Millions of Americans have successfully lost life-changing amounts of weight thanks to Ozempic, Wegovy and other successful obesity shots.
The drugs’ safety and how well they perform have convinced doctors — but it remains to be seen how long the weight will stay off once patients stop taking them.
For example, some experts have suggested that weight gain is inevitable unless patients remain on the appetite suppressant medication for life.
One patient who provides evidence that the benefits may last longer than a prescription is Natalie Di Grazia of Austin, Texas, who maintained significant weight loss a year after stopping the drug.
In a video posted in June 2023, a full year after she stopped taking Ozempic, Natalie Di Grazia showed off her impressive sustained weight loss from 200 pounds to about 162 pounds.
In a in-depth account Speaking about her health transformation shared with her 13,000 YouTube subscribers, Ms Di Grazia explains that she continued to lose weight even without medication.
In a July 2023 video filmed a year after she stopped taking semaglutide — the generic drug in Wegovy and Ozempic — Natalie weighed 162 pounds, a far cry from her original weight.
The content creator started taking Ozempic in January 2022 and weighed 200 pounds when her doctor diagnosed her as prediabetic.
She had lost 26 pounds in six months and decided to quit shortly after experiencing a dangerously low blood sugar drop after drinking two cocktails, and used that experience to warn all her viewers who were taking a weight-loss drug to avoid alcohol while she am working on it.
With the help of calorie tracking, exercising for at least 30 minutes most days, Ms. Di Grazia has shed pounds and now weighs about 162 pounds.
Natalie’s experience with Ozempic began in December 2021 during her annual visit to the gynecologist, who noted that her weight was high for her height.
At 6ft tall and weighing 90kg, Ms Di Grazia was diagnosed as prediabetic and referred to an obesity medicine specialist, who began treating her with Ozempic the following month.
When she stopped taking Ozempic in the summer of 2022, Ms Di Grazia weighed just 65kg
Ms Di Grazia’s channel gives an honest look at weight loss and its disadvantages and benefits. In her videos she is open about the fact that she doesn’t feel good about herself
She noticed that her appetite was negligible to non-existent while taking the medications. She said she would often not eat for hours simply because the urge wasn’t there.
Her videos show that losing weight is not the end of your problems. She describes feeling bloated and uncomfortable in her own skin some days, despite her impressive weight loss.
In one of her videos, she describes the familiar discomfort at the prospect of putting on a swimsuit for a day at the beach with her boyfriend.
During those six months, Natalie documented her week-long experimental forays into intermittent fasting, the keto diet, mindful eating, and exercise fads on her YouTube channel.
At one point she ran five miles on a treadmill. At another point, she vowed to burn about 500 calories daily to maintain her weight loss.
Since then, she has been regularly going to the gym with her boyfriend.
As Ms. Di Grazia puts it, Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy are tools in one’s arsenal. They do not cure obesity, because obesity is a multifaceted chronic condition with roots in both physiology and psychology.
Doing nothing to address the root causes of one’s obesity, such as an emotionally unhealthy attachment to food as a source of comfort, often results in a weight loss when the Ozempic injections stop.
A 2022 NIH-led study reported that once patients stopped taking weight loss medications, the average recovery in weight gain is about two-thirds of total weight loss.
Consolidating healthy eating habits and making exercise a regular part of life are very effective safeguards against regaining lost weight.
Wegovy and Ozempic are so-called GLP-1 receptor agonists. Their active ingredient semaglutide stimulates weight loss by mimicking the action of GLP-1, or glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone in the brain that regulates appetite and the feeling of fullness.
The drug Ozempic was initially intended to treat type 2 diabetes. Semaglutide works by helping the pancreas to release the right amount of insulin when blood sugar levels are high.