Weight Loss Drugs, Yes or No?

Weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, when prescribed and monitored by a healthcare professional, can help reduce body weight and significantly improve health.

From my perspective lifestyle and dietary change is a crucially important part of this process, and support for this should be prescribed alongside the drugs themselves.

Obesity is a complex medical condition influenced by genetics, environment, diet, lifestyle, socio-economic factors, and behaviour. There are many reasons why someone may struggle with losing weight that fall far outside the realms of diet and exercise. This is one of the reasons why weight loss drugs can be viewed as a powerful tool - the ability to control weight gain/loss isn’t always within someone’s control or ability, to the extent that you may think.

Take appetite regulation as an example. It is impacted by physiological, hormonal, psychological, and social factors, but also genetics.

That said, to my mind this still does not mean that weight loss drugs should be viewed as a straight substitute for habit and behaviour change, and education and support to achieve elements of this where change is possible is essential for long-term health.

Without long-term healthy habits that support diet, physical activity, and overall lifestyle, any weight lost through medication is more likely to return when the use of weight loss drugs is reduced and stopped, making the frustrating cycle of weight-loss and weight-regain more likely, and that can come with it’s own associated mental and physical health problems.

For most people it is confusing when weight loss doesn’t happen despite their best efforts. There is an overwhelming amount of misinformation and mixed messages out there surrounding weight loss which, in my experience, often leads to the mistrust of the process of diet, exercise and lifestyle change. This pushes people towards the perception that there must be something ’wrong’ with them for it not to be happening.

The science of weight loss is actually well understood. Good advice does exist off the back of this, but the accessibility of this advice is limited, even amongst healthcare professionals, including some consultants and dieticians. This is, in my view, a huge contributing factor to the growing popularity of weight loss drugs, and a core reason as to why some people can’t sustain the weight loss that they achieve.

Well informed lifestyle and dietary change should form the foundation of any successful long-term weight management strategy wherever possible, empowering people with the autonomy to succeed.

These changes include developing balanced eating patterns, engaging in regular physical activity, managing stress, and trying to protect sleep.

You should always seek medical advice from someone qualified such as your doctor, before taking these medicines (the accessibility of them is a whole other topic outside the scope and intention of this article).

You should also make sure you have your team in place - for any psychological, dietary, physical, and medical support you may require to ensure your safety and wellbeing on your weight loss journey, and beyond.

We should all make sure we are playing our part in ensuring that weight loss drugs don’t become stigmatised to the point that people are driven into secrecy and unsafe practices, should they choose to take them.

Weight loss drugs can offer a pathway to improved health and better quality of life to many people that may not otherwise be accessible to them. Their purpose is not for aesthetics or as a substitute to healthy eating and lifestyle change. They can play an important role in health and wellbeing that needs to be more widely understood for their safe use - especially because they are, in my view, here to stay.

If you need help with dietary advice before, during, or after weight loss drugs, please get in touch.