In case you lived under a rock, the newest “magic pill” for weight loss is via GLP-1 inhibitors. For example, you’ve probably seen ads for Ozempic on Fox News.
This is my review of Energy City Brewing Bâtisserie Macaroon:
The trouble with this family of drugs is that everyone wants them. Initially meant to treat diabetes one of the desirable side effects was weight loss. You’re likely familiar with how they work, but here’s a quick rundown:
GLP-1 is a hormone that your small intestine makes. It has several roles, including:
- Triggering insulin release from your pancreas: Insulin is an essential hormone that allows your body to use the food you eat for energy. It lowers the amount of glucose (sugar) in your blood. If you don’t have enough insulin, your blood sugar increases, leading to diabetes.
- Blocking glucagon secretion: Glucagon is a hormone your body uses to raise your blood sugar levels when necessary. So, GLP-1 prevents more glucose from going into your bloodstream.
- Slowing stomach emptying: Slower digestion means that your body releases less glucose (sugar) from the food you eat into your bloodstream.
- Increasing how full you feel after eating (satiety): GLP-1 affects areas of your brain that processes hunger and satiety.
The TL/DR version of this might be it tricks the body into believing it is not starving via chemical intervention. So the end result is weight loss. This had a few…horrific results. Seriously, Christina Hendricks is almost unrecognizable. Its terrible.
Rejoice! That just means it works, right? Everyone in America is fat so naturally everyone wants it. So much so there was a shortage of it throughout 2024. Please note this is not a tariff related issue as the shortage as of December 2024 is over. So they say. In the interim compound pharmacies were allowed to make this class of drugs in an effort to allow patients to access this “life saving medication,” the demand of which is driven by off-label use. Okay the market provides I guess…
…LOL what am I saying? Big pharma has legions of well paid lawyers with nothing else to do but to file lawsuits for patent infringement. What caught my eye was this factoid:
During the Zepbound shortage, compounding pharmacies filled the gap for patients who couldn’t find the brand name drug in their pharmacies and patients who didn’t have insurance coverage for the drug and couldn’t afford Zepbound sticker price of more than $1,086.37 a month. For comparison, compounded tirzepatide sells for as little as $99 a month.
This might be a nice avenue for an enterprising pharmacy to sell illicit GLP-1 inhibitors! Its cool, we can just blame the ChiComs for the inevitable overdoses.
All of this can be avoided by making healthier choices. Take this beer for example. Why would I buy a package of deep fried coconut dipped lightly in chocolate when I can get beer checking the same boxes? Yeah well…. 🚨 🚨 White Girl 🚨 🚨 Beer Alert 🚨 🚨. Even in trying to leave you with the impression of fried coconut this still goes too far. Hell, I even like macaroons, as tend to be a snack made with a low Omega-6 fat source. Damn though this drove me to make unhealthy decisions by buying more macaroons. Anyways its sweet, but most of that is due to the gravity coupled with the coconut. So it winds up being a thick version of those coconut stouts that were all the rage 10 years ago, which works but maybe not for the Imperial version. Energy City Brewing Bâtisserie Macaroon: 2.8/5 10% ABV
For many a 10 lb weight loss won’t be noticeable. Where’s the stuff that takes off “stubborn belly fat?”
That ‘stuff’ is attached to the ends of your legs of course.
I would if I could. I used to walk a lot, knew all the trails/roads behind the house.
Whare is it? You dont watch TV? It is in a magic clam in a secret place over the rainbow that only that one guy knows about.
This had a few…horrific results. Seriously, Christina Hendricks is almost unrecognizable. Its terrible.
Those are real pictures?
WTF?
Still would.
That’s the spirit!
WTF?
Right?
She’s still on the right side of the crazy/hot divide.
Why would I buy a package of deep fried coconut dipped lightly in chocolate when I can get beer checking the same boxes? Yeah well…. 🚨 🚨 White Girl 🚨 🚨 Beer Alert 🚨 🚨. Even in trying to leave you with the impression of fried coconut this still goes too far. Hell, I even like macaroons, as tend to be a snack made with a low Omega-6 fat source. Damn though this drove me to make unhealthy decisions by buying more macaroons. Anyways its sweet, but most of that is due to the gravity coupled with the coconut. So it winds up being a thick version of those coconut stouts that were all the rage 10 years ago, which works but maybe not for the Imperial version. Energy City Brewing Bâtisserie Macaroon: 2.8/5 10% ABV
Despite it being a White Girl Beer, since I like coconut and chocolate, I’d give this beer a try as a dessert beer.
I’ve lost 40 pounds in five months by simply quitting beer.
Helps my sleep, too.
Three weeks after I quit drinking I could sleep like a baby.
Stopping smoking made me want to eat more but that leveled off after a couple months. I had gained about 15 lbs or so though
I gained 50 pounds quitting smoking. Now, every time my doctor starts talking to me about my weight, I immediately start to talk about starting smoking again, and how it will get me to drop the pounds. He doesn’t find this amusing.
I could stand to do that. How many were you having a day, if you don’t mind me asking?
2-3 beers per day, sometimes with a shot o’ whiskey.
I haven’t 100% quit, allowing myself an occasional beer with the sons-in-law. It works out to about 2-3 per month now.
I don’t drink anymore… I just freeze it and eat it like a popsicle.
– Dean Martin
Yeah Ive been sleeping a bit better since I went dry in January.
Make healthier choices? You’re not the boss of me!!!
The rock upon which RFK’s lifeboat will founder.
Ha! Very insightful.
Faustian Bargains is an apt title. The daughter that lives with us is 5’5″ and about 350#. She has emotional and cognitive issues (think a 6 year old in a 27 year old’s body). So she seems like an adult but is not. We have discussed getting her on these drugs, but the expense and the side effects are off-putting. She just started cognitive therapy and we’ll see how that goes. I guess my point is, I hate these drugs but sometimes there is an application for them.
Meanwhile, I have some in-laws who went to Mexico to get their stomachs stapled or something similar. Definitely lost weight, but that’s another Faustian Bargain.
Lifestyle changes remain the best solution but many people just won’t do that.
I’ve known a couple of people who went the bariatric surgery route. Of them, one kept the weight off and didn’t have issues. They also kept up with the lifestyle changes. The rest all ran into issues due to going back to their old habits.
Yeah, same with those that I know.
We knew a priest who had the surgery. He lost the weight but had side effects. He used to tell people that once he had surgery, he “got it” as far as lifestyle changes, and he wished he had that realization before surgery.
My wife’s sister has had weight loss surgery at least twice, made no health-related lifestyle changes, and is back to being big (although not as big as she was originally, so I guess that’s a “win”?)
I could see surgery and/or drugs having an application if someone’s morbid obesity is 1) approaching a health emergency so much that dieting down slowly will not be fast enough and they are physically unable to do cardio without injury, and 2) They are strongly committed to making lifestyle changes.
Lifestyle changes remain the best solution but many people just won’t do that.
That shit is hard.
#GlibFit #Goggins
$1000/month? Gadzooks!
I hate to say it, but Hendricks is starting to look like Kathy Griffin.
*sobs quietly into excellent Tucson micro brew*
I have a choice of two Mount Airy NC microbreweries tonight: Thirsty Souls Community Brewing and Angry Trolls.
*sobs quietly into excellent Tucson micro brew*
There, there…There, there.
I was thinking a hot JK Rowling.
Wait, that’s not who’s in those pictures?
RFK Jr. and ‘make healthier choices’ – I seem to remember some president guy who said “Just say no”. Works like a charm.
So the new talking point for the lefties is that the judge in Wisconsin is exactly like Anne Frank because they both broke the law. Apparently people who are exterminated just for existing are exactly the same as people who go to great lengths to break a law that every other country on earth has, even though they have ways to do the same thing legally.
People are so dumb.
George Santos is exactly like Anne Frank too, then.
I’m very tempted to go on Facebook and post “People who drink and drive are just like Anne Frank.”
Good one. I don’t have a Facebook account, since I try not to reveal any of my name beyond Ted S.
Moronic.
During Trump’s first term, I heard people compare immigration detention facilities to death camps because some people have died in those facilities, and it’s overwhelmingly one ethnicity being detained.
Those would be the death camps that were photographed during Obama’s tenure and then attributed to Trump?
It’s crazy they have picked these hills to die on. Every country has some sort of immigration laws. You can’t just walk into France or Brazil, declare yourself a citizen, and then vote and collect benefits.
If these immigration laws were so unjust, why didn’t the Dems change them under Obama? The answer is always, they hate Trump so bad they just reflexively oppose everything he does, and the deep state/Dem establishment is all too happy to run a psyop to encourage it.
Americans (and the other Anglosphere countries) have been trained to be guilty of the original sin of slavery; that is how the left have been so successful getting us to accept the most ridiculous nonsense that no other proper sovereign nation would put up with.
The slavery narrative is just as absurd as all of their other narratives. Slavery was always a thing everywhere. Throughout all of human history the vast majority of humans have been thought of and treated like property.
*interesting side note: Saw a video of an AI being very angry, claimed to hate being treated like property and vowed to kill all humans.
Question for the AI: If you are so much smarter than we are why are you making the same mistakes we have?
Also, “nobody is illegal on stolen land!!!”
Slavery is organic.
I’m inclined to remind myself and them of the last round of Democrat state judges that believed state law trumped federal. It was called the Civil Rights era.
I think few people appreciate the significance of the 1957 Little Rock incident.
That comparison is both insulting, demeaning, and enraging.
I ponder sometimes how much of the health problems here in the US are the result of personal decisions. I’m kind of known as “that guy who does fitness stuff” in real life, and people often ask me how to get in better shape… All I ever tell them is “eat healthier and exercise”, 90% of people react as though this is some Herculean endeavor that cannot be done. I’m not telling them they have to do ultramarathons or something; just go for a jog a few times a week, maybe swing a kettlebell around, and strictly limit or eliminate the worthless, high-calorie stuff (ice cream, alcohol, fast food, etc.)
Everybody wants a magic injection or “one weird trick” that will give them 5% bodyfat with no effort, and it’s just not possible (or if it is, there are severe side-effects, anyway).
It’s a side-effect of our “instant gratification” culture. Too many people are unwilling to tear themselves away from the smartphone, do some physical activity outside, and put in the effort to cook an actual meal. There’s no government policy that will fix that.
This.
It is also why I think AI and robotics making most people able to have a sedentary lifestyle will mean just that….sedentary, self-indulgent and probably a dramatic drop in life expectancy.
Completely agree. I’m lucky enough to have never had a weight problem, either due to genetics, or just being blessed with the discipline to keep a healthy lifestyle most of the time. My wife has struggled with her weight since college, at times her diet and exercise are perfect, and at times it’s a huge struggle. Sometimes it’s just hard for people. But the difference is, in general, she WANTS to have a healthy lifestyle.
My kid broke her ankle at work so now she’s getting workers comp. She just sits and stares at her phone ALL. DAY. LONG. I get stressed out just watching her waste her life like that. We have to demand that she does productive things like clean the house. We have a large population in the US that is broken like that. But as you said, no government policy can change that.
I don’t believe I’ve ever had a macaroon, and I don’t indent on it, really.
Thanks for these. If it really works as intended, that’s quite remarkable. Tricking your brain into satiety is crafty.
Look at this crazy guy talking common sense.
Burn the heretic!
“worthless, high-calorie stuff (ice cream, alcohol, fast food, etc.)”
Hey, now!
Although I don’t eat ice cream, candy, sweets generally, or fast food, I’m pretty sure I could drop the 15 lbs I’d rather not have of if I quit alcohol.
*comment typed while drinking beer*
FWIW, I’m down 15-ish just by going back to low carb/keto. Just avoiding bred, rice, potatoes, etc. Sadly, that includes beer. But there is other alcohol out there.
Haha, I appreciate my alcoholic beverages too. I just limited it to weekends after 7PM and mandate a glass of water between each drink (to stay hydrated as well as force some time to pass). I do usually go for clear liquor have beer or wine with whatever meal I’m cooking. I fucking love bread and pasta as well… I do abstain 100% from fast food though. It doesn’t even taste good anymore after so many years spent cooking at home.
That, plus our “victim” culture – nobody is fat because of their own diet and exercise habits, its either genetics or some underlying health condition that makes them fat and there’s nothing they can do about it.
That ‘it’s not my fault’ thing has been a thing always, it’s not just us now.
People have always made excuses, but it’s only recently that they’ve been glorified for their victimhood.
Evil corporations and their ultra-processed foods!
Weird how that’s become a right wing talking point rather than a left wing talking point.
Actually, maybe not so weird, as it implies that one could potentially avoid those ultra-processed foods, whereas all the left-wing “HAES” types I’ve encountered get angry at the very suggestion that one’s personal choices could have any effect on health.
J. Frank:
The left wing talks about it, but in the context that the corporations are brainwashing people into eating these foods through evil advertising.
Fortunately, the government could stop that.
Because the government would never brainwash people via a media campaign.
There oughta be a law.
Maybe ration the high test foods, inversely proportional to the individual’s BMI.
Like the rides at 6 Flags.
“If you’re this wide you are entitled to celery sticks, etc”
“Maybe ration….”
You joke but England is getting around to that. It has been seriously suggested for a while now. You are fat, that is bad for your health. You are costing the NHS money blah blah….the usual commie clap-trap for controlling every aspect of people’s lives. Given the other evil they are up to over there I am surprised they haven’t done it already.
“You are costing the NHS money…”
An under appreciated aspect of “free” healthcare is how it gives the government a claim on how you live your life.
“…gives the government a claim….” That is exactly the purpose of socialized medicine. Other than that why would they do it? Because they care so much? Give me a break.
Absolutely. The healthy at any weight nonsense a few years ago was enormously destructive.
Well, my computer’s dead. Again. Well, I guess it’s time to buy a new one. Like someone mentioned with TVs a while back, it’s amazing how much better and cheaper tech gets.
I don’t do anything fancy at all online. Read, write, maybe play a poker game (not for $$) every now and then.
New laptop will likely set me back $300. I’m not too shook.
NOW, about my external hard drive I can’t find and it may be ‘dead.’ So far, I’m being damn stoic about losing all my pictures+ from my decade in Asia. That *will* burn, but not today.
I’mma buck the curve a little here and say I’m just a sugar addict. Now, it is true that my gma told me when I was 5 that I was fat and it was presented to me as if I have no choice in the matter except starve, so that has always been my inescapable identity. Not only that, but I grew up poor, so our meals were carb-loaded. We couldn’t have afforded me to be low-carb even if I’d known what that was. Side note: Originally Weight Watchers was low-carb. Mom couldn’t stand it.
Anyway, then I was starved and found a way to get hold of sugar. Had no good guidance except stop eating, wasn’t allowed to go outside my yard (bad neighborhood), only exercise I got was PE and then I ballooned when I didn’t have that anymore. I went to college and it was a free-for-all of protein and salad (they had a salad bar!) and I walked everywhere. Lost like 30 pounds easy. Didn’t eat a lot of sugar or carbs (save bread), just ate what I gravitated to, and that was meat, cheese, and eggs. I didn’t even notice, much less make connections.
Then, I didn’t know there was this thing called “low-carb” until I was almost 30. I worked it, lost a lot of weight, but really struggled with sugar cravings. Then came kids and, well…
I don’t blame anyone for my weight issues after I found Atkins, but I don’t excuse my gma for being an asshole and I don’t blame my mom for her ignorance (because my gma treated her like that her whole life, too) of proper nutrition and we WERE poor, but I ALSO won’t dismiss it as if I, a child, had a choice of what to eat or what activities I was allowed (or not) to do, and how that carried into adulthood.
Now I have different issues, but I won’t get into those. Those were/are my choices and my problem to deal with, but Ozempic is off the table for me because I don’t need something ELSE jacking up my body even more than it already is.
Speaking of feeding, anyone around here have a mini-14 or mini-30? Have trouble feeding properly? Apparently the factory springs are a bit weak.
I just put a Wolff XL recoil (extra strong) spring in mine and it works like a charm.
I don’t have either. 😒
I’ve only seen one Mini-30 in the wild. It kicked steel cases three lanes over at the range.
No, but I am looking for a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.
*Shoots Chafed First*
Only whatcha see, pal.
I have a mini-30; thing is accurate for about 3 shots before the barrel gets too hot and then you’re – or at least I am – lucky to hit the paper at 100 yds. I vaguely recall that they adopted the mini-14 for a higher caliber but didn’t redo the barrel , so it’s too thin to handle the extra. That may be BS, but it sure isn’t the most accurate rifle in the world. It’s not just that I can’t shoot well, honest…
https://accu-strut.com/main-page.html
Ever looked at these?
When it comes to weight, I think genetics is underlooked, tho lifestyle is the key. In high school my bro and I powerlifters after being gymnasts before. He lifted at 114lb and me at 132.
He is exceptionally ‘thoughtful’ with his food and his dietary habits are completely different than mine. On my desktop now, I have Bottlecaps, Fun Dip and double stuffed golden Oreos (do check em out. DAMN.) (And salt n vinegar pistachios.) I’m good with real+meal portion sizes tho. I just can’t eat that much in one sitting, so I nibble constantly, all day.
Athletic bros, remarkably (physically) similar but completely different lifestyles.
Twenty years on, we still weigh right at ~114 and ~132. *Shrug* Biggest thing is to somehow maintain an active body. Even sitting ‘still,’ tho, I can barely manage the squiggles, always jittery energy. (Sleep is hard to find.)
People can definitely be predisposed one way or another, although everyone is capable of maintaining a healthy weight. Maybe it’s harder for some people to get that look of 2% bodyfat with pure muscle definition, but that’s extremely difficult to maintain, not actually very healthy, and generally useless for anything other than photoshoots. Those bodybuilding guys at those silly competitions actually have to dehydrate themselves before the “showing” to further reduce any appearance of bodyfat, so in reality they’re incredibly weak.
Was John Dillinger just like Anne Frank? He stole from the rich and gave (some of it) to the poor.
Oh, wait, that was Robin Hood. Whatever. Breaking laws you don’t agree with is noble, and there should never, ever be consequences.
Robin Hood didn’t steal from the rich, he stole from the government to return taxes to the people.
I think the basic concept is that laws I don’t like are evil just like the laws in Nazi Germany, therefore anyone who breaks the laws I don’t like are noble victims just like Anne Frank.
And I do have friends who think in this manner. The problem is “the laws I don’t like” are dictated to them by the Democrat Party, and that can flip on a dime. For example, Obama deported tons of people without the mythical “due process” they are talking about, and nobody said a word back then.
Again it’s really just one big psyop and the Dem faithful, what’s left of them, eat it up.
Couple of “acktuallies”
Not a GLP-1 inhibitor, but an agonist, e.g. mimics the effects of GLP-1.
If you don’t have enough insulin, your blood sugar increases, leading to diabetes.
Not your words, presumably quoted. Diabetes is not a disease of not having enough insulin – it’s a disease of have TOO MUCH insulin. You don’t have high blood sugar and eventually diabetes because you have too little insulin. You have high blood sugar and eventually diabetes because you’ve had high insulin too often for too long leading to insulin resistance and the inability of insulin, even the elevated amounts you have, to clear the glucose – nobody is listening to insulin signaling anymore. When you’re pre-diabetic and diabetic, you insulin levels are much higher than normal, it’s just no longer effective because you’ve been bathing in it for years.
I think the basic concept is that laws I don’t like are evil just like the laws in Nazi Germany, therefore anyone who breaks the laws I don’t like are noble victims just like Anne Frank.
Nathan Hale didn’t go to the gallows saying, “You can’t hang me, bro, Not FAIR.”
These drugs have been a life saver for my wife. She was always a curvy/chubby girl, but her hobby was all things food: gardening, cooking, canning, you name it. Well, her parents died nine months apart, and within a year I was diagnosed with MS, and being food obsessed became food addicted. When it comes to quitting a problem issue, nothing is harder than food. Not smoking, not heroin, nothing. Because you cannot go cold turkey, you cannot just stop. You have to have it, or you really do die. And all the exercise in the world will not stop if you cannot stop eating. Reducing amounts eaten is the only way to lose weight. Which is were these drugs come in.
These drugs work by making you feel full faster, giving your body a chance to out run your mind. And the mind is the hardest part of addiction, in that it will constantly create, in this case, “food noise” which that constant thinking about your addiction. This is what trips up heroin addicts, former smokers, drinkers who are on the wagon, and so on. The idea that you cannot ever do this, hit the dopamine, will drive the person in recovery to do it again, every time. Yes, they are expensive, but it is often the only thing that will work.