New research shows weight loss is possible without GLP-1 : nottheonion

[–] GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world 183 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (11 children)

I'm always baffled by the lack of curiosity around this subject. It's just blame the victim for being obese. Just eat less, bro! and then defend that viewpoint to the death. There never seems to be a point where the question comes up "I wonder why only in the last 30 years or so that the western world has seen this dramatic increase in obesity?" Can't be large food corporations making cheap unhealthy foods highly addictive. Can't be a significant reduction in nutrition education. Can't be a reduction in access to mental healthcare.

Nope. Just fatty goin' to be fat. Such a fucking lazy take.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

There’s actually a phenomenon where Americans move abroad, and suddenly start losing a ton of weight. Not because they consciously changed their eating habits, but simply because the food that is available in the foreign stores and restaurants is healthier.

American grocery stores tend to prioritize convenience and unhealthy foods. You have to really search to find anything that is worthwhile, even when the store is packed full of food. There’s a ton of variety in American grocery stores, (Europeans are always baffled by the entire aisle dedicated to breakfast cereals), but basically none of it is healthy. So Americans naturally end up buying lots of unhealthy shit, simply because it’s all they realistically have access to.

But then that gets flipped on its head when those Americans move abroad. Suddenly, the stores they’re shopping at aren’t full of junk. And so they naturally start losing lots of weight. Many Europeans assume that Americans are simply complacent with their weight, but the reality is that the entire infrastructure surrounding them is singularly focused on keeping them fat.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yes, also walking to the store, walking to work. I don't use my car much - arranged my life so that I can get everywhere I need to, mostly, without driving but that is unusual as fuck where I live, everyone else in my office arrives by car. I am not usually the only bike in the rack at the grocery but maybe 3, 4 bikes and a hundred cars in the lot. No bike rack at my doctors' offices, nor dentist, nor aesthetician. None at restaurants.

Walking a lot or even biking on e-bike everywhere like I do, makes a difference in what you can eat without getting fat. But also I cook at home, from ingredients, do make sweet stuff for the kids & husband but don't like it much myself. Grow some of our food, and lunch biggest meal.

I don't think it's impossible here, to have a reasonable lifestyle, I do it and am not an unusual person, not super rich or super ambitious or determined. I do think it's more difficult and you have to be intentional AND either be lucky (city grew up around me) or flush with money, to create a life that is the "fifteen minute bubble" with everything nearby.

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[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago

I saw that recently in a video about food in Japan. Japanese people going to Western countries and gaining like 25 pounds in a couple of months, then returning to Japan and shedding it within weeks.

Sugar content, portion size, nutrition vs empty calories and other factors...

[–] Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 5 days ago (5 children)

walking and biking for evertday errands make a big impact too.

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[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Everything you mentioned, PLUS:

Increase in stress, leading to "grazing" eating
increase in corn subsidizes that make HFCS cheaper to add than honey or even sugar
the campaign against Fat as a flavor enhancer, which pushes companies towards sugar in the first place. Fat, for the most part, passes through you whereas sugar is metabolized
decrease in walkable cities, or even walking trails. Combined with people having less time to use them.
unfettered algorithm that prioritizes engagement to keep people in front of their screens, this less physically active

The list goes on.

The single most important thing everyone can do is take a walk. I make sure I do this rain or shine, even if it's down the block and back.

GLP-1 and other "weight lost methods" gain popularity in the US due to our population's proclivity of saying "I want x, but I don't want to change anything about me." In other words, "I want to lose weight but don't want to change my lifestyle."

Study after study has shown that slow, gradual, and intentional weight loss is healthier and will last longer than any fad, drug, or food plan.

Not only will your body naturally learn what it means to eat and be healthy, you'll actually feel better too.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago (3 children)

One criticism of this analysis (which I think is mostly spot on) those GLP drugs help people change their lifestyle by turning off the 'food noise'. They don't, by themselves, make anyone lose weight. They help people who overeat be not hungry all the time so that they can eat better and work out more - it's the eating better and working out more that is causing the weight loss.

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[–] DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works 35 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Just eat less? Golly, why didn't I think of that? So simple!

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 33 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (8 children)

Also if you have basically an addiction to food, this is like telling a drug addict "just use less heroin!" And the survival rate of withdrawals from stopping cold turkey with food is approximately 0%. So you will be managing that addiction for your entire life.

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Can't forget metabolic disorders too. I'm a T2 diabetic. Well controlled, to the point I've had a few doctors literally not believe I was diabetic (at the time my A1c was like 5.1, a decade later it's generally between 5.5 and 6). I'm pretty strict with my diet. I occasionally will fall into snacking, but when that happens, I literally just stop buying snacks altogether to prevent it.

I eat the same meals often, and roughly track my calories. I do intense workouts weekly, and roughly tracking via my fitness watch indicates that I'm burning around 800kcals per HIIT cardio workout 2-3x per week most weeks, plus my other sessions with weight training. I'm taking in probably 1800 calories give or take most days, and burning off over an entire extra day and a half worth of calories weekly. But I'm still struggling to lose weight. Even at what should be a high caloric deficit where I'm feeling regularly straight up ravenous, it took me a year to lose around 15 lbs, and my weight still flip flops up and down weekly, even though the overall trend is downward.

I'm a big believer in fitness, in the idea of calories in -> calories out, and managing my TDEE. But it's just downright harder for some folks, and I'm apparently one of them.

[–] DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

Without a doubt.

Addicted to alcohol? Stop drinking. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.

Addicted to cigarettes? Stop smoking. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.

Addicted to crack? Stop smoking crack. You can't control an addiction so you have to completely stop.

Addicted to food? Must be your fault for being weak-willed. Just don't consume so much of that thing that you're addicted to. You can control your addiction. Just stop being a loser...

The literal solution to every addiction is stop it, cold turkey. One Day At A Time. But you can't stop eating food.

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[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 22 points 6 days ago (3 children)

"pEOple WeRe jUsT mORe ActiVe iN thE PasT"

I call bullshit. Like sure, in the early 1900's and before, people were more active. But in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? We had cars. People still used them a lot instead of walking. People still chose to sit and watch TV, or read, or listen to music. People still worked in offices and spent the majority of their day sitting. The average number of steps between a person back then and today is really not that different. Maybe a bit higher, but no where even fucking close to explaining the obesity epidemic.

Claims that the extreme increase in obesity is simply due to increased sedentary lifestyle just fucking reeks of lobbied attempts to shift the blame from the real problem.

It's the food, stupid. High-volume processed bullshit with low-cost additives and filler ingredients SWARMED the shelves and replaced nearly every good product with unhealthy convenience with a longer shelf-life. Our portion sizes didn't even change that much, it's just the quality of what we're eating has dropped tremendously.

You can't even fully escape it by trying to only buy fresh food. Modern fruits and vegetables have been bred to be full of sugars and starches. Raw chicken is pumped full of salt and preservatives, sometimes making up more than 30% of its weight.

They are poisoning people and then blaming them for the consequences.

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[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I've noticed first hand the impact of environmental factors.

I moved from a place where I needed the car for EVERYTHING. This include taking off the garbage. Even going for a walk wasn't possible without taking the car first.

Most of the food I was eating was imported (mainly from the US). I was able to find few local fruits and vegetable but choices are quite limited and the supply erratic.

Then I moved back to France, I now live in a small village where everything is available at a walking or biking distance. School, work, small grocery shop, bakery, doctor, pharmacy, coworking space, kids activity. I'm might be using the car once a week now.

There is plenty of farmers in the area with local produces and even supermarkets have a wide selection of decent fruits and vegetables but I prefer the local producers as I can.

I stopped working out, I have not purposely changed my eating habits but without any surprise I am in a much, much better physical shape now.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I moved from a place where I needed the car for EVERYTHING. This include taking off the garbage. Even going for a walk wasn't possible without taking the car first.

This is something that can be difficult to convey to non-Americans. The go-to assumption is that Americans are just lazy and dislike walking. At my last apartment, it was literally illegal (and wildly dangerous) for me to realistically walk to my local grocery store. I had to cross a major highway to get there, and there were no sidewalks or crosswalks nearby.

If I wanted to drive to the store, it was a quarter mile. Half a mile for the round trip. Basically just across the highway. Go down to the end of my street, cross the highway, and arrive at the store. Easy.

If I wanted to legally walk to the grocery store, it would be a 16.5 mile round trip. Because the nearest pedestrian highway crossing was ~4 miles away. I’d have to go all the way down to that crossing, make the cross, then march all the way back to reach the store. And that also assumes that I’m going to be able to legally make it to the crossing… There were several sections between my apartment and the crossing that had no sidewalks, so I’d have to walk in the road for at least a mile in each direction. Here is a quick and dirty diagram to illustrate what I mean:

That’s ~8 and a quarter miles in one direction, not to mention the fact that I’d then have to take the same route back, with my arms full of grocery bags. Oh, and there is no public transit along this route. Literally zero bus or train routes. Yeah, it’s no fucking wonder that I choose to drive instead.

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[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (8 children)

I've always been baffled by how people keep their weight off so easily. I live in a walkable city, love walking, walk everywhere as my primary means of transport, and frequently take 3-5km leisure walks multiple times a week. Yet I only ever seem to gain weight, it's beyond maddening. My meals are nothing outrageous either

Of course, my weight is the first thing my doctor points out every time like I'm not keenly aware of how much my body hates me...

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[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 194 points 6 days ago (2 children)

What an incredibly fucking stupid headline.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Headline for Americans choking down a bucket of fried chicken with a "medical problem".

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 96 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"The mindset right now is that the GLP-1 hormone itself is the secret sauce to weight loss," DiMarchi said. "What we've found in rodents and monkeys is that the combination of glucagon and GIP activity alone are sufficient to achieve comparable weight loss, without the lengthy dosage adjustment and adverse GI side effects

This article is saying that slightly different products can also produce weight loss.

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[–] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 48 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I actually unironically thought that was an headline from The Onion.

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[–] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 5 days ago

Lots of people seem to think that losing weight is simply a matter of calories in and calories out, and if calories in exceeds your BMR then stop eating. But that's like saying that gambling is a matter of winnings and losses, and if the losses exceed your budget then stop gambling. Simple enough for the average person, but obviously useless advice for someone who has a problem.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 44 points 6 days ago

Ok but the research is actually interesting. I'm very much a supporter of weight loss by healthy lifestyle and calorie reduction (it's how I obtained and maintain a healthy weight), and even for aiming for a healthier lifestyle even if one doesn't care about reducing weight (your body is your business, I'm just pro healthy lifestyle). But for those actively interested in weight loss who are finding themselves unable to stick to a reduced calorie diet I support them having the access to the tools that can help.

I've known people who wound up fat for a variety of reasons, from thyroid issues, to stressful lifestyles, to disabilities and chronic pain, to genetic propensity, and plenty of other reasons. And when I think about how much happier with himself my friend was after his stomach band helped him lose a ton of weight and then stay thin, it's just hard for me to not stand by the understanding that while what worked for me is the best first thing to try, I just want people to be happy with their bodies.

[–] greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 5 days ago (3 children)

What I think some people ignore is that "food drive" is a thing. When I get hungry, and I know there's food around, there's no stopping me from eating. It's most strong following days of intense exercise for me, but I know other have it worse than me.

There's other reasons to, just like how we need to ask why someone is doing drugs, we also need to ask why they are eating food. GLP-1 are amazing because they can give you a head start on weight loss. But if you never do the work to understand what's making you gain weight in the first place they're basically useless.

A friend of mine got a gastric bypass and lost a ton of weight. She was super happy with her body and life improved a lot. Then life got very stressful and she became an alcoholic again. No we she's gained weight again. The article is about a better weight loss formulation that doesn't use GLP, but instead using glucagon and GIP peptides. I guess it's got less side effects, maybe.

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

The food noise is miserable. It's cruel and mean! Hate it.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Isn't part of the reason why GLP-1 drugs work so well, is because they do something that interferes with that "food drive"? I think it's different than gastric bypass in that way

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[–] GuyFawkesV@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Back in 2019 I lost 60 lbs in about 6 months without GLP-1. Fucking sucked like hell but I did it. But don’t worry, I found it again.

[–] man_wtfhappenedtoyou@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Lol your last sentence cracked me up.

[–] mech@feddit.org 27 points 6 days ago

This headline is 100% peak NotTheOnion 👌

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.cafe 11 points 5 days ago

I lost 100 pounds, and I'm still dropping, without any drugs. My strategy:

Stop all soft drinks. Ice water, mostly, occasionally a Waterloo Peach, 0 calories/sugar. I will sometimes have a beer for dinner.
Eat whatever you want, but only when hungry, and only until not hungry. Serve small portions or half a sandwich. If you find yourself staring into the fridge, wondering what looks good, you aren't hungry, you're bored. Go do something else.
Distract yourself. My Dad quit smoking in the 80s with a Rubik's Cube, picking it up whenever he had a craving. I did it with the guitar. Every time I had a craving, I picked up the guitar.

Just those three easy rules, and I lost 100+ pounds, and learned to play the guitar at the same time. You could lift weights, learn a language, write a book, go running, knit, or anything else.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 36 points 6 days ago

What a breakthrough, as we know no one ever lost weight before 5 years back or whenever these stupid drugs came out.

[–] SaneMartigan@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago

Sounds like it's possible to buy a house without help from family. Some people do achieve it but most people will benefit from the help.

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 25 points 1 week ago (4 children)

No shit Sherlock, doesn't take a fucking genius to see that people have been losing weight by a variety of methods since weight management was even a thing. It's just fucking easier with GLP-1 agonists. I haven't read the article, is the blurb supposed to be dripping in sarcasm or something?

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 50 points 6 days ago (5 children)

No, they actually talk about other drugs that have a similar effect as alternatives.

They just really didn't think that headline through.

[–] reversedposterior@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

They probably did, they just wanted it to be clickbait as with most things online these days

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 27 points 6 days ago (51 children)

people have been losing weight by a variety of methods

Surprisingly, they have not.

Before GLP1s, weightloss was a myth. 99. something % of people (edit 99.2% of women) who meet the medical definition of obese will always be obese despite a lifetime of effort.

We know for certain from decades of research that weightloss from willpower alone, even with diet plans or excersize plans is functionally impossible. The best they do is yoyo effects - no diet has ever produced perminant weight loss on a real scale.

Very rarely a statistically insignificant sample size enjoy permenant weight loss and these individuals are held up to show it's possible and you can do it too! But that's just not true, and we know it's not true because decades of stats show again and again that perminant weight loss just does not happen.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago

I think they just rediscovered the old "eat healthy and exercise" option.

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