Weight Loss Thread

sleevedraw said:

Work at one and maybe you'll get a different perspective on things. Doctors and hospitals aren't saints either.

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I worked for a benefits company that offered a stored value debit card for healthcare spending for 18 years. I wrote software that processed all kinds of claims data including information from pharmacy benefits managers who negotiate a lot of this shit. Who's claiming doctors and hospitals are saints?

sleevedraw said:

I have a very clear conscience working in prior auth. Ask me about the times when doctors are trying to CT the heads of kids and exposing them to a very significant amount of radiation when they are acting "down" (no neuro changes on exam, no attempt at trialing talk therapy or antidepressants, just on a hunch). Ask me about the times when surgeons try to "unbundle" services (i.e. try to bill for 2 codes when they are captured by 1) just to drive up the bill.

This is not to say that all companies are good, because they certainly are not.

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Imagine being the insurance prior auth team and considering yourself the good guy lmao

sleevedraw said:

I have a very clear conscience working in prior auth. Ask me about the times when doctors are trying to CT the heads of kids and exposing them to a very significant amount of radiation when they are acting "down" (no neuro changes on exam, no attempt at trialing talk therapy or antidepressants, just on a hunch). Ask me about the times when surgeons try to "unbundle" services (i.e. try to bill for 2 codes when they are captured by 1) just to drive up the bill.

This is not to say that all companies are good, because they certainly are not.

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I'm evil. I bill zero. Muahahaha.

Every level of the system has significant actors trying to claim their piece of the pie with incompetence and negligence sprinkled in. It is just a game of whack-a-mole for the patient to locate the dick coming to fuck them next. Many do not even realize they are getting fucked.

Every level has people trying to do the right thing as well.

sleevedraw said:

Here's the article if you want to do do a deep dive.

There are some cost savings realized from weight reduction, but (a) GLP-1s have their own set of complications such as pancreatitis which can eat into their cost savings similar to bari surgeries having complications, (b) bari surgeries also achieve some cost savings from weight reduction, so that needs to be factored in, and (c) medication adherence is an issue with GLP-1s.

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Interesting read. Thanks

This is one of the best and most honest pieces I've read on weight loss in a long time.

We do not need another campaign telling people to count calories harder or buy gym memberships in January.

We need to say, clearly, that:

• Sweet makes us fat, especially when it comes in liquid form and especially when it comes early and often.
• Coffee chains and “healthy” juice bars that sell liquid dessert for breakfast are part of the fast‑food problem, not an escape from it.
• Ultra‑processed, corn‑ and soy‑based products designed to be eaten quickly with those drinks are not “food” in the evolutionary sense. They are feed.

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So, progress update for anyone that's interested:

I've been on Tirzepatide (GLP-1 injection) for a month now. I haven't bothered getting on the scale..I've just been doing the "jeans test."

About a year ago, my 32" jeans were getting too tight, so I bought some 33"s. Those eventually got uncomfortable too, which is what finally pushed me to try this medication. After just one month, the 33"s are now totally comfortable again.

It's kind of wild how the medication works. I genuinely have almost no desire to eat. I subscribe to Factor meals, and even though their portions aren't huge, I couldn't finish one this past week. Ended up throwing it out, which honestly made me feel a little bad.

By the way, this stuff isn't nearly as expensive as I thought. I'm paying about $250/month... nowhere near the $1,000+ I kept hearing about.

Bottom line: shit works.

Aldarion said:

This is one of the best and most honest pieces I've read on weight loss in a long time.

Why Starbucks Matters More Than McDonald’s

Sweet coffee, whipped cream, liquid sugar, and why exercise can’t save us

substack.com

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This is well written but ultimately is still mostly making excuses for poor eating habits.

Yes drinking a 600 calorie Starbucks milkshake for breakfast will make you fat, but it's not via some kind of biological magic of it being 'sweet liquid', its because it was 600 calories on top all the rest of the food that person is gonna consume that day as well.

Yes yes, not all calorie sources are the same, but for 99% of people that's a minutiae that is like 5 layers removed from the root of the problem - that they simply eat/drink too much. If you want to get to 6% body fat that's when you probably want to start worrying about your calorie sources and macros, but if you're some normal office schlub that is 40lbs overweight the type of calories you're eating is not the problem, it is entirely the quantity of them.

250 today. Logically I know I must have been this weight at some point in the past, but I have no idea when it was.

Haus

Looks like the move to move your new found love for peptides off the gray market about to be fucked by big pharma.

190 today. Down 45 pounds or so.

I have my dexcom g7 now and I feel like I am min maxing food so much now. Something interesting to me is I see the blood sugar spike after the 2 hours I believe because of the mounjaro. Changed my perspective of how good my blood sugar was doing. Even so, blood sugar has been in range 98% of the time according to the dexcom.

Cad said:

My in laws (not diabetic) had those things on for about 6-9 months trying to avoid anything that caused a sugar spike. They ended up like eating chicken breast and vegetables only, avoiding all carbs, and sure their sugar never spiked but they said it was maddening like they just couldn't eat anything.

I think once you fix your insulin sensitivity you should be able to go back to eating at least reasonable amounts of carbs, you don't want to avoid carbs totally, its just miserable. But reversing insulin resistance is hard.

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I still eat carbs but definitely not as much. I just find it interesting that as a diabetic you're taught to test 2 hours after eating but I didn't consider that due to slower digestion from mounjaro it might be further delayed.

I think the key to my eating is that my brain now gets a signal to stop eating. I NEVER got that signal before. No joke, but I could eat until I got sick. I feel like my brain is wired a little different.

Its interesting that keto is still so misunderstood. Seems like people still confuse proper ketogenic regimens with things like the Carnivore diet.

You eat carbs on ketogenic diets. You just adjust exactly how much based on your activity levels so you burn through the glycogen and remain in ketosis.

ShakyJake said:

So, progress update for anyone that's interested:

I've been on Tirzepatide (GLP-1 injection) for a month now. I haven't bothered getting on the scale..I've just been doing the "jeans test."

About a year ago, my 32" jeans were getting too tight, so I bought some 33"s. Those eventually got uncomfortable too, which is what finally pushed me to try this medication. After just one month, the 33"s are now totally comfortable again.

It's kind of wild how the medication works. I genuinely have almost no desire to eat. I subscribe to Factor meals, and even though their portions aren't huge, I couldn't finish one this past week. Ended up throwing it out, which honestly made me feel a little bad.

By the way, this stuff isn't nearly as expensive as I thought. I'm paying about $250/month... nowhere near the $1,000+ I kept hearing about.

Bottom line: shit works.

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I just hit 4 months, down 34 pounds (started at 228, weighing 194 now). It's a magic fucking switch man, so hard to accurately describe to people how much it fundamentally changes the game. I've been trying to lose weight with various levels of success for years, and I get it - have some self control - but taking this has genuinely made me go "How much of this diet struggle comes down to different people just feeling hunger more or less intensly?". Because yeah, self control is easy as shit when you don't feel like you are starving all the time.

Here's my crude analogy. It's the difference between being all sexually worked up with a naked a girl begging for it in front of you and going "Hey, just stop being horny" vs that same situation 2 minutes after you've jerked off. Like, it might still sound appealing on some level - but its very easy to go "Nah, I'm good". Night and day difference with the desire to eat, for me anyway.

I'm paying less for my Tirzepatide though, I did a 6 month plan for $700 from a website called pomegranate health on the recommendation of a friend. I was supposed to do a month at 2, then a month at 4, then 6, then 3 months at 7.5. I had no issues at 2 or 4, but when I went to 6 I felt sick as shit for days. I genuinely thought I caught something. Same thing happened the next week when I did it again. I dropped to 5 and was a little nauseous for 24ish hours but otherwise felt fine. Since that seems to be working for me I'm just sticking with 5, which should make my vials last 7.5 months, so under $100 a month.

I know a girl taking 17.5 per week and she is spending $540 a month on it. I was telling her how crazy that is and she said when she was on Ozempic she was spending more than 1k a month. I'm such a cheapskate that is insane to me.