Are you on the pen?

Then chances are high that you will be Ozempic shamed soon

It first happened a few months ago, when I was at a party. A group of us were standing around and chatting when a lady of our acquaintance entered the room. Everyone smiled and waved but the moment she moved out of earshot, the whispers began. “She’s lost so much weight; she must be on the jab!” “Have you seen how gaunt she is looking? It’s all those injections!” 

And that’s how I was introduced to this new society phenomenon: Ozempic shaming. This occurs whenever a person who has been a little portly suddenly turns up looking suspiciously slim. They may swear that they’ve just been eating sensibly and working out to knock off the extra pounds. But the society aunties – and uncles, this is a gender-neutral game – will jump straight to Ozempic (or, more recently, Mounjaro) shaming. Oh, they will exclaim airily, there is no way he/she has lost all that way without some help from the pharmaceutical sector. 

The judgement, of course, comes with a side order of moral superiority. The Ozempic users, or so the shamers sneer, simply don’t have the will power to lose their weight the old-fashioned way. It is too much trouble to eat less and exercise more; so these lazy lay-abouts just jab themselves in the stomach once a week and let the GLP 1 inhibitors do their work. After all, why bother with endless gym sessions and cabbage soup diets when modern medicine has handed us a short-cut to slimness?

This kind of judgmental snippiness is becoming all too common as the use of GLP 1 drugs increases in India. But what the people who are making all these moral judgements about what is essentially a medical intervention, do not realize is that tackling obesity is not as simple as calculating food deficits and working out in the gym. On the contrary, obesity is a complicated medical issue that only qualified medical professionals can tackle, not jumped up ‘fitness influencers’ and ‘gym bros’. And sometimes to tackle these medical issues, medicines are necessary. Just as those with high blood pressure need medical help so do people with obesity.

Amidst all this sneering, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these GLP 1 drugs are medicines that have a great effect on your overall health. They control sugar levels in diabetic patients (for whom these drugs were designed in the first place). They improve cardiovascular health in people with heart problems. They help bring down your cholesterol and improve the health of your liver. They reduce the desire to smoke and drink, and help those with drug addictions as well. And now there is some evidence to suggest that may help with inflammatory diseases too. 

Sure, there are some people who are using these drugs to bring about a cosmetic improvement in their appearance. But that fact does not change the essential nature of the drugs in question – or the benefits they bring to those that need them. So, when you Ozempic shame someone who is on them, what you are really indulging in is a bit of old-fashioned fat-shaming. It may be framed differently, but the moral judgement hits just the same. 

And those that delight in shaming other people are pretty shameful themselves.

Lose that weight!

Here's how you can do it the old-fashioned way

 

Weight-loss drugs are all the rage these days and over the past few months they have arrived in India as well. It seems to matter little that these medicines are targeted at those who either have diabetes 2 or are clinically obese, as everyone who can afford the (humungous) costs is lining up to take them. Some people are doing so to lose weight for aesthetic purposes while others have been attracted by the plethora of beneficial side-effects these drugs – Ozempic and Mounjaro, for the most part – are reported to have.

 

But what if you are one of those old-fashioned people who wants to lose weight the natural way; i.e. without the benefit of weekly injections? Well, if you are one of those, then this column is for you. Here, based on my life-long experience of struggling with my weight, are just some tips for keeping the kilos off.

 

·       I know that it is fashionable to sneer at portion control as a weight-loss method (though appetite suppressing drugs work on the same principle, more or less) but in my experience, it works a treat. So, if you are embarking on a diet journey, start by simply eating less of the bad stuff (fried food, white bread and rice, etc.) and more of the good stuff (raw vegetables, leafy vegetables, beans and legumes, white meat, fish). Your transformation will be slow but it will also be steady and that’s the kind of weight loss you want.

·       Learn to eat slowly, chewing each mouthful mindfully, instead of scoffing your meals down without a thought (and ideally, don’t eat while in front of a screen, whether it is your TV, Ipad or phone). This gives time for your satiety centres to get a message from your stomach that you are full. 

·       But don’t keep eating until you are too full to manage even one more mouthful. The sensible thing is to leave the table when you are just 80 per cent full – as the Japanese of Okinawa do; and who can deny that they are among the healthiest beings on the planet – so that you retain just a smidgen of hunger rather than feeling overfull. Follow this 80 per cent rule, known as Hara Hachi Bu, and see your health improve.

·       Sometimes it is as important to fool your eyes as well as your mind. So, start using smaller plates and bowls to serve yourself. That way, your meals will look larger than they really are, and if you are eating mindfully and allowing those satiety signals to go through, then it is extremely unlikely that you will go back for seconds.

·       Food pyramids make sense. So, do apportion the best part of your meal to good proteins and flavorful salads and vegetables (the base of your pyramid) and keep the unhealthy elements (the tip of the pyramid) to the minimum. But the order in which you eat what’s on your plate is equally important. So, eat your salads and raw vegetables at the beginning of the meal. Not only will this make you feel full quicker, it will also regulate the release of sugar in your blood. And you know, when it comes to eating, it makes sense to save the best for the last!