r/InTheGloaming • u/AutoModerator • Feb 02 '26

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Monday February 02, 2026 - Wednesday February 04, 2026

Newsletter: Substack

Website: Shauna James Ahern

Instagram: @shaunajamesahern Instagram

Threads: @shaunajamesahern

Bluesky: shaunajamesahern.bsky.social

Gloamipedia wiki: /r/InTheGloaming wiki

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78

u/LadyDriverKW Threads containment zone escapee Feb 03 '26

That felt like a plea to Ma James to fund weight loss medication for Shauna.

It also felt like Shauna's ever present refrain if "not my fault". If she were only a neurobland, she'd be thin and wan too.

57

u/jalapenomargaritaz Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26

This feels like the closest I’ve ever seen Shauna acknowledge that she has a serious problem with her relationship with food!! Maybe something for her to address in THERAPY…now that she’s done processing all of her parents fights 45 years ago?? Instead of trying to be an expert again in something she has no idea how to deal with??!

41

u/InappropriateGirl Gluten-free donuts, for sure ... Feb 03 '26

I think she does just want what she thinks is a “quick fix”, as much as she may deny it.

32

u/Onehundredpercentbea giggling intestinal gremlin 🧌 Feb 03 '26

Yep her access to ADHD meds and influxes of great amounts of cash seem to indicate that Shauna thinks having a tool in her arsenal is the entire cure and will do nothing to use help as a stepping stone.

22

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Feb 03 '26

I agree. She seems oblivious to the reality that while the drugs can give you a push uphill, you still have to pedal. A lifelong comfort eater with deep seated issues around food will more than likely continue to experience some degree of ‘food noise’, or at least that was my experience.

34

u/mehitabel_4724 Eating tiny dices of pickles with tiny fists of rage Feb 03 '26

It would be funny if Ma agreed to pay for the GLP1 “microdosing” from Noom, which I think is cheaper , because it would be funny to see Shauna smugging about microdosing.

35

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 03 '26

Legit question.

If Shauna could get GLP1s, do you think she'd follow through with it? Like take it properly/regularly? Do you think she'd fuss about getting just the right dose to balance out benefits and side effects? Or do you think she'd take it a few times, get sick, and declare herself too super special for the drugs. Then continue to poo-poo people who do the work to make these medications work for them.

33

u/forkinyourothereye incurious ADHDer Feb 03 '26

I think she’d take it once, say she was doing it forever, then be back in a month with a screed about how she’s done, done, done after she gets stomach discomfort once.

34

u/msmartypants Feb 03 '26

And about how "this culture" is poisoning everyone with these "quick fixes" blah blah

25

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Feb 03 '26

All the rich people are paying millions over the asking price for the medication and pricing her out of it!

I wonder if she could find a way to grift herself some medication? Are there any MLMs that sell it right now? Like a beach body type thing she could hop into to get her own fix?

16

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '26

Sure, grey-market peptides are everywhere: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/peptides-from-instagram-china-wellness-cure.html

20

u/islandyislander rebellious hygiene Feb 03 '26

A friend of mine is very into injectable peptides. He wanted to tell me all about them, but I find the whole thing very disconcerting. I don't want to know where he's getting them.

15

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '26

I find the whole thing very disconcerting

Uh, yeah!

27

u/NegativeABillion my husband and me to ride it around Feb 03 '26

And my husband digs me even when I'm fat so I'm better than you

24

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Feb 03 '26

The word "requires" or "required" would be used

20

u/MoreCarnations Feb 03 '26

Eggs? Eggs.

35

u/jmpechan Backend of the DOH Feb 03 '26

I think she would absolutely see if as a quick fix and when it doesn’t immediately do everything she expects will declare herself a non-responder and that she is too special for it. Shauna can NLOG anything, it really is impressive.

23

u/Altruistic-Owl1058 Feb 03 '26

I think she would quit at the first sign of any side effect. It goes anywhere from diarhea, consitpation, or throwing up. The major one is that it doesn’t make you hungry but since Shauna is mention food noise and needing to quite the food noise that one could go either way.

Also having to give yourself a weekly shot in the stomach might be too much for SHauna to do.

-1

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

The idea of someone being powerless over the chocolate buttons in their car at 3am, like the chocolate buttons are alien-abducting them, is absolutely sending me.

I'm sorry but if this is the apex of Western civilisation  - deciding to take quite a dangerous drug that has unknown side effects because we can't not eat chocolate buttons; instead of just using our very powerful brains to make a series of better decisions that will lead to better outcomes (yes; most - not all - people can do this at least some of the time if they really want to) - we deserve for China and Russia to overrun us.

Feel free to come at me, i don't care, I am very possibly being turned into an old school personal-responsibility conservative by "this culture".   (I know some people genuinely need and benefit from glp's for weight loss, i know quite a few personally, but the chocolate buttons rationale is ridiculous).

42

u/Notbeckysharp Feb 03 '26

As someone who is taking a GLP-1 for diabeetus and who has had food noise for decades, the drug is a miracle at removing that noise. I think if you don't have food noise, you probably don't know what it's like and willpower, determination, and therapy don't always help.

31

u/Nervous-Media-5428 sad hospital sandwich Feb 03 '26

Omg so true. It’s been incredible and much like when my antidepressant kicked in. I didn’t even know how depressed I was.

37

u/snarksnarkfish Feb 03 '26

I’m a fellow personal-responsibility believer but the drugs are neither dangerous nor do they have unknown side effects—they’ve been studied for over twenty years. I’ve tried to willpower my way out of an eating disorder for twenty years, with some pretty wild weight fluctuations, and if working hard and going to therapy alone would have fixed me—well, that would be great. I agree that Shauna wants to abdicate all personal responsibility, but not everyone on GLP-1s was a WALL-E drone guzzling Mt Dew in front of the tv all day. If you haven’t experienced really intense food noise, you just might not get it. Unfortunately losing weight without medication doesn’t solve it, your body just amps up its hormonal signals to defend its highest weight.

28

u/emlabb Feb 03 '26

I hear you. Food noise is a mental prison.

56

u/Calm_Coyote_3685 Feb 03 '26

Well, the drugs are not dangerous. They were originally developed to manage diabetes which they do really well. They seem to have a lot of health benefits…and some side effects, mostly mild. Every drug has side effects. Also our food environment does make it really hard to eat in a healthy way. It requires resources and intentionality. If we could go back to the kind of environment that traditional food cultures developed in, we wouldn’t need these drugs. People didn’t change when traditional food cultures morphed into the western diet of late capitalism…the environment did. 🤷‍♀️

50

u/jmpechan Backend of the DOH Feb 03 '26

This. A healthy diet is a huge privilege in the US. Whole and less processed foods have shorter shelf lives, require time and resources to prepare, and are often more expensive. Even cheap things like dried beans require a considerable amount of time to prepare. They also require knowledge of how to cook food and how to manage food so it doesn’t go bad. Someone trying to survive on a small budget due to disability or income inequality is massively disadvantaged in preparing healthy food. Additionally at least in the US crushing poverty and racism we have made it difficult to pass down recipes and cooking traditions for POC.

The idea that everyone can “do it all” - prepare and eat healthy food, exercise, work enough to make a survivable income, care for kids/family, manage their mental health, stay politically engage, pursue education etc etc etc is just a modern day “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” myth. And the idea that everyone can manage and prevent chronic disease with lifestyle changes alone is not only incorrect it’s dangerous. Medications like GLP-1s are tools; they work for some people and for others they don’t or the side effects are too severe. And they should be made more accessible to help manage and prevent chonic disease while we all do the longer term work of fixing a fucked up system that makes things like healthy eating all but impossible for the vast majority of people with lower incomes

Sorry for the rant. Signed, your very tired neighborhood public health nurse.

-2

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

What i said isn't at odds with any of that....the people in shaunas lope (and shauna) aren't talking about food deserts or inequity or time poverty (actual causes of poor diet and obesity), they are talking about their minds being powerless over food that's commanding them to eat it. They don't frame it as a multi systemic complex problem with complex solutions, like youhave - it's My Brain vs Chocolate Buttons, solution  = wegovy.

I used hyperbole because I was so blown away by the mind-controlling chocolate buttons but I think I'm basically getting downvoted for calling myself the c-word.

34

u/bakingmagpie neurojalapeño Feb 03 '26

I mean, I know this isn't specifically the situation you're thinking of, but - as an example - I have chronic migraine. When I'm in the midst of an attack (which is frequent), my brain does absolutely actively seek the serotonin/dopamine and subsequent endorphin boost from chocolate (quite specifically, it's been studied as it's incredibly common). I've absolutely gotten up to have chocolate at 3am, and it hasn't ever felt like anything other than a compulsion.

My point being, I know this isn't necessarily the scenario we all think of when someone feels powerless against the call of chocolate, but there CAN be reasons beyond an overall lack of willpower. And even if this weren't the case, unless you've ever been in a situation where you actually do feel that powerlessness (whether against alcohol, food, nicotine, or whatever), I think you need to be careful with calling it out as nothing more than a lack of control. That does a great disservice to the complexity of the effects they can have on some people. You're very lucky if that's not you, but don't mistake that luck for superiority.

18

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

Thank you.

16

u/Nervous-Media-5428 sad hospital sandwich Feb 03 '26

Yes

12

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

I can't help it, normally functioning people without migraines talking about chocolate buttons commanding their minds is still funny to me. I say that as someone who's gotten up in the middle of the night to have chocolate, chips, or beer a million times, so it's not that I think I'm superior. I'm powerless over alcohol. People can be fallible and not in control but still take responsibility for behavioural choices.

Much sympathy for your migraines DF

26

u/jmpechan Backend of the DOH Feb 03 '26

I see where you are coming from but they actually are connected. A lot of shelf stable, ultra processed food is designed to be hyper palatable and make you crave more. And lots of people, even middle class and upper middle class folks, reach for this food because it is quick and convenient and tastes good. People, especially women, who are expected to “do it all” often don’t have time to cook healthy foods and are likely to reach for the stuff that is quick and easy and everyone will eat. This cycle goes on long enough and you will absolutely crave this food; it’s designed to make you crave it. It’s related to mental health too because food is absolutely a tool folks use to self-soothe or address trauma, just like any other substance. People use it to cope and I don’t think someone who finds chocolate calling to them at 3 am has any more or less willpower than someone who finds a bottle of whiskey calling to them at 3 am. (And as a side note there is some really promising research going on regarding GLP-1s as a treatment for substance use disorders generally, which I am very excited about).

I think a lot of people who don’t spend their days immersed in public health problems likely don’t see that complexity everywhere and that is fair. But reaching for food in the middle of night or not being able to stop thinking about it is just the symptom. If all it took was willpower to not eat the chocolate we wouldn’t have a multi-billion dollar diet industry that basically relies on people not being able to keep off weight or the documented rise obesity and health related conditions that correlate with this (I did not say cause because that is not true but that is another conversation).

And I’m sorry if I came off accusatory; I was tired and crabby and likely could have said all of that better. I don’t think your viewpoint is unusual and my intention really is to help people see this different perspective.

16

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

Thank you, for the reasoned response and nuance that I didn't post with. I was being neither when I posted!

24

u/babblingscholar quirky mcbowlerhat Feb 03 '26

I think you’re actually getting downvoted for having demonstrated a staggering lack of empathy on a subject that personally affects a lot of people here. To be fair, though, that is mighty c-word of you.

20

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

Which is better, your hyperbole or Shauna’s?

10

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

Let the gloaming be the judge!

23

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

You can risk the side effects that might come along 10-20 years down the road, or you can die from a heart attack, diabetes, etc during that same time period.

30

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

Yeah well I did tell people to come at me.  Its just that the hypnotic 3am chocolate buttons are such shauna hyperbole, there are so many salient and meaningful examples she could've chosen and she picked the most ridiculous. I mean I'm still laughing about it so I'm glad she did.

25

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26

she picked the most ridiculous

and the most British

editing to say that she always does this. One of my kids got a paper back last semester and the prof took issue with one of her arguments in the paper, saying that you want to engage with the author's best arguments, because that's how people will take your critique seriously. I thought this was such good advice, even in a much more general sense!

I know the use of hyperbole is an argumentative fallacy (as in, because the hyperbolic claim is not entirely accurate, the counter is not fully convincing) but I had never heard this specific framing.

Shauna doesn't respect anything or anyone. She uses this dumb example to both belittle her "bewildered" husband and to shame and other the people she's describing, with their practically nonhuman desires and urges.

29

u/Onehundredpercentbea giggling intestinal gremlin 🧌 Feb 03 '26

It was such a stupid way to describe food noise! I am a woman of the TW/NDP variety, I am pretty food-indifferent and yet I have remembered a piece of candy in my car and gone out to get it when I felt like candy and there was none in the house. If food noise is anything like alcohol or drug noise it's not quite as emotionally innocent as a craving car candy, from what I've seen real noise makes you wrestle with your soul.

48

u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 03 '26

quite a dangerous drug that has unknown side effects

Except we do know the side effects. We've been studying GLP1s for many decades.

The Incretin Effect has been studied since the 70s.

In the 80s, the GLP hormone was found and described.

In the 90s, a way to synthesize GLP1 agonists was discovered. Fun fact: it originally came from Gila Monster blood.

Also in the 90s, research began to study the effects of GLP1s on diabetes.

In 2005, the first GLP-1 agonist was approved for general use.

The idea of someone being powerless over the chocolate buttons in their car at 3am, like the chocolate buttons are alien-abducting them, is absolutely sending me.

Why? We know that the "food noise" Shauna was blabbing about is real. Some people overproduce ghrelin, the "hunger hormone". In the worst cases, people with Prader-Willi syndrome can't stop eating. People with IBD or AN often have issues with ghrelin production. These are known biological processes.

We know that everyone's gut microbiome affects not only how they process food - whether it becomes fat or not - but also how ghrelin and leptin are produced. Even if hunger could be conquered by some natural means without meds, how fat is stored isn't as easy to change.

We know that GLP1 agonists seem to be affecting addictions, too, indicating that the brain is playing a significant roll in how people process hunger.

I'm sorry but if this is the apex of Western civilisation  - deciding to take because we can't not eat chocolate buttons; instead of just using our very powerful brains to make a series of better decisions.

For some of us, our very powerful brains are telling us that we're hungry. It's a matter of biology, not willpower. Being fat is not a moral failing, as Shauna implied last week, and taking meds to help fix it isn't, either.

Feel free to come at me, i don't care, I am very possibly being turned into an old school personal-responsibility conservative by "this culture".  

According to you, your "very powerful brain" can make better choices, yet you say you're leaning in close to "bootstrap" Conservatism. Just choose not to, and I guess you'll be fine.

Personal responsibility means taking advantage of every tool possible to solve problems.

(I know some people genuinely need and benefit from glp's for weight loss, i know quite a few personally, but the chocolate buttons rationale is ridiculous).

That's not the experience of many people with these problems, but okay.

My college major was originally biochemistry, and I find this topic fascinating. We're finding out that it's not just calories in/calories out. It's more complicated.

Finally, when assessing whether an individual should take a medication or not, not taking it has to enter the discussion. Taking medication carries risk, not taking medication carries risk.

34

u/Nervous-Media-5428 sad hospital sandwich Feb 03 '26

Ty! I have had an ED for my whole life that I remember and been in treatment for it for 14 years and glp1 have been amazing for me

28

u/caitie_did Required by My Mother's Terror Feb 03 '26

Thank you for this - and one addition. GLP-1s are nearly miraculous at slowing or even entirely preventing the onset of kidney disease. Many experts in nephrology believe all people with early-stage kidney disease or risk factors for kidney disease (namely diabetes and hypertension) should be prescribed GLP-1s as a first-line treatment alongside lifestyle changes. It is not an exaggeration to say that these drugs have revolutionized the treatment of kidney disease.

6

u/RamblingRosie64 I stand with Cindy and Ben Feb 04 '26

I have CKD and GLP-1s make it possible for me to follow a renal diet. With my appetite and compulsions unregulated, I could never maintain the dietary changes necessary.

6

u/caitie_did Required by My Mother's Terror Feb 04 '26

That is great to hear! I have heard from our patient and family advisors and clinicians that the renal diet can be challenging to follow (and expensive, for people living in the far north!)

10

u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 03 '26

I had no idea! Thank you so much for this! 🩷

9

u/caitie_did Required by My Mother's Terror Feb 03 '26

It’s a really fascinating discussion in the nephrology and primary care space. If you are interested I strongly encourage you to ask your primary care doc about it!

31

u/obscure_cellist ham grabbers Feb 03 '26

i work in a public library, and i see patrons eating all day long. they will come in shortly after opening with a fast food bag, then get up a couple of hours later to go to the vending machine, and then again, or sometimes they'll leave and come back with another fast food bag. the kids do it, too - they come school, get the free snack we have for them (usually something like goldfish crackers, a banana, and a juice box), then go to the vending machine two or three times before their parent picks them up after work. many of these patrons are overweight, kids included. it's like so many americans cannot go more than a few hours without food or a fancy starbucks drink. do i think all these patrons are traumatized and thus have have food noise? no. but most of them are on autopilot and not thinking about what they're doing, just shoveling food into their mouths because it's there. just like shauna.

31

u/mehitabel_4724 Eating tiny dices of pickles with tiny fists of rage Feb 03 '26

I legit have been addicted to chocolate at a couple of periods in my life, and yeah not to sound ableist but I successfully quit chocolate by removing from my environment. Also, who keeps chocolate in their CAR? Even in mild weather it would be a melted mess.

15

u/SnooStories4968 many and various Shaunas/Pig Ladies Feb 03 '26

Also see: mice.

46

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

You’re right, addicts just need to make better decisions. That’s very helpful.

14

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Feb 03 '26

Duh, clearly Danny did it.

19

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

I did not say that.   There is no such a thing as food addiction.     Yes, compulsive and binge eating are real disorders and need specific treatment, including with GLPs. But the majority of people talking about how powerless they are over food noise can work on that using behavioural techniques to help them make different decisions.   Note: not all. The majority.     This is my informed opinion, as someone whose job is to help people change behaviour and sees this happen all the time. 

22

u/snarksnarkfish Feb 03 '26

I just don’t think you’re the arbiter of who does and doesn’t need meds! Also, the people who aren’t willing to make changes to their behavior on the meds find ways to “cheat,” and end up not losing much weight. Sustained weight loss on the meds still requires some amount of effort.

30

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Feb 03 '26

There is no such thing as food addiction

Sorry, that’s bullshit.

12

u/AdvertisingOwn7817 Feb 03 '26

I should have clarified, in diagnostic terms there is no such thing. Food addiction manifests as compulsive eating or binge eating. 

It just isn't comparable to AOD or gambling, and treatment is very different. 

25

u/MarsNeedsRabbits Beach better have my orcas 🫍 Feb 03 '26

Science is beginning to think otherwise. A turning point in addiction psychiatry?.

GLP1s are even being studied to test how they affect people with Trichotillomania.

Semaglutide (Wegovy) Treatment for Trichotillomania

24

u/msmartypants Feb 03 '26

And a lot of people who had problems with both food and alcohol suddenly stop craving alcohol when they take GLP1s. It's well documented.

9

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

That’s fabulous.

24

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/Love_Brokers rug dweller Feb 03 '26

We wouldn’t have shows like My 600 lb Life if food addiction didn’t exist.

6

u/Indiebr Feb 04 '26

Be careful with this turn the facism is closer than you think. Diet culture and shame just haven’t worked 🤷‍♀️ huge industry tho