Calorie counting is also a plaster. The fundamental problem is that people have satiation systems that are built for ages of famine, and we live in an age of cheap abundant calories. (For most people.)

Calorie counting is a cheap hack fix for a satiation system ill-calibrated for the modern world. Yes, you can count calories, stop eating while you’re still hungry, and forcibly starve yourself down to a healthy weight. And many do do this. I did. Many times. But in the end, life happens, some stressful event interrupts, or you just don’t have the energy to keep up with it and resist the hunger.

There’s a reason diets have such poor track records. They’re an attempt to apply conscious effort to a system that did not evolve to require conscious effort. And while that can be maintained for a time, it just plasters over the fundamental problem. And it usually fails in time. That’s what I experienced. Through conscious effort, self-deprivation, and calorie counting, I could starve myself down to a healthy weight. I was healthy, but miserable. You get an irrational hunger for a completely unneeded meal at 10 PM? Just have to go to bed hungry if you want to stay at a healthy weight. No matter how long I kept the weight off, I never reached a point where my hunger levels adjusted to match what I was eating. It was endless self-deprivation. I can only maintain that effort for so long.

But GLP-1 agonists? I’m on one. And it has completely solved my weight issues. I wasn’t even extremely obese or anything. I was at a BMI of 30. After a year and a half on tirzepatide, I’m down to a BMI of 22. And through this whole time, I’ve never counted calories. I deliberately did not do so. I wanted to see what effect the medication would have on my satiation system. And yeah, I found a dose that works, while the side effects are manageable, and it’s completely solved my weight issues. I can now maintain a very healthy weight with zero conscious effort. And the side effects have been quite manageable. I maybe get a bit of mild nausea in the first days after an injection. But even then usually not. And compared to how much better being that much lighter makes me feel? There is no comparison. I’m literally in the best shape of my life (relative to my age at least.) Not being stuck overweight also gave me the confidence to find a form of exercise that works for me. My partner and I have taken up powerlifting, so I’m truly in the best shape of my life, by any measure of fitness. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, from my own lived experience? We have invented the cure for obesity. Ok, maybe it’s technically a treatment than a cure. But I would say it treats the underlying issue and by doing so cures obesity. Or maybe it’s a cure in the sense of, “knowledge is the cure to ignorance.” It’s an ongoing cure. 😂

And so what if I have to keep taking the drug? Most adults take long-term maintenance medications. Vitamins if nothing else. And if five years from now some supply disruption would cause me to lose access? It would simply put me back at the weight I was before, with the permanent benefit of having lived five years less under the cumulative health effects of an unhealthy body weight.

I also see no reason they need to be expensive. I couldn’t afford to pay retail, and my weight was never bad enough to get insurance coverage. I’m also a bit “chaotic good” in nature. So I’m taking the bootleg stuff. Just stuff from Chinese suppliers sold over the internet without a prescription. Sounds scary, but there are some reliable ones out there. And I’ve confirmed it’s the real stuff by using it. And I’ve continuously monitored my health. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in many many years. And the cost? About a dollar a day. For a dollar a day, I have simply solved my weight problem. I eat when I want. I eat til I’m full. And at least in terms of my body and weight, I am at peace.

And I see no reason these couldn’t get cheaper still. Wait until the patents expire! Wait until the massive generics really get going, making enough to supply billions of people. Oh, and they need not be injections either. Pills are in development.

The future is one where you can simply and affordably choose what weight you will carry. Want to be skinny? Want to be husky? Want to perfect your Henry VIII cosplay by becoming as fat as the old bastard? It’s all just a pill away. Another case of technology challenging a fundamental assumption of human existence.

I wonder what effect that will have on culture. We used to value being fat because only the rich could afford to do it. We now value being skinny and fit because only the rich can afford that. What happens when anyone can just choose whatever body type they want with no effort and little money?

Anyway, pardon my ramblings. But I really wanted to share a personal anecdote. Apologies for the length.

Those GLP drugs, the news about them keeps getting better and better. Price is the big barrier - if they were not so expensive, there seems to be a benefit to staying on them. Probably because they reduce blood sugar, they are very good for your brain and heart, improve overall health beyond the weight loss effect. So I wouldn’t call them a band-aid.

In a way. It reduces appetite, which reduces urge to eat lots of junk. But it doesn’t stop people from eating junk, they just eat a little bit of junk instead of a lot of it.

The end goal should be to make it easier to eat healthy foods over junk in the first place, but that’s a long way off. If we’re talking the most direct way to address obesity as an epidemic, namely reducing the adverse health effects it has across a large population, the meds are the most immediate and impactful short term solution.