askchapo

Imagine a ~~burger~~ a slice of Marvel slop. I wish I had something else in my canon that was more apt, but this fits so snugly in my mind. In the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies Tom bends the rules and fucks up. Iron Man comes over to him to take his suit. Tom goes "I'm nothing without the suit" and Iron Man goes "If you're nothing without the suit you shouldn't have it.[1]"

~~In this essay I will explain why~~ that's how I feel about Semaglutide drugs. The fundamentals of nutrition still matter. In fact, they matter more. If you endeavor to lose weight, you'll find that there's a few struggles you find. You need to get enough protein, you can't just stop eating without playing god with your metabolism, and you're going to be hungry. The thing is two of the three, usually, are knowledge checks. If you know what to do, you win, if not, you're in for a bad time. You can calculate protein requirements, you can know high protein foods, and you can plan what you're going to eat to hit the requirements. You can estimate your calorie requirements and, in my experience, that estimation is within 150 calories of a measured requirement. The big, bad time you're going to have is being hungry. The struggle when you know intellectually you're at your calorie limit but could totally smash another burrito and have to stop yourself with a willpower saving throw. That's where semaglutides shine in my mental model.

What if you just stopped rolling willpower saving throws? What if the only struggle was knowledge checks+side effects? It sounds too good to be true. I call it a superpower; that's probably why I reach for a superhero metaphor. Iron Man isn't saying that there shouldn't be a Spider-Man, on the contrary, he believed in Spider-Man and wanted his success in beating bad guys. So without the requisite int/wisdom (int for weight loss, wisdom for being a superhero) bad shit happens. You'll fuck with your metabolism if you don't get enough calories for too long. You'll fuck with your muscle tissue/tendons/potentially even worse if you have a couple shots of vodka instead of a protein rich meal and never think about what your hunger is communicating. This is all in conjunction with the idea that if you stop taking semaglutide, without the knowledge, you'll have learned nothing but had a transient, difficult, expensive experience with weight loss.

If you make sure you understand your TDEE, your protein requirements, how to read nutrition labels, what to eat when you're hungry and tired, how to meal prep, how to weigh food, and how movement+resistance training spares muscle tissue you'll move mountains with your super powers. If you don't, you give yourself more danger and suffering while learning nothing. I would recommend you lose 25-35lbs through conventional means before you pursue it. Learn what the hunger feels like and be amazed by how semaglutide suppresses it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9esCA8_EPeY