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Hey OP, I will copy a point I made somewhere deeper in this thread that you might not see, because I do really believe that there is help to be had. I commend you on your desire to do something about this, since it will increase your quality of life in ways you never even imagined. Other people have also had great points I think and have touched on the tragedy that is the US medical system, I want to touch on the potential alternative solutions that are too often overlooked.
The obesity epidemic is caused by caloric density creeping up in ultra processed foods, tricking people into thinking they eat a normal amount when they most definitely don’t. The fact that these foods are almost like a drug for some brains combined with the fact that some bodies struggle more than others with burning calories can make it more difficult at first for people to loose weight, but you find yourself in the difficult circumstance of having to pay 200$ per week to do something about it, and there are two alternatives.
"Eat healthier, eat more fruits and veggies, cut out excess sugar, walk more, exercise more, the whole kit and caboodle" - as an external observer with no context all I can read from this is that you replaced some unhealthy calories with some healthy calories. So the first proposal is calorie counting by yourself. You have to be anal about it, every little detail, any little snack has to be on your list and fully counted. If you do this properly and have a hard limit of 1500-2000 per day you will absolutely see results without having to do any excercise or eat any specific food. This is proven science at this point and anyone arguing about this is trying to sell you something or someone else sold them something. More colorful trends like intermittent fasting also achieve caloric deficit in a roundabout way, but in the end it doesn't matter what approach you take, any way that works for you is fine, as long as you don't go over the caloric limit. Losing weight is not exciting and doesn't have some funny quirky solution, it's just simple hard brute force.
Second, a little less brute force solution, but also not free, spend a fraction of that ozempic money on a registered dietician that can monitor your intake and make recommendations. At least that way there’s external support and motivation, as well as much needed help in case you have a history of eating disorder. I found they are like 100-200$ per month so an 8th to a quarter of the ozempic price. This is still going to be hard work, but with support and help from an expert it will be far easier to establish and maintain.
Both of these solutions will help build good habits and help you build an intuition for food caloric content at a glance. Ozempic, if it works, skips these important aspects, which might make you rebound after finishing the treatment, since you never actually learned how to manage your intake, just had reduced appetite for the duration of the treatment. Any aditional things you do like eating healthier and exercising will be a great bonus to your health, but you should honestly skip if they are overwhelming you and impeding you from achieving your goal. It's normal to expect failure when the requirements are steep, so keep it a level you can manage. If calorie restriction is all you can do, then stick to that, but don't compromise it ever because that is the absolute minimum. Everything else may come later.
I wish you good luck with your journey and hope you'll enjoy the new life when you finally succeed.
Edit: bonus point I forgot to make earlier. Exercise may actually increase your appetite because that's just how the body is wired. Which will make resticting calories even more difficult from a mental/willpower perspective. So it may be advisable to actually not exersice while you are trying to achieve your goals, because dealing with both changes of exercising and eating less at the same time can be too much and leads to failure of both. If you have to choose, always do the calorie restriction, like I said before, that is the minimum requirement, everything else is a bonus.
This does not refute your bonus point, because this is going to depend on who you are. Everyone is different, so ymmv, but as a systems thinker with VERY pronounced ADHD, counting (while it works on paper) has never actually worked for me past the first few weeks.
In my experience, though, when I am exercising, yes I may eat a bit more to replace what was spent, but I'm put in touch with my body a LOT more, and get clearer signals for what to eat. This often ends up becoming a kind of feedback loop, because I'll start craving healthier foods that contain more micros, and are less calorically dense whole foods - mostly plants. I'm no longer eating just to get through, but responding to my body intuitively, which significantly reduces the cognitive load of "gotta eat healthy foods". This is self-reinforcing too. As new microorganisms from specific foods colonize the gut, it pushes the brain to want more of those foods. (Sounds crazy, but it's true.)
For example, maybe I'll want a chopped up head of iceberg lettuce with shredded beets/carrots, SMALL portion of chicken/salmon/tofu and a piece of fruit instead of just that dense protein bar or bag of chips to keep me going. Good luck gaining weight on the first one - you would literally not have enough time in the day to prepare, eat and digest an amount that would add any weight.
Exercise doesn't have to be crazy strenuous either. Just moving at all helps, and low impact movement can help tremendously with the aches and pains that can come with extra weight. OP is very young, and might not be feeling it yet, but she will.
Walking, swimming, cycling, and yoga are all fantastic places to start out, and those activities do have varying levels of accessibility but they're still all very achievable for the vast majority of people.
CICO is fundamental science at the level of basic physics, but there's also human psychology and the brain-gut connection to contend with. Layering other things on top of CICO, to that end, could result in compounding effects which accelerate and complement a foundation of rote calorie counting. A whole-system approach that integrates movement, nutrition and food prep skills together with intuitive eating is very much worth trying and is more likely to last long term IMO. With enough practice, this became a new normal. I feel great, keep a healthy stable weight and don't even think about calories anymore tbh.