I posted this in the Ozempic thread
Natural is always better, at least in my mind. I might not be right, but we are a a nation of short cuts which fuels big pharma.
My personal experience... I knew I was vastly over weight. I did like 3 months of extensive research before starting my journey
The first step was to get my gut biome in check. I did this by eating fermented foods, real fermented foods . No shelf store pickles, I started eating raw, live, unpasteurized pickles for Olive my Pickle. Drinking 4 ounces of brine a day. After a month, I started to eat super clean. The results were amazing, I became so sensitive to sugar and sodium. The bland taste of the food went away after 3-4 days.
End result, I went from 210 to 138 in less than a year. -72 pounds or almost 40% of my body weight. I'm at 5.5% body fat right now. This is with no increase in exercise.
And, my food spending is probably 35%-40% lower when I wasn't