I'm "gifting" an article about some promising pill forms of the newer weight loss drugs. You can read the entire article is interested.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/...8r10jkpcBiQuOarSb7CeklUZCnF-7p&smid=url-share
I’m curious if thr post-weight-loss phase, or maintenance phase, is easier, harder or the same as other forms of weight loss, including basic calorie-reduction from diets.
I've wondered that myself, but I don't think we have the answers yet.I don't know enough about the weight loss drugs to know if you have to take them for the rest of your life or just while you're losing weight. For the most part, they were originally for diabetics. It's not something I've read very much about yet, although living in an area, where obesity often looks like the norm, and having had two very obese sisters, and an obese grandmother, has made me very interested in weight related issues.
The following is unrelated to the drugs, so excuse me for that. Unless you are as interested in obesity and its causes like I am, skip the rest of my long post.
I've mentioned that one of my sisters had weight loss surgery, which was called "the sleeve". If you're not familiar with it, they remove most of your stomach, leaving just a narrow part of it that resembles a sleeve. For about the first year, you lose your appetite as the enzyme that causes us to be hungry isn't secreted, but then it returns. She lost about 100 lbs and kept it off, due to her strong determination never to be overweight again. But, imo, her diet isn't very healthy. She is supposed to eat a very high amount of protein, so she almost lives on yogurt, since she prefers it to most meat. She rarely eats any fiber or vegetables so she's usually very constipated.
I don't know if most people who've had that surgery eat like her. She has told me that most people gain all of the weight back, once they regain their appetite. Chris Christie had that belly band surgery, if you recall, and he gained all of his weight back. I have known two women who had the more complicated, risky, colon bypass surgery, where I think they remove a large part of your colon, so a lot of calories aren't absorbed. The two women I know or knew that had that done, kept the weight off. One of them was a former neighbor who had the surgery over 40 years ago. She went from 400 lbs. to 200 lb.s She was still rather overweight but she was thrilled to be less overweight than previously. The other one is a niece by marriage.
My mother and I were both slightly overweight in middle age and we both lost the weight and remained thin in old age. I believe that's at least partly due to genetics. She also had a very thin father, who ate very little but did have a problem with ETOH, which neither of us have hd. She used something similar to Weight Watchers to lose the weight. I simply counted calories and increased my activity by walking several miles a few times a week. I think that might have been a combination of genetics and environmental influences as growing up in the NYC area put a lot of pressure on women to be thin. Nobody on my mom's side of the family was ever overweight.
My other sister who lost over 100 lbs on Weight Watchers, gave up after she was diagnosed with cancer. She cut me out of her life shortly before that, but according to my other sister, she gained back most of the weight. I now worry about my estranged niece who looked to be about 400 lbs the last time I saw her. I know that when her mother used to pack her lunch, she put lots of unhealthy carbs in it. Prior to her 20s, both of these family members were thin. Was the weight gain partly genetic from our late paternal grandmother and partly due to eating too much overly processed foods?
I just like trying to figure out what has changed to make obesity an epidemic when it was rare during my childhood. I only remember two overweight students in school. One might have been 10 lbs over weight and yet he was stigmatized by some of the other children. The other was a girl who ended up with anorexia, after going from slightly obese to ultra thin. We did eat junk food when we were kids but we were extremely active compared to most children today. Of course, it might have been very different in the South, where fried foods and lots of bread before meals has been a very common part of the culture.
I couldn't find the article that I wanted to post in this thread that mentioned that eating overly processed foods leads to eating too many calories. That may be true, but almost everything was considered overly processed in that article. My mom and I both eat/ate too many sweets, while remaining thin.I had a desk job and ate out in restaurants almost every meal when I gained weight in middle age. But later, we both became very active and I guess we didn't eat as much as those who seem to become addicted to those foods. I eat lots of salads and vegetables, and small portions of lean meat, fish etc. I eat vegan at least a couple of days per week. I just love sweets and over the past few years, I've needed to eat extra calories or I lose weight. I never expected that. Again, apparently nothing is the same for everyone, but perhaps a lot of people do get addicted to processed foods and eat an amount that causes them to gain weight. I think that eating in restaurants has also been a reason for increased obesity. I've seen people eat enormous amounts of foos at buffets etc. I tend to think that food addiction is similar to any other addiction, but we all must eat to survive, so it can be much harder to lose weight than to stop other addictive habits. I'm not saying that all obese people are addicted to food, but it does seem common these days.
My daughter in law appears to weight over 300 lbs or more, but I'm proud of her for how she has raised my grandkids. They rarely get sweet snacks and almost always drink water at meals or when they are thirsty. I noticed that my 12 year old granddaughter stops eating when she feels full. I now do that too. She is healthy and thin and more active than most children I've known. Same with the grandson. I think my dil doesn't want her children to have her obesity problems. She does over eat a lot, but she is trying to be more active and sometimes I think she is trying to stop eating when full. I totally understand how hard it is to change habits for most people. If we need a separate thread about what causes obesity and what helps cure it, I have no objection to removing my lengthy posts.
Catapult - a machine for throwing objects that goes back over two millennia.
