A Three Spoon Lunch: Peptides, Appetite, and Nutrition

Recently, I went to dinner with someone close to me who was in town for a few short days, and who also happens to be on peptides. While I still don’t know too much about peptides, I’ve clearly shared my thoughts on both PEDs and GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic. But these increasingly popular drugs have now hit the mainstream, heavily promoted by influencers and fitness personalities alike.

I’ve always questioned the idea that how good it can be if these drugs make the person taking them feel full. They work on hormone receptors, enhancing or mimicking certain responses. There’s a lot more science behind it, and if you want to understand that science, there are far better places to read up on it. But it’s always made me question whether someone taking these drugs is actually getting enough nutrition, calories, and macronutrients for their body to maintain itself.

As we sat there discussing what to order, he mentioned that he doesn’t, and can’t, really eat much. In fact, even before we decided where to go, he left the choice up to me because he knew he wouldn’t be eating much.

I, of course, ordered a full-on steak and then ended up eating half of what he ordered as well, because it turned out he really wasn’t able to eat much at all.

A couple of days later, we went for lunch and it was the same story. While I ate a full plate of food, he had about five spoonfuls of soup and was basically done.

There I was, thinking how incredible this actually was. But also, can it really be healthy?

We discussed it, and I raised my concerns. Could this really be healthy if he wasn’t getting enough calories? And not just calories, but all the nutrients his body actually needs to function and maintain itself?

Neither of us is a doctor or scientist, and I’m sure, or at least I really hope there’s research being conducted on this. But as an avid gym-goer and fitness enthusiast who has spent years reading up on different aspects of fitness and nutrition, seeing this happen right in front of me really got me questioning how much we actually know about these things.

While these drugs are still relatively new to the mainstream, we haven’t yet seen their full long-term impact.

I only hope that the people studying them are looking into these questions, deeply researching the effects, and, when they do eventually reach solid conclusions, giving us transparent and honest answers.