Retatrutide is incredible in a mind altering way. I know 4 people on it, including myself. And all just love the way it makes you feel. You just don’t want to eat as much and you want to eat healthier. As far as I can tell, that is it. While I’m nervous there could be long term side effects, I think the health benefits of being at a healthy weight mean that for probably 50% of the developed world they would benefit from it.
How is everyone purchasing Retatrutide at this moment? It's still in phase 3 trials, and I keep hearing of people being on it. Not really seeing safe options with proper lab testing.
Other pharmaceuticals at the phase 3 stage (such as Buntanetap for Parkinson's disease) are super difficult to get, even with the right to try exemption in the US.
They are buying from Chinese dealers. And sadly, as with most GLP-1s they likely will need to take them for the rest of their life or suffer some incredible rebound weight loss/ negative health effects.
These medications are incredible if you are overweight and need them. But they are not a panacea. Also arguably buying these drugs from Chinese dealers means there is no recourse if you get a bad batch.
There is a pseudo testing setup around Finnrick but talk to anyone with a PhD in biochemistry and there are numerous ways these molecules can be improperly manufactured.
Surprised to see so many on HN being relatively careless with their heath
I don’t think anything you’re saying is outright false but the way you describe cessation as having an incredible rebound effect shows that you haven’t done very much research, that you’re negatively polarized, and that you’re trying to put spin on it
Lots of people enjoyed, sometimes quietly, feeling superior to people not predisposed to self control. Now that you can get a weekly shot of it, they desperately search for something new to feel quietly smug about. "Well you'll have to take it the rest of your life!" Yeah, ok, good! I hope it stays available the rest of my life.
I tried semaglutide and while it was effective for losing weight, it made working out impossible (felt exhausted and very sick as soon as hr went up) and it made hangovers awful. Is retatrutide any different?
Had the same issue. With reta I have more energy than normal and workout even more than usual. I get great workouts despite eating around 1400 calories a day. I don't wanna act like it's without flaws but I gotta say it does it's job very well
If there's any mental effect, it's most likely from eating less food (and most likely healthier food) and feeling better because of that.
It doesn't increase your appetite for healthy food. It will punish you for eating bad food. "Don't eat that steak, you're going to have crazy stomach pain tomorrow if you do!"
That's not my experience with tirzepatide. When it worked for me (which was a brief period, admittedly), it kind of turned me off fatty foods, and I wouldn't want to have pizza, for example, but I'd crave a chicken breast and boiled potato, or salad.
When it didn't work, one of the failure modes was that I still craved fatty/fried food, but I got terrible stomach pain from it, which is the worst of both worlds. If I'm still going to be unable to resist food, I don't want to be punished for it any more than I already am by being overweight!
For me, it was definitely a bug, because my issue is I can't restrain myself. I don't lose weight, I just get pains. If I could restrain myself, why do I need the medication?
Absolutely nothing, if you only eat a few ounces. But a lot of places will server you a 12 oz ribeye steak which has 900 calories all by itself. Add on a side of french fries and a sugary beverage and you get a days worth of calories in a single sitting.
When you are on a GLP medication, commonly your digestion slows and will make you really prone to constipation and acid reflux. I've learned to eat just 3-6 ozs when I do steak, and generally opt for the veggies instead of the potatoes now. Feel much better in the morning.
Yeah I think the fries and sugary beverage would be contributing to the “crazy stomach pain” a lot more than the steak. But the person I’m replying to made no mention of those things..
Yeah, I think I got a little lost with mention of the side dishes in my comment. Point is, I'm on these medications and when a 12 oz ribeye comes out from a restaurant, I don't feel any need to eat all of it. I often eat less than half or split it with my spouse
A 12oz ribeye is a pretty generous serving; it's not something that sneaks up on you.
The surprising thing for me, having settled into a ~1400kcal budget, is how tricky it is to hit protein goals. You go into this thinking it'll be like going low-carb, you'll just eat a lot of beef, but the fun cuts are not efficient protein delivery vehicles. Hitting the kcal budget is effortless; getting the protein in, not so much.
There have been some hit pieces on Retatrutide that claim it blunts emotions, period. It was characterized as, "falling out of love with someone." Have you noticed anything like that?
Unfortunately, my experience with tirzepatide doesn't make me hopeful: It either gave me terrible diarrhea and sulfur burps, or it did nothing at all, even on 15mg. Hopefully retatrutide is different, but I'm not holding my breath.
It did work for around two weeks, though, and it was great. I constantly felt mildly carsick, so I didn't really want to eat anything, but also didn't have much trouble eating my macros.
How did you get to 15mg and only had it working for 2 weeks? The starting dose is 2.5mg and it takes many months to titrate up to 15mg. Most people never get to 15mg.
I've read hundreds of anecdotal experiences from people on these drugs, and haven't encountered anyone taking 15mg without success.
Sorry to hear that. As a counterpoint for the peanut gallery I've been on tirzepatide for 5 months and lost 15 kg in the first 3 months, never going past a 1.25mg dose. I've only creeped up to 3mg since and keep losing around 0.3 kg per week. No side effects except for super mild nausea every now and then. I plan to stay at a similar or lower dose for the next couple of years.
I had the good fortune of responding well and being at a great starting point: despite being 40% body fat I exercised a lot and had great labs to begin with. Anecdotally I've found starting metabolic health to make a huge difference in dose response.
This has been my experience with ozempic as well. It has helped with my insulin resistance, but if I take anywhere near a weight loss dose my intestines slow so much that food starts fermenting in my gut and it gives me sugar alcohol poisoning.
I’m hungry right now. I should be working, but all I want to do is to eat. I have already eaten more than enough today, and I would like to lose weight.
I could take more caffeine to reduce my desire for food, but it is already too close to bedtime. I could try to focus on work (I am) but I keep getting intrusive thoughts about the fact that I could just get ice cream/cookies/chicken fingers/burrito/quesadilla/insert food here in just a few moments.
I wish I could take these drugs, unfortunately I cannot. Terrible side effects.
Strangely, after visiting Japan I found it quite easy to eat a healthy low calorie diet for about two weeks. Now I’m back to constant food noise, despite trying to stick to a Japanese-style diet (lots of fish and vegetables and fermented foods).
The people who say “just eat less” don’t understand what the actual problem is.
Well, the difference is just eat less does work. Calories in calories out is literally thermodynamics. We are an energy equation. We don't collect energy from the air or the sun either. If you cease to eat, you will starve. And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate. Once again going back to the energy equation. Actually bust your ass. A good intense run should make you feel like you are going to puke afterwards. You may in fact puke. A hard set on the weights should get your heart rate surging and prevent you from even formulating words.
The issue with these things isn't that they don't work. It's that people attempt them and do not go all the way. They go on a little diet in some ways but fail to account for all their daily calories from stuff like beverages or snacks, maybe they aren't weighing their food either and just assuming a lot with what they are eating. They try and work out but it looks like walking on a treadmill or moving some 5lb weights around, far from running until lactic acid stops you or lifting to failure.
I think there is a lot of misjudgement of how intense a workout really is or how a diet should look like. And that feeds into this idea that it will not work.
But, you can't argue against thermodynamics. We don't make energy from nowhere. We are bound by the same laws of physics as anything else. If you can't lose weight with how you are eating, then the answer is obvious why that is the case: you are still eating too much given your activity level.
> And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate.
Multiple studies prove you wrong, IRL. Humans are not isolated test guinea pigs in a cage. It is simply not feasible to live one's life by a spreadsheet of accounting values.
HN guidelines strongly encourage me not calling you an asinine twat, so I won't do that. As your other reply highlighted, no one's arguing thermodynamics with you. It's clearly a behavioural phenomenon, and one that isn't half as well understood as we may like to believe. It's at the intersection of advertising, biology, dietetics, economics, genetics, neuroscience, nutrition, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, the disciplines go on. Consider all the myriad ways those factors may interact and compound, then look at the statistics: that the overwhelming majority of adults fail to lose significant weight long term through "eat less" should tell you all you need to know about the state of the problem. If your conclusion is as simple as "they mustn't have considered to put the fork down and try harder, en masse," I feel it says more about you than anything else.
Try filling your stomach with water and low/zero calorie rufflage like greens. Bonus, it will help you get right out of bed in the morning. Secret native american method for waking up early for war without alarm clock technology, using the bladder.
It's all the fructose in western diets. Tens of centuries of Europeans eating bountifully in the fall and then fasting through winter and spring evolved metabolic reactions that fructose means "pack on weight now because we'll be needing it"
The issue is not lack of knowledge about appropriate amounts to eat, it's the physical sensations and mental state of being satiated at those amounts and the self control to limit yourself when you are not.
Surely that must go down when you are several stone lighter with lower metabolic demands than when you were heavier maintaining all that mass. But even then, you'd be aware of these things, presumably you'd limit yourself somewhat. Especially if you were noticing weight coming back on.
I was on a GLP-1 a few years ago and lost 70 lbs. After I got off, I kept a ton of diet changes (no more Pepsi or Gatorade and a lot of water instead, switching to whole grains and fiber/protein variants on pasta, etc.) and gained the weight back in a year and a half. The literature backs this up: keeping up weight loss is hard.
All research points to a "no" answer - weight is regained, and quickly. Which helps explain why obesity is so prevalent - it is something in the brain's chemistry.
Weight would only be regained if you start eating more, no? I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what GLP-1 agonists help with. In simple terms, they make you less hungry. If you stop the drugs, it's not surprising you go back to being hungry. It would be a miracle drug if you didn't.
People, on average, eat until they're no longer hungry. Problem is, there's only a loose relationship between your caloric needs and your hunger response. That's how you end up with underweight people who are trying to put on muscle saying they can't possibly eat any more and still can't put on weight, while having overweight people who eat twice as much as that guy and have to actively choose not eat more. Both people can make a conscious choice to disobey their signals, just like how you can choose to hold your hand to a hot stove. But it takes a lot of energy to keep up that willpower. Effective weightloss drugs solve that problem, by treating the actual problem: the hunger.
I don't misunderstand. I understand they stop you from feeling as hungry. That is why it is even more perplexing. Eating until you are no longer hungry isn't how most people eat I'd say. Most people eat a given quantity of food. A plate of food. A bowl of soup. An entree with the provided side perhaps. People don't generally order food, eat it, and order more food. Maybe they do I guess, but I haven't seen it personally. I mean I think a lot of people could shove a dozen hotdogs down their gullet if they wanted to, but that reaction isn't a typical expectation. Plus once you've seen normal portions, surely you'd realize when you are going beyond those.
Speed of eating might also be an underrated factor in all this. Stretching out ones meals and slowing down the pace might lead to satiety triggers coming before the meal is done, whereas if one scarfs down the plate before that signal happens, well, one already scarfed down the plate and might be working into the next before those signals hit. This meta analysis suggests this is a possibility (1).
It's possible that your internal hunger mechanism is different from other people's. In my experience, hunger leads me to eat, and I stop eating when I feel full. Perhaps I will go back for seconds if I am eating at home, or, if I am eating at a restaurant, I will likely not eat everything on my plate (giant US portions).
> I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
This would be true if not knowing what an appropriate portion size is was the one thing keeping most people from losing weight. If that was the case, traditional dieting would have a far better track record with long term weight loss.
People notoriously don't know what an appropriate portion size is. Usually those failed diets come from failing to appreciate the quantity of calories coming in. Those sugary drinks and snacks add up fast. I've seen it among people I know. I might drink water, they opt to drink 250 calories. Does that make them feel any full? Probably not, its merely sugar water, but it accounts for calories and can kill diets. We order a 750 calorie entree and they get a refill. We walk away from the same meal but one of us had almost twice as many calories.
Nope, the body will adjust to regain it no matter what.
Australia's health organization did a meta study on people who had bariatric surgery. They found that every single one regained 70% of their original weight after five years, even though they were physically incapable of eating the way they did before.
This happened to my grandmother, she had a bypass in the 2000s, lost over a hundred pounds, and then regained it again and was back to her original weight when she passed in 2022. The woman couldn't eat more than 4 ounces per meal without throwing up.
I lost 40 pounds in 2017 from gastritis. I kept it off for three years, and then regained 50 pounds despite starting ozempic.
Except if your body is unnaturally screaming at you to eat more. The obesity epidemic is not caused by ignorance or lack of willpower. It's natural differences in how people's bodies work compounded by modernity's changes to physical activity levels and diet.
People do learn to fast and deal with those signals. Once you are aware of what they are it probably gets easier. I've fasted before, by choice and via circumstance in less fortunate times in my life. Is it uncomfortable? Sure. But it is no punch in the face. It is something you can learn to push aside and handle the task. One can learn to go to sleep hungry, sadly.
And you mention exercise, that is an excellent point. Hunter gatherers might forage for 8 miles a day, while many peoples daily walking effort can be measured in a few dozen feet. Our bodies are built to be used. It is no surprise that when they are not, systems designed for a certain baseline load are no longer functioning as intended.
I keep track of GLP1s and write a lot about them (looking for negative side effects, research results, etc) and it is amazing how potent retatrutide is. It’s not simply a matter of “more agonists, more better” but it looks like Eli Lilly has really cracked it.
There is a large enthusiast community of the body building variety (who are usually first) who are already performing a bit of an unscheduled human trial and I have to say the results are amazing. We have both injectable retatrutide and pill form retatrutide to look forward to (pill form is unannounced but I have a hunch!).
These GLP-1 drugs seem to do more than what the article describes. The spontaneous cessation or serious reduction of addictions (chemical, behavioral) and otherwise compulsive behaviors when taking GLP-1s is widely discussed and described.
The magic trick with these is the way to increase half life. It’s really quite an amazing piece of work. I used retatrutide for a while very effectively but then we’ve been traveling a few months and I’ve gained quite a bit of weight back as expected.
The drug is pretty much ideal: dose-response curve doesn’t flatten too much, adaptation is present but not extreme, it is entirely reversible when you get off it.
The side effects I see are a histamine reaction at the injection site and cold sensitivity. To stop the former I varied duration of injection, temperature of solution, and site. None of these had any effect so I just lived with it in a place it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
I haven’t been lifting very much during the period immediately prior due to injury playing sports and reinjury due to inactivity after a motorcycle accident years prior.
My peak lifts were @155 lbs: squat 265x5, deadlift 375x2, bench 185x1, ohp 135x5. Stating these so you know where to baseline.
Immediately prior to retatrutide schedule: squat non functional (could not squat), deadlift 225x5, bench 125x1, ohp non functional (could not raise arms above head). Weight 199.3 lbs
And I was also going to physical therapy.
1.5 months after cessation: I didn’t increase lifts due to not having standard programming. Weight 182 lbs.
Overall, an excellent drug. I should note that I ramped up slowly from under 1 mg/week up so my nausea and other symptoms were extremely minor. At lower doses I’d walk up to the fridge as I did in the past and then decide against eating a snack. At higher doses I wouldn’t get up. I already knew I should drink but I drink a lot of Coke Zero so that was fine. I never actually hit a routine dose that was within the tested range, I was always lower.
Author spent a ton of time writing this up "for fun"...but glad people are still doing this and old school blogs. The effort required seems substantial...
Not sure about the AI style transfer images... sure it's a valid way to get the illustrations you want but I don't have to like it...
Retatrutide is incredible in a mind altering way. I know 4 people on it, including myself. And all just love the way it makes you feel. You just don’t want to eat as much and you want to eat healthier. As far as I can tell, that is it. While I’m nervous there could be long term side effects, I think the health benefits of being at a healthy weight mean that for probably 50% of the developed world they would benefit from it.
Looking forward to more formal studies though!
How is everyone purchasing Retatrutide at this moment? It's still in phase 3 trials, and I keep hearing of people being on it. Not really seeing safe options with proper lab testing.
Other pharmaceuticals at the phase 3 stage (such as Buntanetap for Parkinson's disease) are super difficult to get, even with the right to try exemption in the US.
Wellness/Health clinics sourcing from China or compounding pharmacies, which themselves source the ingredients from China.
Yeah, I hear everyone talk about it like it’s just super easy to get…
Independent lab test results from multiple vendors, e.g. https://www.finnrick.com/products/retatrutide
Start by looking at independent lab test results from multiple vendors, e.g. https://www.finnrick.com/products/retatrutide
they buy it from research peptide vendors
https://www.ft.com/content/b15407bd-7b86-45c3-9780-0c92117cc...
They are buying from Chinese dealers. And sadly, as with most GLP-1s they likely will need to take them for the rest of their life or suffer some incredible rebound weight loss/ negative health effects.
These medications are incredible if you are overweight and need them. But they are not a panacea. Also arguably buying these drugs from Chinese dealers means there is no recourse if you get a bad batch.
There is a pseudo testing setup around Finnrick but talk to anyone with a PhD in biochemistry and there are numerous ways these molecules can be improperly manufactured.
Surprised to see so many on HN being relatively careless with their heath
I don’t think anything you’re saying is outright false but the way you describe cessation as having an incredible rebound effect shows that you haven’t done very much research, that you’re negatively polarized, and that you’re trying to put spin on it
Lots of people enjoyed, sometimes quietly, feeling superior to people not predisposed to self control. Now that you can get a weekly shot of it, they desperately search for something new to feel quietly smug about. "Well you'll have to take it the rest of your life!" Yeah, ok, good! I hope it stays available the rest of my life.
I tried semaglutide and while it was effective for losing weight, it made working out impossible (felt exhausted and very sick as soon as hr went up) and it made hangovers awful. Is retatrutide any different?
I got food poisoning on a glp2 and it was the worst I've ever felt in my life for like a week because it it slows the digestion.
it was an edge case I had not considered.
Also, when you need to vomit, GLP1 still makes your body think there's food left to vomit, and you can wind up retching for quite a while.
Never again!
I'm surprised your doctor didn't recommend a laxative, because they know it slows digestion.
Had the same issue. With reta I have more energy than normal and workout even more than usual. I get great workouts despite eating around 1400 calories a day. I don't wanna act like it's without flaws but I gotta say it does it's job very well
>> Retatrutide is incredible in a mind altering way
>> and all just love the way it makes you feel
Maybe it will turn out to be an antidepressant as well. That would be quite a coup.
Does it alter you mind more than just your appetite for healthy food like you said? Is there a buzz or general mood lift as well?
If there's any mental effect, it's most likely from eating less food (and most likely healthier food) and feeling better because of that.
It doesn't increase your appetite for healthy food. It will punish you for eating bad food. "Don't eat that steak, you're going to have crazy stomach pain tomorrow if you do!"
That's not my experience with tirzepatide. When it worked for me (which was a brief period, admittedly), it kind of turned me off fatty foods, and I wouldn't want to have pizza, for example, but I'd crave a chicken breast and boiled potato, or salad.
When it didn't work, one of the failure modes was that I still craved fatty/fried food, but I got terrible stomach pain from it, which is the worst of both worlds. If I'm still going to be unable to resist food, I don't want to be punished for it any more than I already am by being overweight!
> When it didn't work, one of the failure modes was that I still craved fatty/fried food, but I got terrible stomach pain from it
I saw this was a feature, not a bug.
For me, it was definitely a bug, because my issue is I can't restrain myself. I don't lose weight, I just get pains. If I could restrain myself, why do I need the medication?
What’s wrong with eating steak? Biologically I mean, not ethically.
Absolutely nothing, if you only eat a few ounces. But a lot of places will server you a 12 oz ribeye steak which has 900 calories all by itself. Add on a side of french fries and a sugary beverage and you get a days worth of calories in a single sitting.
When you are on a GLP medication, commonly your digestion slows and will make you really prone to constipation and acid reflux. I've learned to eat just 3-6 ozs when I do steak, and generally opt for the veggies instead of the potatoes now. Feel much better in the morning.
Yeah I think the fries and sugary beverage would be contributing to the “crazy stomach pain” a lot more than the steak. But the person I’m replying to made no mention of those things..
Yeah, I think I got a little lost with mention of the side dishes in my comment. Point is, I'm on these medications and when a 12 oz ribeye comes out from a restaurant, I don't feel any need to eat all of it. I often eat less than half or split it with my spouse
I know a stomach ache is coming if I do.
A 12oz ribeye is a pretty generous serving; it's not something that sneaks up on you.
The surprising thing for me, having settled into a ~1400kcal budget, is how tricky it is to hit protein goals. You go into this thinking it'll be like going low-carb, you'll just eat a lot of beef, but the fun cuts are not efficient protein delivery vehicles. Hitting the kcal budget is effortless; getting the protein in, not so much.
Same!
Keeping a small stock of these has helped me a lot with that:
https://fairlife.com/core-power/chocolate-protein-shake-42g/
There have been some hit pieces on Retatrutide that claim it blunts emotions, period. It was characterized as, "falling out of love with someone." Have you noticed anything like that?
Unfortunately, my experience with tirzepatide doesn't make me hopeful: It either gave me terrible diarrhea and sulfur burps, or it did nothing at all, even on 15mg. Hopefully retatrutide is different, but I'm not holding my breath.
It did work for around two weeks, though, and it was great. I constantly felt mildly carsick, so I didn't really want to eat anything, but also didn't have much trouble eating my macros.
How did you get to 15mg and only had it working for 2 weeks? The starting dose is 2.5mg and it takes many months to titrate up to 15mg. Most people never get to 15mg.
I've read hundreds of anecdotal experiences from people on these drugs, and haven't encountered anyone taking 15mg without success.
> How did you get to 15mg and only had it working for 2 weeks?
Shrug, it's a mystery to me as well. It did take many months to get to that point.
Sorry to hear that. As a counterpoint for the peanut gallery I've been on tirzepatide for 5 months and lost 15 kg in the first 3 months, never going past a 1.25mg dose. I've only creeped up to 3mg since and keep losing around 0.3 kg per week. No side effects except for super mild nausea every now and then. I plan to stay at a similar or lower dose for the next couple of years.
I had the good fortune of responding well and being at a great starting point: despite being 40% body fat I exercised a lot and had great labs to begin with. Anecdotally I've found starting metabolic health to make a huge difference in dose response.
Thanks, everyone else I know who's tried it has had great results, I guess I'm just unlucky :/
This has been my experience with ozempic as well. It has helped with my insulin resistance, but if I take anywhere near a weight loss dose my intestines slow so much that food starts fermenting in my gut and it gives me sugar alcohol poisoning.
Everyone is different but I lost over 40lbs just by taking 5mg over about 5 months
Now that the drug has shown you what a more appropriate portion is, do you think you can manage that on your own without the drug?
I’m hungry right now. I should be working, but all I want to do is to eat. I have already eaten more than enough today, and I would like to lose weight.
I could take more caffeine to reduce my desire for food, but it is already too close to bedtime. I could try to focus on work (I am) but I keep getting intrusive thoughts about the fact that I could just get ice cream/cookies/chicken fingers/burrito/quesadilla/insert food here in just a few moments.
I wish I could take these drugs, unfortunately I cannot. Terrible side effects.
Strangely, after visiting Japan I found it quite easy to eat a healthy low calorie diet for about two weeks. Now I’m back to constant food noise, despite trying to stick to a Japanese-style diet (lots of fish and vegetables and fermented foods).
The people who say “just eat less” don’t understand what the actual problem is.
The people saying "just eat less" are the same ones telling depressed people "just smile more"
Well, the difference is just eat less does work. Calories in calories out is literally thermodynamics. We are an energy equation. We don't collect energy from the air or the sun either. If you cease to eat, you will starve. And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate. Once again going back to the energy equation. Actually bust your ass. A good intense run should make you feel like you are going to puke afterwards. You may in fact puke. A hard set on the weights should get your heart rate surging and prevent you from even formulating words.
The issue with these things isn't that they don't work. It's that people attempt them and do not go all the way. They go on a little diet in some ways but fail to account for all their daily calories from stuff like beverages or snacks, maybe they aren't weighing their food either and just assuming a lot with what they are eating. They try and work out but it looks like walking on a treadmill or moving some 5lb weights around, far from running until lactic acid stops you or lifting to failure.
I think there is a lot of misjudgement of how intense a workout really is or how a diet should look like. And that feeds into this idea that it will not work.
But, you can't argue against thermodynamics. We don't make energy from nowhere. We are bound by the same laws of physics as anything else. If you can't lose weight with how you are eating, then the answer is obvious why that is the case: you are still eating too much given your activity level.
You’d go far in life if you could read as well as you can write.
> If you can't lose weight with how you are eating
The problem is people find it difficult to change how they eat.
This is largely an environmental problem - observe that obesity rates vary over time and location.
> And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate.
Multiple studies prove you wrong, IRL. Humans are not isolated test guinea pigs in a cage. It is simply not feasible to live one's life by a spreadsheet of accounting values.
Nobody is arguing with you about thermodynamics.
HN guidelines strongly encourage me not calling you an asinine twat, so I won't do that. As your other reply highlighted, no one's arguing thermodynamics with you. It's clearly a behavioural phenomenon, and one that isn't half as well understood as we may like to believe. It's at the intersection of advertising, biology, dietetics, economics, genetics, neuroscience, nutrition, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, the disciplines go on. Consider all the myriad ways those factors may interact and compound, then look at the statistics: that the overwhelming majority of adults fail to lose significant weight long term through "eat less" should tell you all you need to know about the state of the problem. If your conclusion is as simple as "they mustn't have considered to put the fork down and try harder, en masse," I feel it says more about you than anything else.
Try filling your stomach with water and low/zero calorie rufflage like greens. Bonus, it will help you get right out of bed in the morning. Secret native american method for waking up early for war without alarm clock technology, using the bladder.
> healthy low calorie diet for about two weeks
It's all the fructose in western diets. Tens of centuries of Europeans eating bountifully in the fall and then fasting through winter and spring evolved metabolic reactions that fructose means "pack on weight now because we'll be needing it"
This sounds like it would be correct. Got a good reference tho ?
The issue is not lack of knowledge about appropriate amounts to eat, it's the physical sensations and mental state of being satiated at those amounts and the self control to limit yourself when you are not.
Surely that must go down when you are several stone lighter with lower metabolic demands than when you were heavier maintaining all that mass. But even then, you'd be aware of these things, presumably you'd limit yourself somewhat. Especially if you were noticing weight coming back on.
I was on a GLP-1 a few years ago and lost 70 lbs. After I got off, I kept a ton of diet changes (no more Pepsi or Gatorade and a lot of water instead, switching to whole grains and fiber/protein variants on pasta, etc.) and gained the weight back in a year and a half. The literature backs this up: keeping up weight loss is hard.
All research points to a "no" answer - weight is regained, and quickly. Which helps explain why obesity is so prevalent - it is something in the brain's chemistry.
Weight would only be regained if you start eating more, no? I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what GLP-1 agonists help with. In simple terms, they make you less hungry. If you stop the drugs, it's not surprising you go back to being hungry. It would be a miracle drug if you didn't.
People, on average, eat until they're no longer hungry. Problem is, there's only a loose relationship between your caloric needs and your hunger response. That's how you end up with underweight people who are trying to put on muscle saying they can't possibly eat any more and still can't put on weight, while having overweight people who eat twice as much as that guy and have to actively choose not eat more. Both people can make a conscious choice to disobey their signals, just like how you can choose to hold your hand to a hot stove. But it takes a lot of energy to keep up that willpower. Effective weightloss drugs solve that problem, by treating the actual problem: the hunger.
I don't misunderstand. I understand they stop you from feeling as hungry. That is why it is even more perplexing. Eating until you are no longer hungry isn't how most people eat I'd say. Most people eat a given quantity of food. A plate of food. A bowl of soup. An entree with the provided side perhaps. People don't generally order food, eat it, and order more food. Maybe they do I guess, but I haven't seen it personally. I mean I think a lot of people could shove a dozen hotdogs down their gullet if they wanted to, but that reaction isn't a typical expectation. Plus once you've seen normal portions, surely you'd realize when you are going beyond those.
Speed of eating might also be an underrated factor in all this. Stretching out ones meals and slowing down the pace might lead to satiety triggers coming before the meal is done, whereas if one scarfs down the plate before that signal happens, well, one already scarfed down the plate and might be working into the next before those signals hit. This meta analysis suggests this is a possibility (1).
1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8156274/
It's possible that your internal hunger mechanism is different from other people's. In my experience, hunger leads me to eat, and I stop eating when I feel full. Perhaps I will go back for seconds if I am eating at home, or, if I am eating at a restaurant, I will likely not eat everything on my plate (giant US portions).
> I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
This would be true if not knowing what an appropriate portion size is was the one thing keeping most people from losing weight. If that was the case, traditional dieting would have a far better track record with long term weight loss.
People notoriously don't know what an appropriate portion size is. Usually those failed diets come from failing to appreciate the quantity of calories coming in. Those sugary drinks and snacks add up fast. I've seen it among people I know. I might drink water, they opt to drink 250 calories. Does that make them feel any full? Probably not, its merely sugar water, but it accounts for calories and can kill diets. We order a 750 calorie entree and they get a refill. We walk away from the same meal but one of us had almost twice as many calories.
Nope, the body will adjust to regain it no matter what.
Australia's health organization did a meta study on people who had bariatric surgery. They found that every single one regained 70% of their original weight after five years, even though they were physically incapable of eating the way they did before.
This happened to my grandmother, she had a bypass in the 2000s, lost over a hundred pounds, and then regained it again and was back to her original weight when she passed in 2022. The woman couldn't eat more than 4 ounces per meal without throwing up.
I lost 40 pounds in 2017 from gastritis. I kept it off for three years, and then regained 50 pounds despite starting ozempic.
Except if your body is unnaturally screaming at you to eat more. The obesity epidemic is not caused by ignorance or lack of willpower. It's natural differences in how people's bodies work compounded by modernity's changes to physical activity levels and diet.
People do learn to fast and deal with those signals. Once you are aware of what they are it probably gets easier. I've fasted before, by choice and via circumstance in less fortunate times in my life. Is it uncomfortable? Sure. But it is no punch in the face. It is something you can learn to push aside and handle the task. One can learn to go to sleep hungry, sadly.
And you mention exercise, that is an excellent point. Hunter gatherers might forage for 8 miles a day, while many peoples daily walking effort can be measured in a few dozen feet. Our bodies are built to be used. It is no surprise that when they are not, systems designed for a certain baseline load are no longer functioning as intended.
Gosh that's so impressive, if only they had a peptide that made everyone exactly like you!
(they do they're fucking called glp-1s)
I keep track of GLP1s and write a lot about them (looking for negative side effects, research results, etc) and it is amazing how potent retatrutide is. It’s not simply a matter of “more agonists, more better” but it looks like Eli Lilly has really cracked it.
There is a large enthusiast community of the body building variety (who are usually first) who are already performing a bit of an unscheduled human trial and I have to say the results are amazing. We have both injectable retatrutide and pill form retatrutide to look forward to (pill form is unannounced but I have a hunch!).
These GLP-1 drugs seem to do more than what the article describes. The spontaneous cessation or serious reduction of addictions (chemical, behavioral) and otherwise compulsive behaviors when taking GLP-1s is widely discussed and described.
It seems like it does something else. https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-07-24/brain-science-glp-1s-a... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11202225/
The magic trick with these is the way to increase half life. It’s really quite an amazing piece of work. I used retatrutide for a while very effectively but then we’ve been traveling a few months and I’ve gained quite a bit of weight back as expected.
The drug is pretty much ideal: dose-response curve doesn’t flatten too much, adaptation is present but not extreme, it is entirely reversible when you get off it.
The side effects I see are a histamine reaction at the injection site and cold sensitivity. To stop the former I varied duration of injection, temperature of solution, and site. None of these had any effect so I just lived with it in a place it wasn’t too uncomfortable.
I haven’t been lifting very much during the period immediately prior due to injury playing sports and reinjury due to inactivity after a motorcycle accident years prior.
My peak lifts were @155 lbs: squat 265x5, deadlift 375x2, bench 185x1, ohp 135x5. Stating these so you know where to baseline.
Immediately prior to retatrutide schedule: squat non functional (could not squat), deadlift 225x5, bench 125x1, ohp non functional (could not raise arms above head). Weight 199.3 lbs And I was also going to physical therapy.
After schedule: squat 135x5, deadlift 325x5, bench 135x10, ohp 135x2. Weight 173 lbs
1.5 months after cessation: I didn’t increase lifts due to not having standard programming. Weight 182 lbs.
Overall, an excellent drug. I should note that I ramped up slowly from under 1 mg/week up so my nausea and other symptoms were extremely minor. At lower doses I’d walk up to the fridge as I did in the past and then decide against eating a snack. At higher doses I wouldn’t get up. I already knew I should drink but I drink a lot of Coke Zero so that was fine. I never actually hit a routine dose that was within the tested range, I was always lower.
Gaining fat means you are eating a caloric surplus
Author spent a ton of time writing this up "for fun"...but glad people are still doing this and old school blogs. The effort required seems substantial...
Not sure about the AI style transfer images... sure it's a valid way to get the illustrations you want but I don't have to like it...
I hope it is more effective that Tirzepatide of which I am a rare nonresponder and have only gained weight.
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