The "You Tried it, Here's Why it Didn't Work Series:" Medication

The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast

Trigger Warning: we're talking about weight, weight loss, and ob*sity today, and that can be triggering for some people. So please skip this one if it's too much for you.

You may have heard about Wegovy and Ozempic, medications that are getting a LOT of press these days. Recently, there was such a demand for Wegovy that it was no longer available. Sadly, the same was true for Ozempic. So many people were taking the medication for weight loss that those who needed it for their Diabetes couldn't get it.

That's horrific.

Because of the success of Wegovy, drugs to "treat" ob*sity will no doubt be the priority of every major pharmaceutical company. Why? Because they'll make them billions upon billions of dollars.

Indeed, Morgan Stanley projects the current $1.2 billion annual market for obesity drugs could exceed $8 billion in three years and $50 billion by 2030.

So here's the million dollar question: do these medications work?

Well, I'll let you be the judge of that. The average percent of weight lost with these medications coupled with diet and lifestyle changes is 5-9% of overall body weight. The highest number I saw was 12%. These statistics are the same for Wegovy itself.

So, you may suffer through the list of side effects (and the list is long)--and pay over $1300 a month--in order to lose 5% of your body weight. Maybe that's worth it to you, and if it is, that's valid. But I think most people would expect much more than that.

Oh and there's the fact that you will most likely regain all of your lost weight if you stop the medication so you'll have to take it for life.

The other million dollar question is why these medications don't work. And that's what we're talking about today.

In this episode, we review medications like Ozempic and Wegovy that are prescribed for weight loss as well as medications like Topamax and Vyvanse, which are prescribed for binge eating. And we talk about the fact that these medications are not the miracle pills that pharmaceutical companies and the medical community seem to think they are.

And full transparency here: I'm not a physician or a chemist, so I can't tell you why they don't work from a physical perspective. But just looking at why they don't work from a social/emotional perspective gives a wealth of information. So if you've tried these medications and they didn't work, take a listen!