I just came across a note talking about how the GLP-1 drugs are a total cop out, and people need to just eat better and exercise.

Just wanted to add my thoughts to this, as I both somewhat agree, and also got fairly upset.

Diabetes runs in my family. And when I mean runs, I mean everyone minus my dad.

I grew up with a mom who was morbidly obese, and three of us lived off one income. That led to a lot of cheap hamburger helper/mac&cheese dinners and heavily processed bologna sandwiches for me for the majority of my childhood up until high school.

I was an overweight kid with some bad genetics to back it up.

However, the older I got the more interested I became in nutrition. Unfortunately, some of my genetics have caught up with me so I now have high blood pressure, borderline high cholesterol, sleep apnea, and diabetes. A lot of the habits I learned growing up have been so, so hard to break - even though I know they're slowly killing me.

Every day is a learning process. For a long time, I lived with a lot of self-loathing and didn't care what I put into my body, as long as it tasted good. I know, the damage just continued. I blew up to 270 lbs (122kg) a few years ago, tried to get things under control and made it down to the 220s.

Then my mom died from the years she had been suffering from kidney failure, and I was left living with and taking care of my distraught dad who had been her primary caregiver through years of heart surgery, hospital stays, and then 20+ months in a nursing home watching her kidneys fail. I got back up to the 270s after some health issues of my own (non-cancerous tumor on my bladder) and hip issues.

All this backstory to say, for a lot of people on these same GLP-1 drugs it's very very hard to do the right things for yourself, even when you know it's portion control, exercise, strength-training, and not sitting behind a desk 8+ hours a day.

Do I want to be on a med that makes me nauseated, exhausted, and that's looked down on by the "skinny" people of the world? Hell to the no. I want to be healthy. To not wear size XXL and be uncomfortable in an airplane seat, and I'm not even as big as a lot of people on Wegovy/Ozempic/Zepbound/Monjaro.

Just...please. When you want to shit on the drugs and the people taking them, remember that for a lot of us, this is the second chance we've never been able to hope for.

I feel like I have a second chance at living a normal life. Are the side effects worth it? Some days yes, some days no. But I can see a future now when I have learned when to put the fork down, and pick up my dumbbells and get my sweat on.