Obesity and the Magic Beans

When I say magic beans I mean the diabetes drugs that have been a weight loss miracle for some.
They go by many different names, Wegovy, Ozempic, etc.

So here’s the weird thing, people are saying these drugs are curing all kinds of other ailments and mental illnesses.
OCD, Alcoholism, auto immune disorders. I have a relative on it and he said it stops the want to binge eat, which he
Has had since childhood.

The drugs are intended for diabetic patients, but some are now allowed for use for weight loss too.

www.yahoo.com...

Insurers clamping down on doctors who prescribe Ozempic for weight loss

I said they should have combined this with the Covid Vaccine and they would have had hoardes of people begging for it.

So what’s the problem. These drugs are not without side effects, some serious like thyroid cancer. But since this is a conspiracy site,
Many believe this drug is really a miracle drug and that they want to take it away because it works too well and cures other diseases.
Or is this drug causing long term issues that will require even more drugs? Many that go off say they gain the weight quickly and maybe even a little more.

Who knows, but I think we are going to be hearing a lot more about it!

a reply to: JAGStorm

Any 'drug" used to add an imput into the body to create a solution is there because the personal imput has not been understood in the first place perhaps.

I watched a fantastic interview last night by an expert who explained how things like glucose work. Fasdcinating and informative on a basic level. No drugs required and therefore no unknowable side effects from them. It's about the right things, the right time, and an understanding and acceptance of the body, the society, and how misinformation and commercialism can be the greatest problem.



Thanks for the thread.

a reply to: nerbot

I’ll watch that. I will say growing up, my mother (Asian) did not eat sugar like westerners.

I vividly remember the ONLY time sugar was ever consumed was if you had a stomach ache, you’d drink a glass of sugar water. That was it.

Of course they do eat carbs in the form of white rice, and noodles, but it seems to balance out with all the vegetables they eat.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Yes, I have cut out refined sugar in favour of honey and brown sugars and no more sodium table salt, just "fleur de sel" which is good sea salt with all the trace minerals left in. The simple things can make the biggest difference sometimes.

I still need to work on eating the right things in the right order though which is probably the hardest part because habits are hard to break.

I also gave up coffee and don't miss all the unnecessary heartbeats that were pointless.

The girl in the clip is so cute too and she was more human in her persona than many of the people who have little or no professional status.

Finally the only topic Im an expert on, eating and gaining an obscene amount of weight

Ive mentioned it here before, I drank 4-5 Cokes a day probably since my mid-twenties In 58 now. Had a carb-loaded unhealthy diet for decades, wasn't really till I turned 50 that weight became a problem

It's been over 4 years since my doctor prescribed Ozempic and it did help me jump-start losing weight, but honestly, for me, the side effects were horrendous anxiety attacks, depression severe insomnia after 3 months switched to Trulitcity for 8-9 months, and dropped it because it was too expensive and had exhausted the available discounts, but it helped too and I slowly modified my diet at the same time.

It took a while but in the last year blood sugar is normal, and my kidney function is normal, im off Lisinopril for high blood pressure, and no more prescriptions at all. A few supplements Im big on zinc, magnesium, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and black seed oil, and one or two others but... No sugar makes the difference, Ive even cut out adding honey to every cup of tea, and even limit those fruits high in sugar content as well, along with taking probiotics and a load of kimchi. With all that and intermittent fasting, my digestion is so much better no heartburn and no GERD which Ive always had.

Lost so much weight so quickly that I thought I probably had cancer, but the doctor says that hasn't shown up yet either. It's so cool wearing clothes I haven't been able to wear in over 6-7 years and finally to be able to see 180lbs is finally on the horizon. It's funny recently we got pizza from the local place we love, they do a great NY crust and I love it, I ate one piece and a small salad. I would usually scarf down 3-4 slices for dinner and have another one cold for a late-night snack or even for breakfast, no wonder my digestive system said screw this.

I do still love popcorn but nothing but cooked in a little coconut oil and I add Carolina Reaper powder so my portions are small and I drink lots of unsweetened green or black tea.

Progress marches on...

a reply to: JAGStorm

Doctor switched me to Ozempic about one month ago. I was taking Victoza (which is a daily injection, Ozempic is weekly) for about 1 1/2 years prior. Dropped 50-60 lbs on Victoza and brought my T2 under control. No negative health effects from either medication so far.

For T2 diabetics, it is not "sugar" (which would include honey) that is the problem. T2 causes "insulin resistance" which means that the body is unable to use the glucose (not "sugar", but derived from things like sugar, fructose, starches, etc), which is the body's primary (and preferred) source of food energy.

In the month that I've taken Ozempic, I have found that my appetite has "dialed back" significantly, even as compared to what it was on Victoza. I don't suffer from any other "compulsions", so I can't say if there have been any other psychological effects from the drug.

And, perhaps because my body had already adjusted to Victoza, I haven't suffered any serious side effects during this past month. With both drugs, I have noted that over-indulging in anything excessively "greasy" will result very soon after in a case of the "trots", until the offending meal has been purged.

originally posted by: Mantiss2021
a reply to: JAGStorm

Doctor switched me to Ozempic about one month ago. I was taking Victoza (which is a daily injection, Ozempic is weekly) for about 1 1/2 years prior. Dropped 50-60 lbs on Victoza and brought my T2 under control. No negative health effects from either medication so far.

For T2 diabetics, it is not "sugar" (which would include honey) that is the problem. T2 causes "insulin resistance" which means that the body is unable to use the glucose (not "sugar", but derived from things like sugar, fructose, starches, etc), which is the body's primary (and preferred) source of food energy.

In the month that I've taken Ozempic, I have found that my appetite has "dialed back" significantly, even as compared to what it was on Victoza. I don't suffer from any other "compulsions", so I can't say if there have been any other psychological effects from the drug.

And, perhaps because my body had already adjusted to Victoza, I haven't suffered any serious side effects during this past month. With both drugs, I have noted that over-indulging in anything excessively "greasy" will result very soon after in a case of the "trots", until the offending meal has been purged.

Yes, I probably should have highlighted I had none of the problems with Trulicity as I did with Ozempic.FWIW my doctor said those side effects were possible.

I'd likely still be on Trulicity but the lowest I could get was $475 a month last time I checked

a reply to: JAGStorm

Got a chuckle out of your comment just for the simple fact hordes of Hollywood celebs are on Ozempic. Can't think of a better use than curing crayzee LA entertainment folk. Whoops! did I say that out loud??

So here’s the weird thing, people are saying these drugs are curing all kinds of other ailments and mental illnesses.
OCD, Alcoholism, auto immune disorders.

I'm not disparaging the good things Ozempic does for so many regular people. I'm also stunned anyone would think that going back to approved drugs like Adipex is acceptable. Years ago I'd asked my Internist about Adipex to shed some pounds. His response was "I'll be prescribing you speed when h*ll freezes over".

I agree Ozempic bears watching. Since drug companies hold back any bad news conncted to unintended nasty side effects in their internal studies till someone sues. It's up to the general public to communicate with each other to be the checks an balances on big Pharma.

I sure hope these drugs are the holy grail. I recently bought shares of Novo Nordisk (Wegovy)

The most effective meds are still prescribed for diabetes rather than just weight loss. However, the primary manner in which they control or eliminate diabetes is weight loss. As far as I can tell, most insurance companies won't cover the cost of the meds, which can be $1000 a week, if you are not diabetic.

I don't usually talk about things like this, but, after inching closer and closer I was finally diagnosed as diabetic a couple years ago. I tried to resolve that myself with diet and had minimal success, but, it wasn't getting worse. It was either staying the same or dropping slightly. But my weight was still high and slowly going up instead of down. I finally decided to do something about it for real and started one of the weekly injections. I started the third week of October last year. As of this morning, 7/12/23, I have lost 99.8 pounds. I will break the 100 pound mark tomorrow morning. For a disabled guy in his early 60's that is an accomplishment. I actually had one whole month of no change in weight due to availability of the meds and had to use a weaker dose than what had been working so well for me.

The really amazing part of this, to me at least, is that I did this without exercise! I am disabled with severe back, knee, and hip issues. I need both knees and both hips replaced and I have already had back surgery - which did not end well.

There is hope. You can do it.

a reply to: Vroomfondel

The most effective meds are still prescribed for diabetes rather than just weight loss. However, the primary manner in which they control or eliminate diabetes is weight loss. As far as I can tell, most insurance companies won't cover the cost of the meds, which can be $1000 a week, if you are not diabetic.

From everything I’ve read fasting seems to be a remedy for a lot of ails.
I’m not a medical person, but fasting has amazing benefits. In the US people think if they miss one meal they are starving, it’s quite funny.

I think all the other issues these medicines "treat" aside from appetite suppression are primarily because losing weight makes people feel healthier.

a reply to: nerbot

This is a pretty good video, she has put things in layman's terms to try to explain things. She does not go in depth of all the processes so her information is not fully complete, but then again, I don't expect anyone to be as obsessive compulsive as I am in looking at processes from multiple viewpoints. It also makes it harder to explain things because there are so many variables.

I only watched forty six minutes so far and am making this post so I can go back and watch the rest of it to see if she hits on any more points that stir my curiosity. I tend to over-evaluate things, she seems to be simplifying them more than I would because I evaluate things based on genetic traits too and those traits vary widely between people of different ancestral lines sometimes. For most people her information is adequate to help them with multiple health issues. One thing she so far has not addressed is that insulin does more than just put fat into fat and muscle cells, it does transport and ready glucose to be used in cells to with the aid of Zinc. So far she has not addressed the alternate metabolic pathway used to burn fats that was just discovered. But I do not know when she made this video, maybe it was not known at the time.

I can learn from everyone, in this case, I am happy to see how she explains the processes so most people can understand. I go over people's heads a lot if I try to explain things fully and people get lost because I do not know how much they already know or how they learned to interpret things. I can communicate better with people who have been studying things for many years than with the general population and general practitioners and nurses. I feel a little envious of people who can generalize things like the person in the video.

a reply to: putnam6

I never liked coke much, but learned I have to drink some once about every couple of weeks to help to keep bazoars from forming in my gut. If I didn't like veggies and ate a mostly carnivore diet I probably would not need it at all. But I tried that and it does not work either, it effects my digestion a different way negatively.

I never have had much of a sugar craving, like fish and eggs and beef quite a bit, but I do like toast with the eggs and a bun with the burger or a slice of bread with my steak. No diabetes at all, my sugar does go up to one thirty after eating sometimes but drops down to a hundred to a hundred ten in an hour or so. When I started taking a small glutamine tablet, my craving for sweets and carbs dropped almost down to nothing and it helps to stop the sugar shakes or hypoglycemic episodes. I have always had problems with hypoglycemia all my life, which is actually a type of diabetis. Insulin levels stay appropriate too...probably since I do not care for sweets much.

But my conditions are different than most people. I have lost thirty five pounds over the last two years, but of that, about ten pounds is muscle. I have been trying to minimize muscle loss with my weight loss. It is hard because the diet I use to control my epilepsy may not have severe side effects like the meds did but it still is a little doping and makes it hard to lose the weight I gained when I was on the meds for epilepsy. On those meds I gained over sixty pounds of fat and water weight from inflammation and it took me ten years to lose the first twenty pounds...I did not lose much muscle with that first twenty pounds. I had a lot of muscle mass before, I need to increase the muscle more, but my back has been injured so many times it is hard to exercise properly... I am going to get the bowflex cleaned up and bring it upstairs this summer, I may have a better time with working out on that than sawing up the trees that fell down, chipping all the branches, powerwashing the house and deck, and working in the garden to get my exercise. I also seem to be tearing my muscles more these days for some reason...must be I am sixty seven now. Those class 2 pulled muscles cause a big bruise to form and they take a lot longer to heal when you are old than when you are younger. I don't think I will be able to solve that issue either, I had been strong for over thirty years and now my muscle mass is declining, but I still think I can do the things which causes problems...I still have enough muscle to cause a lot of problems too, just not enough to keep from tearing them or causing aged joints and ligaments from getting injured by doing more than I can do now.

When you are used to doing something, it is hard to not do it...a lot of older guys have that problem I guess.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I have a friend who does intermittent fasting. She does well with it and said it does help her in more ways than just weight loss. I tried it but it never felt "right" for me.

Its kind of strange about missing meals. Most of us grew up being told we had to have three square meals a day. And if it was on your plate you had eat it. "There are starving children in (insert country here). You're lucky to have that food." It didn't matter if you were already full, you kept eating anyway. And God have mercy on you if you grew up in an Italian family. To this day I still cant believe how much food my grandparents would put on a table for every meal. And twice as much on special occasions and holidays. It was amazing.

I know someone on one of those "depression" drugs given to overweight people. They're still overweight and still depressed.

Which begs the question... What is that medication doing?

If this person were to exercise with any modicum of regularity, they'd feel happy from the endorphin release, they'd lose weight, and they'd feel happier about their body image.

And this is the problem with the mental health industry, and, quite frankly, the health industry in general. Why bother solving the actual problem when you can just talk about solving the problem and then prescribe drugs to make you feel better about not solving the problem.

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: JAGStorm

I have a friend who does intermittent fasting. She does well with it and said it does help her in more ways than just weight loss. I tried it but it never felt "right" for me.

Its kind of strange about missing meals. Most of us grew up being told we had to have three square meals a day. And if it was on your plate you had eat it. "There are starving children in (insert country here). You're lucky to have that food." It didn't matter if you were already full, you kept eating anyway. And God have mercy on you if you grew up in an Italian family. To this day I still cant believe how much food my grandparents would put on a table for every meal. And twice as much on special occasions and holidays. It was amazing.

I'm not "intermittent fasting," but I do mostly eat "one meal" a day. I use quotes because I don't schedule a feeding window, eat at different times/more than one meal if I'm hungry, etc.

I just naturally don't get hungry until about lunchtime. Always been that way. In fact, eating in the morning gives me nausea.

Sometimes it just makes more sense to push my lunch a couple hours back and just eat a larger lunch instead of a normal lunch and dinner. Then I usually have some fruit for dessert later if I'm hungry.

Down 50 lbs since November.

Basically 3/4 of my plate is a vegetable. That's it. I still treat myself to breaded goods or candies on occasion, but the dietary staples right now are chicken, green beans/peas, watermelon/strawberries.

Pro tip:

Everyone does "intermittent fasting." That's why it's called "breakfast."

a reply to: rounda

Everybody has to do what works for them. For me one larger meal mid or late afternoon was the worst thing I could do. It was nearly impossible for me to lose weight unless the portion was very small which left me hungry and uncomfortable all day.

According to my doc, and my own experience, eating several small meals throughout the day starting first thing in the morning is the key. I have never been a big breakfast eater. My typical breakfast is just a bite of protein. A piece of lunch meat, a sliver of steak, a bite of leftover dinner, whatever. Just something to get the metabolism started first thing in the morning. Metabolism is what loses the weight. Eating something, anything, gets the metabolism going.

I also stopped eating after dinner time. I used to be a late night snacker and that just doesn't work if you want to lose weight. My only real indulgence now is my coffee. As long as I get my coffee - crisis averted...

Good luck to you on your journey.

T2 uncontrolled diabetic here. After years of wrecking my body, only eating once a day, drinking, it became impossible even when I quit drinking, to get my a1c down. Ozempic has me going from an 11 down to 8 right now, after 4 doses. I know I'm losing weight, my clothes are loose. I don't want to start weighing myself, but losing lbs would be great!

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
a reply to: rounda
Metabolism is what loses the weight. Eating something, anything, gets the metabolism going.

So does exercise.

Me and the dog are good for 6-7 miles a day. 2 of those miles comes before I eat.

Heck, only reason I gained the weight in the first place is because my last dog was too old to go for a walk anymore.

I have noticed though, that eating those bakery products not only slows my weight loss significantly, it also affects my *ahem* BM. Both celebration weekends I've had (30 lbs and 50 lbs milestones), I've had some irritability and indigestion. And both times, it took a couple days to see weight loss again.

Honestly, though, the watermelon is the best part. It's so low in calories and high in water weight, and just the perfect amount of sweet. I walk to the store every couple days and load up. I'm spending a fortune, but it's still cheaper and better for you then eating any of the packaged junk in the store.

Good luck to you as well!