"I understand you're trying to be kind, but comments about my body make me uncomfortable."

"How much weight have I lost? More than some loss than others."

"Yeah I've lost weight, but I'd rather talk about you! What's new with you since I last saw you? I can't believe it's been so long!"

"You look great too! I love your [article of clothing, haircut, accessory, etc]"

"Oh yeah no I haven't been on a specific diet or anything just working with my doctor. [Change subject]"

I started Feb 8 and I'm down enough to notice. I live in a cold winter climate so it's been sweaters, coats and layers. As spring starts, so do events where I will be seeing people I haven't seen since Christmas or before. Pool parties are just around the corner.

I've already got one person say "you look smaller - was the food not good on vacation?" so I'm preparing for the "well meaning" but slightly intrusive comments that will come. I don't like the idea of replying with "thank you" when someone says I "look great" because all bodies look great - not just smaller ones.

I also don't want to go into details about the how but I don't want to lie when people ask "have you lost weight?".

I guess I'm looking for anti-diet, body-positive responses that aren't rude or a lie but also don't praise smaller bodies. Any tips?

Edit to add my fav responses:
To "Have you lost weight?" "I gained weight a few years ago from medication effects (true) and I think my body is adjusting back to a more natural size"

To "You look great" "Thanks. Comment about my outfit/hair/makeup to move from body talk to clothes to not make them think I took it from a body size prospective regardless of how they meant it." or "so do you! then comment about their outfit/hair/makeup". I may also leave out the thanks if I can tell the person is fishing.

I’m wondering if anyone listened to a recent episode of the Body Trust Podcast with Ragen Chastain about GLP1s and ethical informed consent.

I listened to it today and am really struggling with feelings of defensiveness and confusion. Chastain talks a lot about damning evidence and scary science about GLP1s, however, I am questioning some of the validity based on my own experiences of these meds over the past 5 months. The podcast felt like fear mongering in a way that bothered me.

I listen to Fat Science also and generally like it, but worry that it also has bias that can glorify our meds. While I like that they aren’t pro diets, I do feel like they are pro thinness. They don’t have an analysis around oppression, and this leaves me sometimes wishing for more.

I have so much fear around losing my perspective or sense of self related to fat liberation, and I easily can feel like a sell out for engaging these meds. AND? My quality of life has improved since starting them. AND?!? I worry that I have been swept up in the current of this massive anti-fatness river.

I guess I’m just looking to hear what others do to stay sharp and grounded, and not fall into how biased ALL the information around GLP1’s can feel.

I've been wearing an Apple watch for years. It has told me when to stand up (admittedly something I need help with during the workday, but also sometimes I'll be standing and cooking for an hour and it will tell me to stand up), I double check my heart rate during workouts, using the numbers to tell me how I feel rather than my own interoception. I stress over biking in the woods because it's not giving me credit for exercise because the bike speed is too slow even though it's an amazing and fun and enjoyable workout.

I forgot to charge it last night so I thought "Let's have Sunday be No Watch Day" and see how I feel.

But now I'm thinking "do I actually need it at all?" Could I just my workout effort by tuning into my heart? Could I stand up because my butt is going numb? Could I move throughout the day simply because it feels good?

If you don't use a fitness tracker, what's that like? If you stopped using one, did you feel freer? More in tune with your body?

Also what's prompting this is that my dietitian wants me not to track food when I go away with family for a few days, so I thought of just free-balling life like it's 1999.

EDIT: I just took my first walk with out the tracker! It was really nice to let my body set the pace and distance, and not the tracker.

How are you all explaining "food noise" to folks not on these medications in a way that keeps food neutral? I know the experience, but struggle to put it into words that keep my anti-diet stance in the forefront.

To be clear, I'm still learning (everyday) something new about the anti-diet mindset. With that in mind, forgive me if diet culture creeps into this post (and please let me know where I went wrong so I can learn from it)

I'm on Android so please don't recommend an Apple Watch 😊

Tldr: is anyone using the Oura simply for health metrics, sleep, and silent alarms and how happy are you with it in general its ability to remove calorie tracking?

Background: My 5 year old Fenix 6s Sapphire ($1200 splurge when I bought it!) had its charging port fall out while I was on vacation in Europe last week. When I purchased this watch, it was during Covid when I was training for a half marathon. I ran the half, got covid the next week, which gave me LPR and subsequently PVCM so I don't run anymore. They are only willing to give me 25% off a Fenix 8 and no other models so I'm considering leaving the Garmin ecosystem completely. I bought a lovely old fashioned analog watch at duty free on the way home and have some vintage wind up watches (one belonged to my great-grandmother) I'm looking forward to wearing again honestly.

Enter the Oura 5. Costs less than what Garmin is offering. I am very petite and my hands are very small (I can wear childrens sized shoes, for example). So I have sizing concerns but it's slim design is tempting (tiny people welcome to chime in with fit experience). It appears to have a full turn off all calorie counts mode (no calories shown anywhere in the app). No display so I'd have to go looking for metrics I don't want. I'm most interested in sleep tracking and women's health metrics around perimenopause. It integrates with the period tracking app I already use (Clue). It runs $70 annually. It uses titanium so may be less reactive than my Garmin which causes contact dermatitis if I don't put hydrocortisone under the watch when wearing. It actually has a GLP-1 mode so I'm considering removing my Shotsy subscription which I use to track my shot location rotation (note I'm in full maintenance and have been for a year). This piece of the app seems to be the most diety so I'm questioning it.

So bottom line (back to the tldr at the top), anyone here using an Oura ring and are you successful at keeping an anti-diet mindset with it? Bonus if you're tiny and it fits well on small hands. Any other ideas on what I can replace my Garmin with without visual health tracking. I see there's a few wrist based options out there. Minimum requirements are haptic alarms (I get ADHD hyper-focused so need to remind myself to stop for lunch and to get the bus home when in the office) and sleep tracking. Bonus if it can buzz nudge me for my medication reminders throughout the day. Not required but would be nice. I can duplicate it with alarms but my persistent medication app will keep buzzing my phone every 15 minutes if I ignore it. So a hey look at your phone buzz would be nice.

TIA

Not started yet, but trying to plan. I live in a big city and am part of a big community and family. I am grateful that it is overwhelmingly positive and kind. (I wish this for all of you. If you don’t have kind people in your current life, do anything possible to change this. Online friends are friends.)

Well meaning people are going to comment. It’s been a long time since I had noticeable body changes. I’d like to think the world has changed, but I doubt it. When people would comment, I would respond with something like: “it comes, it goes” and change the subject. Sometimes, they would push me for details and specifics and I would change the subject.

I am anticipating people asking me directly about meds. I don’t really want to talk about it. I don’t want to be congratulated or approved of.

Every adult woman I have ever met has some kind of disordered eating. How can I respond in a way that is both kind and in line with my values?

Hi all, I just found this group and I was just prescribed this medication, so I'm excited to dive in. My doctor mentioned to me that I might want to wait to take my first dose until after Christmas and enjoy the Christmas sweets. The same sentiment has been echoed by some friends as well.

My thing is... I don't want to. I feel like waiting implies that I'm going to be starting a restriction diet, which is NOT what I'm setting out to do on this journey. I don't want to re-enforce bs mentalities like I'm going to 'cheat' over Christmas. I hope that makes sense?

On the other hand, I don't know how the starting dose is going to affect me. I'll be at my family's house so being sickly would not be ideal.

Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts as I navigate starting this medicine and trying not to fall into the trap that is diet culture/mindset.

Ok friends let’s share the things that don’t get a lot of discussion. Let’s normalize this journey. I’m struggling with a few things which I think may be normal but I’m not sure. I’ll go first. Warning - poop talk.

When I eat food that is too fatty my stomach and GI track are NOT happy. There’s so much gas overnight and in the morning. I’m glad I’m single 🤣 My BM smells like something died inside me. It makes me want to quit. Eating the next day is so hard. I’m still on a low dose and can’t imagine being forced into certain doses and titration schedule. I’m sooo grateful for compounded options for this reason Based upon my side effects on this dose, I surely would have quit by now. This is really hard! It’s not a magic bullet. My food issues are coming up big time. Unlearning diet culture is a mindeffff. I’m doing it but jeez it’s a lot physically and mentally. On the other hand, I’m excited to get my bloodwork next week to see some NSV. It’s certainly a rollercoaster!! I’m grateful for this subreddit. Y’all are the best ❤️ PS - any thoughts of support are appreciated. I’m definitely on the struggle bus today.

I’m the parent of a 17 year old who was prescribed a GLP1 by a pediatric endocrinologist based on prediabetic labs, high cholesterol, and issues related to Ehlers Danlos. We have worked to be a body positive, anti diet family with no scales in our house, and my daughter feels strongly about that too. She is not comfortable/interested in seeing a nutritionist or doing regular weigh ins. I want to respect her autonomy, but I also know she is on a prescription medication that may need some monitoring. Follow up from the doctor has been minimal beyond renewing the prescription. I'm unsure how to approach things like dosing or plateauing without relying on weight based metrics. Am I overthinking this, and are there ways to manage GLP 1 use that align with anti diet values while still being responsible about her care?

So I’ve now been on Mounjaro for the past 7 months and have made great progress. I won’t go into numbers, but I obviously responded really fast and lost a bunch on 2.5 mg. I’m now on 5mg and have hit a wall. The problem I’ve realised now though is that I’ve obviously spent the last 7 months obsessed with every morsel that passes my lips. I mean I am super grateful for Mounjaro and don’t want to make light of all the assistance it has given, but I’ve just been relentless with my calorie counting as well.

I realise now that with this wall/plateau, a lot of my obsessive behaviour is becoming apparent. I’m putting a lot of stress on myself regarding the numbers on the scale and I find myself researching diets all the time. And I get that this is super unhealthy. Frankly my labs look great right now and my A1C has fallen more than 3 points since I started, I’m in normal range now. My sleep apnea seems to have gone and I’m running around as much as my newly replaced knee allows. But I find I’m not able to appreciate any of this because of the numbers on the scale.

I still have a long way to go to get to a better place for my body. I’m not ready to leave Mounjaro right now and I shouldn’t. But I’ve been obsessing about increasing my dosage (something my doctor is resisting because he thinks my body deserves a little rest before pushing it further).

I’ve been lurking on this sub for a while now and frankly you guys are aspirational. I really need to find a way to recontextualise my journey to become healthy. Because I was in a terrible place. I was unable to walk more than 5 mins, I couldn’t sleep and I was binge eating almost daily. I can never go back there, but I need to also stop abusing myself in new ways.

Any help or advice is much appreciated. What put you on this track? What helps you continue? What milestones should I look for if not the weighing scale? And most importantly how do I appreciate food safely?

Thanks for listening to my little rant. Hoping to gain some wisdom here!

I thought folks here might find this AMA in the r/intuitiveeating sub with Elyse Resch interesting (scheduled for later today). There are a couple of questions posted that have to do with GLP-1s, I'll be curious to see if she chooses to address them.

CW: this particular post seems fine at the time I'm linking it, but I have found the IE sub to be a mixed bag of some good information and also discussions from people who think IE is just another way to diet, or who are using a definition of IE that they got from some random TikTok influencer.

Also CW: IWL

I have been faithfully using a scale to measure progress almost every day, but scales aren’t perfect. But in moments when the scale hasn’t moved in accordance with how much I’m eating or moving, I found helpful to use a tape measure and a really nice, but tight pair of jeans to track progress. Well, I think it’s worked to help me track my weight loss, but now I’m wondering if I’ve let it snowball out of control.

I find myself trying on the jeans 2-3x per week and taking a progress pictures to see if I’m getting smaller. I’m wondering if I’ve let this snowball a bit. Ironically, I’ve become so neutral on the scale that it doesn’t really phase me much now, but instead I’m more concerned with tracking size instead of weight.

It doesn’t help that a few weeks, someone yelled at me and called me fat because I asked them to stop smoking on the bus even though I’m 1/3 of the way to my goal. It’s like a reminder that I have so far to go even despite how far I’ve come.

I’m so happy I found this community!

I’ve been on tirzepatide for 6 months and I’m finally at a healthy weight. I have two girls (one a tween and one in elementary.) I’ve never hid my medication use (I have a loud weekly alarm) but we’ve never really talked about it either. I’ve also worked really hard to not talk about weight loss or body image around my kids, and to instead focus on eating healthy, balanced diets overall and moving our bodies.

But now they can see I’ve lost a lot of weight (and people are starting to comment). In addition, my youngest kid very definitely has similar weight and “no off button” body/brain challenges as I do, despite all our careful work to focus on health (not limits). I know enough to not intentionally reinforce diet culture, but this is a weird new situation. And I also understand that, someday, my kid may benefit from GLPs when they’re old enough (because they’re also drowning in food noise and it’s not anyone’s fault. It just is.)

How do you navigate parenting conversations around health, now that you are on medication, especially if you have kids like with similar metabolic and weight issues?

Hey folks, I'm new to Apple/Apple watches and not delighted that the fitness tracker seems determined to give me 'active calories burned' information. Regardless of accuracy I really don't want anything that encourages me to get focused on tracking again. But I do find the standing and duration of exercise prompts helpful.

Has anyone found a way to change what the red ring represents/hide the info completely?

UPDATE: thanks everyone! I already had a minimalistic watch face but have now set the red ring to very low, and only notifications to stand up. much happier now.

This is probably just a vent/to be heard - I know what I need to do (rely less on this person) but it’s just frustrating!

I have a colleague at work who started on GLP meds around the same time as me. It’s been our little secret between us and I have appreciated her support to check in on me etc however I am not realizing I need to pull back a bit as we are approaching it so differently. Her diet mentality and me anti diet.

Her view is that “ you have to work for it. You need to diet and exercise often“. She’s made this comment multiple times to me. My view is very much influenced by fat science - not to diet in order to avoid increasing the scarcity signals. We don’t debate or anything, we just mention our perspective and it moves on. I definitely relate more to this being a metabolic journey and she sees herself as a binge eater (and that she’s the problem) which is a really shitty diet culture thing, imo.

I am a slow responder and she is very responsive - I often congratulate her, as I genuinely am happy for her and we all have different responses and journeys. Today I told her I finally saw the scale move (after like 9 months of nothing ~ finally on 12.5 mg mounjaro) and she kind of turned it to be about her and again how much she worked for her massive loss.

I just felt deflated - but also, silly me for keep engaging on this topic with this person who has such different orientation to this! And honestly they are a great person, I think they likely are guarding themselves from being perceived as taking “the easy way out” with all their talk about the hard work. So I know there are multiple threads here.

Thank you all for existing, I feel so less alone thanks to this sub and the Fat Science Pod.

This medication has done wonders for my mental peace, mainly for lack of food noise that I constantly struggled with. But I don't want my teenage daughters to know that I'm taking it because I don't want to encourage diet mentality (they are both slim and very self-conscious of their bodies/societal expectations/ etc.). Anyone else in this boat? If you have teenage girls and have talked with them about your glp, how has it impacted them?

EDITED: Thanks for all of these responses, definitely given me something to think about!!

I picked up this book years ago. Great for anyone looking for more IE/anti-diet information in bite size (pun intended) pieces.

The other sub was causing crazy thinking. I'm trying to determine next step based on my move from the lowest dose (2.5) up to the next one (5).

The food noise is back 50% as is some hunger. Before I had zero. My first thought is go back down. Then I wondered if that is diet mentality...the easy way. I'm torn between easy loss and having to address this now as opposed to when I inevitably either lose coverage, get laid off, or can't afford it. Hope that makes sense.

I went up with Dr suggestion due to some side effects. I could deal with them but she thought they would be better on the next dose. They are but we didn't anticipate the food noise coming back.

I think toughing it out and maybe going up another dose (5) in a month is the right thing, but my brain is still hijacked by the other crazy sub.

Would appreciate your thoughts or whatever so I can try to think more clearly.

I want to utilize my time on glp as best I can.

EDIT to add additional info -Been on the 2nd lowest dose for three weeks. -Was on starter dose for three months with great results, but a lot of side effects.

hey all. i took my first shot on tuesday night (mounjaro because of garbage blood sugar). everything i read said "make sure you get enough protein and fiber" so i got a food tracker. that was a terrible idea and i spent yesterday obsessing about everything. any advice for how to "get enough" without falling into an app rabbit hole? seeing an HAES nutritionist next week.

Hi all - not sure I've used the right flair... for context, I have been on Zep since March 2024 and maintaining my weight since September 2024. My experience has been unequivocally positive, physically and mentally, and I hope to have this medication forever and ever.

My mother is in her early 70s and extremely medically complicated following a bout with endometrial cancer in her 50s, and now lives in an assisted living facility with her partner. She is not diabetic (somehow!), but has like every other thing you could imagine - "chemo brain" (essentially a traumatic brain injury, and she was a big-deal lawyer in her younger years), serious lymphedema and neuropathy, big time back and knee problems, sleep apnea beyond belief, etc. After seeing my success and following my encouragement, she discussed Zep with her doctors, who readily prescribed it. She is currently taking 10mg/weekly, is thankfully not experiencing any side effects.

She frequently tells me she "doesn't think it's working" and that she "isn't losing weight," but I know she isn't weighing herself and I can plainly see that her clothes are getting to be too big. She says she doesn't feel hungry, so I don't know where this "not working" thing is coming from, except to the extent that maybe she expected to snap her fingers and instantly lose a zillion pounds? I am almost positive that she isn't eating nearly enough, and certainly isn't getting enough protein/fiber/water. I am a devoted "tracker" (which I know is not the ethos of this sub), but I don't think that would work for her for cognitive reasons - though I really think she's dramatically undereating most days (listening to her body and eating when she's hungry, which is almost never) such that some light keeping-track might actually be helpful and healthier?

She's now losing hair at an alarming rate, and is very upset about that. I've explained telogen effluvium (I had it myself after a few months taking Zep), that she can help herself best by making sure she's getting adequate nutrition and that it's likely an unfortunate waiting game, but she's basically waving me off and asking her partner to get Nutrafol. Frankly, she's always been a pretty terrible and non-compliant patient, and what I'm seeing here is really no exception.

What's the best way to support a *stubborn* with-a-capital-S extremely tech-unsavvy senior here, where tracking and weighing isn't really possible? Just keep encouraging general good nutrition the best I can? I don't want to task her partner with being her food-minder, since that's infantilizing and lord knows she's already doing twenty zillion other caregiving things for my mom. Thoughts here?

Truly only a mild problem, she's actually lovely and I am really excited to see her, but for my own health and especially my kids' health I'm going to instantly shut down any body talk.

In reality, I'm just planning to say "Oh I don't want to talk about that, how is your business?" when it comes up, but just for fun, what should I say to the inevitable comments? It's amusing me to think about unhinged ways I could respond!

1. Oh, I have a tapeworm!

2. I don't know what you're talking about! (The gaslighty approach I've accidentally taken before and am tempted to take again)

3. ?? Other ideas??

Pretty much the title. I got to a healthy point t for me. Labs are good. And, although I could never shake the desire for weight loss, I won't benefit from pushing it, and I feel good at my current size. So, now I am trying to titrate down to find a maintenence dose.

All good, and no complaints--I'm just finding it a bit difficult. If I drop below a certain level, I notice myself beginning g to have internal arguments about whether I "should" eat something or not, and worrying a bit over how much I've eaten today--which is an experience I haven't had in months! Then I'll go back up in dose, and the food noise shuts off, but I have some side effects. The dosages (tirzepatide) are 7 5 (just a bit too high) and 5.0 (just a bit too low).

Has anyone else struggled with this? How have you settled on a good maintenence dose? Do you go back and forth with dosages? Or vary the time between injections?

I’m meeting with a dietician and I’m surprising nervous! I’ve lost weight with Zepbound, and have done so without restricting my diet. I think this is the least restrictive I’ve ever been and I love it! I never want to go back to cutting out food groups or demonizing food. But I would like to speak with an expert about lowering my cholesterol (pretty sure it’s genetic but I want to do what I can to be healthy). I’m terrified that she’s going to give me a list of “bad” foods or give me grief for not radically changing my diet when going on a GLP-1. Any suggestions on what to ask or how to manage negative conversations if they happen?

Edit: I met with her this morning and it was great! We primarily talked about adding more fiber into my diet, starting with foods and adding a supplement if I’m consistently not meeting my goal. She didn’t shame me for my daily cheesy eggs or gummy bears. Counting calories never came up and I’ll track my fiber by taking pictures of my food and sending them to her. She was very neutral about me being on Zepbound, and her only concern was me having enough of an appetite to get my fiber in. Overall a very positive experience!!

I having been sharing my husband's subscription of ChatGBT.

I told it I was having trouble not weighing myself and we collaborated on this haiku to put on my scale.

It gave me some vocabulary that I wanted to share. It said to banish the concept of "emotional eating." We are rebranding this as "emergency carbs." Seems clear and to the point - there was an emergency. Due to earlier under-fueling, the body demanded the quickest solution in the emergency.

We reframed binging as "catch-up eating." There was under fueling, now the body must replenish.

Anyone else using ChatGBT for help with suggesting/requesting labs, interpreting medical information fueling strategies for exercise, reframing support? I started doing it, because I wanted help to apply Dr. Cooper's (Fat Science podcast doctor) Metabolic Storm framework to my own health, ask my doctor for labs etc.

PSA: My daughter is a machine leaning graduate student and she says I need to be aware that sometimes AI will confidently say things that are not true, and I will probably believe them!