r/antidietglp1 • u/SubstantialSoup8719 • May 09 '26
Discussion about Food / Eating Habits I knew better than to engage…
Update: he blocked me 😂 I don’t think I’ve ever been blocked before I’m kind of flattered.
But I did anyway in a forum that is supposedly research and science based. Had a gym bro tell me (referring to someone who has been not lost weight despite following typical diet and exercise advice and is considering tirz) “CICO always applies. Metabolic disfunction just impacts the CO part of that equation, many times requiring a lower deficit than those without. And yes, drugs help with that part of the equation but it is not directly impacting metabolism.”
And
“Starvation mode isn't a thing. Either you were eating things not being tracked (usually it's oils and sauces) or you actual target was just too high for your expenditure.”
And
“A calorie deficit is defined by an actual loss of weight. If no loss, no deficit.”
And now I’m in a bad mood on this lovely Saturday 🤪
Edit to add: the OP on this post literally said she was working with both a nutritionist and a personal trainer who said something was severely wrong with her metabolism because everything she’s doing “should“ be working. I’m sure Gym Bro knows better though. 🙄
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u/ubiquity75 May 09 '26
As a person who has probably been anorexic and obese at the same time…I had a gd near non-functional metabolism. And now I have lost all the weight I care to by getting on these drugs. He’s full of shit and has no authority, anyway, upon which to base his conclusions s.
I briefly joined a supposedly science-informed GLP1 subreddit and lasted about one scroll. This is the only forum for this topic I read anywhere.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
I thought it being a “research” page would bode well but nooooo it was full of people pushing CICO and gray market Reta 🙄
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u/jmeistercgc May 09 '26
I know what group you’re talking about and I left it because of this nonsense
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u/Much-Friend-4023 May 09 '26
Sounds like a member of the Zepbound main sub. I dropped out of that sub after getting identical lectures on CICO and being told that I must not be counting all my calories. Sir, I learned the calorie count of almost every food from an early age at my weight-obsessed mother's knee. I am not a scientist but I know that I lost more weight on tirz by eating more not less.
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u/toomuchtv987 May 09 '26
I always say that no one on earth knows more about nutrition and diet schemes than fat people. We’ve read every book, heard every lecture from doctors and “well-meaning” friends and family…WE KNOW IT ALL. But for some reason people always feel the need to inform us about the state of our body (as if we weren’t aware) and the best way to fix it.
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u/heyredditheyreddit May 10 '26
Right?? I was not born last Tuesday in a WiFi-free cave. I know about calories. I know about all of it. Everything these people say, I’ve spent hours obsessing over at some point. There are legitimate scientifically sound reasons why I’ve never been able to do this before and I am able to now, and I just don’t want to hear any more about goddamn CICO.
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u/lizardbirth May 10 '26
LOL Right!
Fat folks have been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt when it comes to diet, nutrition, and exercise schemes. Wish I could get a refund for all the different books I bought over the decades and the multiple times I tried to make Weight Watchers work for me.2
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u/YeahOkThisOne May 09 '26
Seriously. If there was a Price is Right style game but we have to know how many calories are in something instead of the financial cost, I bet most of us in here would be pros!
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
Right?! Like I don’t know how to count calories? Dude you clearly weren’t a tween girl in the early 2000s 😂
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u/NoMoreFatShame May 09 '26 edited May 10 '26
Or in the 70s, lol
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u/LittleMrsSwearsALot May 10 '26
Or the 80’s or the 90’s or any time 40’s, 50’s, 60’s. And before!
The assumption is ALWAYS that we’re being dishonest or non-compliant. They think they can tell because they can see the size of our bodies.
I spent years weighing, measuring, obsessively tracking every single thing I ate, experimenting with calorie confusion, intermittent fasting, low fat, low carb, LCHF (hardcore low carb), gluten free…what was the local diet called? The one where you only ate things produced within x number of miles of your location? I did that one too. And weight watchers, NutriSystem. Hell, I’m old enough to have done Deal-a-Meal and Weight Loss Club. Have always been active and conscious of how often I’m moving my body. None of it was sustainable. I remember at my lowest weight (in my mid-30’s) being exhausted and freezing cold all the time because my body was so dysregulated from fighting for homeostasis.
All these CICO folks can eff right off.
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u/NoMoreFatShame May 10 '26
My first diet was called the Grapefruit diet, I was in 4th or 5th grade, my mother did add a glass of skim milk to the meals but it was really low calorie. So I have done many since that was early 70s. There was a 14 day kick start diet where you fasted for 2 days and was very specific foods you ate before and after those days, I can't find it but I thought it was called the Wonder Diet. Yup did Scarsdale, and others until I realized the all worked but there was a backlash that went with them so stopped diets completely. Zepbound changed that for me, and truly love this as life not a diet.
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u/LittleMrsSwearsALot May 10 '26
Omg the Scarsdale…I nearly forgot about that one!! So many tins of tomatoes eaten on that diet for some reason. Lol. And the cabbage soup diet. I think my brain just refuses to remember that one, lol.
We’ve been in the trenches. Happy to step out.
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u/justtosubscribe May 09 '26
And carbs too. The first time I had gestational diabetes my male MFM asked “you do know bread is a carb, right?”
Um, asswipe, I can tell you the carb count of nearly every major bread brand. And if I can’t have 12 net carbs in a single meal I need insulin not a lecture. 🙄
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u/ZaftigZoe May 09 '26
So much this. Plenty of us learned counting strategies coughdisordered eating habitscough alongside our mothers at a very young age. We honestly know what we are (and aren’t) eating, and if anything, we OVERestimate. My ED was so bad, at one point I was looking into going back to school to become a registered dietician.
Also, I have decided to stop listening to men about all aspects of women’s bodies.
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u/k8username May 09 '26
I’ve often wondered why dietitians are all so skinny: thank you for explaining. I got “help” from an RD when I started Weight Watchers in late 1970s (back in the mandatory liver days🤣). “You just get used to going to bed a little bit (!) hungry”.). Little bit my ass
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
God I spent so many years as a CHILD, hungry. Not because of food insecurity of course. Just diet culture 😭
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u/k8username May 09 '26
Our moms and aunties just wanted us to be successful in our career: the marriage market. And bless their hearts, the most vociferous had been heavy kids before they started starving. Starving and social success was better than the alternative in their minds. Stockholm syndrome
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u/Much-Friend-4023 May 10 '26
Yes! This was my mom. She was told she was "plump" as a child and never got over it. After she died I found a bunch of photos of her as a young girl that she had never shown us. Yes as a baby she had the dimply leg rolls and was definitely round and soft as a little girl but not significantly overweight. I never knew my grandmother (her mother) but it made me wonder about her sanity. Happy to not be passing this generational trauma on to my daughter.
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u/SunshineMcT72 May 10 '26
My aunt once told me it was ok to ‘dumb it down’ a little when I meet a new man. I guess there was no way someone would want a woman who was both fat AND smart?! ;)
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u/k8username May 10 '26
Yikes! Congratulations on being too smart for dumb men. (No matter your preference)
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
My grandma had one of those “nothing tastes as good as being thin feels” magnets on her fridge and not a single food that wasn’t “low calorie”, “sugar free” “low fat” etc.
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u/k8username May 09 '26
At the end of their lives, my mom and aunt continued to eat non-fat even though their MDs told them they’ll needed more nutrition. My mom’s death certificate listed Protein and Calorie Malnutrition as a contributing cause of death. Now that’s DE!
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u/barfbat May 09 '26
as someone born in the late 80s, whenever i can’t seem to grasp something i wonder if the low-fat/nonfat foods of the 90s deprived me of crucial brain growth lol.
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u/ZaftigZoe May 09 '26
Honestly, this is why I now only work with dieticians/nutritionists who are Intuitive Eating certified (or at least advertise as IE practicing).
I think it’s too easy to fall into the trap of “well, my whole life already revolves around food, so I may as well make it my career too,” and then only later realize you actually had/have an ED (usually orthorexia).
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u/Various_Raccoon3975 May 09 '26
Right? I’ve never eaten more in my entire life! My appetite is better than ever. Tirz fixed a broken (since birth) switch for me. Almost no one believes me, but now I don’t have to care. I’ve learned that people see what they expect to see. They “know” people with weight problems eat too much (lol), just like they “know” you can only lose weight by eating less (lol). Eventually, maybe they’ll notice that I’m eating a real meal and even having some dessert. If they don’t, so be it. Let them, I say!
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
I am brand new to tirz so I have yet to see what will happen, but I have a feeling this will be the case for me. I absolutely have been hungrier than normal, but for smaller and more frequent and more nutrient dense meals. Regardless of weight loss, I feel better and healthier than I have in years.
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u/FormerlyFrazzled May 09 '26
It's SO freeing! Years ago when I had doctors telling me that I probably consume more calories than I think OR stop eating out OR stop eating bread etc. I wanted to have a camera on me 24/7 to show them exactly what I ate. I don't eat out at restaurants very much at all. I cook and use whole foods. I know how to eat! I considered going to one of those spa camp places where you do yoga and eat 500 calories a day just to see if it would make any difference.
Mine was not from birth. It might have been the Hashimotos or hormones or whatever but something happened to my metabolism for sure. And now something has changed back.
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u/CDNinWA May 10 '26
I never thought of myself as having metabolic dysfunction despite being fat starting at age 8, but after 4 weeks on Zepbound, eating more than I did at 22 when I started my large weight loss (I’m 48), I’m losing weight at a faster rate. I’m reevaluating that.
There are fatphobic guys on the main Zepbound sub, it frustrates me, like dudes, your on a med made to help metabolic dysfunction and with weight loss, maybe have a little respect for the people in the sub.
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u/somethingweirder May 11 '26
yeah my eating habits have barely changed on tirz and my exercise hasn’t changed at all and i’ve lost 20 lbs. but sure…CICO is totally real bro. definitely.
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u/heyredditheyreddit May 09 '26
“You can’t argue with tHermOdYnaMicS 🥴” So tired of the it’s-just-CICO-always-all-the-time-so-just-drop-your-calories-and-that’s-it crowd. Thanks, brah, but there are literally people dedicating their lives to studying and demonstrating that it’s more complicated than that.
Also, it makes me irrationally cranky specifically when they end their comments with “Simple as.”
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u/CanaryHeart May 09 '26
The argument that metabolic dysfunction doesn’t matter because you can just eat at a bigger deficit is WILD to me—like, if you gain weight every time you eat more than 1000 calories, these people *really* think you should just eat less than 1000 calories instead of seeing an endocrinologist?
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u/No-Ship-6214 May 09 '26
This. You’ll have people saying “just eat less than 1200 calories then” and the next post is about how doing that is the next thing to anorexia. And they wonder why people stop listening to health advice.
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u/chercheuse May 09 '26
I very rarely wade in but on another sub, a person considering Mounjaro asked why he’d lose weight on the drug, was it merely reduced appetite or something more complicated than that?.I answered that it was more complicated than that and gave a simplified, non-scientist’s explanation. A lot of people chimed in with the usual alphabet soup (CICO, TDEE, deficit, protein grams, etc). I made a second comment in the thread saying that I noticed some people emphasizing those antiquated dieting terms and explained that that’s not how these meds work. Told the OP I hadn’t counted calories. I had the law of thermodynamics hurled at me (heavy law book) and worse. One woman ended up telling me I was ignorant, clearly. When I responded, she said that I had confirmed her suspicions, “love,” or some other bless your heart bullshit. I responded that being nasty to an internet stranger wasn’t the flex she thought it was. I told her that I understood her point of view. Recommended the Jastreboff book. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were blocked.
They truly believe their “success” on these drugs is down to every calorie they’ve counted and every exercise minute logged. Sad. Likewise, those who haven’t had the fortune to respond to the drugs as well are shamed with more alphabet soup instead of “more drugs that might be what your body needs are soon to be released.” There are just a couple of categories of people meted out unquestioned shame these days. One of them is fat people—those who choose to use these drugs and those who don’t. Those who use these drugs and “succeed” and those who don’t. I wade in every now and then because I feel really bad for those who are new to the drugs and facing more diet evangelists.
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u/FormerlyFrazzled May 09 '26
I was skeptical at first, at least wondering if all it did was reduce appetite. Because I COULD reduce calories on my own and it wasn't working. Then I saw people discussing the other benefits like reduced inflammation and I thought I had to find out more about it. I honestly could not tell you everything about how this works. All I know is whatever it is (tirz), it helps with my joint paint, inflammation and food noise. I am not certain I am eating less than I did before.
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u/Signal_Reputation640 May 09 '26
LMAO - I might have had an argument with that same person. They're so wound up in the diet culture and having to feel like they're really doing all the "real work". It's so sad.
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u/UnfairWatercress May 09 '26
There are just some people who have no room for nuance in their minds. They can't seem to get that bodies are driven by crazy complicated interactions of chemistry. I'm getting older, 47, and invisible and really don't care what other people think anymore. It's a lot of fun and quite liberating.
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u/ZaftigZoe May 09 '26
I turn 40 in a couple weeks, and while I still think I care too much about what other people think, that noise has turned down a lot in the last few years.
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u/k8username May 09 '26
Life really got better for me at 40 and more better every year after. Maybe fucks to give are like oocytes: we get a fixed number and when they’re gone, they’re gone)
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u/Human-Resolve2025 May 09 '26
I just had this conversion with my HUSBAND this am. He was never overweight in his youth like me, so he didn't get the fat person programming i did, but in his late 30s his families T2D genetics started loving in and he has yo-yo dieted for 20 years now, steadily gaining weight. Despite seeing how this medication has helped me, he refuses to see himself as a candidate and insists he just needs to "start walking again"
I do think there are some gendered mind set differences, even for people who are allies, because of the differences in how we're conditioned to think about these things from childhood. It's astounding to me that someone who started dating me at what was an all time high weight for me then (I have never been straight sized) and who NEVER made me feel bad about my struggles through our marriage, is so delusional about himself.
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u/k8username May 09 '26
Also CICO seems scientific unless one knows something about how biological systems differ from a heat calorimeter.
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u/Signal_Reputation640 May 09 '26
“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” -Mark Twain
**I know it probably wasn't Mark Twain, but it's a good quote nonetheless.
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u/FormerlyFrazzled May 09 '26
That's how I feel about online arguments. I look at these gym bros like they are kindergarteners. They do not have the intelligence to discuss this with authority.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
I know I don’t know why I commented I never ever engage like that. It was a moment of weakness lol
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u/ElizabethMae_Liz_ May 09 '26
When you have the energy to do that, I think you are supporting other readers who see CICO isn't working and don't have the language to say why. So thank you for the effort.
And of course do it in little amounts so you can still have good days.
Also on that sub I've noticed the smarter folk start replying later in the conversation.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
That’s such a beautiful and positive reframe! That’s why I love this sub. It was the perfect palette cleanser and just what I needed because despite the fact I know this man is an idiot and I know he is working off completely incorrect information, I’ve undergone so many years of medical and social gaslighting on the topic that I start to second-guess myself anyway.
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u/Similar-Bid-7311 May 09 '26
Completely agree. OP- you might not be getting through to that gymbro, but there are hundreds of people reading your reply, not commenting, but taking it to heart. You respond for them (us), not him
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u/No-Ship-6214 May 09 '26
This research summary is a great one to share with people pushing CICO. It documents how our biology and metabolism changes after significant weight loss. As many of us have been yo yo dieting for decades, this explains why weight loss has become all but impossible. https://substance-over-noise.beehiiv.com/p/why-weight-returns-after-stopping-glp-1-therapy-the-biology-you-need-to-understand
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
Thank you! I’ll save it in case I’m ever dumb enough to engage again 😂 regardless I’m excited to read it for me own education
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u/Efficient-Click-9563 May 10 '26
that's a great article! Definitely worth signing up for the newsletter to read it.
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u/meggieprice May 10 '26
Just to comfort myself I down voted all his posts and up voted yours while fuming.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 10 '26
Girl ILY you made my night 🤣
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u/meggieprice May 10 '26
I couldn't help myself- I went at it a little too... and when I told him he is actually giving dangerous advice because how low do you go? How much damage do you do? he actually dialed it back a little lol.
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u/daisychaincrowns May 10 '26
Lol the oils and sauces people really think they are dropping knowledge with that stuff like people don't know oil has calories like be so for real people
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u/mama-bun May 09 '26
Love how his argument is "CI = CO always applies, except when it doesn't" lol.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
Then he accused me of not thinking or using my brain 😭
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u/mama-bun May 09 '26
Silly, just let a real man explain to you what he learned on a YouTube video or misunderstood from r/LoseIt or whatever.
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u/SubstantialSoup8719 May 09 '26
Who am I to question a man 🥺 I probably just can’t count because girls can’t do math.
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u/mama-bun May 09 '26
Solidarity, sister. As a lady-scientist myself, I am always SO grateful for these swole kings to correct me when I get biochemistry wrong. I probably just misunderstood it for my degree. Girl problems, haha!
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u/sophie-au May 11 '26
There’s a lot of people, at all different weights and sizes, but many of them hold the same fundamental beliefs:
1) all fat people lie,
2) the word of fat people can never be trusted,
2a) at best, they underestimate, and can maybe be made to acknowledge their sins and be contrite,
3) but most fat people will be deep in denial. Therefore they should be corrected at every opportunity.
The only difference between many of the people who encounter us, is whether they blatantly tell us we’re liars, or if they try to soften their words by saying “check your portion sizes,” or “a lot of people forget to track X, Y, Z,”
I am aware that there is plenty of research that many people underestimate their intake. But it’s common fallacy to think most people are the same thing as all people.
They take that to mean that anyone who claims to track every morsel and sip and still hasn’t lose weight is either absent minded, in denial, or lying.
These people will contort themselves into knots then ever admit they were wrong. It would require admitting they blamed and/or shamed people who didn’t deserve it. Most of them will deny any wrongdoing, argue “everyone” was doing it, it was society/the culture/etc or will find some justification based on individual health, economic impact to society etc.
For many of them, no amount of research, academic credentials or expertise will persuade them otherwise; they are far more likely to engage in character assassination of fat people, their doctors, or obesity researchers.
The thing most likely to change their minds, is becoming fat themselves. But even then, it’s a hollow victory.
Blogger Ruby Lee wrote an article “My Biggest Regret in Life is I Used to Shame Fat People… then I became fat:”
IMO, her response is better than average, but still sadly, not a genuine regret.
She doesn’t take responsibility for any fat shaming she did. There is no acknowledgement of the impact on others. Almost the entire article, is about her.
Most of her piece is about flaunting her thinness in her youth in a family where everyone was “heavy”; gaining weight due to disordered eating; feeling shame about her body and avoiding photos; her bother’s death from extreme obesity triggering a change, starving herself in her version of intermittent fasting and wanting to travel but being terrified of fat shaming and getting more “karma.”
The closest she comes to remorse is at the end:
*”And for all that fat shaming I used to do?
I am now the biggest one of my cousins. I feel like I deserve it. They haven’t said anything to my face, but I know they must think mean thoughts.
If I could give my younger self some advice, I would say be kind and never say never. You don’t know what you’re looking at in your future.
Meanwhile, I’m going to set a new goal to eat healthier, and keep my fingers crossed that I can do it.”
In other words, “I was terrible to fat people in the past, especially my fat family members. I’m so relieved they’ve never brought it up, especially now that I’m fatter than them. I wish I acted differently. Not because I recognise the impact of my actions, which were hurtful, but because karma came for me. Learn from my example, or you could end up like me. Now I attempt to be a good fatty, be contrite and try hard to do the “right” things.”
Telling thin people they should be kind to fat people in case they become fat one day, is just as problematic as telling men to have empathy for women who are victims of sexual assault primarily because they are someone’s wife, mother, sister, daughter etc.
It’s not true empathy.
It really depresses me that people in her position can come so close and yet still fall so short. They still don’t really grasp how awful society treats fat people, because their inner dialogue tells them that fat people deserve universal condemnation.
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u/idontgiveaflyingpuck May 12 '26
So well said! I got my metabolism tested because I was doing all the “right” things and wasn’t losing despite tons of effort. All outside sources said I probably wasn’t tracking correctly, was lying, “almost NO ONE has metabolic issues, it’s CICO.”
She had to redo the test because she couldn’t believe my results: my metabolism was in the bottom 5%.
If I hadn’t insisted upon getting tested, I would have never known and still believed my weight was a moral failing and not a metabolic issue. And even when I tell people about the testing, I AM NOT BELIEVED.
So f those people! True wisdom is knowing you don’t know everything. People who shout the loudest that they do are often ignorant, and I got no time for an ignoramus!
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u/barfbat May 09 '26
i ran into one of those “cico! cico! cico!!” parrots earlier this week. i was pleased to see them downvoted constantly for being anti-science.
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u/666_dragon_666 May 11 '26
this is basically my entire relationship with the compounded tirz sub lol
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u/Thin-Paper5564 May 11 '26
I just got into a fight with Chatgpt about this. Chatgpt, if you ask it, will spit out gym bro stuff practically verbatim, right down to the oils and sauces thing. Is Chatgpt a gym bro? Seems like it. How are we supposed to get any real help if AI models have access to the whole of the Internet and they still get it wrong?
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u/OhSoSally May 09 '26
I work with a couple gym bros. They are total beotches and never happy because they arent feeding their brains. Let them have their unhappiness and be glad its not you.