Losing weight with Ozempic can be a great way to jumpstart your health journey. But keeping the weight off can be a challenge for many people. While it takes commitment and lifestyle changes, maintaining weight loss after using Ozempic is possible.
You start feeling those usual hunger pangs again, and consequently, you may start eating more to satisfy that hunger. An increase in your consumption can lead to the regaining of weight that was lost. A 2022 study found that most individuals gain weight back a year after stopping the medication.
Semaglutide-based medications can be a tool to help you get to your weight loss goals but, to avoid gaining the weight back, you need to adopt healthy lifestyle changes in parallel.
Key Takeaways. Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, can be a powerful medication for treating diabetes and obesity. Semaglutide must be taken consistently to see long-term weight loss effects. As soon as someone stops taking the drug, their body fat and former appetite tend to return.
Like many drugs, the effects don't last after patients go off them, so people tend to regain most of the weight they lost if they stop taking the medication. Grunvald said many patients are under the false impression that they can stop taking Ozempic or Wegovy after they hit their goal weight.
Activity that uses 1,500 to 2,000 calories per week is recommended for maintaining weight loss. Adults should try to get at least 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous level physical activity at least 3 to 4 times per week. Diet and exercise are vital strategies for losing and maintaining weight.
The feelings of suppressed appetite will start to go away, and people will start to feel hungry much like they did before starting Ozempic, doctors explain. If you've lost a lot of weight quickly, you may feel even hungrier than before.
Duration of Semaglutide Therapy
The recommended dosage of semaglutide medication must be increased to its effective level of 2.4 mg during the 16 to 20 weeks of the therapy to include its weight loss benefits and other advantages and to reduce the impact of common side effects like gastrointestinal disorders.
Stopping Ozempic
Meanwhile, these are “not medications that our body becomes addicted to, there are no significant withdrawals and no significant major rebound effects,” emphasized Dr. Warriner. In her patients with diabetes, Warriner has also observed a return of increased appetite over time.
How long a drug stays in your system depends on several factors, including your age, metabolism, and the dose of the drug itself. The maximum dose of Ozempic (1 mg) can take up to 5 weeks to fully flush out of your system, while the maximum dose of Wegovy (2.4 mg) can take up to 7 weeks.
Stopping Ozempic is not directly harmful, but you may begin to notice weight gain. That's why stopping Ozempic or other weight loss drugs should be an individual decision you should come to with the help of your healthcare provider.
Some individuals may actually gain more weight after stopping an obesity drug than they initially lost, Conde-Knape added. Studies have similarly shown weight rebound in people who stop taking Ozempic. She said it's tied to how the drugs work.
If you stop taking Ozempic, the weight you lost will likely return, fast. People who ceased use of semaglutide gained back, on average, a full two-thirds of the weight they had lost on the drug within one year, according to an August 2022 study, the Wall Street Journal reports.
More often than not, foods outlined above make it harder for semaglutide medications to control insulin release, making it well worth your time to limit your exposure to added sugar, fatty, greasy meals, refined carbohydrates, alcohol and excessive sodium.
Semaglutide improves postprandial glucose and lipid metabolism, and delays first-hour gastric emptying in subjects with obesity.
The most common side effect with Ozempic is nausea and occurs in about 15% to 20% of people. Others include vomiting (5% to 9%), diarrhea (8%), stomach-area pain (6% to 7%), and constipation (3% to 7%).
That's because losing weight triggers biological mechanisms that make it harder to keep the weight off — including a slower metabolism. Hall says metabolism seems to act like a spring: The more effort you put into losing weight, the more you can stretch that spring out — that is, lose weight.
Only about 20% of Americans who lose weight are able to keep it off long term, research has found.
They'll say the act of losing weight permanently is a myth, and the only way is through invasive methods like weight loss surgery. While it's true that approximately 80% of people regain the weight they lost within 5 years, it's largely because of the methods we are using to lose that weight.
(No member of the Kardashian family has publically said they use Ozempic.) Ozempic is the brand name for the medication semaglutide, which treats diabetes by balancing out hormones like insulin.
Still, Ozempic and other GLP-1 medications will be most effective for weight loss and blood sugar control when combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise. Generally, eating healthy foods and avoiding foods high in sugar, calories, and unhealthy fats while taking Ozempic helps.