Well, the comment section of all the YT videos on statins is full of people who swear the drug destroyed their health and ruined their lives (as well as those who say it helped them), so it does make me pause and wonder if it’s really OK.
Also frustration at having spent the past two years overhauling my diet & lifestyle to lower my cholesterol naturally, having done everything right, and end up getting a result even worse than before.
I think if youve done everything right diet and healthwise, you just gotta pull the trigger. There are athletes who eat healthy and exercise well who beef it at 50 because their monkey ancestors had high cholesterol. All those “died suddendly” weirdos who had a heart attack out of nowhere (because of the clot shot obv) got taken down by cholesterol, not the vaccine.
Like Melk said, the science on statins is solid, and it will save the lives of the majority who take it, most with few side effects. Genetics suck sometimes.
(Not a doctor, not medical advice) I would ask your doc for resources about the medicine, moniyor for side effects, and report any to your doc that are troublesome to you. Then keep up with your bloodwork. Youll be surprised how well they work
I felt like that too; 10 years later I’m still taking atorvastatin and haven’t noticed any side effects or negatives other than having another monthly charge.
I think the last place I’d take any medical advice is a YouTube video comment section. Unless you’ve been seeing comments from those same folks for years you have no idea if they are whackadoodle or not, and chances are someone saying their health was ruined by a prescription medicine is whackadoodle.
I understand this is only day 9, but I had a weird, inexplicable uptick in weight this morning. Doing my best not to let it bother me. I understand cognitively that a number of factors can cause small weight fluctuations, but its still the part of weight loss Ive struggled with the most. When I only hit 1500 cals yesterday and go to bed hungry, only to wake up and see a number in the red, my brain goes into overdrive questioning whether any of this is worth it.
Just getting my thoughts down. Sticking with the plan, but some frustration this morning.
I found a way to stand on my scale that was 5 pounds less than my actual weight, that was an emotional rollercoaster… One of the downsides to weighing yourself everyday is that you are going to run into those swings which if the scale isn’t messing with you is probably because your bowels aren’t as empty as you thought or you had more salt the previous day are holding some unexpected water weight. The problem with weighing yourself less often is that each event becomes more important and has a longer time to be how much you weigh. Get your poker brain involved and realize you are worried about the long run, not an individual reading. You’ll also be happier if you give yourself permission to fail on some days so as not to risk getting back on the program the following day.
I think you can just as easily argue that weighing yourself daily will help get you used to the random water weight shifts and become numb to it, to continue the poker analogy, it’s like playing 20 tables and starting to yawn when you see your aces cracked for the 8th time because you just know it happens all the time and you’re used to it.
Whereas if you weigh yourself once a week, there’s a chance you overall did really well, but your weigh in day happened to coincide with that random day that you’re legit holding 5lb of fluid for whatever reason, and you rage quit because you busted your ass all week but wound up at +1lb or something.
Thanks for the advice, and yeah I think the above is probably a factor. My sodium levels yesterday were higher than they have been. A new recipe that was much higher in sodium than I expected. Gonna cut back today and see how that affects things
Appreciate all the feedback.
This is obviously correct, but you gotta figure that some of them wouldn’t be writing that stuff without a valid reason to do so. And that, together with the fact that I’ve had a couple episodes in the past where medications had some horrible side effects, has turned me into a person who will turn over every possible stone to avoid putting meds into my body is it’s at all possible.
If we scoured youtube comment sections, no doubt we would find countless comments about how all sorts of horrible things that supposedly happened after COVID vaccination. I think the ones most likely to be legit problems are ones that you would find if you just looked at medical sources.
I don’t think it makes much sense to generalize about “medications”. Because you may have had problems with some doesn’t necessarily mean you will have problems with others (obviously you might have issues with medications in the same class or those known to be problematic for people with certain specific allergies or other conditions).
Nevertheless, whether you have issues with allergies or not, leaving no stone unturned when deciding to take a new drug is an excellent approach. Just don’t let your past experiences cloud your judgement.
There’s variance. For all kinds of reasons. Just like a poker hand that’s good process bad outcome.
I’m a fan of weighing every day but actually tracking rolling 5 day average in my spreadsheet
Ozempic one week update.
Still on the minor intro dose. So this may be completely placebo effect, but I’ve noticed I’m less hungry.
Still eating a lot, but stopping at second helping, rather than 3 or 4, or I’m able to put the tub of icecream away without completely finishing it (or requiring a battle of will)
Yesterday my wife bought mini chocolate eggs. I ate one and stopped. That’s basically never happened before.
No measurable impact on weight, except that I haven’t put ON weight, which I was doing week over week over the holidays.
Injecting has been super easy. So much so I thought I messed up the first week because I didn’t even feel the needle go in.
Been hitting the gym consistently, and elbow has been better since going back to a physio.
Let’s go 2024
14 days, Down 10.2 pounds. Down 3.2% Making headway. First overall goal is right around 30%, so we are 1/10 of the way there. Been increasingly meeting my protein and water goals and have started incorporating jogging into our daily walks (now 30 seconds of jog/run per 3 minutes of walking.)
Next week begins some slow weight training. Most likely starting with bar weight and moving up from there.
Rough week. .2 pounds down even with a 4000 calorie deficit.
I know its just my body adjusting and overall im at 3.4 lbs lost /wk which is still good, but 0 movement on a 4K calorie deficit this week is making me feel blah
Week 2 Ozempic update
Maybe lost a kilo. Maybe not. Definitely haven’t added.
The main difference again is just not feeling the need to go completely overboard when ever there is any opportunity.
Still feeling hungry and enjoying food, but none of the “oh. Why did I do that. I didn’t even enjoy that” moments.
Filipino festival today in Melbourne. Ate one plate of mains and a few cookies then stopped. Not the healthiest meal, but night and day to how I approached it last year.
Makes me wonder if everyone else just feels like this all the time?
Hang in there, remember how much variance is in the measurements and don’t let a bad day ruin your plan. 22 days in and I’m down 13ish pounds, back under 300 which is good. Got out this weekend for a hike which is always nice, need to keep those up. I think the change that has done the most good is dropping from 2 latte’s in the morning to one, and cutting out a lot of the mindless grazing.
Yeah, my grazing is almost non-existent. Finally saw some movement again this morning, now less than 7 pounds from 300 (A number I haven’t sniffed in at least 5 years and probably closer to 8)
Well, since there’s been some discussion of weight loss drugs, I guess I should chime in.
My wife went on tirzepatide (generic Monjuro) in Septemberish. She had great success while I was trying on my own with calorie deficit and working out.
I finally gave in the Sunday after Thanksgiving and have lost just under 20 pounds since then.
We originally were going through a semi-reputable provider. Had to have a phone appointment with a doctor and everything (pretty equivalent to Dr Nick from the Simpsons). My wife is still using our supply from there, but I’ve moved to ordering powdered tirzepatide direct and reconstituting it myself. It’s about a third of the price as from the semi-reputable provider. We’re both on 5 mg weekly doses (though I go every 6 days).
Here’s some of the biggest changes I’ve noticed since starting. Me, being a foodie and always, always thinking about food - tirz has completely eliminated the ‘food noise’ in my head. I no longer wake up in the morning and start thinking about what i"m going to eat the rest of the day. There can be an open bag of cookies or ice cream or chips sitting out and I won’t have any desire to eat it. My appetite is also significantly reduced, and some days I’m forcing myself to eat to make sure I get enough calories in. Breakfast is usually a snack size piece of cheese or a couple of eggs, lunch is usually a protein shake after my workout, and dinner is a normal dinner (lots of Serious Eats recipes going on in my house), but I eat a lot less of it.
Another side effect is our grocery bill went from $250+ a week down to about $180.
I started the drug at 237 lbs and I weighed in at 220 this morning. I stalled out about 2 weeks ago when I was taking steroids after a wisdom tooth extraction. The steroids made me super hungry. But the steroid pack ended about a week ago so I’m feeling my normal unhungry self now.
In short, this drug is amazing and if any of you are fat, you should look into it. The semi-reputable provider we were going through is “Valhalla Vitality”.
ETA: The only side effects my wife and I have experienced is constipation which is solved by taking some fiber pills and half a cap of miralax with our coffee. And though it’s not causing insomnia, I am waking up pretty consistently at 5am regardless of what time I go to bed. I’ll start taking an edible before bed and see if that fixes it.
That’s pretty much all I do is graze. I thought that was supposed to be healthy?
