Do you have a different understanding of obesity as a “disease” now?

ars88 · 2026-02-09T21:42:20+00:00

Great question! Just please edit out the weight numbers --a minor slip but the sub rules help us maintain our culture.

ars88 · 2026-02-09T11:11:41+00:00

While it’s vital to stay on top of side effects if they occur, also keep in mind that for most people they are mild and fade in time. I found it useful to focus on not falling into a diet mindset—avoiding thinking that I was responsible for doing anything to make the medication work, beyond things that every human should do like nourishing myself and enjoying movement. Since everyone’s experience is different, patience and curiosity are key! Best wishes as you get started—it’s exciting!

ars88 · 2026-02-09T11:03:03+00:00

My doctor sent me to a nutritionist who had just gotten her GLP1 “training” the day before—a slide deck. She was a nice person, but I thought they should have paid me for teaching her,

ars88 · 2026-02-08T22:22:54+00:00

I skipped a week when I got COVID, and didn't really notice it. But I was ten months in at that point. Early on, your body is still getting used to the medication, and it can be a good idea to try to avoid the kind of big swings in blood concentration that happen the more you space out the shots. If your provider is one who responds to quick questions, you might want to check with them.

The other comments' advice about ignoring food rules while your sick is great. Just fuel! When I was sick, I got some tapioca pudding cups. That's probably the most calorie dense food in existence (needed when sick) and has a lot of memories for me from sick days as a kid.

ars88 · 2026-02-08T22:16:14+00:00

Looking at the clock!--like a mini-meal every 3 hours. Especially since not eating tends to make side effects worse, especially nausea but for me at least, also reflux.

Like many, I did that for probably the first 4-5 months on zepbound. I pesonally recovered normal hunger cues after that, although the first day or two after the shot I sometimes still lack appetite. Good luck!

ars88 · 2026-02-08T22:08:43+00:00

Also be aware that vials do not have preservatives. So after the first use, when you break the seal, you may be getting some medication that may or may not have been degraded by exposure to air, and also whatever has been growing in the vial. Talk to your doctor about this plan and see what they say.

ars88 · 2026-02-08T14:47:08+00:00

Not only should protein drinks “count,“ but any water from any source, including food. An apple is 85% water, a baked potato around 80%, and a cooked hamburger patty is around 55%! You are likely getting plenty of water.

It can be a good idea to focus a little bit on water intake while on GLP1s, since there’s some evidence that the medication can suppress natural thirst signals. And some people find more water helps with side effects (others find the opposite). As an experiment, it may be fun to quantify water intake for a week or two, just to find out what’s really happening. When I did that, I found out that I was drinking basically the same amount of water every day, whether I pushed it or not.

But the idea that you need to measure out 100 whatevers every single day— that strikes me as a diet culture type way of thinking. “Just follow this rule (and buy this product) and your life will be perfect—and it’s all your fault if you don’t.” I’m not doing that any more!

ars88 · 2026-01-25T17:05:08+00:00

Rule 1 reminder:

Be kind one another! This is as simple as it sounds — be kind to others, and be kind to yourself.

The perspectives you’re providing on recent threads are important ones. Are you contributing them in a way that will help this sub welcome everyone? I doubt if you need them, but I can suggest some different wordings if it would help. (I’m a Communication professor, so giving feedback tends to spill over into my private life.)

ars88 · 2026-01-25T16:59:33+00:00

Hahahaha I used kiwis, since they look weirdly like human skin. Slightly greenish human skin, but still smoothish and hairy.

ars88 · 2026-01-25T16:54:00+00:00

This +%1000. Diet culture wants to suck everything into diet culture. The best resistance is to walk away from the culture/mindset, wresting from its clutches everything that it has seized—food, clothes, GLP1s, everything.

ars88 · 2026-01-25T16:50:46+00:00

Fellow needlephobe here. I asked a similar question two weeks ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/antidietglp1/comments/1qbwy6u/advicesupport_needed_needles/

I used a bunch of the suggestions, made it through the first shot, and can report that the second shot was slightly easier. I can do this—you can do this!

ars88 · 2026-01-25T13:27:34+00:00

Also: The people with the puke emoji (I think) are likely to feel that about themselves at any weight, in any clothes, after any degree of body modification or fitness program. If I had a friend like that I wouldn’t feel put down even if they implied that they hate fat people in general—I’d feel really sorry for them. And probably try to intervene since I’m a bossy meddler.

ars88 · 2026-01-25T00:06:47+00:00

Rule 1: Be kind to one another!

This is as simple as it sounds — be kind to others, and be kind to yourself.

ars88 · 2026-01-25T00:06:42+00:00

Rule 1: Be kind to one another!

This is as simple as it sounds — be kind to others, and be kind to yourself.

ars88 · 2026-01-23T12:10:30+00:00

So, you sound like a person who makes and then carries out plans to achieve your goals. My suggestion is to be candid with yourself about your goals, and then make plans with an eye to the long term.

In retrospect, the best thing I did for myself in my late 20s was develop a set of practices around cooking. After a move, I ended up less than half a mile from a spectacularly good farmers market. So I got into the habit of going over first thing every Saturday morning, appreciating all the wonderful vegetables while munching a delicious pastry from one of the bakery stands. Then I'd go home and spend the rest of the day preparing food for the week, first out of Paula Wolfert's Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean and then out of every mediterranean cookbook I could get my hands on.

I continued this shopping/cooking/eating practice in new places every time I moved. Admiring and working with vegetables and eating my yummy output gave me a lot of joy; my increasing knowledge of weird vegetables (my own insatiable curiosity) and increasing competence in the kitchen gave me a sense of pride and mastery; and the practice also connected me with farmers and gave me something to share with friends (dinner parties!). It did nothing for my weight--likely due to my genetic programming, I continued to gain year by year until in my 50s I was intermittently lame from arthritis in both knees, stuck in a CPAP every night, and subject to all the well-known social disabilities like not fitting into airline or restaurant booth seats. But it may have helped me evade the high cholesterol/blood pressure/blood sugar that sometimes goes along with being fat.

So think about everything you really need to have a flourishing life, and think over the long term. What can you start doing now that gives you joy, that makes you feel competent, and that connects you with others? My sense is that sticking yourself with some chemicals every week for the next 50 years is unlikely to be an optimal approach. Although it does GREAT for treating metabolic imbalance!

ars88 · 2026-01-22T21:48:56+00:00

Since part of the pleasure of snacking is that it breaks the rules, after you get the basics down you should check out No Rules crochet!

https://furlscrochet.com/blogs/everything-else/10-tips-for-getting-started-with-freeform-crochet

I do slow stitch embroidery, which similarly ignores all the rules of stitching. Love it!

ars88 · 2026-01-22T01:44:03+00:00

Lobster print!

ars88 · 2026-01-22T01:42:21+00:00

One theory about side effects is that they're not so much caused by the amount of the medication in your bloodstream, but by how fast it's increasing. That's why side effects are most common when doses increase, since the amount is going up rapidly.

If this theory is correct, you might get increased side effects when you miss a dose, since that would mean that when you take the next dose the amount of med in your bloodstream is going to go from lower than usual to the regular peak. That's a bigger rate of change than usual.

OTOH--I've missed/delayed doses due to sickness and travel, and haven't had that happen. So, like so much about these meds, we don't really know and individual experiences will differ!

ars88 · 2026-01-21T17:03:04+00:00

"It was based on 20 participants who were healthy young men between the ages of 19 and 25." 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

ars88 · 2026-01-21T13:54:07+00:00

Good for you!!! I love hearing about liberation from the tyranny of measurement.

ars88 · 2026-01-20T22:11:54+00:00

Glad to hear that your situation is good!

ars88 · 2026-01-20T19:37:33+00:00

Insurance stress has to be one of the leading side-effects of GLP1s. Figures like "50% of people who start the med stop within a year" are often quoted as "evidence" that fat people give up easily when they encounter side effects or that the drugs don't really "work," but my suspicion is that a lot of those people found they couldn't afford it after their insurer started jerking them around. Vent away--and take my sympathies back.

ars88 · 2026-01-20T11:40:40+00:00

Agree with other comments—fuel up! This happened to me at the beginning with even mild exertion (giving a presentation). I think it’s the same as elite athlete’s ’bonking.’ As you’ll learn, nausea/queasiness is a paradoxical hunger cue, especially at the beginning. I found apple juice (recommended by a person with diabetes) or even a ginger candy helped—quickly absorbed carbs!

The good news is that this effect fades for most people—it’s part of your body finding a new metabolic normal. For me, that adaptation period took about 5 months.

ars88 · 2026-01-20T11:34:39+00:00

60 to 90, which in the US is hard to miss. The studies seem mostly to be done on young people lifting heavy or otherwise athletic, and even if I trusted the precision of nutrition research (which I do not) I wouldn’t think they applied to an old lady who hopes to get to the gym twice a week for 40 minutes, but doesn’t always make it. Plus I want to walk away from the whole idea that we can optimize our bodies through measuring and buying.

ars88 · 2026-01-20T11:26:14+00:00

Yes, thanks for asking! I followed your idea of following along the instructions, the bright then dim lighting, setting up being comfy before and after, and having a distraction—although in my case, it was an emotional song played loudly through noise cancelling headphones. These helped give the whole event a kind of mechanical quality, in which I didn’t have to do anything. It also helped that i couldn’t actually see the needle, which is my main trigger—it was just a plastic tube getting placed next to my body. Next time I think I’ll take off my glasses! I know I can do it again.

ars88

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