know what makes it easier to fix/change your environment? when you aren't obese and everything in life is so much harder.
Guess what? you can both take ozempic AND fix the problems that caused the need to self-medicate with food (for example). In fact, I would be willing to bet that we see research coming out in the next couple years that shows people who lose weight with GLP-1's then go on to make better lifestyle choices because they confer many benefits that are much more obvious and attainable when you aren't obese and just fighting to get around in daily life.
It's a two-way issue - having some problems result in you being obese, but being obese also creates problems, makes them worse, and harder to address. Mental health issues for example can both cause obesity and be caused by obesity - if you aren't obese anymore then your mental health improves and you can then go onto address other issues you might not have been able to otherwise.
Lastly, you talk about "the system" as if that's not a two way relationship. People who have unhealthy habits they have trouble controlling create demand for services and products that are unhealthy - but if you have less people with unhealthy habits then that demand reduces and so do those unhealthy supplies.
I went from about 265lbs down to 160lbs at my lowest. I crashed it as quickly as I could over the course of about 4-5 months, because that’s how my brain works. Single goals with a hard metric to optimize.
During that I forced myself to start walking. 6k steps a day to begin with, ramping up to 20k steps a day at my peak. Not optional and no exceptions for any reasons. If it was 11:30pm and I was at 9k for the day, I got out of bed and walked until I hit my 20k goal.
Very difficult at first but eventually it just became a new habit. Having a dog that demands at least 5 miles of walks a day helped a lot!
After I dropped the weight I knew my strength was now an issue. Zero way to drop over 100lbs that quickly without losing muscle mass. So I started going to the gym towards the last couple months of that. I literally just sat in the hottub or did some really lazy laps in the pool since I enjoy that. The point was forcing myself to go on my scheduled “gym days”.
After I got out of severe calorie deficit territory I got a personal trainer twice a week to force myself to go with some social and financial pressure, and slowly learned how to do weight training. This was terrifying to me due to social anxiety, so I left it as my last item to work on.
I’m now back to 200lbs or so, but with an estimated 12% body fat composition. Roughly where I want to be, and just short of some “fun” strength goals like hitting a certain bench or squat target and staying there.
So far after over a year of being largely off the GLP-1s these habits have stuck. They still are not easy, but knowing how much impact they have just on my mental health when I am consistent with them keeps it going. Plus I made a few new unexpected friends along the way who give light social pressure to keep the gains coming.
My path is certainly not for everyone, but there would have been zero way for me to accomplish it and stick to it without the weight loss drugs. I’m now 44 years old, and a few of my friends have commented that this is the most unexpected thing they have seen me accomplish - and I like to think I’ve accomplished quite a bit throughout my life so far. A complete 180 from how I approached my physical health in the past, and the drugs gave me the performance enhancement for my diet that I needed to get over the hump.
Guess what? you can both take ozempic AND fix the problems that caused the need to self-medicate with food (for example). In fact, I would be willing to bet that we see research coming out in the next couple years that shows people who lose weight with GLP-1's then go on to make better lifestyle choices because they confer many benefits that are much more obvious and attainable when you aren't obese and just fighting to get around in daily life.
It's a two-way issue - having some problems result in you being obese, but being obese also creates problems, makes them worse, and harder to address. Mental health issues for example can both cause obesity and be caused by obesity - if you aren't obese anymore then your mental health improves and you can then go onto address other issues you might not have been able to otherwise.
Lastly, you talk about "the system" as if that's not a two way relationship. People who have unhealthy habits they have trouble controlling create demand for services and products that are unhealthy - but if you have less people with unhealthy habits then that demand reduces and so do those unhealthy supplies.