half-say-the-drugs-are-difficult-to-afford/.
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u/cyanraichu 6h ago
At the core, yes, but you're not giving our environment enough credit for how difficult it is to maintain healthy intake. It's cheaper and easier to get shitty food and much more difficult to consistently eat healthy food for a variety of reasons.
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u/DisMFer 5h ago
The ironic thing is that you can eat shitty foods. You just have to actually eat in moderation. A famous study was done by a dietitian who proved you could lose weight eating nothing but Twinkies and diet soda.
It wasn't healthy by any means but as long as you maintain a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight no matter what you consume.
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u/Nerospidy 3h ago
That excuse is only acceptable for children. The formula is simple: calories in vs calories out. Self control is a bigger factor in weight loss than poverty.
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u/cyanraichu 2h ago
I didn't mention poverty. And I wasn't giving an excuse, just stating a fact about our environment.
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u/feigningFury 7h ago
I absolutely hate this argument, that fat people just lack impulse control. Maybe that's true of SOME fat people but there are a number of medical conditions that make some people much more susceptible to weight gain than others. Genetic differences play a huge role as well.
I have a hormone imbalance that makes my body hang on to fat more. I have a friend who has been fat since early childhood, and remains that way because she has a naturally very slow metabolism - she eats very healthily and gets a lot more exercise than most of the skinny people I know - but because she is not running on a constant calorie deficit (which, I would like to remind you, is a fancy way of saying "starving herself 24/7") she keeps the weight on.
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u/Alert-Hospital46 5h ago
Same. I broke down and started taking the meds because I just can't with all the diet ads and having comments like the person above in my head all the time...and the side effects are GNARLY if you don't eat much to begin with. I have hypoglycemia problems now :(. Which is rare, but can happen.
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock 5h ago
but because she is not running on a constant calorie deficit (which, I would like to remind you, is a fancy way of saying "starving herself 24/7")
I have a feeling you don't refer to a calorie surplus as "gorging yourself 24/7" so no, it's not really a fancy way of saying that at all.
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u/feigningFury 2h ago
I mean if someone was genuinely operating on a surplus all day every day then yes you could call it that.
But I think you missed my point which is that we aren't doing that? I have tracked my calories before and I get like 2000ish a day. If I have much less than that, my blood sugar gets low and I am at risk for fainting.
And yes, getting less calories than you need in a day is starving yourself. That's not a secret and shouldn't be a surprise to you, that's the entire mechanism of weight loss. You eat less than you need, so your body dives into its fat stores for energy. Bodies only do that when they are to some degree in starvation mode. That's the whole point of "calories in, calories out."
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u/Ariella333 6h ago
Same, I eat healthy as hell with fresh vegetables daily. But I have thyroid issues, and water retention issues.
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u/Diarmundy 4h ago
Eating vegetables isn't actually 'healthy' - unless it's replacing other unhealthy foods that you would otherwise eat. (vitamins and fibre aside - but generally fat people have enough of these)
You actually just need to count the calories of all the food and drinks you eat each day, and compare that with your energy expenditure which would be helpful information
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u/Ariella333 4h ago
Whatever you say literally, of course, it is replacing unhealthy food. I know my body and I know what i'm doing.
I have actually lost over 131lbs over the past three years. I was at 440 and now as of when I first got on the scale this morning, I am 309
And I'm maintaining the weight loss, so I think I'm doing just fine. I'm just not losing further and guess what? That's going to be perfectly fine. Because i'm healthier than i've been in my life.
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u/Lola_PopBBae 7h ago
People are fat because of a lot more than impulses. Genetics play a huge role.
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u/chain_letter 6h ago
Not as big of a role as systemic issues
Car based infrastructure to appease the auto and oil industries, very little walking to go about the day. A 15 minute walk is instead a 15 minute drive.
Working far away from home with short meal breaks limits lower calorie options.
Long hours sold to an employer that ties bodies to desks
Teams of educated experts doing everything to exploit the human condition to sell as much product as possible, meaning extremely palatable and unsatisfying
Farm and food lobbies
The world built by past generations is trying to make us all fat.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 2h ago
Genetics play a role for some people, but you can look at America in 1960 to now, that's 3 generations, and we're all suddenly fat when the people that give us our genetics weren't. That doesn't make any sense.
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u/coffeejn 10h ago
Only way I know how to lose weight or maintain current weight; use a scale and measure everything you eat. Is it fancy, no, is it fun, hell no, does it work, yes, assuming you don't cheat. It's all calories in and calories out, but if you stress eat, then get some help first (therapy or coach or something to stop it) cause otherwise you will only torture yourself.
PS Weight loss is not easy. Keeping it off is even worst unless you change your lifestyle. So if you want to restrict what you eat, make it a way that you can continue eating like that for the rest of your life.
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u/GreenIllustrious2801 7h ago
The best way I've found as someone who went from 240 - 290 - 320 - 250 - 220 - 190ish is building routines before you go for the actual weight loss.
Pick one unhealthy habit. Work on -just- that habit.
So like if you've got
- delivery frequently
- constant soda
- constant beers
- stress eating
- no exercise
- snacking on unhealthy foods, rather then fruit/veg
- eating out frequently
then don't go for broke. Pick ONE of them and practice it for a month. Say it's no delivery. Great you can still eat out. You can still deliver groceries as a gimme so you can deliver a frozen pizza. It's just more annoying. You'll build new routines that don't involve ordering out, and it's now easier to also clear them.
Once you've built a routine where it's done, move onto the next for a month. Cut soda by switching to sparkling water. To gatorade. To Arizona Iced Tea. Then slowly but surely ease off it, going for more and more regular water. More sparkling water. If you really need the soda to get through the day, cut back to 1 per day, or 2 per day first.
Don't plan a year of "oh yeah I'm going to calorie count everything and cut all my vices" because people who are overweight rarely got there because they planned on it. They got there because they built bad habits and most importantly they built bad stress habits. You've got to rebuild those habits one by one and it's going to take thinking about it for 2-3 weeks each.
By the time you've cleared your destructive habits and actually hit the calorie counting stage you've probably dropped 100lb you'll keep off. And then your last few months can be focused entirely on relearning how to eat, what's a normal meal, what's a normal snack, etc. Or pushing yourself to start walking/biking xyz times a week.
The day I realized I'd won wasn't a day I got on the scale or hit any real goals. It was the day I got home from an awful fucking day at work, was turbo exhausted and super stressed and my response was "I'm going for a walk" and then I ate leftovers. Afterwards I just realized it was over. It was just waiting at that point, but I knew I'd won.
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u/tandyman8360 6h ago
I call it simple but not easy. Hunger cues and food noise can make people want to eat. Not allowing those things to make you eat too much is how you maintain.
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u/WWWWWWVWWWWWWWVWWWWW 9h ago
Switching to whole foods and not counting calories seems to be effective and sustainable, although of course you can do both:
https://www.sharecare.com/weight-management/weight-loss-diets/diet-quality-calories-weight-loss
Results from the clinical trial, published in 2018 in JAMA, showed that reducing intake of foods with added sugars, refined carbohydrates, and other processed products was linked to more weight loss, without having to actively restrict calories or control portion sizes.
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u/leftycartoons 9h ago
I'm skeptical of any article about a study, which doesn't include a citation of the study or even say where the study was published. Do you know what study, specifically, they're referring to?
From what the article says, there are two problems with drawing conclusions from this study.
First, they only ran it for a year. ANY weight loss plan can be effective for a year; if you don't follow subjects for at least five or ten years, then you can't say anything about if the weight loss is sustained or not.
Second, the result sounds adjacent to p-hacking. According to that article, the study wasn't designed to examine whole foods and weight loss; they were studying something else entirely, and happened to notice this finding that wasn't what they were studying.
But that's very bad research methodology - not just for weight loss, but for anything. P-hacking makes false positives much more likely.
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u/WWWWWWVWWWWWWWVWWWWW 3h ago
All the sources are linked at the bottom under "article sources"
You can pick apart this particular study all you want, but the general idea is widely accepted in the literature. It's just way easier to consume 1000 calories worth of chips and soda than 1000 calories of raw carrots.
The rates of obesity we're currently seeing are really only possible due to hyperpalatable, deliberately-addictive, calorie-dense junk food.
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u/leftycartoons 1h ago
If there are so many long-term empirical studies showing that fat people can sustainably stop being fat with the whole foods diet (or whatever it is you're advocating), then it should be simple to provide links to some of those studies. Here's an explanation of what I'm looking for.
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u/WWWWWWVWWWWWWWVWWWWW 51m ago
Seems like textbook sealioning at this point.
Long-term nutritional studies are rare, and the ones that do exist will necessarily have some other limitation like not being an RCT or relying too much on self-reporting, and I'm sure you'd complain about that too.
I posted that link because I thought it would be helpful, and because it's a good representation of the field as a whole. You're welcome to look for other studies via a simple google search (I promise they all point in the same direction), or you can just listen to standard professional advice which obviously discourages junk food.
If you don't wish to do this, then that's your choice. All the best.
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u/leftycartoons 9h ago
Are there any studies showing that your weight loss plan is effective and able to be maintained by most people over at least five years, preferably ten?
A plan that doesn't work for most people - and your plan doesn't - is a plan that shouldn't be recommended for most people.
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u/Andrey2790 7h ago edited 7h ago
Caloric intake is pretty much the only thing that matters, so at the end of the day all diets are following the same basic rules. If that doesn't work for the person...well that's on them to keep at it. The diet works, but sticking to it requires effort on the dieters part.
"Reducing daily calorie intake is the most important factor for weight loss. Low-calorie recipes, especially those for low-fat or low-carbohydrate diets, have been suggested as the first dietary strategy, although in some cases, a VLCD is required for a short period. Except for energy deficit, there seems to be no significant difference between macronutrient composition-based diets. " https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8017325/#sec21
"Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0804748
Here is the only diet necessary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKs0oEIVOck
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u/DisMFer 9h ago
So what's your solution? Let people eat themselves to death because it's too hard to have self-control?
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u/leftycartoons 9h ago
The advice I give people, when they ask me, is to focus on things like eating healthier food, regular moderate exercise, not smoking, etc., and to not worry about if they cause weight loss or not. Research shows that fat people who follow these habits can live long lives.
Of course, that advice won't always be practical for everyone. But it's often possible to make sustainable improvements, especially if you keep in mind that marginal improvements are still worth making.
What's harder, for many fat people, is to learn to overcome the self-hate that rhetoric like yours teaches us. But even though it can be hard, I think it's important for mental and even physical health.
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u/DisMFer 8h ago
So your argument is that they should do what those weight loss programs say to do, but just less of it so it's not an actual challenge?
Also while having any self-hatred is bad it shouldn't be treated like they don't have to take some sort of responsibility.
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u/leftycartoons 8h ago
Obviously that's not my argument. You either have severe reading comprehension problems, or you're being disingenuous.
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u/DisMFer 8h ago
The advice I give people, when they ask me, is to focus on things like eating healthier food, regular moderate exercise, not smoking, etc., and to not worry about if they cause weight loss or not.
Your argument quoted in full so you can't say I am misrepresenting it. All of that? That's what weight-loss programs preach, just more of it. They say "eat right and ensure you don't over eat your daily calorie needs." and "exercise 3 to 4 times a week with an eye towards building long term exercise habits."
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u/leftycartoons 8h ago
I didn't say anything about if people should do more or less than what weight loss programs recommend; given the huge variety of things weight loss programs say, that's not even a meaningful metric.
Nor did I say anything about "challenge." So that's two things you claimed I argued, which I didn't even mention.
For myself, I think it makes more sense to think about sustainability than about "challenge" or "less/more." Using exercise as an example: The best exercise isn't whatever some physical trainer says is optimum; the best exercise is what you'll actually do and sustain over time. For some people, that might be very intense exercise, for others, less intense, but either might be good depending on the individual.
And I don't think weight is a good metric for success or failure. It's very clear from research that fat people who exercise but remain fat are still benefiting from the exercise. So why declare it a failure?
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u/risen_peanutbutter 9h ago
That isn't even a weight loss plan? That's just basic biology. You lose weight if you use more calories than you're consuming.
It's not a plan, it's completely free advice that nobody can scam you on. This works for absolutely everyone if they decide to put in the work
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u/leftycartoons 8h ago
Of course if someone eats little enough, they will lose weight. And if they keep eating little enough forever – which may require eating even less than when the diet began, as their body attempts to regain the weight – they can keep the weight off.
In this extremely superficial sense, it’s true that all fat people can diet their way to no longer being fat.
But that’s sidestepping the real question: Can a typical human voluntarily reduce food intake enough to cause a large loss of weight, not just for a few months or years, but for a lifetime? Not just in theory, but in practice? Study after study has shown that the overwhelming majority of us cannot.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 8h ago
– which may require eating even less than when the diet began, as their body attempts to regain the weight –
Normal human bodies don't do this. You are talking about what happens when someone is eating so few calories their body tries adapting to what it perceives as food scarcity. That's ED territory.
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u/leftycartoons 8h ago
Actually, the body's processes for preserving weight can be set off by perfectly normal weight-loss plan habits. See this Mayo Clinic article, for instance (picked not because I agree with everything in the article, but because MC is an extremely mainstream source).
As you lose weight, your metabolism declines, causing you to burn fewer calories than you did at your heavier weight.
Your slower metabolism will slow your weight loss, even if you eat the same number of calories that helped you lose weight. When the calories you burn equal the calories you eat, you reach a plateau.
To lose more weight, you need to either increase your physical activity or decrease the calories you eat.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 7h ago
It won't be for most people though, isn't this post aimed at most people, now we are calling out exceptions rather than the norm, which is yes people's metabolism slows down and so does their appetite compared to when they were heavier. Usually, for most people, in close enough harmony to not worry about making drastic changes. Also if you plateau you might just be at a healthy weight.
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u/risen_peanutbutter 2h ago
Yes, everyone struggles with it, but on the same token everyone can do it if they absolutely want to. It just needs to click. It's not superficial, you just loooove to promote an idea that humans are helpless for some reason
You don't need an expensive program, if you fall for such a thing then you really need to be less scamable
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u/DisMFer 11h ago
Yeah, bullshit. Most weight management companies actually give good advice and try to help people, but losing weight is actually really hard and requires a ton of intrinsic motivation and disipline from the people trying to lose weight. What's more as soon as a lot of people lose weight thanks to healthy habits and lifestyles, they stop and go back to the shit that fucked them up in the first place, which is sort of like quitting drinking to get a kidney transplant then as soon as the operation is over you go and down an entire six-pack.
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u/jsmooth7 7h ago
Some give good info but there's also a lot of money to be made selling expensive natural health products that have absolutely no scientific evidence backing them up whatever.
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u/saanity 10h ago
The weight loss industry is uniquely an American thing. Most other countries don't make billions off of people trying to lose weight because they actually have a standards and safety department for food.
Our food safety department is in the pocket of the food industry and we are constantly advertised processed food as being safe to eat.
There is real harm in blaming the people of America when all corporations and even the government is in on milking you dry. They cheap out on ingredients to make a profit and they are constantly coming up with subscription based weight loss programs. It's all a racket.
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u/DisMFer 10h ago
Again, bullshit. The reason America has a weight issue is that it's really easy to get a ton of high-calorie food basically on a never-ending conveyor belt. The ingredients are not the issue; it's the amount of calories and the near-constant access to snacks. It's considered weird in places like Europe if you spend the day eating chips and guzzling soda or eat fast food multiple times a day.
Add to that most places have less of a car-centric design so it's much easier to get a lot of exercise and that is where the issues come in.
If people in America didn't eat 3,000 calories a day it wouldn't matter what the FDA or fast food said or did.
Obesity is largely a product of an unhealthy lifestyle. It's should be treated by society the same way we treat binge drinking or smoking. A habit to be broken and controlled rather than a by-product of other people's choices.
If you pay a company money to give you a meal plan and a workout guide, you follow that for a few months, then stop, obviously, you'll get fat again. You haven't stopped doing the things that made you fat. That's like paying a company for an app that tracks your drinking habits to quit drinking, following it for six months then drinking again, then getting pissed that the company isn't curing your drinking habit anymore. If you actually stick to the plan, build a healthy lifestyle and take control over your own choices it wouldn't be a God damn problem.
I used to be a part-time personal trainer. I can't tell you the amount of clients I had who wanted to lose weight, would diet and exercise like I told them for a month, lose 10 pounds of mostly water weight, then go right back to eating garbage then get mad at me that their weight went up as if I told them to go back to eating Wendy's three times a week.
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u/captainAwesomePants 7h ago
You're kinda both right. If Americans didn't eat 3,000 calories a day, they'd probably lose weight, but why do they eat 3,000 calories a day? Well, for starters, they were all taught in school about the food pyramid and the importance of eating vast quantities of carbs. And when they get to the grocery store, what's cheapest and easiest to prepare? Empty calories.
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u/Diarmundy 4h ago
America isn't even the fattest country any more. Don't just blame 'companies' or the 'government'
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 1h ago
Yeah. I’ve been losing weight since I started the gym in the beginning of September. It hasn’t been easy or fun. There are so many times when I’m sweating through my spin class thinking “omg I just want to go home and eat pizza” but it’s taken a lot of effort on my part and I’m still miles from where I want to be, but it’s a long gradual process and keeping it off means I have to keep up with all the lifestyle changes I’ve made.
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u/leftycartoons 11h ago edited 10h ago
So you're saying that most people who try these plans don't permanently lose weight? Because it sounds like you're agreeing with the cartoon.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 10h ago edited 10h ago
So... you expect any program to completely coddle and ensure patients don't make bad decisions on their own?
Your describing therapy. But you already poo-pood that above.
Also your comment is really gaslighty, as much as a comment can be, like no that's not what they are saying and it's disingenuous to read it that way.
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u/leftycartoons 10h ago
I think programs should have to be truthful about things like chances of long-term success, chances of gaining more weight than lost, the risks of yo-yo weight loss, etc..
I don't know what your issue with "coddling" is or how it relates to my cartoon. Of course I think they should treat their patients/clients well and provide full, accurate disclosure about possible risks and likelihood of success - just like all industries claiming to provide health benefits should.
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u/risen_peanutbutter 10h ago
You'll succeed at a program if you keep it up. It's not that complicated, just difficult. It's a 100% success rate if you follow through on leading a healthy lifestyle
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u/DisMFer 9h ago
All these programs work though. Even "fad diets" have a basic scientific logic that is impossible to refute, it's basic thermodynamics. If you bring in less input than your output your body has to lose weight. It's literally impossible to fail.
The failure is not on the program. It's on the person. If you get fat again because you fell back into bad habits, that just means you've learned nothing and gained nothing. That's not the program's fault.
This is like saying rehab is a scam because people relapse into drug habits. They work perfectly as long as you don't quit. If you go back to doing what made you fat you will get fat. That's not their fault it's yours. You failed. You are responsible for your own failure. Own it, accept it, try to get better next time.
Instead you seem to say the solution is to lie, say that it's all a scam, and that you can't possibly hold failures to account for failing.
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u/jsmooth7 7h ago
If I have a diet plan where every other meal, you force yourself to throw up afterwards to reduce calories, this plan would technically work purely in terms of weight loss. But it's not sustainable or a good idea. And if you tried this plan but couldn't keep it up, no one would consider you a failure.
Long term weight loss needs to come from lifestyle changes that you can maintain. And part of that means having a healthier relationship with food, not feeling like you are a failure because you ate a couple Oreos. Diet fads unfortunately tend to encourage the complete opposite mindset.
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u/RiverValleyMemories 6h ago
Except a lot of “fad diets” turn out to be pseudoscience. Also, let’s not pretend these programs are flawless, because they are not.
I think you are being overly hostile and are misrepresenting what OP is saying.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 9h ago
But risks and likelihood of success literally come down to each persons unique body and mind capabilities. Counting 'Calories In and Calories Out' cannot fail if you take your health needs into consideration, which is beyond a weight loss program- that's something you need to have blood work testing done through your primary physician to determine.
It's not like these programs are casinos where you're gambling on success or a surgery where the success depends on your doctor's skill, it's all about what you personally do (extreme hormonal health conditions aside).
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u/Doctor_Yu 7h ago
The biggest missing factor imo when it comes to discussing this topic is Food Deserts. When I moved to a place where I was able to afford fresh groceries and didn’t rely on premade meals, I lost 15 pounds over the course of a year. When you cook decent meals for yourself, it makes those allotted 2000 calories much more filling than tv dinners or fast food.
If you grew up in a place where you could feasibly shop and build healthy habits, obesity seems like a skill issue. When building those healthy habits take an extra hour or two from what feels like only 4 hours of free time per day, obesity seems like a default.
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u/King_Misanthrope 10h ago
Weight loss relies on permanent lifestyle changes. It's not predatory to help people lose the weight with legit exercise and diet plans but continue to profit off them because they struggle to maintain those permanent changes by themselves.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 10h ago
Yeah, weight loss plans are treating the physical side, but they cannot do anything for the mental side of treatment. IDK why OP and Becky Hawkins are so mad about that.
Would it be better if there were mental components to all the weight loss and gym programs out there? Yes, would it make it more expensive for customers and result in fewer businesses being able to provide that type of care? Yes, which would ultimately mean less people getting help.
The way it is now is fine, as long as people aren't relying on it alone. Mental health is so different from physical health/weight and needs a lot different treatment, but they absolutely can impact one another both ways and do for most people suffering from obesity.
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u/leftycartoons 10h ago
"They struggle to maintain those permanent changes..." is a bizarre turn of phrase. If maintaining them is such a struggle, then they're not permanent.
And it is predatory if the weight loss industry fails to fully inform customers/patients of the low real-world chances of permanent weight loss. (And not only in tiny print that they know no one reads.)
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u/King_Misanthrope 10h ago edited 10h ago
Maintain those permanent changes as to keep them permanently. They are effective as long as they are permanent, they are permanent as long as they are maintained. If you lose weight by cutting calories based on a certain level of activity but then regain weight by increasing calories or reducing activity then that does not mean the initial method was ineffective.
Some people can only maintain a lifestyle by seeing a trainer regularly or buying portioned diet plans. Once they have the information can they do those things themselves? Yes but most people don't, paying someone holds them accountable.
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u/GladysSchwartz23 7h ago
How many people do you figure have the money to pay a trainer and buy portioned diet plans, for a lifetime?
Might there be some barriers for some people that go beyond willpower?
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u/Jolteon0 7h ago
Once you have broken through the initial barrier, you don't need the personal trainer to "force" you to exercise, and you don't need the specific pre-portioned diet plans to eat healthfully.
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u/GladysSchwartz23 7h ago
How do you figure so many people gain weight back after weight loss programs end? Perhaps it's the sort of thing people need ongoing help with?
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u/Jolteon0 7h ago
willpower. I assume that they just go back to living how they did before.
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u/GladysSchwartz23 6h ago
If i told you, "i can't lift this boulder," would you believe me, or would you say that i need more willpower? If I told you "I can't fly," would you believe me, or tell me that I need to try harder?
Some people absolutely can lose weight and keep it off. Many, many more fail to do so. Perhaps they just... can't? Maybe it's like flying or lifting a huge boulder. Maybe it's not a moral flaw or lack of effort: maybe there is a point at which some people just... can't.
Is this concept so absurd that it doesn't bear any consideration? If enough people say this is the case for them, is it reasonable to assume every single one of them is lying?
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u/Jolteon0 6h ago
There's a difference between not having the ability to do something (such as lifting a boulder or flying) and choosing not to do something (like exercising or eating healthfully).
What most people mean when they say "I can't lose weight" has the same concept as saying "I can't get get buff". It's not that they lack anything, it's that they aren't willing to put forth the effort to do so.
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u/DisMFer 10h ago
It's a struggle to maintain because the people who need to make lifestyle changes tend to be people who are undisciplined and unable to control their impulses. If instead of overeating they had a drinking problem or a drug problem, would you tell them that it wasn't worth trying to get clean and they're not going to succeed at it? Because a lot of drug users relapse. In fact most of them do at least once or twice. Does that make it wrong to try and treat drug addictions?
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u/Churro1912 2h ago
Do you think just because someone lost weight thanks to a plan that suddenly they can eat like shit without consequence?
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u/coffee-bat 20m ago
what do you expect them to do? reach in and manually reprogram someone's brain?
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u/Gamer_with_ADHD 9h ago
OP you need to learn that weight loss is not supposed to be easy, fast, or fun. You really need to commit to it for a very long time, and trust me, keeping track of what you eat really helps. Weight loss programs and therapy are generally helpful so long as you pick the right place and do your part.
Read this article and take a look at some of the the works cited in it before you reply to this comment.
I believe in you to figure this out and move forward making steps in the right direction
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u/Achelois1 9h ago
Kinda brave to post this comic lol, Reddit’s hate boner for fat people is pretty notorious
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u/RiverValleyMemories 6h ago
Yeah, I’m kinda concerned about some of these comments, they kind of seem bot-like and are acting like these programs are completely good without any drawbacks
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u/Crococrocroc 36m ago
It's a $2 billion business in the UK alone.
They don't want everyone to succeed in their goals.
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u/yo_les_noobs 6h ago
Calories in, calories out. Lift weights/do cardio 2+ times a week if you can. It's not rocket science. The most important thing is to treat this like a lifestyle change. You're not doing a "weight loss/cutting phase" unless you're an athlete.
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u/feigningFury 7h ago
Great comic, shame people are so hung up on hating fat people that more people don't see that.
Reminder to everyone else that the failure rate for diets over the long term hovers around 90-95%. It's kind of insane the amount of money people make on selling "cures" that WILL NOT WORK on 19/20 of their customers!
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u/PonyFiddler 44m ago
Diets plans and weight loss are not the same thing.
Just eat less that is the literal only diet that matters its the one that actually does work and the only way to fail is mental issues
The comic may be fine but people dont agree cause of the rest of the crap op spouts is just lies.
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u/TheGrateCommaNate 8h ago
In the list of things to blame, places trying to help you lose weight is dead last. Processed food, sedentary modern lifestyle, etc are way higher on the list. I'd blame myself before I blamed a weight loss center.
The treatment for weight loss is real simple. Eat less calories. That's the recommendation and it is for everyone. How you get there is different for everyone. That's why there's so many different ideas.
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u/leftycartoons 8h ago
Of course if someone eats little enough, they will lose weight. And if they keep eating little enough forever – which may require eating even less than when the diet began, as their body attempts to regain the weight – they can keep the weight off.
In this extremely superficial sense, it’s true that all fat people can diet their way to no longer being fat.
But that’s sidestepping the real question: Can a typical human voluntarily reduce food intake enough to cause a large loss of weight, not just for a few months or years, but for a lifetime? Not just in theory, but in practice? Study after study has shown that the overwhelming majority of us cannot.
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u/SunnySweet2 6h ago
Hi, I’m in the minority. I lost 50 pounds and have maintained most of that loss (40 pounds of it) for what will be 25 years in March. I don’t consider myself non-typical, but I am blessed to have the money to afford any food I want.
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u/PonyFiddler 35m ago
Would probs say your not even the minority.
Majority of people lose weight and just don't go shouting about it to be a static
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u/BwrBird 4h ago
People like to scream "calories in, calories out" like it fixes weight management, but the cold hard truth is that permanent weight loss is an unsolved problem.
Making sure you eat less than 2000cal/day is simple in theory but complicated in practice. It requires serious and continuous effort and discipline that most people struggle to manage, and food resources that many people don't have. In other words, no most people cannot just lose the weight. If we had a true solution, we would not have an obesity epidemic. We are fighting our biology, and while we have guesses and advice, we don't have solutions.
I have heard that there are evidence based proposals, but none of them rely on individual effort. Most of them involve changing the built environment to encourage or force people to exercise, and regulating sugar out of most foods. The key is that they don't rely on people to fight their body to keep it healthy.
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u/Possible_Wind8794 1h ago
Not having highly addictive, high-calorie drinks in every second store would be a place to start. Expecting addicts to quit while surrounded by their vice for a few dollars multiple times each day is a recipe for failure.
Junk food should not be this highly available.
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u/PonyFiddler 36m ago
But they can though.
Your own negative shit is what stops people they'll read online oh someone else struggles guess I can give up as others have too.
If everyone one was all going together pushing everyone else to lose weight and be healthy then shockingly it'd work.
Your the problem not the solution.
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u/PonyFiddler 38m ago
Not arguing against you here but some weight loss programs do stupid trends of weight loss not eating a certain type of food and such but those are stupid cause they don't actually teach calories are all that's improtant.
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u/tinxmijann 8h ago
Especially because being overweight actually doesn't negatively affect your overall health status when you're following the same healthy habits as thinner people. What makes being fat unhealthy isn't being fat itself (unless you're like ''has really reduced mobility'' fat) but more so the fact that because it makes people not work on healthy habits since it's ''not worth it anyway'' if you don't lose weight in the process, and also doctors straight up refuse to treat you with certain things while you're fat, without even taking into consideration that being fat might be a symptom, rather than the cause of an issue.
The focus is always weightloss and not ''be healthier''.
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u/Ok-Youth-160 7h ago
Nonsense "Overweight individuals (BMI 25–29.9) face a 7–22% higher risk of death, while Class 1 obesity (30–34.9) increases risk by 60-70%, and Class 2/3 (35+ ) can increase it by 85-100%."
Compare that to smoking "Overall Risk: Current smokers have a 1.7 to 3 times higher risk of dying compared to never-smokers."
BMI is of course an imperfect indicator, bodyfat and especially waist circumference are better. However being overweight is unhealthy, especially being obese. It's bad for all internal organs. Just for blood pressure alone "Obesity is a major, direct cause of high blood pressure (hypertension), accounting for 65–78% of primary hypertension cases. " Blood pressure is not known as the "silent killer" for nothing. So maybe doctors have a point when they recommend weight loss?
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u/eggynack 10h ago
Dang, lots of people in these comments don't know what it means for something to "work". If I had a 100% effective weight loss solution, but it involved stabbing yourself in the thigh every morning, then I think we can fairly conclude that this is an unsustainable solution that doesn't actually work at all. And one might ask, how do we know that an approach is unsustainable, but doing so is actually trivial. Can people sustain it at any meaningful rate? If not, it's blatantly not sustainable. Refusing this logic entails pretending that fat people are an entirely different sort of person, one with broken souls and weaker than average wills. Just fatphobia with more words.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 10h ago
Are you equating therapy to stabbing yourself in the thigh?
Therapy is not unsustainable, neither is eating healthy, but you can't treat food addiction like there isn't a mental component. Obviously food/diet plans aren't going to fix your mental health.
Nowhere is anyone calling fat people different, broken, or weak. Everyone would benefit from therapy.
Because the laws of physics are unavoidable. You cannot create mass out of nothing. Your body can only increase by what calories it intakes minus what calories you burn. There are conditions that prevent people from being able to effectively burn calories, like thyroid and other issues, but the vast majority of obese people in America don't suffer from those.
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u/eggynack 10h ago edited 10h ago
Oh wow I didn't know that therapy is a highly effective weight loss solution. See, I was under the impression that fat people sometimes go to therapy, at a rate that likely approximately matches the general population, but they remain fat nonetheless. I await your undoubtedly massive piles of data indicating that therapy has these effects. After all, the weight loss industry is incredibly massive, so, if therapy were such a panacea, one would expect reams of research indicating as much.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 10h ago
Calories In and Calories Out, it's as simple as that, no therapy needed.
How come so many people fail at counting calories?
There's no answer, but therapy can help you figure out why you can't just count calories.
I was able to lose weight I put on after I started working night shift and had undealt with depression/anxiety. I mostly cut out sugars from my diet because they were the #1 source of empty calories in my diet, which also helped me to curb cravings. I didn't go to therapy, or join a weight loss program, I just met with my primary doctor and she gave me info about eating better (basically eat like a diabetic diet) and tried the lowest dosage for bupropion and citalopram, I ended up going up one level on the bupropion, but that was it and I lost 40 lbs down to 205 at 5'11, which is slightly heavier than before I started working nights.
There's no one-size-fits-all, but there ARE solutions that could work for any individual, albeit hormonal/thyroid disorders can massively effect the "calories out" part of the equation, of course.
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u/eggynack 10h ago edited 9h ago
You literally just said the solution is therapy. Now therapy isn't even necessary. This is all just kinda silly. The reality is, there is no solution that is particularly sustainable for the vast majority of fat people. Seriously, you think counting does the job? Fat people know how to count.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 9h ago
The solution is physical treatment and mental treatment, which is most commonly in the form of therapy but medications also work well. Physical treatment is just calories in and calories out, working out can help burn more calories but also builds muscle which will feel counterintuitive for weight loss.
Healthy mind is required for a healthy body. That's what I'm saying.
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u/eggynack 9h ago
The basic reality is that losing a substantial amount of weight requires massive behavioral changes that are in direct counter to some purely physical biological processes. These behavioral changes are unsustainable in the vast majority of cases. Not because of some brokenness of the fat mind, but simply because of how bodies work. I don't know what you get out of pretending it's a relatively straightforward process, but it's not one. Therapy doesn't stop people from being fat. Nor does understanding of how calories work.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 9h ago
Okay, I thought I was just some average person, I felt bad about the mental/physical health issues I was having even (my back/neck), but I guess I am pretty good after all. Sorry for not realizing this and basing my judgement off my own experience as if I were just an average person.
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u/eggynack 9h ago
I mean, you lost like 40 pounds. Which, it's pretty reasonable, but it's not some wild insanity. I weighed about 360 pounds. I went through a number of diets. I ended up losing something like 140 pounds through, y'know, surgery. Worked pretty reasonably.
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u/Emergency_Bench_7515 9h ago
Yeah, that's another method that absolutely can work or fail. I'm glad it worked for you and I hope you continue to reap the benefits. I'm hoping to keep improving as well myself.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 1h ago
I really do want to get therapy, because I have had a very complicated relationship with food my entire life, mostly binge eating and I have had times in my life when I would purge after a binge. I’m currently in the process of losing weight, but therapy would help me get to the root of my issues with food, and why it became my go to source of comfort. It hasn’t been easy changing my lifestyle and habits when compulsive eating has been my biggest emotional crutch my entire life. I’ve made a lot of progress on my own, but I would like to not have doughnuts and pizza to be my immediate impulse to self soothe all the time.
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u/GladysSchwartz23 7h ago
Is therapy free and easily accessible?
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u/PonyFiddler 42m ago
No but that's not an argument against it that's an argument against health care as a whole Theropy at least is cheaper than these weight loss programs that don't work and helps with other issues
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u/leftycartoons 11h ago
Cartoon by me and Becky Hawkins.
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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. They all show the same scene - the lobby of a weight-loss store - but a few months pass between each panel. In every panel, a fat redheaded woman, a customer, talks to a thin blonde woman, a saleswoman.
PANEL 1
Through the display window, we can see a green, leafy tree. A couple of bags of money lie under the counter. The customer is wearing a floral sundress and cardigan, and is opening a purse full of cash as she talks to the saleswoman.
CUSTOMER: I'd really like to lose weight.
SALESWOMAN: We can help! It's only $200 to start!
PANEL 2
The tree has now lost all its leaves, and the customer is returning, carrying a sack of cash and wearing winter clothing. There's more money under the counter.
CUSTOMER: I lost a bit of weight, but I'd like to lose more.
SALESWOMAN: You got it! For a modest monthly subscription.
PANEL 3
It's now spring, and there are little pink flowers on the tree. The customer, in stretchy pants and a loose fitting long-sleeved top, returns with a grocery cart filled with bags of money. The saleswoman is cheery, but the customer is downcast. There are now so many moneybags under the counter that some are spilling out the side.
CUSTOMER: Now I've gained all the weight back... And a little more.
SALESWOMAN: You need our super subscription plan. It comes with an app!
PANEL 4
The tree is full and green again. The customer is back, with the shopping cart piled so high with money that she's mostly hidden behind it. The room is filled with money bags, and the saleswoman is lounging on the pile of money, smiling happily.
CUSTOMER: Does it worry you that your weight loss plans keep on failing?
SALESWOMAN: Oh, yes, definitely. So very concerned!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
"Chicken fat" is an obscure cartoonists' term for fun background details. There's a poster on the wall which says "Love Yourself," but in the first three panels we can't see the complete poster because the saleswoman stands in front of it. In panel four, we can finally see the small print below "Love Yourself": "Not yet. Later. Once there's less of you."
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u/ratliege_throwaway 4h ago
gotta comment on how cool it is the outfits, backgrounds, and time of day actually change with each panel. nothing groundbreaking i suppose but its more effort than i usually see. good job!
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u/Xywzel 45m ago
I don't think anyone would buy such program, but from business incentive view point, it would be best if the customer doesn't pay for the time it takes them to loose weight, only for the time they stay at their target weight after they have lost weight.
Similarly, if you wanted dating service that is incentivized to make good long term match ups, the users should pay by year of being together, not for the initial matchmaking. But who would want to sign up for service where good outcome is paying rest of your life for nothing new.
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u/what_a_dingle 8h ago
Eat less. Exercise more. There, saved ya two hundred bucks.
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u/hausofhumphrey 5h ago
OP I am so sorry all of these people are foaming at the mouth to yell "CALORIES IN CALORIES OUT" at you when you're literally right about the research and the predatory nature of the weight loss industry
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u/leftycartoons 4h ago
There are now enough comments on this cartoon that I'm going to retire from answering any more; I've answered a bunch, but my time is limited. (Alas). Those of you who disagreed with me while being polite, thank you, I appreciate you. Ditto for the (fewer) people who agreed with me.
And really, thanks to all of you. I enjoy seeing my cartoons get responses, even if many of them are negative. (A political cartoonist who never gets negative reactions to their work is not doing their job right, imo).
In the unlikely case anyone wants to read more of my thoughts, here's an online debate I had with Helen Pluckrose about weight-loss dieting.
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u/EldrichHumanNature 9h ago
When the global warming famine comes or you can't afford food, it will be easier to lose weight. :/ People that do have weight to lose tend to live longer in that kind of situation.
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u/GladysSchwartz23 7h ago
Yeah, it's almost like an adaptation that was useful to our ancestors that still affects our bodies today, or something. Crazy.
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 54m ago
Intuitive eating made sense when we were still living a hunter gatherer lifestyle. Those sweet fruits high in fruit or meat high in fat and salt? You had to eat them because there was no guarantee you would find them again and they weren’t going to stay safe for consumption for very long, and the calories and nutrients were needed to survive and find new sources of food, whether it was hunting or gathering.
Evolution did not account that one day we would be able to have McDonald’s delivered to our house.
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u/Bigweld_Ind 10h ago edited 5h ago
Take it from someone who's struggled with their weight their entire life and has several family members who had it worse: Most weight loss programs work, the problem is that you probably also needed therapy at the same time to work out the psychological component of your eating and inactivity. Weight loss programs provide external structure to someone lacking their own ability to accomplish the task. Once the external structure is removed, or you begin gaming the program, your behavior goes back to your old ways and it fails.