Emotional catharsis of realising that this is how other people live

[kugelblitz]

This is not my very first time taking GLP-1 medication, but it is the first time in a while, after having to quit liraglutide due to the cost. I took 1 mg of retatrutide yesterday, and today it is 5 pm and I have forgotten to eat the whole day. I doubt I need to tell anyone here how momentous this is for me, but I admit that I could not even if I were to try, because any words I know fail to capture the magnitude of it.

I've been at least overweight, but mostly obese, all my life. I have never known what it is to be seen by the world as somebody of normal weight. For what it's worth, it has never defined me, and I've never struggled too much with being, for the most part, accepted by society. I've certainly never felt the mockery and derision that some people, especially women, have experienced over their weight. As a man, aside from a few bros who don't truly wish me ill, polite society is far too... well, polite to be obvious about it.

But I have still, nonetheless, spent countless days trying to understand why I am different. Why can't I control myself? Other people manage it; am I so deficient in some essence of being a person that I have to stuff my face, obey every urge of my cravings, and eat compulsively and mindlessly? For me, this was always a particularly stark contrast because by nature I have virtually no other vices. I don't and have never smoked, I don't do recreational drugs, my alcohol intake is tiny, and I have never gambled any meaningful amount of money. I know what it is to have self-control in every other aspect of my life except for this.
I have tried to control myself. I have tried SO HARD. I spent countless nights battling with myself on whether I should get up from bed and eat anything in sight that seemed edible. I have spent countless hours in the gym, lost a lot of weight through the sheer force of will and painstaking calorie counting, and the moment the world sapped my single-minded focus, I was back at it, gaining weight. I've tried it all.

Then, 1 mg of a white substance shipped to me by a slightly dubious Chinese lab and... blessed silence. It's over. Like the flick of a switch. It's gone. Is this truly how other people live? They aren't compelled by some freak of biology to spend at least some portion of every waking moment thinking about the next meal? They just exist, and they eat to fill their energy needs, not in a vain attempt to fill some bottomless maw within them that condemns them to either shoving food down their gullet or obsessively thinking about the next time they'll shove food down their gullet.

Truth be told, I don't know what to do with myself now that I am violently confronted by the evidence of my own experience. Maybe, just maybe, I might have to consider putting down all the guilt that has been weighing on me more so than all this extra weight I have carried all my life. Is it possible that it is not entirely my fault?

I hope you will forgive me all this rambling. I'm having a true moment of catharsis here, and my only hope of connecting with anyone who might understand is you, my dear internet strangers.

If you have had this moment I'm having right now, please tell me. I want to hear.
Thank you for indulging me.

 

[BBA1969]

You expressed that very eloquently!

I can really relate to how you feel, because I’ve had the same feeling ever since I discovered GLP-1s; and I still do.

I’ve also noticed that they help quite a bit with some of my other vices, which, unlike you, I have in abundance.

 

[catwitch]

Thanks for sharing. I feel like I could have written this! (Except I’m a lazy writer. My essay would have been “yeah, bro, reta is cool.”) You're not the only one. Within two hours of my first dose, I felt like something wrong inside me had been fixed. Life is so peaceful now.

Anyway, best of luck on your continued journey! I hope you enjoy every moment and milestone.

 

[headward]

Yea, many/most people are still very cautious about pinning anything or think it's bad for some reason. Then they think 'oh just do it naturally'. But I tell them, 'you want to live in nature? Then go live on a farm/the jungle without electricity/running water.'

We are super fortunate to have these incredible APIs at our disposal. Why would you not take advantage? The modern age with McDonald's at every corner, it's very hard to maintain any sort of food discipline for long. These APIs/GLPs are a modern day solution to a modern day problem. They are perfect example of better living through science. No need to be ashamed about using them, even if just for maintenance.

 

[spanky2026]

Day One on Tirz I kept thinking, "So, this is how normal people relate to food?" Mind blowing. And yeah, it annoys me more than a little, all the people across the years who said something about my weight that clearly indicated they had no f'ing clue that our brains/metabolism were NOT the same. That their casual relationship with food was THEIR lived experience but clearly not mine. Until Tirz corrected that. These truly are miracle drugs.

 

[mybodyisasewer]

If you have had this moment I'm having right now, please tell me. I want to hear.
Thank you for indulging me.

100% had this EXACT same thing happen to me early last year when I got my first R10 kit. 1mg of this stuff immediately turned off my desire to eat or drink alcohol. I've been doing both of those things competitively for a very long time, like 20 years, and suddenly I had so much mental counter space. I didn't need to waste cpu cycles thinking about beer and cheeseburgers. I was actually able to focus, and now that I am at my goal weight, I am staying on it anyway for mental health reasons. As far as I'm concerned reta is Jesus in a bottle, as it removes your desire to sin.

 

[Galapagosfit]

Feeling normal for the first time in my life. I 100% relate to your story.

 

[Clavicular's Hammer]

Amazing post! Congratulations on feeling so good.

I feel the exam same way

 

[bay_area_schizo]

I had similar moment where I was like so this is how it feels to not obsess about food...then I got kinda angry at why this medication was so difficult to get to. I was with Kaiser through my employer for years and they would not even discuss glp-1 meds with me. I dropped them and got different coverage and new doc was like oh sure I'll script you for that.
first 4 wks of zep was 1500 US I sent that shit back and got to scrounging around. found this awesome forum and I'm so happy 😊

 

[SeaGypsy]

It wasn't until I got on GLP's that I realized how not normal I was. I thought all the eating and food noise was weakness that others could control but I could not. Nothing I did or tried made a difference, just always hungry and my brain screaming at me to eat something, anything. That first dose of Tirz and I was normal, no brain screaming, no growling stomach. It was crazy and I have never been more grateful in my life.

 

[McGuiness]

Well, so far I gotta tell you all. I have always kept my food noise at 80% under control, nevertheless the other 20% kept me overeating. Also I was always hungy, eventhough I have already taken my meals.

Thought it was stress eating or something, since I have been under lot´s of pressure since I remember.

Now I'm on my 5th tirz week, and gotta tell you, I feel like some wieght was taken over, no mo re food noise, no more hunger, just my regular meals... 6 months of gym gains (just talking about fat lose and thin look) over the last 5 weeks, now I understand why.

I know that I will stop at some point and it'll be better for me to start working on my mental to just ignore those noises and continue living without the food disorder.

For me, that's a game changer since I'm not worring anymore about food.

 

[SoCalGirl]

Yes. And yes. And yes. Half a century wasted wondering WHY and WHAT is wrong with me. One first time tirz injection in December later and presto; THIS IS WHAT NORMAL feels like. We totally get you.

 

[HouseCat]

1 mg of a white substance shipped to me by a slightly dubious Chinese lab and... blessed silence.

DYING! 😂

I absolutely love this post, and am so happy for you. I can very much relate. Even though I’ve hit straight sizes a few times in my life (usually once a decade for a few months, last time for a few years) most of my life I’ve been obese. Like you said: every time my focus shifts away from meticulous tracking and 5-10 hours of exercise a week, all the painstaking work was undone. It felt like a moral failing…why can’t I do this seemingly normal human thing - eat to live? I had metabolic testing and came out in the bottom 5%, and have since been diagnosed with a metabolic disorder. Even having a real diagnosis, I still felt like I was a weak, failure-ridden person.

I started tirz in February 2026, and it’s like magic. I eat when it’s time, not when I’m happy/sad/bored/stressed/breathing LOL! I can eat 3 cookies instead of the whole package. I know it’s science, but it’s also a GD miracle.

Big high fives!!

 

[rkbleddyn]

Yea, many/most people are still very cautious about pinning anything or think it's bad for some reason. Then they think 'oh just do it naturally'. But I tell them, 'you want to live in nature? Then go live on a farm/the jungle without electricity/running water.'

We are super fortunate to have these incredible APIs at our disposal. Why would you not take advantage? The modern age with McDonald's at every corner, it's very hard to maintain any sort of food discipline for long. These APIs/GLPs are a modern day solution to a modern day problem. They are perfect example of better living through science. No need to be ashamed about using them, even if just for maintenance.

Was it cheating when we created spearpoints to give us the advantage over other predators walking the earth?

If not, then peptides are not cheating either. And if it is cheating, then so be it.

 

[AngieHolmes]

This is not my very first time taking GLP-1 medication, but it is the first time in a while, after having to quit liraglutide due to the cost. I took 1 mg of retatrutide yesterday, and today it is 5 pm and I have forgotten to eat the whole day. I doubt I need to tell anyone here how momentous this is for me, but I admit that I could not even if I were to try, because any words I know fail to capture the magnitude of it.

I've been at least overweight, but mostly obese, all my life. I have never known what it is to be seen by the world as somebody of normal weight. For what it's worth, it has never defined me, and I've never struggled too much with being, for the most part, accepted by society. I've certainly never felt the mockery and derision that some people, especially women, have experienced over their weight. As a man, aside from a few bros who don't truly wish me ill, polite society is far too... well, polite to be obvious about it.

But I have still, nonetheless, spent countless days trying to understand why I am different. Why can't I control myself? Other people manage it; am I so deficient in some essence of being a person that I have to stuff my face, obey every urge of my cravings, and eat compulsively and mindlessly? For me, this was always a particularly stark contrast because by nature I have virtually no other vices. I don't and have never smoked, I don't do recreational drugs, my alcohol intake is tiny, and I have never gambled any meaningful amount of money. I know what it is to have self-control in every other aspect of my life except for this.
I have tried to control myself. I have tried SO HARD. I spent countless nights battling with myself on whether I should get up from bed and eat anything in sight that seemed edible. I have spent countless hours in the gym, lost a lot of weight through the sheer force of will and painstaking calorie counting, and the moment the world sapped my single-minded focus, I was back at it, gaining weight. I've tried it all.

Then, 1 mg of a white substance shipped to me by a slightly dubious Chinese lab and... blessed silence. It's over. Like the flick of a switch. It's gone. Is this truly how other people live? They aren't compelled by some freak of biology to spend at least some portion of every waking moment thinking about the next meal? They just exist, and they eat to fill their energy needs, not in a vain attempt to fill some bottomless maw within them that condemns them to either shoving food down their gullet or obsessively thinking about the next time they'll shove food down their gullet.

Truth be told, I don't know what to do with myself now that I am violently confronted by the evidence of my own experience. Maybe, just maybe, I might have to consider putting down all the guilt that has been weighing on me more so than all this extra weight I have carried all my life. Is it possible that it is not entirely my fault?

I hope you will forgive me all this rambling. I'm having a true moment of catharsis here, and my only hope of connecting with anyone who might understand is you, my dear internet strangers.

If you have had this moment I'm having right now, please tell me. I want to hear.
Thank you for indulging me.

I absolutely had this moment, and I keep having it periodically. I'm so used to feeling guilty and ashamed that it's sort of a default setting, unless I stop to ask myself, "What are you ashamed of?" Like you, I don't lack willpower or discipline in other parts of my life. But because I was a bit heavy when I was young -- my mom had me in WW at age 9 -- being fat and out of control around food were my identity.

I feel sadness for that little girl who was so criticized and so little understood. My weight was a narcissistic wound to my mother, who would never get off my back about it. When you set up that dynamic early, it can hugely affect your self-perception.

I hope your moment of catharsis is lasting, and that you fully free yourself from the guilt that has plagued you. For me it hasn't been a one and done; it's a process of re-confronting my self-image over and over again that I can tell isn't over yet.

NO, it wasn't entirely your fault! None of it was your fault. Your metabolism + the standard American diet were never gonna play well together. Wishing peace for you.

 

[Gt3294a]

This is not my very first time taking GLP-1 medication, but it is the first time in a while, after having to quit liraglutide due to the cost. I took 1 mg of retatrutide yesterday, and today it is 5 pm and I have forgotten to eat the whole day. I doubt I need to tell anyone here how momentous this is for me, but I admit that I could not even if I were to try, because any words I know fail to capture the magnitude of it.

I've been at least overweight, but mostly obese, all my life. I have never known what it is to be seen by the world as somebody of normal weight. For what it's worth, it has never defined me, and I've never struggled too much with being, for the most part, accepted by society. I've certainly never felt the mockery and derision that some people, especially women, have experienced over their weight. As a man, aside from a few bros who don't truly wish me ill, polite society is far too... well, polite to be obvious about it.

But I have still, nonetheless, spent countless days trying to understand why I am different. Why can't I control myself? Other people manage it; am I so deficient in some essence of being a person that I have to stuff my face, obey every urge of my cravings, and eat compulsively and mindlessly? For me, this was always a particularly stark contrast because by nature I have virtually no other vices. I don't and have never smoked, I don't do recreational drugs, my alcohol intake is tiny, and I have never gambled any meaningful amount of money. I know what it is to have self-control in every other aspect of my life except for this.
I have tried to control myself. I have tried SO HARD. I spent countless nights battling with myself on whether I should get up from bed and eat anything in sight that seemed edible. I have spent countless hours in the gym, lost a lot of weight through the sheer force of will and painstaking calorie counting, and the moment the world sapped my single-minded focus, I was back at it, gaining weight. I've tried it all.

Then, 1 mg of a white substance shipped to me by a slightly dubious Chinese lab and... blessed silence. It's over. Like the flick of a switch. It's gone. Is this truly how other people live? They aren't compelled by some freak of biology to spend at least some portion of every waking moment thinking about the next meal? They just exist, and they eat to fill their energy needs, not in a vain attempt to fill some bottomless maw within them that condemns them to either shoving food down their gullet or obsessively thinking about the next time they'll shove food down their gullet.

Truth be told, I don't know what to do with myself now that I am violently confronted by the evidence of my own experience. Maybe, just maybe, I might have to consider putting down all the guilt that has been weighing on me more so than all this extra weight I have carried all my life. Is it possible that it is not entirely my fault?

I hope you will forgive me all this rambling. I'm having a true moment of catharsis here, and my only hope of connecting with anyone who might understand is you, my dear internet strangers.

If you have had this moment I'm having right now, please tell me. I want to hear.
Thank you for indulging me.

Glad you found Reta. Another way to look at is, most folks have a problem with doing too much to something, be it alcohol, drugs, gambling, porn, buying shit, etc. eating just happens to be it for some folks. For me, it was never eating, but other stuff. Life is a journey that we hope to beat our bad vices.