Comment by OkayPhysicist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by OkayPhysicist | Hacker News Reader

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You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what GLP-1 agonists help with. In simple terms, they make you less hungry. If you stop the drugs, it's not surprising you go back to being hungry. It would be a miracle drug if you didn't.

People, on average, eat until they're no longer hungry. Problem is, there's only a loose relationship between your caloric needs and your hunger response. That's how you end up with underweight people who are trying to put on muscle saying they can't possibly eat any more and still can't put on weight, while having overweight people who eat twice as much as that guy and have to actively choose not eat more. Both people can make a conscious choice to disobey their signals, just like how you can choose to hold your hand to a hot stove. But it takes a lot of energy to keep up that willpower. Effective weightloss drugs solve that problem, by treating the actual problem: the hunger.

I don't misunderstand. I understand they stop you from feeling as hungry. That is why it is even more perplexing. Eating until you are no longer hungry isn't how most people eat I'd say. Most people eat a given quantity of food. A plate of food. A bowl of soup. An entree with the provided side perhaps. People don't generally order food, eat it, and order more food. Maybe they do I guess, but I haven't seen it personally. I mean I think a lot of people could shove a dozen hotdogs down their gullet if they wanted to, but that reaction isn't a typical expectation. Plus once you've seen normal portions, surely you'd realize when you are going beyond those.

Speed of eating might also be an underrated factor in all this. Stretching out ones meals and slowing down the pace might lead to satiety triggers coming before the meal is done, whereas if one scarfs down the plate before that signal happens, well, one already scarfed down the plate and might be working into the next before those signals hit. This meta analysis suggests this is a possibility (1).

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8156274/

It's possible that your internal hunger mechanism is different from other people's. In my experience, hunger leads me to eat, and I stop eating when I feel full. Perhaps I will go back for seconds if I am eating at home, or, if I am eating at a restaurant, I will likely not eat everything on my plate (giant US portions).

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