Weight gain after GLP use

[drzoid614]

Has anybody experienced weight gain affer coming off tirz or reta?

Just wondering what it looks like for people if you decide to come off these GLPs after being on them for a long time. I.e a year? Especially if you are not obese and just trying to reach a healthier BMI.

Please let me know your experiences !

 

[Grogu]

The group of people your asking about are probably those who would be most successful transitioning off glp-1 treatment. People who weren’t obese or metabolically challenged before treatment were never the target population for these medications. So, there aren’t going to be any clinical studies examining long term outcomes for mildly overweight individuals after stopping gap-1 treatment. Any accounts will be purely anecdotal.

What we do know is that, in general, people regain weight after stopping treatment. That regain is probably more pronounced in people who were originally more metabolically challenged.

This is from one of the SURMOUNT studies. Treatment stopped at week 176.

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[Abrakebabra]

I did 6 months a couple of years ago then stopped. I'd say for probably 8/9 months I maintained fairly well, but then a combo of Christmas and general life drama meant the weight started to creep back up. I totally knew I was eating unhealthily though, and probably could have stopped - but I was just in a poor headspace so didn't care.

 

[cldfront]

My partner stopped a few weeks ago due to sides and he is reporting feeling ravenous in the mornings. He's clearly eating a lot more than he did when on the meds, and weight gain will be inevitable unless a change is made. I am fortunate to have only mild sides I can live with and plan to take the meds forever and ever and ever and ever and eeeeeverrrrrr.

 

[Frankbooth]

I'm sure lots have... its best to stick to doing it for life especially with how cheap it is from China

 

[fishjerky]

I'm sure lots have... its best to stick to doing it for life especially with how cheap it is from China

Is it really best to stick with it for life? Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the GLP-1 effects and adopt healthy eating habits?

It's probably easier said than done, but this is the approach I've been using. I'd like to hear people's opinions on it!

 

[Zelmar702]

This Doc addresses this topic -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7sTZ70Gggs

 

[Grogu]

Is it really best to stick with it for life? Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the GLP-1 effects and adopt healthy eating habits?

It's probably easier said than done, but this is the approach I've been using. I'd like to hear people's opinions on it!

I think the medical community has largely accepted that obesity is a medical condition rather than a character flaw correctable through diet, exercise, and behavior modification alone. For mildly overweight individuals who are not metabolically challenged, this approach may be sufficient—but those individuals likely never required a GLP-1 to begin with. In contrast, for individuals with true obesity, behavioral strategies alone are unlikely to permanently overcome underlying dysfunction in the mind–gut signaling system.

 

[fatdude]

I did 6 months a couple of years ago then stopped. I'd say for probably 8/9 months I maintained fairly well, but then a combo of Christmas and general life drama meant the weight started to creep back up. I totally knew I was eating unhealthily though, and probably could have stopped - but I was just in a poor headspace so didn't care.

So did you have to start back up on it?

 

[woundcarping]

I think the medical community has largely accepted that obesity is a medical condition rather than a character flaw correctable through diet, exercise, and behavior modification alone. For mildly overweight individuals who are not metabolically challenged, this approach may be sufficient—but those individuals likely never required a GLP-1 to begin with. In contrast, for individuals with true obesity, behavioral strategies alone are unlikely to permanently overcome underlying dysfunction in the mind–gut signaling system.

Well said. I don't have experience or much practical knowledge of it, but mood stabilizing drugs like those for bipolar disorder or similar, come to mind. Get bad off, get on them... start doing better, compliance falls, mayhem ensues and the cycle repeats.

I don't think the same magnitude of deleterious effects are as likely with GLP drugs, and the slippery slope is perhaps easier to identify (behaviors lead the scale, the scale leads the visual cues) if you can keep a watchful eye on them. For me, regularly tracking scale weight is a great step towards ongoing compliance, the injections with the lack of sides are low friction at this point.

Depending on how my journey goes, I plan on titrating down on my dose, perhaps including time entirely off to see how my body does. I do expect old habits and dysregulation will present and likely require medical intervention to constrain long term, but I won't know to what extent until I get there. Receptor refresh during that time off may also be a thing to be able to regain regulation at a lower dose than was necessary before... this could also be a long term cycle towards whatever end presents itself in the data.

 

[cldfront]

Is it really best to stick with it for life? Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the GLP-1 effects and adopt healthy eating habits?

It's probably easier said than done, but this is the approach I've been using. I'd like to hear people's opinions on it!

No, it's not 'bad' to stick with it for life - this is not a moral equation with good and bad. Metabolic disfunction is a lifelong, chronic condition, these medications normalize metabolic function, and if you stop taking them the disfunction will return.

 

[lessthanhalf]

People don't really like the idea that mental effort is a finite resource, but there is quite a lot of good evidence that people just work that way, whether consciously or not.

So if maintaining a lower weight requires continuing mental effort , either restricting food intake when you are hungry or stressed or having to make yourself exercise, most people whether they like it or not eventually run out of that ability to make that constant effort. It cannot be a moral failing if that is just how people's brains work. It is not impossible to modify eating habits and exercise patterns in a way that does not take constant ongoing effort, but the reality is very few people succeed in losing significant amounts of weight long term, without long term interventions.

GLP drugs reduce appetite , make smaller amounts of food more filling so you do not need to eat as much and mess with reward circuitry in your brain to reduce desire for high calorie foods. The amount of effort required to have a once weekly injection is something that anyone can make long term, and is so low effort that you are not going to run out of motivation or ability to make the effort. So continuing to take glp medications is easy and you can maintain weight loss when you are taking them, but every bit of research on obesity ever shows when you stop the weight loss intervention, no matter how hard you try, almost everyone eventually regains the weight.

 

[Abrakebabra]

So did you have to start back up on it?

Yep - that's where I am now. Going steady on Tirz and the weight is falling back off.

 

[Grogu]

Well said. I don't have experience or much practical knowledge of it, but mood stabilizing drugs like those for bipolar disorder or similar, come to mind. Get bad off, get on them... start doing better, compliance falls, mayhem ensues and the cycle repeats.

I don't think the same magnitude of deleterious effects are as likely with GLP drugs, and the slippery slope is perhaps easier to identify (behaviors lead the scale, the scale leads the visual cues) if you can keep a watchful eye on them. For me, regularly tracking scale weight is a great step towards ongoing compliance, the injections with the lack of sides are low friction at this point.

Depending on how my journey goes, I plan on titrating down on my dose, perhaps including time entirely off to see how my body does. I do expect old habits and dysregulation will present and likely require medical intervention to constrain long term, but I won't know to what extent until I get there. Receptor refresh during that time off may also be a thing to be able to regain regulation at a lower dose than was necessary before... this could also be a long term cycle towards whatever end presents itself in the data.

I definitely think that some people will be able to stop glp1 treatment and not have a problem with weight regain or will regain weight slower and over a longer period of time. I also agree that changing underlying behaviors is vital to long term success. And I don’t want to give the impression that an obesity diagnosis is an excuse for making poor decisions regarding food choices.

I really don’t mean to come across so negative on the prospect of people being successful off these meds. There are definitely different levels of sickness when it comes to obesity, just like different types of mental illness. Mildly depressed people who start antidepressants in conjunction with therapy would have better luck getting of the meds than someone with severe bipolar disorder.

There are lots of people on glp1s who have been obese for a lifetime and have lost and regained significant weight over their lives. And there are people mildly overweight or mildly obese using these medications. Results transitioning off these medications will vary across these groups.

 

[woundcarping]

I agree. I was trying to illustrate another example when therapeutic success develops complacency which leads to poor compliance and the loss of that success… something that is frequently seen in the weight loss journey including my own.

For me, the first step in complacency has been to stop recording scale weight… the ideas fall from the mind, record keeping is lost, “oh it’s only 5lb” turns into a quick 30lb then “it doesn’t matter.” With GLP, it’s amazing how much easier control is vs a restrictive diet that is tough to maintain long term.

Yesterday I realized for the first time in my life I have to actually work at getting my macros/eating enough. I know that’s normal for some people and appreciate that has to be tough on them.

 

[Occindemure]

You really need to use the time you are on GLP's to work on all the things that got you to a place where you decided to start them.

Someone mentioned how this mimics the yo-yo effect mental health drugs can have.

Start drug-feel better-stop drug-feel bad-start drug

But for us it's

Start drug-loose weight-stop drug-gain weight-start drug.

In both situations, the goal of the medication is to help you address the causes of the problems, so that you may come to a place where you can live with out the medication.

So, use that time to work on yourself.

We all realize this is easier said than done, but it can be accomplished.

May not be the first time you stop the GLP, it may be the 3rd or 4th. But you will get there.

And if you have an underlying medical condition, it may be a life time drug. But, perhaps at a much lower dosage. And that is still an accomplishment

 

[woundcarping]

You really need to use the time you are on GLP's to work on all the things that got you to a place where you decided to start them.

Someone mentioned how this mimics the yo-yo effect mental health drugs can have.

Start drug-feel better-stop drug-feel bad-start drug

But for us it's

Start drug-loose weight-stop drug-gain weight-start drug.

In both situations, the goal of the medication is to help you address the causes of the problems, so that you may come to a place where you can live with out the medication.

So, use that time to work on yourself.

We all realize this is easier said than done, but it can be accomplished.

May not be the first time you stop the GLP, it may be the 3rd or 4th. But you will get there.

And if you have an underlying medical condition, it may be a life time drug. But, perhaps at a much lower dosage. And that is still an accomplishment

While it's not something I'm very familiar with, my point was the opposite... bipolar meds are almost always stopped due to lac of adherence, not because the doctor thinks the problem is fixed. Bipolar isn't a problem that can't be disciplined away.

T1 diabetics take insulin to manage their blood sugar, not treat the cause of their diabetes. Hypogonadal men take exogenous testosterone to treat their symptoms, not what caused their symptoms. Obesity/metabolic dysfunctions are probably a varied mix of lifestyle and biology, like T1 vs T2 diabetes.

Personally my goal with GLP drugs is to normalize or reduce my food noise and appetite so I don't have to fight that while trying to burn enough calories to offset its effect. My food noise and appetite has undoubtably been influenced by choices I've made as well as physiological differences that stacked the odds against me. While I'm open to the idea of a life without GLP intervention, it's not a primary goal nor something I have high hopes for. I do expect a reduced dosage over time, but that remains to be seen.

 

[Frankbooth]

Is it really best to stick with it for life? Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the GLP-1 effects and adopt healthy eating habits?

It's probably easier said than done, but this is the approach I've been using. I'd like to hear people's opinions on it!

Why not? It's a once every 5-7 days injection

 

[drzoid614]

Is it really best to stick with it for life? Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the GLP-1 effects and adopt healthy eating habits?

It's probably easier said than done, but this is the approach I've been using. I'd like to hear people's opinions on it!

Thats definitely the goal! And what i am aiming to do! Im just curious about others experiences. As old habits can creep back in especially if appetite significantly increases again

 

[Batscout]

The group of people your asking about are probably those who would be most successful transitioning off glp-1 treatment. People who weren’t obese or metabolically challenged before treatment were never the target population for these medications. So, there aren’t going to be any clinical studies examining long term outcomes for mildly overweight individuals after stopping gap-1 treatment. Any accounts will be purely anecdotal.

What we do know is that, in general, people regain weight after stopping treatment. That regain is probably more pronounced in people who were originally more metabolically challenged.

This is from one of the SURMOUNT studies. Treatment stopped at week 176.

View attachment 15285

About a pound per week regained in the study.

I set a benchmark weight for myself and only use a maintenance pep dose when I get above it. I don’t know if this is a good idea but even when I took a smaller dose only every 2 weeks, I continued to lose. I want to stay right where I am.