Healthcare professional reveals how to avoid falling into regain trap after stopping Ozempic

With more and more people in the UK turning to GLP-1 medications to lose weight, many are now questioning what will happen when they stop using the drugs.

The biggest concern for lots of users is that they will no longer be able to keep the weight off when their appetite is not being suppressed by the medication, which works by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone.

While this is a risk, one healthcare professional has explained just why so many people struggle with weight regain and how GLP-1 users can avoid it when coming off the medication.

Madison Brown, a family medicine physician assistant, recently took to TikTok to address Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy users who are worried about how they will keep the weight off without needing to take the drugs long-term.

While Ozempic is only approved to treat Type-2 diabetes by the NHS, Mounjaro and Wegovy are now approved for weight loss.

"The majority of folks on GLP-1s like Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound, lost 15 percent of their body weight, with the average being 30 to 35 pounds," she told her followers.

"I have so many patients that come in and they expect to lose 100 pounds, and for the vast majority of people, that's just not what's going to happen.

"These medications are excellent at improving insulin sensitivity which is great, slowing down digestion and reducing appetite, but here's the thing: all of that reverses back to the way that it was when you stop the medication."

it is important to note that while Mounjaro and Wegovy have been manufactured as a weight loss drug, Ozempic is a diabetes treatment and therefore using it as such is considered as going 'off label.'

Unfortunately, Madison explains, the majority of people will gain around two-thirds of the weight back again within a year of coming off the jabs, 'and any benefit that was seen on glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure will return to pre-medication levels.'

Before we get into how it can be prevented, it's important to understand why this happens.

"Unfortunately, the GLP-1 medications do not retrain behaviour, they do not fix metabolism, they just temporarily override it," she explains.

Not only this, but a lot of people lose muscle mass while taking GLP-1s. So while the medication temporarily improves metabolism, the reduction in muscle mass can often lead to a lower metabolism than you started with as the higher the muscle mass, the higher the metabolism.

So, what can you do about it?

If you don't fancy taking these medications as a long-term fix, it's important to work on changing the habits that lead to the weight gain in the first place.

"Make sure you're exercising the entire time you're on the medicine, make sure that you are building muscle, increasing strength," Madison says. "Make sure you are changing your eating habits to something you can maintain long term."

The TikToker also says it's important to focus on gut health, because that's where the natural GLP-1 hormone is made. In order to help the natural hormone to work longer, Madison says you need to eat healthy fats and work on stress control.

"Because if your cortisol levels spike, that is going to crush your natural GLP-1 and so you need to have all of those strategies under control before you stop the medicine."

Novo Nordisk, the company that manufactures Ozempic, told LADbible: "Results from the STEP trials demonstrate that weight regain is likely once medication is stopped. Clinical experts consulted by Novo Nordisk view obesity as a chronic disease that should be managed similar to other long-term health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

"We advise patients to work with their prescribing physician for an individual customised plan of next steps including maintaining a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity when deciding to stop weekly injections."