Ozempic for life?

[curiousfurious]

This drug seems to be all the rage at the moment and gets good results. If you are not diabetic and lose enough weight on this to get down to a normal healthy weight do you stop taking it? Will the NHS continue to prescribe it if you are a normal weight after however long it took to reach your goal weight? If you are getting it privately because you don't meet the NHS prescribing criteria will your provider continue to provide it if you are no longer overweight?
I've read threads on here recently and there doesn't seem to be much focus on lifestyle changes or addressing the causes of being obese in the first place. I wonder if there's a danger in this being perceived as a wonder drug cure for obesity but that it's only short term. Diabetics will be on it for life perhaps but what about those who aren't diabetic? It's very expensive, prohibitively so to many, so what happens to those who can't afford it any more?

Maybe calories were too low and filling up on wrong type of foods. Your calories is want to be I think up to 500kcal less than TDEE. Can be smaller deficit if want to take it slower.

Dietting can make you hungry it is part of the journey. If you are very hungry and have a lot of weight to lose you are doing it wrong. If you are quite lean and Wanting to lose more then it is part of the journey. IMO.

If someone is used to eating too much then their body will object to eating less and claim it is hungry. I tend to tell my body to be quiet when I know I've eaten enough. I busy myself with something then the hunger goes away. It comes back of course but I just do the same until it is a meal time. Of course sometimes we just want to eat because there's something nice available to eat. That's just human nature. Like there's usually always room for pudding or dessert. It's about retraining your thinking as well as your body. It's hard but it's achievable. I also think that as a society what we view as a normal amount of food is far from it. A proper portion is way, way less than most people think it is. Unless it's vegetables then it's way more. The way we eat these days is problematic but modern life prohibits change in many ways. It's always easy to stick to the status quo but change is worth the effort. Hard to do that though when there's doughnuts and pizza.

He sounds like a cheeky bugger mocking you just for finishing a pizza - quite normal whereas getting a double takeaway to last 2 nights definitely isnt!

My husband also uses the excuse of childhood conditioning to clear his plate, despite being in his late 50s now. I do get it, but try to get him to see that it isn't really logical to make yourself fat over something a parent said to you 40 years ago. That isn't my issue but I have others - mainly a sweet tooth and boredom eating.

@curiousfurious
Funny you say that about the hormonal contraceptive pill, cos I experienced a lot of weight gain on it in my late teens too. Like I gained 2 stones in 2 years. It just increased my appetite.

Also, being on antidepressants /SSRI's like Prozac made me very hungry all the time and I gained 2 stone on that in 6 months.

Have not been able to shift the weight, it's like those things put my 'set point' permanently higher.

Anyway, have you heard of Robert Lustig? He did a speech about sugar, processed carbs, etc, you can find a recent speech he does with Dr Ranjan Chatterjee, it's illuminating. He says it's all about fibre, if you have enough fibre, that will give you the fullness feeling, but if you eat stuff with sugar, white flour, even drinks with sweeteners should be avoided as it messes your satiation layer in the day. Avoid the empty calories. Easier said than done though!

I think a huge issue is processed foods. They don’t contain much actual nutrients so our bodies tell us to eat more. Not enough protein or fibre. So we give them more sugar and carbs and bad fats. Rather than protein and vegetables and healthy carbs. We live in an obesegenic society. Add to that for a lot of us our lives are more sedentary. Drinking at home is very normal for many. Including me.

The whole set point thing is very interesting too as we said earlier.

for me Ozempic is a tool that is helping me in a way that nothing else did - or at least not for long. Having 5-6 stone to lose feels insurmountable. Especially when you have tried so many times before. it feels exhausting just trying to get in the right mindset to start yet again. I still can’t quite believe I’m now a stone less than where I always got stuck before.

I also think we need to remember that we are all different. And we are not all obese for the same reasons. And one approach won’t work for everyone. Ozempic doesn’t work for everyone. Saxenda works for some but not others. Low carbing works but not everyone can manage it. Calorie counting works for some. Etc etc.

There is no one reason and no one solution. All I know for sure is it’s not bloody easy!

@HermioneWeasley what do you mean by

It seems my body doesn’t produce enough semaglutide to eat normally?

What do you class as eating normally? Are you diabetic?

Semaglutide isn't something produced by our bodies so it's not a case of your body not producing enough naturally.

Calorie counting always works unless the person can’t count or miscounted.

I know calorie counting has always worked for me in the past so I do think it’s a simple way to lose weight. The trouble is it’s so hard to stick to a limit of 1200 calories say or even 1500 on a diet when a person has become used to lots of snacks (in my case) or bigger portions ( in the case of lots of other overweight people). We get bored with it after a few weeks or months and return to our bad habits. Ozempic is a useful crutch as it curbs the desire to overeat.

Some of us are being prescribed it so I'm not sure this is entirely valid.
I would love to be able to control my diabetes and weight with diet and exercise alone.
Unfortunately I can't
I've been taking the ozempic since October, and slowly noticing the difference, have a check up in February to see if it's helping the insulin levels as well.

@mumof3now2 my OP is about those who are not diabetic and don't fit the criteria to have it prescribed on the NHS.

Apologies. I'll leave

You don't have to leave, it's interesting to hear your experience. I hope your check up on Friday shows good results. Do you get prescribed exercise from the GP alongside the drug? Here we offer patients exercise on prescription if they have certain long term conditions or/and are overweight. The next county over dues the same.How much support do you get regarding diet and lifestyle?

Only if you want to… it’s interesting to hear the perspective of someone who is diabetic on whether they expect to be taking Ozempic for life.
For non diabetics I guess most of us assume that we will only take it for a year or two until our BMI falls into a healthier range or until we run out of money. But are diabetics being prescribed the drug as a more long term medication? That is what I don’t know.

@Twiglets1 honestly, I am not sure. I have 3 monthly check ups to see if it's working, but honestly I feel different.
Unfortunately they don't prescribe exercise, as I do feel once I've got my weight down, with exercise I could maintain so as not to be a drain on the NHS long term with such an expensive treatment

Check your local leisure centre and see if they do anything. It's not always widely advertised. Here they do cookery courses too and teach healthy lifestyle habits. It's a 6 week course I think. Those with certain conditions can get reduced rates at the gym/pool once the initial exercise programme has finished.

Hmm. I thought both were only for 6-12 months. Neither is for weight loss, it's just a side effect.

You obviously haven't read about the numerous celebrities who take it for that precise 'side effect'

@S70V12 - for lots of people it is not quite as simple as that. Yes it technically works. I have done it off and on for years. And WW. And SW. And Atkins. And and and.

@mumof3now2 - I’m not diabetic but was definitely on the way there. I’m planning on trying to maintain by eating low carb and exercising. Diabetes can be reversed. Dr David Unwin and his wife are GPs who have run low carb clinics at their practices to help their diabetic patients and lots of them have reversed their diabetes and come off medication. He is on Twitter and so is his wife. They also have an app which is free - it’s called Freshwell.

@Oblomov22 - Wegovy is another semaglutide drug and is purely prescribed for treatment of obesity. It’s approved here but not yet available.

I’m looking forward to Wegovy being available in the U.K. because I feel a bit shifty using Ozempic. In fact I’ve only admitted it to one person, my daughter. Even my husband doesn’t know as I think he would worry about it not currently being available for weight loss without a private prescription.
Wegovy being prescribed purely for weight loss makes it seem more respectable, though I know it is basically the same thing.

I agree it would be great if various methods of exercise were available through the NHS, could help to prevent obesity and various health problems.
Then again, the NHS is already overstretched funding wise so can’t really afford extra costs even with long term benefits. So many dilemmas in life!

Same here @Twiglets1. I do feel a bit guilty taking it which may not have come across in my posts the other day. However I don’t know much about diabetes drugs - Ozempic is a fairly recent one so there are other options I think? My friend in Australia can’t get Ozempic now until April. She is overweight and was diagnosed as diabetic recently and given other meds. She asked about Ozempic after talking to me and her doctor prescribed it. She is gutted now.

Exercise is only prescribed once people have long term conditions. We can't expect the NHS to fund people not getting obese. We all have agency over what we eat and drink and our activity levels. There are many factors at play that affect our ability to control if we say yes or no to things or engage in physical activity but ultimately it's up to us.

Yes I think give the current state of the NHS we can’t expect them to prescribe exercise. People with long term conditions or limitations is different obviously but most of us know that even going for a walk will help. And build up slowly. Some areas prescribe membership or WW or SW though. And they do encourage activity.

Yes I feel a bit guilty about taking it too. I would far rather switch to Wegovy but in the meantime & until it becomes available, I feel like like I'm doing something positive to reverse the direction I was heading in which was diabetes. I'm also making a conscious decision to exercise more, as are most people taking Ozempic I imagine, as it does really increase your determination to make it work when you are driven to the lengths of injecting yourself/spending a lot of money in the pursuit of a healthier BMI.