“What ever happened to just eating less...”
When the body is functioning normally, “eat less” works well. It is how our bodies are SUPPOSED to operate. But as someone who did low-fat, yo-yo diets for 45 years - and had been very fat as a baby/child - when your body’s hormones get out of whack, simply cutting calories can cause much of the weight loss to come from muscle. Making you weak and sickly.
In my mid-20s, I dieted down below 120 pounds - as a 5’8” male - and still had a thick layer of fat on my belly.
Going Keto at 59 changed my life. I lost weight, but from FAT instead of muscle. Thus I could sustain the diet, which has now just been “how I eat” for 8 years. I don’t have “6-pack abs” still but now have a ‘1-pack” with maybe 1/2” of fat over my abs. I’m 150 pounds and am stronger than I was 8 years ago.
So for “normal people”, calories in/out works well. And with few enough calories you WILL lose weight - but you can (when your body isn’t responding correctly) find yourself weak as a kitten. You simply cannot sustain that.
My sister never had weight issues and has never needed keto. I had them and did need keto to break the cycle. But I did NOT need “weight loss drugs”. You can achieve weight loss without muscle loss, for free, by going keto/carnivore.
Dr. Jason Fung - ‘Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk
One of the big gets in fasting and keto is improved mitochondrial health and efficiency
I am really concerned about taking anything that messes with mitochondrial function as mitochondrial degradation and deregulation is a root cause of many negative health and aging problems