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I'm considering whether to try semaglutide. I live in Switzerland; I'm sure I won't get a prescription. However, a relative who takes it is visiting and can get me some. I'm hoping for Rybelsus; the pill form.
I've struggled with eating since I was about 9. The culture at home when it came to food was not great; I would describe it as somewhat competitive, kind of seeing who could eat the most the fastest. When I was 24 I finally managed to lose weight, but in the last few years it's been getting up a bit. BMI is now 25.5, not terrible, but definitely affecting my daily life. I always crave food, usually sweet food, and find myself snacking constantly if my willpower is down. I used to be able to keep somewhat of a lid on it by doing a lot of hiking uphill, but since the birth of my son I get almost no exercise.
I've never had any adverse reactions to medication before. Should I go for it?
Oh hey, I used to do the same and also had to stop when parenting eliminated free time. I also have a tendency to eat as much as possible as quickly as possible.
The solution for me was, believe it or not, to eat less. I still want to eat like I used to, but I don't. I just make a mental effort to assess how much food I need and then I eat that much and no more. If I accidentally overeat, I skip the next meal. It's unpleasant, but better than growing fat.
I'm not saying this to dunk on you, "git gud scrub". My message is more like...life sucks, don't wait for a perfect solution, just take the hit and live with the pain and do what you know you have to.
Yeah that's what I'm trying to do at the moment. I've never been a very conscientious person though, and this is a major weakness. It just takes up so much daily bandwidth. Some asshole has just brought in a packet of gummibears to work, and plonked them on a shelf right next to my desk. I feel like semaglutide might help me to ignore them.
Go cold turkey. Just stop it with the sugary crap, entirely, no exceptions. Think of it as "not something that I eat". Sugar gives you cravings for more sugar. Cut the loop by not consuming sweets at all, categorically. You don't need sweets to live.
My office break room is stacked to the roof with cookies, chocolate, candy, gummi whatevers. I walk in there, see a pile of shit-that-messes-you-up, and walk past it to get at the can of unsalted peanuts, cashews and almonds I keep in there. You can snack without screwing with your appetite. See sweets as the horrible drugs, the makers-of-the-obese that they are.
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I started it two months ago.
I highly recommend it. The effects are amazing. I actually feel full after eating meals where everyone else also reports they're full, instead of being ready to have 3 more servings. And while I still think about snacking sometimes, the idea of snacking is just too boring to motivate me to eat.
It's miraculous.
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The most appealing effect to me is the claimed reduction in "food noise". I'm often hungry for no real reason, and getting used to hunger pangs sucks. If you try it, pair it with a resistance training program to spare muscle tissue.
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hmm i don't think you're that good of a candidate. you seem to have things under control already
I spent ages 9-24 obese (100kg). I got down to 73kg, but since 2021 have slowly been gaining weight. I came back from Christmas holidays at 90kg. Every day is a struggle. I would not say I have things under control.
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I've done it. At first started with semaglutide. Semaglutide is good, but has more side effects than others.
I lost about 30 pounds on semaglutide, but needed to lose another 20 to be healthy. After a year of semaglutide, I swapped to tirzepatide, and finally broke through the weight barrier and am now approaching the weight I was a decade ago.
Go for it. I buy from grey market because it's so expensive in the United States, though sites come and go and it can be difficult to find a new one when the old one shuts down.
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I'd advocate for it. If you experience unpleasant side effects, you should be able to stop, and even then, the most common ones like bloating pass with time as your body adjusts.
The main issue is that you need to be on it for the longterm or nigh indefinitely to keep off the weight. I'm not sure if your relative will be able to share their supply with you for that long, but I presume there must be online pharmacies or prescription mills that might help (no judgment involved, I think that's a useful service when there's too much red tape around).
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I'd give it a go. Research the side effects, talk to your relative about it and stop if you have a bad reaction. I'd say try to at least get some exercise in, but child rearing can be difficult.
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Have you tried replacing sugary food with food with artificial sweeteners? An uphill treadmill is another thing you can try, I would walk around a lot when my son had colics.
too bad no one can invent a zero calorie solid food non-vegetable . low calorie energy drinks work for me ymmv
Like, something that's 100% dietary fiber, water and flavorings?
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Yes, I now have a Coke Zero addiction. Sugar-free chocolate is available, but still fairly high-calorie. I don't have any really unhealthy foods available at home; there my main problem is that I just keep eating. 2nd portions, a bit more rice, whatever is available. I also grew up with very strong morals around food waste. My wife is happy to let stuff go to waste, so I'm left finishing a lot of soon-to-expire things by myself.
I've read about how Semaglutide reduces "food noise". Really, that would be heaven. I think about food way too much, and to turn off those constant cravings would be a boon.
I don't have much advice except perhaps (though this is so obvious I'm sure you've tried/considered it) try taking your child on walks with you, I see a lot of parents jogging/doing intense walks while carrying their babies in a cart, and I've even seen some structures that allow you to take them on hikes (of course, that'd depend on your proficiency level and the difficulty of the trails available to you). However:
I just wanted to let you know that I know that feel, bro.
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As for food waste, just decrease portions? Also I'm interested, does Switzerland have very strict norms regarding this type of medication, such that you don't think you'll be given a prescription?
I think it does have strict norms, and certainly my BMI wouldn't qualify.
Basically what happens is, we go shopping, we buy some stuff, I buy some stuff, my wife buys some stuff. I do most of the cooking, and I remember the use-by dates of most of the food. Leftovers go into the fridge. I prioritise what I eat by what needs to go; she prioritises what she eats by what she feels like. I'm often finishing off food she bought but doesn't feel like eating; or leftovers that she swears she liked but apparently doesn't feel like eating again.
Perhaps it would be sensible to only buy enough food for the one meal, rather than having leftovers. Not sure what I would take to work for lunch though.
... would you say you're from the German part of Switzerland by chance?
I wouldn't say I'm from there, but I live there, yes.
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My experience is that it doesn't reduce the desire to eat. You're still gonna have cravings, at least I do (for sweets especially). What it does do is make you get full much faster. So, it might be helpful for you given that you have issues with overeating regular food.
Do you stop eating once sated? The really fat people I've known don't necessarily eat giant portions, they just eat all the time here and there. And eating even when full is something I've heard people do. I've never had that problem.
When I say "full" I don't mean "I feel good with this amount, I'm gonna stop now". I mean full like you've just had a huge meal and you don't feel like you can physically fit more in your stomach. In the former state, I can eat more if I want (though I am trying to get better at not continuing past that point). With the latter, I'm so full that the thought of eating more makes me feel a bit sick. But instead of being there after having a huge meal, I'm there after having a medium-large size meal.
Unfortunately, my primary problem is an addiction to sweets and they are really calorie dense. So by the time I filled up on those it would still be way too much. But it definitely has an impact on my normal meal times.
Are you physically active? This is probably out of scope, but as an (amateur) runner, I've definitely hit high training volume periods where fullness and satiety decouple and I've finished meals stuffed but still hungry for calories (past a certain point, there is the effort of effectively planning an extra meal every day, but that isn't often for me). It seems plausible to me that some people get used to the wrong signals (full stomach vs. satiety), especially for hyper palatable foods, but I'm hardly an expert.
I was very physically active until my son was born 6 months ago. But fullness and satiety have been decoupled for me for as long as I can remember. My stomach feels quite full quite quickly, but I still feel strong cravings.
Congrats, man! You're probably also missing a lot of sleep. Don't beat yourself up too much: balancing it all at that stage is hard.
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Sweets were the first thing I've eliminated from my regular diet. I used to finish every meal with some cookies and a piece of chocolate. Now I eat half a protein bar instead, which has 9g of protein, 4,25g of fat and 1,15g of carbs and still tastes like a candy bar to convince my brain that I've had dessert.
A lot of regular sweets taste too sweet to me now.
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When I first came to Japan I'd eat a cookie or something and think "What? Where's the fucking sugar?" Now, these days, 20 something years on, I do taste the sweet in Japanese snacks (usually, still not in wagashi which in my mind should not be termed a sweet), but when I go back to the US, and have, as I did a few times ago, some peanut butter chocolate doughnut at Krispy Kreme, I feel as if I am about to go into a diabetic coma. And my friend had two! My point is you can wean yourself off really sweet stuff. I used to love it and now I have far less of a tolerance.
I have heard similar results from others. My aunt went through a phase where she halved the sugar of every recipe she made, and she said that after an initial adjustment period (which was rough) it tasted normal.
And yeah I'm not saying that I have given up because semaglutide doesn't help with my cravings. Quite the opposite - I'm trying very hard. My wife just lost her brother to alcoholism and I'm really trying to not be the next family member she loses to poor lifestyle. But for better or for worse, chemicals aren't helping so I'm trying to work on it through good old-fashioned discipline.
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I guess you could try it, then. The alternative is not having food in the house.
You could try doing things like having single serve versions of the food. Instead of getting one big bag of chips, get a box of single serve chips so when you grab chips, you’d have to go back and grab another bag (you could try getting baggies and doing it yourself as well. And when you get rice or whatever, just either get single serve portions or only cook enough for your one meal.
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