WeightWatchers files for bankruptcy as Americans embrace weight loss drugs

Or get caught up in the crossfire where Metformin makes you shit your pants and a new drug for managing your A1C comes out (ozempic) which doesn’t make you shit your pants. Only for a few years later get denied insurance coverage for it because you obviously are using it to lose weight.

fat lot of good

Pun intended...??

😂

The pricing is absurd. In Denmark it's like $80 for four weeks. in USA it starts at $1000. But medicine in USA is a whole other can of worms.

In Germany it starts at $300 (2.5mg/week) and goes up to $540 (15mg/week). But then if you get a 15mg/week prescription and happen to only need 5mg/week (possibly supported by taking it more often than once a week), and also make use of the 1.3 (my guesstimate) extra doses that are in the syringe (but a bit difficult to extract) you pay like $120/month. This is what a proper gym costs in my area. And honestly, you safe on food, too. And on your weight watchers subscription!

I dunno anything about these drugs but I remember the diet drug fad in the '90s and the disastrous consequences and side effects that came from it. I'm sure these aren't going to give heart attacks to a bunch of people, but I have a hard time believing there isn't some sort of cost to pay for a magic pill that makes you skinny. I'm willing to admit that my view is tainted by the past and will once again state that I know nothing about these pills specifically so I could be completely off base here.

They also banned the knock off versions a little while ago since the name brands were no longer in shortage. WW had HEAVILY pivoted into trying to sell subscriptions to those and lost big.

There are other, cheaper options as well but they require consistent diet/exercise on top of the Rx, so I think they are less popular for that.

Hey good for you! Keep it up dude.

What was your experience in getting those prescribed? Was it a matter of just being overweight? Did they go over lifestyle changes as well? There was a guy at work that was going to get them prescribed. He was very overweight, but he ate horrible food, a lot of candy, and drank three monsters a day. I'll admit I got a little judgemental when he mentioned the medication. He was a good guy and I cared about him, but hard to help him see his lifestyle was probably the cause of a lot of his issues. I ultimately didn't care how he got healthy, if its a pill so be it. But hopefully the lifestyle changes are tried as well. I also think we really need to focus on the mental health aspect of it. He was really hard on himself and I found myself regularly trying to steer him away from that.

weight watchers was just a calorie counting thing?

And counseling, according to Wikipedia.

It does. It basically slows your entire digestive system way down to the point where you physically can't eat more than you should. Which also kills your appetite.

Interestingly, I've discovered whatever nuerotransmitters are affected by it is completely counteracted by lunesta.

That's exactly what they help with, they turn off the impulse to eat. You feel full and content.. and if you do try force yourself to eat too much you feel sick.

Without the impulse to eat, all you have is the logical part of you deciding an appropriate time to eat and giving you the headspace to make a good decision about making that meal healthy.

The easiest way to boil down weight loss is calories in calories out. If you are in a surplus, you will in most cases gain weight (with some deviance based on genetics and other bodily factors). Lots of carbs is fine if you have a lot of calories out. European people usually have walkable cities, and the infrastructure there promotes lots of calories out on a day to day basis. America is a lot more car centric. The average american has less calories out because walking/cycling is uncommon in most of the US. Coupled with the standard caloric dense american food, it's easy to see how we are struggling with an obesity problem.

Low carb is just one way to cut down on how many calories you intake. Nothing wrong with it, and there are obviously many other ways to go about it.

Yes, but there is a difference between grains and refined sugar and high glucose corn syrup.

I lost 40 without making any new habits other than weighing in daily with an app that estimates my caloric balance over the last two weeks. Turns out that I didn't need big changes to diet and exercise to get into a persistent decline, though I've lost another 15 since starting hormone therapy

They aren’t designed they’re evolved, but that’s not important right now.

When I was in college I had school health insurance so I was on some meds that helped my mental health but made me really fat. When i graduated I lost my health insurance, went off my meds, and lost 80lbs in less than a year. People asked me all the time "whats your secret" and they really didn't like when the answer was "I'm off my meds and want to die, but at least I'm cute now". At school I was on a meal plan and ate three healthy meals a day and used the school gym 4-6 days a week. I was fat but fit. After graduating I didn't go to a gym again for about 7 years and still now don't really eat very healthy or regularly. I'm less heavy than I was in school but I'm not strong or muscle-y like I was when I was fat.

The worst part is, imo, I have health insurance again, but I'd rather be depressed than go back to being fat, because society is so cruel to fat people. Especially on the internet where people are like "it really IS just as simple as keeping a caloric deficit". That's just not true.

Anyway, it made sense in my head to respond to you when I started this, but now I think I've gotten lost in the weeds a little. I'm not trying to argue with you about anything, I'm just sharing my experience.

Hope everyone can find one thing they love about their bodies today xx

Where do you think the best place to start is? I've never been that fat, but I have been out of shape (I'm now one of the very athletic people). For me it was finding active things that I like doing and becoming a member of outdoor communities. But if you're so out of shape it's not fun to do active things, what would keep them going until they get to the fun part?

(Tzeench is right btw)

I went to my sister the other day bus she wasn't home. An older neighbour of hers wanted to visit her too, and i tol her that she wasn't home. I don't really like ger that much so we didn't talk too long. At the end of our smalltalk she said: i just wanted to tell you something, you should eat more, being that thing can't be healthy. I didn't even know what to say. I'm 1.85m and weight 80kg. And i have to take health advice from an obese old lady? All her sons are obese too, but they think it's just being "healthy" yeah no, sorrt, i don't envy people who get out of breath when they walk up a set of stairs.

Frozen processed food isn't inherently unhealthy. Eating the right amount of calories from nutritious processed food is still probably a net positive over eating too much of any kind of food.

I'm pretty sure it's not, but I'll eat that before rushing gastroparesis.