Day 1 on Saxenda

[Hiccups1]

I’m starting my Saxenda journey today! Anybody else on Saxenda with tips or success stories? I have about 10 stone to loose so a long way to go.

@stilldumdedumming god knows must of misread something but while I was looking for it I have come across plenty of articles stating that everyone pretty much puts back on all the weight lost

How depressing

What is the point.

Hi all.
I've been reading this thread as I'm planning to start on Saxenda next week.
I've only ordered one pen to start with, to see how I get on with it. Can anyone tell me how long will one pen last?
With regards to putting weight back on, that's true of any diet surely?
If you go back to eating the same amount of calories & eat too many of them, you will put on the weight again.
Saxenda just helps you stick to a restricted calorie diet but isn't a magic formulae.
I need to lose quite a bit, but I'm hoping to first get down to a BMI of 30 initially.I developed the precursor to gestational diabetes years ago & I'm at high risk of developing it currently. I'm post-menopausal and I think with Hrt I've pretty much stayed the same weight for the last couple of years. I do eat a pretty healthy diet but too much of it. Wine ( & the munchies afterwards) is my kryptonite.

Well that's what I thought but I read the body slows the metabolism down and alters it's gut bacteria to make it gain as much as possible back.

I'm away to try and find the thing I read as it explained it really well.

I will link it

There’s a bit on here saying you’ll feel hungrier but you’d expect that if you stop using an appetite suppressant. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now I love not having sugar or junk cravings. I’ve also avoided alcohol. Surely that’s good in itself.

@Cantonet I’m starting my fourth week and ending my first pen.

Hi does anyone have a link to get more needles - I have 2 weeks left but I think I need more. They seem to be out of stock in the usual places. I get my prescription from boots.

Regarding putting the weight back on, it is to do with the body weight "set point". This is very well explained in the book "Why we eat (too much)" which also outlines ways of reducing your set point. The author is a bariatric surgeon, and one of the methods is getting the right type of bariatric surgery. However, it is clear that the reason surgery works is because it resets the GLP-1 hormone in the gut - exactly what Saxenda and Ozempic are doing but much less invasively! I strongly recommend this book as it gives other strategies (apart from surgery) to help reduce the weight set pont. There is also a series of threads here about it.

I weighed myself this morning and I put on 1.5 kg during the holiday which is not too bad. Back on it now, I'm using 0.6+5 clicks at the moment to get back into it.
i have previously done intermittent fasting which worked really well for me - covid lockdowns were my undoing. And now im post-menopausal so I wanted to try saxenda to assist me in getting back to the intermittent fasting approach.

That's really interesting thanks and yea the article I read was taking about set point. Do you have a link to the book / information you are on about.

I'd really like to do everything in my power not to regain the weight, I find the whole situation depressing.

I just want to be a normal weight.

Thanks a lot

@LighterHeart sorry I just realised you said the name of the book , my mistake

Thanks

Thank you @Indoctro & @Nowisthesummerofourdiscontent for responding to my query. The set point theory is definitely interesting and does make perfect sense.
I've just joined some of the Facebook groups to gain more information on Saxenda and its usage. I'm hoping to try & eat normal food with my family, but just less of it. I cook a lot of Ottolenghi food and while it's probably healthy it often contains lots of olive oil & calories.

www.chemist-4-u.com/carepoint-pen-needles-31g-4mm-pack-of-100?gclid=Cj0KCQjw_viWBhD8ARIsAH1mCd6wAhukdpAwA-ngT3MWDOOwxBWF5AwaEGhuWEoiU8KYLVJKlcsXTh8aAvw1EALw_wcB. Hope that works!

I hope it’s ok to join your group? Today I had my first infection of saxenda. When should I feel anything? I don’t seem to feel any less hungry. My plan is to use this time on the medication to correct my eating habits by using the Beck diet solution book. I hope this works. Am so utterly fed up with being huge

Hi @KrankySchwester i think everyone is different as to how long it takes to ‘kick in’. Some people don’t seem to have a lot of effect until on higher doses so persevere

quick question, I got to 8pm last night and realized I’d only eaten about 800 calories and my deficit amount is 1700. I had a big bowl of cereal to try and get a bit closer to 1700!! Is that the right thing to do or would you have just stayed at 800?

I'm only eating about 800 a day but after reading Dr Mosely and the Fast 800 it appears to be absolutely fine to live on 800 for 12 weeks , some days I will be less than this.

This drug has worked very well for my my appetite has disappeared.

I also run a fair bit, which I have found it harder on the lower calories but I'm still managing 7 miles as my longer run then a few 5ks in the week on 800 or less.

I would just eat till you feel full , if last night you felt enough I would leave it at that.

Starvation mode has been debunked many times, there isn't such a thing. It came from a very small study after WW2 on women who only ate turnip or something silly like that.

Eat until you feel satisfied.

@Catinka thank you. I’m going to keep going as it must be working. All I’ve eaten today is an actimel drink & a slice of bread & butter. And am not hungry.

Maybe like @Indoctro said, eat until you’re satisfied and then stop. And if you’re under calories then that’s fine

I do not worry about calories, but I do worry about nutrition. Cereal is devoid of any (except for the fortification, but I might as well pop a multivit). I prioritise protein (for many, many reasons, one of them being that it helps reduce the weight set point), so if I felt I hadn't eaten enough in the day I would get a 30 gram portion of protein - meat, fish, eggs, even protein powder (I like to stir it into Fage yogurt). That way I can be sure that my body has received all it actually needs for metabolic processes, and the energy for them will come from my excess fat stores.

Today I had 2 meals totalling 825 calories, 84 grams of protein, and I'm fully satisfied. Tomorrow I've planned 3 meals, so both counts will be higher. Personally, changing things up so that my intake is not the same every day works well for me.

Can I join? I have some questions- I started Saxenda 12 days ago and to be honest was quite haphazard, as although I felt the effects from day 1, I didn't start weighing myself until about day 6, so not sure if anything happened in that first week. I was on my period when I started.

Since then I've fluctuated up and down by 1lb. Currently down 1lb.

I'm tracking on MFP and eating 1200 or under a day.
I have very little appetite, and am DEFINITELY eating about a quarter of what I would have done pre Saxenda. My food choices have been consistently good, very low carb, mostly low fat and high protein and fibre. Drinking plenty of water.

I can feel in myself that things are changing - my tummy feels firmer, I can run up stairs at home without my heart racing. So I'm broadly positive.

However the lack of what I would term 'proper' weight loss is getting me down somewhat. I've got approximately four stone to lose, so I'm aware that slow and steady will win this particular race!

My questions are:
If 0.6 is working for me ( in that it has reduced my appetite to almost nothing), do I need to increase the dose? - I'm unclear as to whether the increasing part is paramount to weight loss or just a way to get us to cycle through more of the drug and make money? If I'm in a calorie deficit then I should be losing weight eventually, right?

I know that for some people Saxenda doesn't work, but as above, I'm confused that I can be consistently in calorie deficit and hardly losing.

TLDR: please reassure me I'm doing this right!

@LadyOfTheCanyon , as you haven't got a starting weight but have noticed some changes, I would assume that you experienced what most people do when they start a weight loss programme (especially lower carb): your body drops quite a few pounds of glycogen, water and some fat, and then needs a couple of weeks to readjust and continue burning fat for energy.

Regarding increasing the dose, if it's working for you I wouldn't change. I made that error with Ozempic as I was keen to reach the therapeutic dose, even though I was successful with a smaller dose. Then experienced a 4 week plateau on the higher dose! I'm over it now, BTW, still losing but not expecting the loss to be the same every week.

I absolutely love the Beck Diet Solution it's helped me massively in the past, but if course you have to do your own work too and that's where I fall down!

@LighterHeart

Thank you! That's very reassuring- I know I just have to press on and changes will happen!

It’s helped me in the past too @drinkallthecoffee. But I’ve never completed the course. So this time round, I’ve bought the workbook and I’m slowly working my way through it a chapter a day. When I finish I’ll buy another one and start again until it’s properly sunk in. Could take a few rotations!

Oh yes @KrankySchwester I've definitely bought multiple copies and not ever finished the whole course! I got the workbook too. I do love the simplicity of it and the one task a day thing. And I agree with so much that she writes about. Eating whilst sitting down made such a difference to me, I could never imagine eating on the go now.

Hi all! After much faffing with bloody Boots I am finally, hopefully going to collect my Saxenda today so having followed all of you for ages am planning on starting today or tomorrow.

Am a little nervous of side effects over the summer hols but keen to start 🤔😬

Welcome, @Harridan1981 !

Try not to worry about any side effects, just take it easy and don’t increase the dose too rapidly. I was worried - ‘ thought I’d be nauseous, headachy and have the runs/ constipation but thankfully nothing of the sorts. Well, slight constipation but that could have been not drinking enough in the hot weather! Others have warned it’s alcohol intolerant so I’ve given it a wide berth. No point in drinking if you’re trying to lose weight imho.

Good luck!

Hi everyone. I am pootling along quite happily. Weight loss after 5 weeks was 12.5 pounds, only 1 pound off this week. A little disappointed not to hit the 1 stone mark but still losing. I am now trying to diet AND manage on crutches having injured my ankle! I am pleased with my progress so far but boy it can be really hard sometimes with the side effects