My Thoughts on Weight Loss Drugs
Weight loss drugs can be found everywhere now. Spas are giving them out as an option for weight loss… no behavior change needed. I have given myself a full year to decide how I feel about weight loss drugs. On one hand I think they can be a really awesome tool to help people who are not able to create change easily. Education, trauma, socioeconomic position, world-views, life experience, genetics, disease and other conditions…these all play together to affect weight status. It is honestly ignorant to say these people simply don’t have willpower and they don’t want it bad enough. I feel like weight loss drugs can be really helpful for some people who need help. For those whose weight is contributing to other comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, or just a low quality of life, these drugs can be an absolute game changer.
But I don’t think they are for everybody. They are not for the girl that’s a size 6 that wants to be a size 0. They are not a magic pill without risk. These drugs (as with any drugs) can have serious side effects. I have first hand seen a friend sent to the ICU after a serious allergic reaction to Mounjaro. I have experienced the effect of drugs creating worse side effects than their intended help. I just watched my mom experience a major reaction to a drug that interacted poorly with another medication. I lost years with my dad as he lost some of his cognition taking an anti-seizure drug that severely affected his memory (and then sadly didn’t even prevent the seizure that eventually took him from us). We realized what the medication was doing to him when he was in hospice and they took him off all his medications. Without the drug in his system, he regained ALL his cognition. When they saw how well he was doing, they immediately put him back on the drug, and he mentally regressed in response. We fought to get him off the drug and once he stopped taking it, he had his full cognition back until he died.
I’m sharing all this for one reason. MEDICATIONS ARE POWERFUL. They are not without consequence. We really have to outweigh whether the risk is worth the reward. Sometimes it is! But watching women take weight loss drugs just to shrink their body and then watching them become malnourished rubs me wrong. When did our goal become to eat as little as possible? Why can’t our goal be to feel good, to feel alive, healthy, strong, and vibrant?
Maybe the goal is to lose some weight and then to transition off. Great! Do you have a plan for it? What are you doing to change behavior and build habits? Research on weight loss drugs shows that weight is mostly regained after the drug is stopped. Do a quick Google search and you will find articles and studies that show just that. You have to learn to do things differently to have a different result. Learn to take care of yourself. Learn how to manage stress. Prioritize sleep. Find ways to get moving and progress to exercise that you love and can sustain. Go to therapy. Permanent and lasting weight loss is so much more than what you eat. If weight loss drugs have helped you, then I am sincerely happy for you! If you are considering them, weigh the risk vs reward and come up with a plan for behavior change while you are taking them. I recommend that you work with a dietitian who can help you transition off. And if you really aren’t sure, know you can do it without drugs. One of my favorite things about being a RD is getting to the root cause of weight gain. This may require working with a doctor and/or therapist. But when you get to the root and fix it, the results last.
