Jump to: What is Wegovy? | Can you take a break from Wegovy? | How do you maintain weight loss after Wegovy? | Do you need to wean off semaglutide? | Second Nature’s medication programmes
No, Wegovy isn’t a drug that most people will need to be on for life. However, there may be certain clinical scenarios where lifelong use of Wegovy is needed.
For example, research suggests that some people have genetic predispositions to obesity due to changes in the structure of their brains. These differences in brain structures can alter our behaviour and increase our desire to eat beyond physical hunger.
In these scenarios, you may need to be on Wegovy for life.
What is Wegovy?
Wegovy is a weekly weight-loss injection approved in the UK for people living with obesity and other obesity-related co-morbidities, like high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes.
The drug in Wegovy is semaglutide. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, which means it mimics the hormone GLP-1, which helps us feel fuller for longer after we’ve eaten.
Many people are aware of the more popular version of semaglutide, Ozempic, but Ozempic is no longer approved for weight loss in the UK. Wegovy is the officially approved version.
Semaglutide is a long-acting medication that reaches a steady state in the body after 4-5 weeks, helping those on the drug feel less hungry all the time.
Can you take a break from Wegovy?
Theoretically, yes, you can take a break from Wegovy, but it’s unlikely to be recommended by clinicians as you’d need to drop back down to the lowest dose should you decide to go back on the medication.
For example, the highest maintenance dose of Wegovy is 2.4 mg, with the lowest dose 0.25 mg. If you took a break from Wegovy, you’d need to restart on 0.25 mg and increase your dose for 5 months before reaching 2.4 mg again.
Taking a break from Wegovy may hinder your weight-loss progress if your appetite comes back when you come off of the medication.
If you’re struggling with the side-effects of the medication, you should speak with your doctor or prescribing pharmacist about how to best manage this.
How do you maintain weight loss after taking Wegovy?
To maintain weight loss after taking Wegovy, you need to cement healthy eating habits and introduce other healthy habits to your lifestyle, like being more physically active, sleeping well, and engaging in leisure activities that you enjoy, such as accessing nature and socialising.
The main action of Wegovy is to mimic the hormone GLP-1, which helps us feel fuller for longer by communicating with the brain’s appetite control centre, the hypothalamus.
Healthy habits increase GLP-1 levels naturally and also lower circulating levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin.
After using Wegovy, you can keep the weight off by managing your hunger naturally through healthy habits.
Recent research has supported the benefit of cementing healthy habits while taking semaglutide.
Do you need to wean off semaglutide?
Recent research on semaglutide (Wegovy) suggests that much of the weight loss is regained when patients come off the medication.
This research supported the suggestion that some people may need to stay on GLP-1 medications for life to avoid regaining the weight they lose on the medication.
However, more recent research has suggested that titrating (or ‘weaning off’) off of these medications slowly helped patients maintain the weight they’d lost 6 months after coming off of the medication.
This approach was combined with a programme similar to Second Nature that supported members in developing healthy habits such as eating a healthier diet, improving sleep hygiene, and being more physically active.
The patients were on semaglutide for around a year before weaning off semaglutide over the course of 9 weeks.
86 patients were followed up for 6 months after stopping the medication and managed to maintain the weight they lost.
So, it seems that if you want to maintain your weight loss after Wegovy, you should wean off of the medication slowly while focusing on developing healthy habits.
Wegovy isn’t a magic pill
Weight-loss injections are most effective when combined with a healthier lifestyle. They can help kickstart weight loss while you commit to developing healthier habits.
Wegovy and other weight loss injections, like Mounjaro, can allow you to make lifestyle changes to support long-term weight loss.
These medications can help silence food-related thoughts and give you a boost of confidence with more immediate weight-loss results.
They can also buy you the time and headspace to understand why your body may have struggled to lose weight and build new long-term healthy habits.
The core focus of our medication programmes is to calm down the feeling of food noise, lower your cravings, and allow you to build healthier habits to keep the weight off for good.
The ultimate goal is to make losing weight feel second nature.
Second Nature’s medication programmes
Second Nature has two medication-supported programmes: a Wegovy weight-loss programme and a Mounjaro weight-loss programme.
If you’ve decided to try Wegovy or Mounjaro (assuming you’re eligible), why should you choose Second Nature over other medication providers?
For peace of mind.
Second Nature has worked with the NHS for over 6 years, providing weight-loss programmes across the UK.
While our Wegovy and Mounjaro weight-loss programmes are private and not currently used by the NHS, we’ve built the programmes focusing on scientific evidence, patient safety, and data security.
We hope that our 6+ years of working with the NHS and building a track record of effective weight-loss results will give you peace of mind to give us a try.
