To say thanks to your faults. It’s what Ralph Waldo Emerson believes every man needs to do.

It’s good guidance if you recognize when Emerson gave it more than 150 years ago, he was referring to the flaws in your character and not in your diet. About those, and especially today, I believe he would advise you to say another word: adios.

Not Ozempic.

But Ozempic’s the word I recently heard in a convenience store conversation back home in Muhlenberg Township after my brother introduced me to a guy he called Big Poppa.

The name suits his frame. He weighs at least 300 pounds (I’d guess 325 on a game show) and is about six feet tall.

To be that size, the guy must make many dietary mistakes, and he used to brag about one in particular on Facebook according to my brother. It’s a flaw far worse than eating a half dozen ground beef tacos every Tuesday.

Big Poppa would wait two days, then go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and eat and eat and eat. And then eat some more.

He called it Eat-Till-You-Puke Thursday, but he’s not eating that way anymore.

The Big Poppa in the convenience store wasn’t nearly as big as the last posted picture my brother saw of him. So after asking the guy how much weight he lost — nearly 90 pounds in about 11 months — Jimmy asked the natural followup question.

What did he do to lose the weight?

Big Poppa didn’t say diet. He didn’t say exercise.

What he did say was Ozempic — and that for a few days after he takes his weekly shot, he has to force himself to eat.

That’s the part my brother couldn’t get over. The originator of Eat-Till-You-Puke Thursdays needing to force himself to consume food.

So don’t be too hard on Jimmy when you learn what he said next is unfit to print. What Big Poppa said in response to the word my brother exclaimed after “Holy,” however, is.

That the once-a-week injection of Ozempic sometimes causes his bowels to move at that same pace. He also said you wouldn’t believe how many people in the township are on Ozempic, and it’s not because they have diabetes.

So why share a story set in a township about an hour’s drive from Lehighton? As the rationale to argue that those who are moderately overweight take Ozempic?

No way.

It’s shared in part because psyllium husk fiber is now being touted on all sorts of social media sites as the “poor man’s Ozempic.”

While you may not be familiar with this natural dietary fiber, you’ve surely heard of Metamucil, and you are probably aware it’s generally used to relieve constipation and promote digestive health. Except for Metamucil Fiber Gummies, all other varieties feature psyllium husk.

Currently, those are so popular that stores have taken to posting their availability on their websites, which probably means many people are using Metamucil for something other than its intended use.

But Metamucil is not your only option if you want to ingest psyllium husk to induce weight loss. Besides Metamucil’s 4-in-1 Psyllium Fiber Supplement, Supplement Review.com gives a top-5 rating to powders from Viva Naturals and “It’s Just” and capsules from NOW Foods and Mea Nutrition.

There’s another related way to lose unwanted weight, however, but it’s probably never going to be touted on social media since it involves planning, effort, and a change in diet. Moreover, it will not create weight loss nearly as quickly as Ozempic, though its weight-loss rate should be similar to taking some form of a psyllium husk fiber supplement.

That’s because instead of supplementing your diet with one specific form of fiber, you simply make sure the foods you eat throughout the day contain all types — and in meaningful amounts. Something that just doesn’t happen if you adhere to the typical American diet.

The average American adult consumes about 15 grams of fiber per day — even though the Food and Drug Administration sets the Daily Value at 28 grams for every 2,000 calories consumed.

While this ratio prevents a fiber deficiency, many believe consuming a bit more is better for optimal health. I believe in ingesting even more than that.

A check of the last few weeks of my food journal, for example, has my fiber ingestion at just over 60 grams per 1,000 calories, which would probably be only slightly higher than my average for the last 25 years.

Is this unusual? For sure, but the foods I consume for the most part are not: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, apples, and lots and lots of Fiber One cereal. (The only “unusual” foods I consume that add to my fiber count are shirataki noodles and a specialty bread from the ROYO Bread Co. that has 11 grams of fiber in every 30-calorie slice.)

In short, if you’re thinking about taking the “poor man’s Ozempic” to drop a few pounds before the start of summer, why not save yourself the money and just eat more of the foods high in fiber?