Can semaglutide cause weight loss?
Can semaglutide (Wegovy) cause weight loss?
Semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy) can indeed cause weight loss.
Although it isn’t guaranteed to work for everyone struggling to lose weight, using semaglutide injections such as Wegovy can help many people lose some of the weight they haven’t managed to lose with lifestyle changes alone.
Originally, semaglutide was developed to manage type 2 diabetes. Still, patients taking it to control their blood glucose levels were experiencing a reduced appetite as a side effect of semaglutide, which resulted in weight loss for many.
Because of this, Novo Nordisk (the pharmaceutical company behind Wegovy) put semaglutide through another round of trials for weight management in those with a BMI of over 30 or over 27 with a weight-related health condition.
The studies paid off, as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved semaglutide as a weight-loss treatment in the UK in September 2023 under the brand name Wegovy and at a dosage of up to 2.4mg per week.
Wegovy is only prescribed as a weight-loss treatment to patients who need to reduce their BMI but have struggled to achieve any significant weight loss with diet and exercise alone.
Does semaglutide (Wegovy) suppress appetite?
Wegovy can cause weight loss because it helps to suppress your appetite. It works very similarly to Saxenda, which has now been discontinued and also Mounjaro. The active ingredients in these medicines belong to the same drug family.
However, semaglutide has a half-life of 7 days, meaning that you only need to inject it once a week. On the other hand, liraglutide, the active ingredient in Saxenda, has a half-life of just 13 hours, so it needs to be injected daily.
How exactly does Wegovy suppress your appetite? Well, semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor designed to mimic a hormone our bodies naturally produce after eating.
This hormone signals to the brain, telling you to stop eating because you’re satisfied. However, the natural form of this hormone only has a half-life of around 2 minutes, hence why you might sometimes feel hungry within an hour or so of eating. Natural GLP-1 is easily broken down by enzymes reasonably quickly after being released.
However, semaglutide was developed to resist being broken down by these enzymes, which means it lasts much longer in the body. It also slows the digestive process, allowing food to stay in your stomach longer and making you feel more satisfied.
When you start taking Wegovy for weight loss, you might notice that you can’t finish your meals or feel bloated or sick. This is often because your appetite has reduced without you realising it, and it can often be easy to over-eat in the first few weeks of taking Wegovy until your body adjusts to it.
Because of this, we recommend looking at the hunger scale. It can help you become more mindful of your appetite and train you to recognise your body’s natural signals about food.
We also recommend eating from a smaller plate for the first few weeks as you get used to your new, smaller appetite.
The hunger scale can help you to visualise a plate full of food rather than less food on a larger plate, which may subconsciously cause you to become hungry.
How does semaglutide (Wegovy) make you lose weight?
Wegovy helps you lose weight by reducing your appetite, meaning it should be easier to reduce your calorie intake, as you shouldn’t eat as much food. It differs from other weight loss medications, such as Orlistat, which blocks dietary fat after eating.
GLP-1 receptor agonists such as Wegovy and Mounjaro reduce your overall appetite, meaning you consume smaller portions because semaglutide isn’t as easily broken down by enzymes as the body’s natural GLP-1.
Although these weight loss injections suppress appetite, you should still be prepared to make lifestyle changes, such as choosing low-calorie and satisfying foods for the bulk of your diet and reducing the amount of fat you eat.
Diet adjustments are almost always required when you want to lose weight sustainably and successfully, as a negative energy balance is required for weight loss. A negative balance means burning more calories than you consume.
However, Wegovy makes this process easier, meaning you feel more satisfied after eating less food. Because of this, it helps many people to easily stick to a low-calorie diet without experiencing hunger.
It can also help to reduce cravings, as people are generally less inclined to snack if they feel satisfied or comfortably full.
Semaglutide isn’t a magic fix, and it won’t help you lose weight overnight, but it may make your weight loss journey a little easier by helping you stick to a low-calorie diet and obtain a long-term negative energy balance.
How to lose weight with Wegovy
As mentioned, lifestyle changes are still needed to lose weight with Wegovy. Still, it should help relieve some of the hunger often experienced by people who reduce their calorie intake for weight loss.
You should take Wegovy while reviewing your diet and exercise habits to see if any areas could be changed. For example, you could cycle to work instead of taking the bus or cut out a second glass of wine in the evening.
Some people will need to make more lifestyle changes to lose weight, but that also depends on genetics, medical history and medications.
When taking semaglutide to lose weight, it’s generally recommended that you plan to eat between 1200 and 1500 calories a day. If you currently eat more than this, we’d recommend gradually reducing your calorie intake rather than cutting to 1200kcal immediately.
A drastic change can often shock the system, whereas gradual changes are easier to adjust to over time and adopt as new habits.
Most of your diet should consist of low-calorie and low-GI carbohydrates alongside plenty of lean protein, as both foods can also help you feel more satisfied for longer.
Another key element of losing weight with Wegovy is increasing the amount of exercise that you do.
This doesn’t mean being stuck in a gym on a treadmill. It could include walks in the countryside or your local neighbourhood, swimming, getting your mates together for a game of rounders, or even just moving your body more than usual if you struggle with mobility – all of these are significant steps towards a healthy lifestyle that should sustain long-term weight loss.
Another essential part of losing weight is ensuring your portion sizes weigh up (if you’ll pardon the pun). Weighing and measuring your food can be one of the key aspects of maintaining a low-calorie diet.
It can be surprisingly easy to add an extra couple of hundred calories to your daily intake without even noticing if you don’t weigh your food.
Portion control is still essential even if your appetite is reduced. Consuming more calories than your body needs can still be easy but also hinder weight loss.
How much weight can you lose on Wegovy?
It’s difficult to quantify how much someone could lose on Wegovy, as this depends on many factors, such as underlying health conditions, starting weight, any other medications you may be taking, and various other things.
One of the most extensive clinical trials on the role of semaglutide in weight management for adults showed that the medication could result in an average of 15% weight reduction from initial body weight over 68 weeks.
Results also showed that people who took Wegovy for 20 weeks and then switched to a placebo for 48 weeks regained 6.9% of their lost weight.
Clinical trials have shown that you can lose approximately 2% of your body weight in one month.
How long you need to stay on Wegovy will differ from person to person
when using it for weight loss, but you and your prescriber should discuss this at regular intervals based on your progress.
One thing about all weight loss methods is that it can be easy to compare your journey with someone else’s.
Nobody else lives in your body, and nobody knows it better than you do. You’re making incredible progress as long as you do what’s right for you and make healthy lifestyle changes.
