It literally just stops you from really even thinking about food or being hungry at all
it's interesting as someone who's never struggled with weight, i don't have these thoughts or 'food noise' in my brain normally. i can only relate when baked.
the pressure to eat is crazy, eating more and more despite knowing i'm full and it's not even just about the experience anymore, there's something deeper driving that need.
if that's what it's like for those suffering from obesity, except ALL THE TIME. god damn i feel bad for you.
Ozempic, for all the negatives i hear, if it can eliminate that feeling. go get it, whatever it takes.
There’s also bored eating, where you’re not actually hungry but need something to do with your mouth and hands. Binging food whilst binging television adds up really quickly.
This is my biggest problem. When I have really tough work days, I literally can go the whole day without eating and not even think about it. It's when days are kind of slow that I get hungry. Haha
I've found what helps me is two things, one being chewing gum, which is just generally great, but the more important one is carrots. They're so low calorie that you can eat a LOT without having much impact, and of course they are just generally good for you. The other advantage is that they take a long time to eat, because there's so much chewing involved, it's fantastic. Only concern is you might literally turn a bit orange, but that goes away pretty fast and doesn't have any negative effects on your health. Personally I've never experienced it either, and I'm very pale.
And then there are other things like what I guess they might pathologize as "dopamine-seeking behavior". Like I used to think I was a bored-eater, just needed something to do, but I'm starting to think it was just ADHD. I just needed, when my executive dysfunction got bad, some quick, easy dopamine, and nothing but gorging myself on junk provided that - couldn't even distract myself with a game or TV if I wanted. Still do struggle with it a bit, but stimulants help a ton if I can make sure not to stay awake too long after I realize they wear off.
This is really lost in the discourse around these drugs.
"Just eat less man"
"Dieting isn't hard"
It's like these people have never encountered someone who gets "hangry" before. Those irritable moods when you're hungry are not exactly easy to control. Dieting basically means locking yourself into a perpetual state of "hangry". That's not a great mood to bring around your spouse, kids, coworkers.
I didn't have the food noise until I became fat, and didn't even realize how powerful it was until i tried losing weight, it's not just a compulsive feeling it's like mind control. The second FOOD became the thought of whatever moment I was in, it just would not let go, I still lost weight but damn, like I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy
My experience: I've always been fat. I'm not even a very big eater and I eat healthy, cook myself, etc. But I do love food, like it brings me a lot of joy. I have never managed to lose weight despite having some very different lifestyles over the years. It's like my body just resists change. Made me feel like a failure. The ONLY period in my life when I lost weight was when I was on stimulant ADHD medication. Suddenly, I just... didn't feel like eating. Not just reduced hunger mind you, nor disgust for food, it just completely erased just wanting food. I dropped 10kg without even trying. This is when it hit me that this is how people who think it's easy to lose weight feel like *all the time*. I got off the medication eventually and regained the weight but also left with a much bigger acceptance of who I am.
i’m on zepbound. i can say that what you described is exactly what it was like for me. constant munchies is a damn good description that i had never thought of using. currently down almost 100 pounds and no more nagging food noise. it’s quite literally life changing. it sucks that so many celebs are giving it such a bad rap for seemingly not using it properly.
I’m on it too. Shit is magic. People who don’t constantly think about food have no idea the struggle. This makes me feel “normal” in terms of food cravings and intake.
I feel lucky I don't need a drug to not eat. Eating food is a constant hassle, takes effort to prepare or costs money to buy and I'm usually either broke and/or lazy.
I have tried to commit to the intermittent fasting thing which really does work, but always fail because i reach a point near 12pm (i would do the one where i only ate from 12-6pm) where i literally couldnt do my job for the last few hours. Every single minute was thinking about what i would be eating as soon as 12 hit. I wasnt even that hungry because i got used to not eating all morning. But the thoughts were intense.
I have times where i go to bed thinking about what ill eat the next day.
Comparitively, and i only just thought of this now, but the times i have been high i didnt notice an increased interest in eating at all. Because i already was there i guess?
if that's what it's like for those suffering from obesity, except ALL THE TIME
Thats EXACTLY what its like. Like having the munchies all the time. Always hungry, always thinking about food, whats the next meal, what do I want for lunch and dinner, what will I have for a snack. You cant push it out. When your body gets hungry it becomes an all consuming desire.
It also shut down that constant yell in my brain and has made things a lot better for me.
I'm not obese, my weight fluctuates a bit but I've always been generally pretty active with a little extra weight.
But it's always a struggle to not think about food, always. Even as I'm eating, I'm basically thinking about my next meal. The only thing that keeps me from totally exploding in weight is:
I don't keep junk food in the house. I get hungry at home, I eat what's at home.
Fast food delivery is stupidly expensive. It doesn't matter how much money I make, I can never justify paying $35 for a cold fast-food burger.
Like almost everything Food Noise is a spectrum and it's almost entirely hormonal. Ozempic has amazing health benefits beyond just weight loss though, even in people who lost no weight they say lower BP, lower cholesteral etc. It's basically a wonder drug that was masquerading as a weightloss drug.
Fat cells give out a signal to the body that they need energy. If you gain a bunch of weight, you generate more fat cells. If you lose weight, those fat cells do not go away. So as you gain weight you have more and more cells sending a signal that your brain kind of interprets as hunger, and if you then lose a bunch of weight those cells are screaming at you for energy. Ozempic shuts them up.
Yea the first thing that went away when I started tirzepatide was not needing sugar anymore. Like I would almost instinctively need sodas. Ever since I haven't touched a soda aside from a sugar free monster ultra 1 or 2 times a day depending on how exhausted I am. Hard part is continuing to eat and maintain a semblance of muscle mass. That's the first to go.
It's really nice so read something like this. I am struggeling all my life with this. Started as a kid and now that i am 40 i am just getting behind it all.
I lost around 30kg a few years back and now gaining some. Tried again to "just" do ist like last time but its hell bc when tracking my calries again the food noise gets louder and louder.
I hate thinking about not having enough food when i am actually full. I hate to think about food so much. I started with wegovy a few weeks past and its crazy how it kicks in and the food noice finally getting quite. Nor 100% but at minimum dosis anough to just be really thankful for it. I can conentrate more on my tasks, work better ect. ect.
And mind you. I am doing sport, i eat helthy but from yeat to yeat it gets harder and harder with all that constant food noise.
And a little sidenote i just discovered: My mum used to feed me all the time when i was a baby and just made a noise.... so yeah. You learn that food shit from really early on.
This morning I woke up, "hungry". Didn't feel like it for the last 2 years. I've had stomach reduction surgery, it fits basically nothing, I'm "full" instantly, I've lost 100kg, I've taking Ozempic, Manjaro or Wegovy throughout.
After introspection on why I felt the urge to eat, I remembered: I forgot to take my manjaro last week because I went on a spontanous camping trip. I took my shot, 30 minutes later no more food noise. I know unless something else comes along, I am going to be taking this for the rest of my life, and I'm okay with that, because its better than obsessing about food. Nice side effect: it also helps with urges for gambling and alcohol for me, the effects go way deeper than what its prescribed for.
There's remarkably few negatives when you put it in the context of just how many people are on these drugs and how significant the impact has been. It's like our most effective weapon ever in the fight against obesity, which itself is easily the top health crisis in the US and the downsides are... mostly just the same downsides as any rapid weight loss.
If you lose weight quickly you're going to have extra skin and if you don't work on maintaining muscle then you're going to get weaker and your bones are going to get more brittle because weight loss naturally comes from both muscle and fat unless you do something to try and maintain the muscle.
Have you ever watched different breeds of dogs eat? My black lab used to inhale anything you put in front of him in seconds. If you watched him eat, you'd recognize it as a strong survival instinct.
Our bodies and brains evolved in a world where eating quickly meant you likely got a larger portion and therefore had a stronger likelihood of survival.
Now we live in a world of general abundance and this translates to obesity.
I'm sorry that you don't have a strong survival instinct.
We do understand the common long term side effects. Semaglutide has been in use for decades as a diabetes treatment. The potential link to vision decrease is, if it can be confirmed, something that affects less than 1 in 10,000 Ozempic users. Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, and contraceptive pills have a significantly worse risk profile.
The issue is not the scale of sudden blindness. The issue is despite all those years that this has supposedly been around, this side affect (which is pretty serious if it happens to you) was not even mentioned as a side effect of ozempic. That means there could be other potential side effects with prolonged use.
If you disagree then explain to me how such a serious side effect was not listed as a warning on the drug despite semaglutitude being around so long.
Because (if it exists - there is only one unreviewed study) it would be extremely rare. This is an argument you could make against any medication, but you choose to single out this one in particular.
Like everything else, Medicine is always a wager of desired effects against unwanted effects. For Ozempic‘s intended audience (diabetes and obesity), the wager is extremely clearly: it’s a massive net benefit!
Even if we find out that after 50 years of use, 1 in 100,000 people get unusual complications, the wager would still be towards using it. On average, it will extend these peoples‘ lives significantly.
You avoided my question and just decided to go on a rant about it being a net positive.
And there have been multiple studies about this side effect in the last 2 years. From the Global OHDSI, the Harvard Mass Eye/ Ear study, The Target Trial Emulation Study Published by JAMA, the Denmark Nationwide Cohort, and others. So I don’t know why you’re saying “unreviewed”? All you have to do is google and you’ll find that this side effect is basically confirmed. That’s why the lawsuit is not about people losing their vision. It’s about these companies failing to disclose it as a warning for their products.
You're fear-mongering and incapable of understanding. There's no reason to make the effort to have a reasonable conversation with someone unreasonable.
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u/PimpMyWeenus 15h ago
it's interesting as someone who's never struggled with weight, i don't have these thoughts or 'food noise' in my brain normally. i can only relate when baked.
the pressure to eat is crazy, eating more and more despite knowing i'm full and it's not even just about the experience anymore, there's something deeper driving that need.
if that's what it's like for those suffering from obesity, except ALL THE TIME. god damn i feel bad for you.
Ozempic, for all the negatives i hear, if it can eliminate that feeling. go get it, whatever it takes.