Read This If You Are Considering Using Weight Loss Drugs!

Ozempic and other semaglutide weight loss drugs have arrived and it looks like they are here to stay, with Morgan Stanley reporting the global market for these obesity drugs to reach $105 billion by 2030!

If you have been thinking about taking these drugs in the bid to lose weight, here are some useful facts you need to know before hand and my thoughts from the perspective of a coach who has successfully helped obese and overweight men and women reach a healthy weight (NB I’m not a doctor!).

What Are They And How Do They Work?

Ozempic has been described as a miracle drug due to the ease and effectiveness of the treatment and the reported health benefits it can have.

They have been shown to help people reduce weight as well as help individuals who are pre diabetic to reverse this and come back to normal blood sugar levels and control.

The drugs work by mimicking the action of a hormone in the body called GLP 1.

This hormone is released in the intestines when we eat food and it helps manage blood glucose levels by stimulating insulin and inhibits the release of a hormone glucagon.

It also slows gastric emptying and promotes feelings of satiety, and this will be the thing that has the biggest impact on helping you lose weight. You simply won’t feel like eating and therefore will quickly drop into a calorie deficit and therefore lose weight.

The drugs have a stronger effect and impact than the actual hormone produced by the body due to their longer half life, meaning levels stay higher in the body and have more impact for longer.

Potential Pros And Cons

Let’s start with the pros.

We can’t argue with the evidence and current research that shows in multiple studies Ozmepic helps people lose significant amounts of weight.

So if you have been struggling with obesity or being over weight for a long time, and you have a condition that makes weight loss harder like PCOS for example, this could be a solution for you that is far less invasive than alternatives outside of dieting like bariatric surgery. 

Equally, even if you don’t have a medical condition making weight loss harder but for whatever reason you have struggled to lose weight and its effecting your physical and mental health, this could be a solution for you and I can see what it would be appealing.

However they do come with some cons that I think need careful consideration.

Like all drugs, Ozempic comes with its own list of side effects including stomach cramping, fatigue, malnutrition, nausea and vomiting as well as other more extreme side effects but in much fewer and rare cases so far.

A lot of these side effects have been shown to settle down over time however the most important one to note in my opinion is malnutrition if you are thinking about taking these as a weight loss method.

Any method of weight loss that puts you in a large deficit comes with this risk, however it’s been reported peoples appetites can get so low on these drugs they are eating less than 800 Kcal.

This doesn’t give us enough food to get all the nutrients that we need to stay healthy,  and so supplementation then becomes a must to make up for whatever is missing from your diet.

B12, Vit D, and Iron are some of the common deficiencies seen so the use of regular blood tests to stay on top of this would be a sensible option and something to consider.

Another thing to take note of is simply the fact they haven’t been used for weight loss long term meaning we don’t know the exact implications of this despite having been used safely for 20 plus years for diabetes. The more time that passes the more we will see the exact impact they will have with new stories appearing in the media almost weekly.

As a coach, one of the biggest cons for me is that the method allows for weight loss to occur without any change in existing habits to exercise or diet. If you don’t address these things, then it sets you up for either;

- Long term dependency on the drug, which could have negative impacts on health as well as being very costly.

-Or alternatively, a very likely bounce back and return to being overweight once you stop and go back to previous eating habits with returning appetite ( I.e. the ones that made you overweight in the first place and you needed to address!).

This pattern is already being shown in research ,with one study of 327 participants showing they all regained 2/3s of the weight they had put on prior to taking semaglutide drugs within a year of stopping.

In addition, if there is no habit of weight training established alongside taking the drug, we are not helping the body hold on to lean mass as we lose weight. This means that when are appetite and poor eating habits return we are also likely to see a return of even higher body fat levels than we had beforehand, because we’ve been left with a reduction in lean mass and therefore metabolism.Not to mention missing out on all the other health benefits weight training gives us!

This need for exercise alongside the drug is also supported by research with a study by Lundgren et al 2024 comparing weight loss in those taking the drugs alone VS drugs and exercise, with those that did it alongside exercise losing more weight and putting less weight back on!

This for me highlights the important fact that if you do decide the side effects are worth it, it’s super important to also have a coach help you plan how to exercise effectively on reduced calories and start to build healthier food habits for when you come off the drug.

If not, then I think Ozempic very quickly becomes like the next fad diet, with people yo yo ing in weight when they are either on or off the drug.

I hope that’s given you some things to think about and please reach out with any questions or advice on training and nutrition when taking the drug.

Lizzie

The One Percent Club

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