Moving on from Wegovy

[Candyfloss99]

I've lost 4 and a half stone on wegovy. I've gone from an obese BMI to BMI of 21. I'm so happy. It took me a year. So now I'm going to taper down and stop. Has anyone else stopped yet? I'm going to keep up the calorie counting and exercise of course to keep the weight off.

Glad I read this thread, about maintenance, coming off it, etc.

Maintenance is hard! I've now been off it for 6 weeks and I've gained one pound. It's not terrible but it's been hard not to gain more. The hunger is back and the food obsession is kind of back. I've managed to minimise gain by skipping breakfast when I can do it easily. I'm happy to keep doing that as a longer term strategy. But I do want to lose more weight so I'm considering trying mounjaro. I'm starting to accept that I may need to budget to be on this medication long term :/ it's not impossible but it's a lot of my disposable income budget. But it's sooooo much better being a person who isn't always hungry and always thinking about food even if all I'm doing is maintaining. I don't want to be fighting not to gain weight all the rest of my life.

You will have a rebound if you move to maintenance it’s normal. I’m expecting a few lb rebound whilst you find your groove

I don’t know what you are expecting from reaching the goal weight. It is a life long battle not to regain it. That is what it takes. I don’t really want to do it either but I have no other option if I don’t want to be obese? See this as the same has you would have to do the same thing if you were diabetic. It’s for life. Not just for a few months

it’s not better to never experience hunger it’s just easier. Being hungry is a human survival instinct. Everyone experiences it and you can work to adjust your response to it

have you even considered spending the money on therapy to help you learn some CBT type techniques and unpick your food habits and obsessions?

Are you responding to me? It helps to quote or tag the person if you're directly responding. If so thanks but you're off the mark. I'm still obese, I still have weight to lose. I'm not trying to never be hungry. I got hungry on Wegovy. I'm trying to live a healthy and tolerable life without constantly batting extreme hunger. It's not therapy I need, it's a physical intervention.

@PineappleTime it’s up to you. I found CBT really helpful to me with managing obesity but you would have to be open to it or it won’t work. I’m just giving advice from my own POV, the thread is about ‘moving on’ people who are coming off but maybe you would find better advice on the medication threads if you are going to continue as it does not sound like you are in the place to move on from it yet

I was a binger too. I overhauled my lifestyle while taking wegovy and thankfully my habits have stayed. I used to binge after eating my dinner and while watching TV. I now go out for a dog walk every single night after dinner then come home and do a work out off YouTube and then have a shower and go to bed. If I started getting in the habit of watching TV every evening I think the binging could come back and I'm not going to let that happen.

It’s such a shame though isn’t it- that it’s a lifelong battle. I know friends who have been slim all their lives simply don’t think about food as much as I do. And can easily have a meal late or just have a banana and can continue on with barely a stomach rumble until their next meal. It’s the really nice thing about semaglutide, it gives you that freedom - mentally and physically. At 7 weeks since starting I still get peckish before meals but not that panicky hunger I used to get.

I was listening to the Fess Up podcast the other day, where one of the presenters is on Ozempic. She said that there was trial data where - if you stay on semaglutide for 18 months, and then slowly titrate downwards - it appears your brain has reset your weight set point and you don’t get the overwhelming hunger/cravings that many get when the go cold turkey. I haven’t read the trial data myself but I’ll be keeping a close eye on any advice that comes out regarding coming off the medication.

@PineappleTime fully respecting where you are (I've been on this journey for 12 months and a couple of months into maintaining) and that you may not yet be where you want to be.

@Menora is a rather inspirational poster - someone who chose to come off semaglutides but has kept going with weight loss using the insights gained. (Thanks lady!)

I think what we are very gently saying is - there is no permanent magic key to turn off hunger. It's a basic natural urge.

But what these drugs give is the space to think about why and how any one of us found ourselves at the starting point we were at. Which can supply the tools to help us not be there again.

@lastapache would love a link to the data quoted on the podcast you've mentioned. Not aware of it.

Yes I would use this time to research and find techniques that work for you, mine is mindfulness and the CBT element of talking to yourself through a feeling or thought and not reacting to it straight away. I liken hunger to tiredness, they both happen to you as a sensation and they are not always ‘real’. You might get tired at work, but you don’t immediately go find somewhere to go lay down and sleep, you work through it. Some of the hunger sensations are not real as in your stomach is not empty, you aren’t starving. We can’t always control the sensations happening but we can try to mitigate them and control our reactions to them. If you get tired in the day, you might make sure you have enough sleep at night, right? Well it’s the same for hunger you can set yourself up to mitigate hunger coming at you and overwhelming you, and you can work with your body to manage it across the day. This for me is having decent snacks with me all the time, planning what/when I am going to eat and always being prepared. I also will try to use mindfulness if I am feeling randomly hungry between meals, is it real? Or is it just the time I would have eaten a snack before, do I need a snack or can I wait till I get home? Recently I experimented with 4 smaller meals a day and this worked very well. I was not having long periods of going without food and I tried to volume eat so I was getting full then stopping the moment I felt no longer hungry. Wanting to eat more when you are already full is not hunger, it’s a desire or a habit, eating until you are fit to burst is not always just a physical compulsion it’s also psychological. It’s physically uncomfortable to eat to that level so there is something else pushing you on, a need to fill that you might be able to work on using therapy, for mine it was stress and not feeling good enough and food was a tool to try to make myself feel better (but I didn’t)

I was feeling a bit hungry and tummy rumbling by about 10:30 today. I think it's because I ran out of protein yoghurt and just had natural yoghurt with my fruit this morning. It was easy enough to make it to lunchtime, but this wouldn't have happened on Wegovy.
I've felt quite energetic this weekend, which also wouldn't have happened on Wegovy. I've been pretty active and went for a run. Swings and roundabouts.

I decided to loosen up a little on what I was eating today and add some sugar in and see how I felt. In the next couple of months I can increase my calories to maintenance and I am working out what this will look like.

Whilst it was ok.. I really find it frustrating how far it doesn’t go! I had a little Mr Kiplings cake - gone in 2 mouthfuls in seconds, 100 calories gone too. Felt so pointless, not sure I will bother again 😂

I had a big salmon salad for dinner took me about half an hour to finish it due to the tiny chopped components and I found myself leaving most of the salmon till last as it’s the best bit and I was feeling like well, I could have used those 100 calories earlier on something for dessert that lasts longer to get more enjoyment out of it, I could have eaten 2 x 39 cal mini twisters for the sake of 1 cake! Perhaps these little swaps will now stick in my head long term - recommend getting frozen lollies or making them, they are a good little treat.

I also love the energy. I wake up before my alarm a lot of the time and don’t get the horrible tired dips in the afternoons.

100 calories definitely does not go far, I could eat those little cakes in one bite.

I've been thinking about what maintenance will look like too. I think it will look pretty much the same as now but with the odd sprinkle of cheese or an extra spoon of rice. The margins are pretty small. I allow myself a second slice of toast with my scrambled eggs on a Sunday morning if I've been for a run. I'm just taking it really carefully and watching the scales all the time for any sign I need to cut back.

How many calories a day are people eating for maintenance?

It depends on your build and TDEE

I'm not calorie counting atm, just eating three healthy meals.

You need to calculate your personal Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is the amount of calories your body needs just to tick over. My scales tells me mine automatically and it can change a lot when you lose weight especially if you lose lean muscle mass as the higher your lean muscle mass the higher your BMR. Hence its good to keep your lean muscle mass high so you can eat more calories for maintenance. My BMR is just over 1300 calories a day but remember not all calories are made equal.

By TDEE is always predicted as much higher. This process has shown that if I go above 1600 calories then I start to gain. I'm 5ft 8 and active so this partly explains why I gain so easily.

I would assume the more active you are the more you can eat

I am 5’5, active and my deficit is currently 1400 a day and it works so once I am at goal I will add 100-200 on, see how that works and if I am still losing, add another 50-100 a day until I level out. Same with gaining I will just reduce back in 50’s

I’ve never dropped below 15/600 calories on wegovy. Sometimes I’ll consume less cos appetite isn’t there but sometimes more. It’s meant weigh-loss has been slower but consistent. I’d like to think I’ll have a maintenance of 17/800 a day. But once at goal I’ll increase slightly to find the right level for me.
BTW I don’t rigorously count calories but years of silly fads and things like WW means I can calculate the calories in most things from 100ft away

I'm not calorie counting as it's not sustainable long-term, in my view. I'm eating smaller portions, upping my veg and protein intake, avoiding the biscuits and cakes, or having one rather than ten, and trying to be more active. This is a lifestyle change.

I have been doing this so long now I can visually calculate the calories too. I only go back to tracking if I am struggling for a few weeks, to see where I am going wrong.

1.2lbs down this week.

Still managing fine. Last night after dinner I had a really strong urge to have something else. I kept thinking about bread. Bread is something I would snack on way too much and binge on sometimes. I have to tread carefully around it 😂 I didn't have anything else. I will loosen the reigns a little this weekend as I have some social things on. Part of the appeal of ditching the drugs was being able to let loose from time to time!

Someone said that they used a click chart to taper off Wegovy and took the chance at using a pen more than 6 weeks. Can I ask what they did about the needles as you only get 4 needles so if your getting more than 4 injections out of the pen then where did you source more needles it did you need needles more than once??

I bought a box of needles from Amazon.
These ones.
https://amzn.eu/d/atxopIv