New health tricks are discovered all the time. Tiny changes in our daily behavior can have big payoffs for our health. We don’t dismiss any “health hacks” we hear immediately because you never know when one will pay off. That’s why we were interested in learning more when we heard of the new “oatzempic” trend.
“Oatzempic” is a trend that started on TikTok. We don’t like getting health information from TikTok because a lot of it is wrong. But some of it is accurate, and some have grains of truth.
Oatzempic is a drink that people claim is a natural form of the drug Ozempic. It’s made by blending half a cup of rolled oats, one cup of water, the juice of half a lime and a dash of lime. People claim that by drinking it for 30 days in the “30-day Oatzempic Challenge,” you can lose weight and improve your blood sugar.
Oats are very high in fiber and can aid blood sugar levels. They can help you feel fuller longer as they are rich in beta-glucan. The drink has 140 calories and is not a good replacement for a meal. It has about eight grams of fiber.
Weight loss from this 30-day crash diet could be the result of drinking oatzempic in place of meals. “Drinking oatzempic as a meal replacement results in a calorie deficit and may cause weight loss,” said dietician Natalie Rizzo. But she added that “drastically cutting calories often causes extreme hunger and overeating, which may hinder weight loss efforts.”
Some people on TikTok claim they have lost 40 pounds in two months by drinking oatzempic. These people are not doctors, nor is what they are saying fact-checked. People say many things on the internet, and the videos are viewed millions of times, resulting in new followers for the creators.
Registered dietician Dalia Beydoun said, “The combination of fiber and water in this drink can help with regular bowel movements, which may also lead to weight loss, but not necessarily fat loss.”
Registered dietician Destini Moody had a funny response to the diet. She said she wasn’t impressed with the fad diet. “I’m mostly just impressed with how people come up with this stuff.”
Natalie Riediger, an associate professor in the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the Univ. of Manitoba, stressed that the drink isn’t a true meal replacement. While oats have fiber, protein and B vitamins, they are missing a lot of other vital vitamins and nutrients. She stressed that they don’t have enough protein and lack things like iron and calcium.
All of the nutritional experts who have reviewed the trend have agreed on the bullet points. Oats are healthy. They are a great source of fiber that can help you stay full and may aid weight loss. They also help blood sugar levels and are an excellent food for people with blood sugar concerns. And, finally, this new trend isn’t the health miracle the internet claims it is.
