GLP-1 Agonists: The Defector Review

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we’re the Bills, FS1, antisocial society, and more.

Your letters:

Tony:

A few months ago, you wrote an article about your decision to try Wegovy. As I have had a similar journey with my weight, your story inspired me to go to my doctor and get a prescription. How it’s going for you? I started in mid-November and have lost a few pounds, but nothing dramatic. So far, my doctor has not upped my dosage from .25mg (I suspect she might at the next weigh-in). Also, how have the side effects been for you so far?

I’ve been on Wegovy for roughly half a year now. I was around 230 pounds when I got my first scrip, which was the same kiddie dose as Tony received. I’ve since ramped up to the max dosage of 2.7 mg and currently weigh … around 230 pounds. If I went just by the number on the scale to assess my state of being, the drug has failed me and this has all been a waste of time. I’m gonna use too many words right now to explain why it hasn’t been.

Some background: Wegovy belongs to a new class of weight-loss drugs known as semaglutides, with Ozempic being the most well-known brand in that class. These are injectable medications. You go to the pharmacist and they give you a box of four syringe pens. You take the box home, stick it in the fridge, and give yourself an injection once a week. The pens make the injections much easier, and more painless, than they sound. One time I stuck myself right in the middle of our kitchen and my wife was like, “Oh wow, you must be tough to jab a needle into your body so casually.” I am, dear. I am John Rambo.

Doctors don’t fully understand quite how semaglutides work, but they do have a good sketch of what they do. These drugs are known as GLP-1 agonists. GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone that works with your brain to control digestion. Drugs like Wegovy agonize the GLP-1 receptors all throughout your body, slowing down the digestion process and telling your brain that you’re full when you’ve had enough to eat. There have been appetite suppressants out on the market for decades now—cigarettes included!—but none of them actively changed your blood chemistry the way that these drugs do. With Wegovy, you eat less because you WANT to eat less. That’s a big deal for someone like me, because I used to feel hungry all the time. I thought about food more than I thought about football, or even sex. I would spend entire meals thinking about my next meal.

That’s no longer the case. I only think about food when I’m supposed to now, which has been a godsend. My mind is clear. I don’t walk over to the fridge or pantry every 30 minutes to look for a snack. More important, I don’t live and die by the number on the scale. That number used to paint my day black if I didn’t like it. Now I register my weight in the morning and then go about my day without that number burrowing into my self-esteem.

I’d still prefer to be 20 pounds lighter, but I’m much more open to taking my time losing that weight. Taking your time is actually the right way to lose weight, because if you drop those bills too quickly, you’re much more likely to gain them back; it’s how the fad diet industry has stayed in business all my life. The Wegovy gives me license to pace myself, because I know that I’m in no danger of overeating. I’ve also obeyed my nurse practitioner and added strength training to my exercise routine to keep the muscle on, so my physique has changed even if my weight hasn’t. My wife says I look slimmer these days. I’ve been married to the woman for 22 years. She wouldn’t tell me something like that if she didn’t mean it.

As a result, I am now happy. Food still tastes the way it should, but it doesn’t rule my world. Hence, Wegovy didn’t cure my weight problem so much as it cured my food addiction. My relationship with food is now a healthy one, and I can’t tell you how weird that feels after spending over 40 years with a nasty overeating habit. I still have empty reflexes in my brain that goad me to hunt around for some chips, before my conscious mind takes over and says, “Wait a second, I’m not hungry.” I also have to be far more judicious about the calories I take in now that I’m taking in less of them. If you shrink your appetite but still only eat Oreos all day, GLP-1 agonists will fail you. I know because I still have my sweet tooth, which helped me beat the drugs while enjoying my Christmas. But there’s no panic. I love me some coffee cake, but I have zero inclination to go back to my absolute worst habits.

As for the side effects, ramping up the dosage slowly as helped minimize the damage on my end. I get passing waves of nausea every so often, but the nausea lasts only for a few seconds and has yet to make me boot. I also got a light case of the runs at one point, which is better than the cases of the runs I used to give myself back when I could eat two burritos in a single sitting. But results may vary. Some patients DO get nauseous to the point of booting. Others shit out a pitcher of fluid. My apologies to you if you pull the short straw there. But if you’re sick to death of spending all of your time and mental energy trying to crack the weight loss riddle, a nasty case of the beer shits is probably worth the risk. Four stars to Wegovy.

Timothy:

I came across a blurb somewhere about a college teaching a course (for actual credit) on how to have a phone conversation. Evidently telephobia is a real thing and Gen Z is having a moment with it. It got me thinking: has any college or university ever offered a Sports 101 type of course? I actually think that might be something beneficial for students as they move on to navigate work and social settings.

I took a class like that! It was a bullshit Sports In Society course I was in my freshman year. One of my football coaches taught it in a classroom located above at the Colby gym. I think the course was listed under the Sociology section of the college’s catalog, although I don’t remember Coach ever bringing up the Stanford Prison Experiment. It was a gut course, and every college has them, especially the big ones. Talk to any athlete who majored in Physical Education. They got to take the academic equivalent of Sports 101 five years in a row.

But let’s go back to the phone conversation course that Timothy mentioned up above, because it’s important to talk about the de-socialization of Americans now that Trump and the Nice People Swallow party have reassumed control of the federal government. You and I are gonna be subjected to four more years (if not more) of Why Trump Happened thinkpieces. I’m far too disaffected to read any of them, but I am old enough to understand that the quality (and quantity!) of face-to-face communication has plummeted this century, and that we’re all suffering the consequences of it.

Because if you grow up with the internet, you can subsist for days without having to speak to a single person. That’ll fuck you up. Dealing with other people face-to-face is a skill, which means you need practice. Without that practice, you’ll opt out of participating in life in exchange for constant texting and posting. This is an addictive form of communication, but also an ephemeral one. Nothing lasts out in the digital ether: not shitposts, not comments, not memes, not fucking TikToks. If this is the only kind of shit you consume or create, you render your own life disposable, with the vultures in power eager to pick at your bones.

The only way to fight against this self-dehumanization is through education. They teach you how to play nice with others in preschool, but that clearly isn’t enough. They gotta keep drilling this shit into kids all the way throughout the formal education process. Schools should teach them how to socialize (in person and on the phone), how to have casual arguments, how to have good manners online and off, and how to fucking date. What teenage boy is gonna know how to talk up a girl if he’s consumed nothing but Joe Rogan and gonzo porn? If you don’t train people to get along with one another, they won’t.

Do I have any faith that the new administration will make this form of education a priority? Of course not. No, that’s gonna have to fall on you and me. We’re gonna have to homeschool ourselves back to civility. For me, that means no more political shitposting, no more beefing with strangers online, and no more doomscrolling. I’ve lived through one tour of duty in Trump America already. I know it’ll be a car crash, only this time I’ll be smart enough to not spend all day staring at the wreckage. Instead, I’m gonna act like a normal person and hope that it rubs off on everyone around me.

Speaking of normalcy, we all hope the Chiefs’ contract norovirus right before kickoff against the Bills, yeah? I think that’s a healthy outlook.

Dan:

Is it fair to describe Tom Brady’s commentary style as whiny? It seems like he responds to any mistake with almost petulant exasperation. I’m used to guys like Herbstreit harping on mistakes, but Brady seems to have an extra gear 

He’s EXTREMELY fucking whiny, and his voice is tinny enough to make that whining grate. If Brady had the timbre, I could tolerate him tsk-tsking everyone on the field. Instead, he sounds like a middle school debate champ. It affects my enjoyment of any game he does, which puts him down in the Schlereth-Vilma tier of hideous color men. So I must politely ask Tom Brady to fuck off out of the booth and go run the Vegas Raiders into the ground. It’s what we all want for you Tom, because this thing you’re doing right now isn’t working. You fucking hack.

Bryan:

Will the Biden/Trump tandem be the last geriatric presidents we have to deal with? Or do I need to worry about an 85-year-old President Hawley?

I’m 48 years old. I grew up living under a senile president, and I still am. So if you’re hoping that 2028 will bring us President AOC and a governmental youth movement along with her, you should probably recalibrate your expectations. I expect NOTHING of the United States now. It’s freeing, in a way. The fucking Jets are more likely to pay off your loyalty than this dumbass country, so there’s no sense in hoping that’ll ever change. Much better to just crack open a beer and watch some movies instead. This country has completely lost its ability to chill out. I plan on being an outlier, and I brought all my weed with me to aid in the cause.

HALFTIME!

Chuck:

Why do announcers in football say, “in the National Football League” when referring to a player? We know what sport we’re watching; we don’t need clarification. Are the announcers required to remind us what we are watching? It probably bugs me more than it should.

This is an age-old complaint about color guys that dates back to when Ron Jaworski was still allowed near a microphone. I’m only bringing up Chuck’s gripe here because it dawned on me, far too late, that these guys are definitely forced to say the full name of the NFL every time they bring up the league on the air. There is no more image-conscious entity on the planet than the NFL, so it makes all the sense in the world that they’d issue an edict to all of their on-air to say the words “National Football League” as often as possible, so that it’s etched deep into every American’s brain. NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

If you work in NFL media and the league has issued YOU a list of verbal demands, please contact tips@defector.com. I sense there’s also a whole list of mandates for every broadcast team, including BANNED words that none of Tiricos are allowed to say. Think about it: have you ever heard any of these things said during a game telecast?

• “Sucks”
• “Deadly”
• “Horrible call”
• “Horny”
• “(player/Coach X) is bad”
• “Sexual predator”
• “Dumb”
• “Stupid”
• “Weed”
• “Boozehound”
• “Cracker”
• “Injustice”

Think about it!

Will:

My local Wal-Mart’s candy aisle alerted me that Valentine’s Day is coming up yet again. Do you and your wife celebrate, or just do what I do and get discounted heart shaped boxes the day after?

Come on now Will, you know the answer to that. Again, I’ve been married for 22 years. My wife and I don’t bother with that shit. It’s one of the many perks of wedded bliss. I used to bring home grocery store flowers for my wife on Valentine’s Day, but she’s allergic to half the botanical kingdom, so I’m never quite sure if the roses I got her will make her throat spontaneously close. I just get myself some Oreos instead and then she and I call it even. Valentine’s Day is for grade schoolers and people who still believe in love.

Also, grand romantic gestures are for chumps. I know that every Russell Wilson out there wants to meticulously plan out their Valentine’s Day surprises and then shoot them for Instagram clout, but that shit’s embarrassing to the rest of us. Bring your next Tinder date a Whitman’s Sampler and see if she’s swept off her feet by the gesture. You’re going home alone, kiddo. Women are way more impressed/horny when you do the dishes without having to be asked.

Edward:

I just found out my 27-year-old brother-in law’s sports media outlet of choice is somehow FOX Sports. While Barstool is obviously a cesspool of chuds, I somehow think FS1 is sadder? Like this youngish guy is actively watching Colin Cowherd and Mark Schlereth in 2025, which feels like the equivalent of watching a pick-up artist video. 

I see ads for FS1’s shouty show lineup during every NFL game and all of the shows look like they’re fake. I’m like, “The Facility? Come on man, that’s not a real show.” Then they cut to footage of Speak featuring Bizarro Molly Qerim chuckling it up with Keyshawn Johnson after he’s hit the buffet. Again, not a real show.

But FS1 exists to copy the ESPN daytime lineup, and there’ll always be a demographic (male, 20s, single, bored) that watches this kind of shit as default programming. I know I consumed all the PTI I could eat back when I was about that age. I haven’t watched that show—or Around the Horn, or SportsCenter, or Outside the Lines—since. I only want the games. The rest of it is pointless.

But I’ve aged out of the audience for the debate shows, with younger bros now filling the void. Some of those bros are gonna have Trump in their veins, which means they’ll reflexively watch anything on cable that has a FOX logo, because that’s the brand they trust (ha!). So somewhere out there, there really are bros and old fogies who are like, Boy, I can’t wait to hear what Cowherd has to say about Lamar Jackson this week! I have no interest in parsing their motivations any further than that. Either these people will grow out of watching that garbage or they’ll move on to burning down public libraries.

Peter:

I have Minnesota United season tickets and regularly attend the games. However, Lionel Messi and Inter Miami are slated to come to Minnesota this year in May. I have nothing stopping me from attending this game: no conflicts, no travel, nada. But do I embrace the capitalistic nature and sell these for a high price that will likely fund the remainder of the season? Do I ignore the potential profit and just enjoy another day at Allianz? 

You can take the morality out of this problem. If the past eight-plus years have taught me anything, it’s that all of my personal boycotts against the bad companies—Amazon, Chick Fil-A, Shoebox Greetings—have accomplished jack shit. It was all just white noise I used to help me sleep at night, and I’d usually end up sleepless anyway. I can’t go through my day constantly grading my transactions on some nebulous ethics scale, so I won’t. Same goes for you. Do you want to see Leo Messi in the flesh, or would you prefer the extra money? There’s no wrong answer; there’s only what you want.

Adrian:

As a Bills fan, I could dwell on the traumatic events of my team’s past, or convince myself that everything short of a Super Bowl is a failure. But that would negate all the cool, fun shit along the way. Instead, I’m enjoying every win and every big play, because it’s fun. My question to you: has this enlightened approach crossed over to your regular life, or perhaps, is it because of how you approach your regular life and your football fandom is now benefitting? Inquiring minds want to know!

I’m actually taking lessons from losing my dad last year. Before Dad died, we took everything day by day, because that was all we could do. If we’d had a bad day, my mom would wake up the next morning and declare, “It’s a new day.” The slate was clean. The outcome of this new day wasn’t preordained. We’d muddle through that next day, and if it went well, we counted it as a win. Then we’d put the same effort into the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. You break life down into smaller, more manageable parts, and then go from there. That approach helped keep me centered all throughout the grieving process, and I’ve adopted it for my life in general going forward. So long as I know that I gave my best on any given day—to my loved ones, to my coworkers, to myself—I’m good.

That said, I’m not a Bills fan, and I’m not staring down the barrel of a gun right now, with the entire country begging my team to put an end to the Chiefs dynasty. That’s no ordinary Sunday that you guys are about to endure, and I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to shake off a loss in the AFC title game as easily as I shook off a boilerplate Wild Card no-show, especially if Sean McDermott does something Sean McDermott-y.

If it’s any comfort, I’ll tell you Buffalonians that your team is crazy fun, and that the Chiefs are not. That’ll remain true no matter which team goes to the Super Bowl, and no matter what kind of tragic decision that McDermott makes in the fourth quarter. In sports, saying a team is “just happy to be here” is usually a backhanded dig. But what if you and I really ARE just happy to here? Happy to be alive? Happy to have an excuse to make some chili and then get shitfaced in a parking lot? Every day is a new day, and always will be. Remember that.

Aaron:

Who’s the original incel? I say Adam Corolla. Between spending years thinking and talking about other people having sex (Loveline), the premise/execution of the Man Show, and generally just the way this guy looks and the fact that he’s likely been rejected in reality and in his mind thousands of times, it’s gotta be him right?

It doesn’t. Adam Carolla is indeed one of the defining figures of the 21st century’s grim male zeitgeist: one of those high-profile comics who decided to make petty, unfunny complaints the central focus of his existence. But you can go back centuries, if not millennia, and find men who caused unimaginable harm all because they couldn’t get laid. Pick any old British monarch’s name out of a hat and you’ll find a pasty, 130 lsb. dipshit who decided to invade France because his cousin refused to marry him. None of this shit is new, you just have to hear more from these people now that they possess a digital bullhorn.

Peter:

Why do I like the Masters so much?

Because it’s an unofficial harbinger of spring, just like the opening weekend of the NCAA tourney. Also, the Masters is the only golf major that’s always played in the same place, which means that I know the course at Augusta National much better than any of the courses on the U.S. Open circuit, Pebble Breach included. That extra bit of recognition triggers a dopamine release in any veteran sports fan. You get that, “Ooh it’s that time of year again!” feeling anytime you tune into The Masters, even when you know about all of the bad shit about that tournament and about Augusta. They may have had groundskeepers spray-paint all of the trees and shoot every bird out of the sky to prep the course for that weekend, but OH MY GOD LOOGIT ALL THE PRETTY FLOWERS! I am helpless to resist.

Also, the golf there is often spectacular.

Kurt:

I feel bad for a ref whenever he has to call roughing or running into the kicker, because the signal looks silly and the camera even has to zoom out so you can see him do the little kick motion. Can’t they just do the personal foul chop and say, “roughing the kicker” and be done with it? 

OK, but don’t you enjoy refs looking a little bit silly? Football is so deadly serious the rest of the time, I need a few recognizably human moments scattered in there. Also, the running into the kicker signal is the appropriate one. You ran into the kicker. There’s no more direct way of telling the world you did that than weakly miming the kicking motion. If I’m watching the game without sound (because of Tom Brady), I appreciate the clarity of that signal.

Email of the week!

Dani:

My wife was recently on a flight from Florida to DC, and ended up sitting behind RFK Jr. (He was a dick to the flight attendant, but that’s not the point). Coming off the plane, some college-age girls from the flight saw him and asked my wife if that was JD Vance. When she said that it was RFK Jr., they did not know who that was, nor did they understand that HHS stood for Health and Human Services. We’re both career federal employees (i.e., not political; we’re the sort of folks DOGE wants to fire). Like many folks in the DMV, our families and social circles have plenty of civil servants, contractors, and govvie-adjacent folks. We understand there’s a lot of “inside baseball” that makes sense to us and doesn’t resonate as well outside this area. My question is, how in the blue hell do you explain things like the difference between a GS employee and a political to someone whose awareness ends at whichever DC-based TV show they last watched?

You don’t. Democrats try to do this every election cycle, which is why they always lose. The much bigger news here is young people not knowing who a Kennedy is. We did it, America. We finally made the Kennedys into just another family of random assholes. Only good things can happen from here!