This is getting a little out of hand, so here is an article to let you in on the harsh truths of fat loss drugs, surgeries and injections. Firstly its a little coincidental that the current state of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity are at their all time high, but the availability of diets, weight loss drugs, surgical procedures and injections are all most prominent. So it seems the more solutions we have for obesity, the more problems we have. It doesn’t make sense right? Fat loss does not exist in a syringe, in a pill, in a surgery. And anyone who believes this and embarks on a pharmacological or cosmetic surgery type journey, is setting them self up for absolute failure.
So let’s look at the options for cosmetic, surgical and injection based fat loss.
Liposuction
Lemon Bottle Fat Dissolver
Ozempic/Wegovy
Mounjaro - Skinny Pen
Liposuction: Targeted fat loss under the skin using vacuum machine and suction tube.
Lemon Bottle: Injection under the skin to break down fat cells into fatty acids.
Ozempic/Wegovy: An appetite suppressing injection under the skin.
Mounjaro - Weekly single dose injection under the skin mimicking hormones like Insulin.
What do all of these have in common?
The thing with all of these superficial methods of fat loss is that they are expensive, convenient, immediate and require very little effort. When was the last thing that was convenient, easy and gave you immediate reward, successful and had long-term positive effects. Liposuction and Lemon Bottle fat dissolver both directly target fat cells and remove them. Sounds great, and we will come on to later why this doesn’t last. They both have immediate effects and you can walk out the surgery or clinic with less fat. I can see why this would be fantasised about and is pretty popular. Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are all injections that have hormone mimicking agents in them that help you stay satiated and eat less, leading to fat loss a little later down the line, but also pretty rapidly.
But that’s enough about the jabs and surgeries, because they don’t deserve any more time looking into how they work or what they are, because that’s pretty much it. The negative effects, side effects and long term effects are what we need to realise and learn about, and essentially how they methods of fat loss are fundamentally floored and totally unhealthy and result in failure.
So if we categorise the first two into how they are claimed to work, and how they DO NOT work. The removal of fat cells via liposuction or lemon bottle. Removing fat cells sounds like it should work, and if you don’t look into the science further you would like its permanent. If you remove fat cells, you’re not going to have any right? If only that’s how the body worked. There are two distinguishable responses to adipose tissue expansion: hypertrophy and hyperplasia. The growth of fat cells and the formation of new ones, I repeat, the FORMATION of new ones. In hypertrophic terms, a hypertrophic response is characterised by pre-existing fat cells enhancing triglyceride (fat) storage; estimates indicate that a single adipocyte can increase its volume two - to threefold. The flaw here is that people can easily increase their body fat percentage by more than two-three fold, and that’s where hyperplasia comes in.
Adipose tissue can also expand by forming new adipocytes (fat cells). We have stem cell pools in bone marrow, which are the starting point of new fat cell formation. Adipose stem cell proliferation not only contributes to adipocyte formation but also replenishes the stem cell pool. So not only do we create new fat cells, but we then replenish the pool ready to create more in the future under the obvious conditions of positive energy balance (eating too much). Furthermore, adipose tissue maintains its ability to expand as the organism ages, and ageing is associated with increased percentage of body fat, which cannot only be attributed to hypertrophy. In humans, lipectomy and liposuction are commonly performed medical procedures that remove excess adipose tissue. However, removal of adipose tissue causes other fat depots to remodel with both hypertrophic and hyperplastic responses, and full regeneration of the removed fat pad also occurs leading to repeat operations.
Further negative side effects of fat cell removal are;
Uneven or no results
Prolonged bruising or swelling
Infections
Abscesses
Necrosis, or death of body tissue
So the direct removal of fat cells DOES NOT WORK. Now with the other two methods; Ozempic/Wegovy and Mounjaro, these are injections that contain Semaglutide, a class of medications called incretin mimetics. They essentially mimic the role of a hormone in our body called GLP-1, that helps us feel satiated and control the release of Insulin. Taking these drugs will help us lower our intake of food therefore creating a calorie deficit and reduce body fat. So the mechanism of these two are more viable for ‘healthy’ weight loss. Manipulating our energy balance is the way forward when it comes to weight loss, albeit this method is heavily assisted. It’s this very type of approach to a negative energy balance that offers itself to unsustainable results. One of the biggest factors to long-term results is behaviour change and taking an injection is bypassing all of the changes in behaviour we need to create long term success. Simply, an injection is not behaviour change. If you we to start these types of medication for weight loss, you are committing to it for life if you intend to keep the weight off. So if you think injecting yourself for the rest of your life is the ‘right’ thing or the ‘healthiest thing then go for it!
You do not learn the behavioural changes
You don’t learn about nutrition
You don’t learn about discipline
You don’t learn about structure or routine
You don’t experience effort or hard work
You don’t learn about delayed gratification
You don’t build the traits that keep you healthy for life
Long term weight loss requires all of these traits, and without them long term weight management is unattainable.
To conclude, if we categorise these methods of fat loss into the two categories of; direct fat reduction and hormone assisted weight management, neither work for the two respective reasons. Category one is completely oblivious to and doesn’t recognise the science behind adipogenesis, the formation and growth of fat cells. New fat cells can be created, so removing any existing fat cells is totally redundant if you do not have the learned behaviour traits listed above to be able to manage weight loss of your own. If you can’t control portion sizes, if you emotionally eat, if you stress eat, if you binge eat, if you socialise a lot and end up eating and drinking a lot without the counterproductive effects of good structure, routine, consistent exercise, discipline and hard work, the money spent on injections and liposuction are totally idiotic.
The other category, the one that is actually backed by the NHS a little with the Ozempic and Wegovy being diabetes instruments and combating morbid obesity have slightly more backing from a scientific standpoint. They will help acute weight loss, they will reduce BMI and they will help overcome T2D. But like I mentioned, with the complete ignorance and naivety that injecting yourself does not change your behaviours, does not develop traits needed to long term success and like science has proven, once the course of injections is over, or you come off the assistance, more weight gain is experience back to a starting point far beyond what you initially were, leading to long term negative benefits of this method of weight loss.
Lastly, from our opinion as professionals in the weight management industry, the end results do not even look good. Building your body under conditions of weight training, resistance work and good quality cardiovascular work leaves us with an actual built body, that looks good, toned, defined and healthy. Nothing beats it. We help people daily combat their weight management, with real results and real people. Developing exercise routines that work, that people enjoy doing. We help people understand nutrition properly and how to eat to fuel their body. We help people become inspired and motivated to be the best version they can be.
Citation:
[Berry DC, Stenesen D, Zeve D, Graff JM. The developmental origins of adipose tissue. Development. 2013 Oct;140(19):3939-49. doi: 10.1242/dev.080549. PMID: 24046315; PMCID: PMC3775412.]
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