Understanding How Semaglutide can Help Promote Weight Loss

Weight loss is truly a battle. Even though getting to a healthy weight benefits your health, your body fights you every step of the way. 

When you reduce your calorie intake and increase your activity level to shed unwanted pounds, your body goes into survival mode, thinking it’s entering a stage of starvation. 

It reduces your metabolism (so you burn fewer calories) and boosts the release of hunger hormones (so you want to eat more) to maintain your body’s energy stores. 

You can overcome these obstacles eventually, but they certainly make weight loss very challenging. With advances in medical treatment for weight loss, you no longer need to rely on willpower alone to lose weight. Medications like semaglutide are helping people shed unwanted pounds by controlling their hunger.

At Legacy Health and Wellness Clinic, our compassionate preventive care physician, Dr. Ifeoma Ogbonna, understands the struggles you face when it comes to losing weight. She offers a weight management program that includes weight-loss medications like semaglutide to help you reach your goals. 

Here, we want to explain how semaglutide helps promote weight loss. 

About semaglutide

Semaglutide is a prescription injection first approved for use in people with Type 2 diabetes to help control blood sugar. 

The medication works by increasing insulin levels in the blood. Insulin is the hormone that helps transport sugar from the blood into the cells, lowering blood sugar numbers. It also slows digestion, helping to reduce the release of sugar into the blood. 

Many people with Type 2 diabetes struggle with weight management. Researchers discovered that semaglutide helped people with diabetes lose weight. Additional studies showed that the medication also helps with weight loss in people without diabetes.

Semaglutide and weight loss

The Food and Drug Administration approved semaglutide as a treatment for weight loss in 2021. It helps you lose weight by controlling your appetite so you eat less.

Semaglutide is in a class of medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs). It acts like the GLP-1 hormone made in the body, which is the hormone that triggers the production of insulin. 

GLP-1 also interacts with the area of the brain that controls hunger, decreasing your appetite. It slows down emptying of the stomach so you stay full longer. 

Because semaglutide mimics the actions of GLP-1, it has these same effects on your appetite, hunger level, and desire for food, helping to promote weight loss. 

Can semaglutide help me?

Semaglutide is FDA-approved to treat people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher and people with a BMI of 27 or higher who have at least one weight-related health problem like diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.

If you have excess body weight that’s affecting your health, then semaglutide may benefit you. The weight-loss injection works best when combined with a balanced diet and regular exercise program.

We teach you how to give yourself the injection and provide nutrition and activity guidance as part of our weight management program. We also schedule regular follow-ups to monitor your progress and make adjustments to your plan.

People who use semaglutide for weight loss feel less hungry and get full faster, making it easier for them to follow their eating plan. Results vary, but you can lose 15% or more of your body weight over 16 months while taking semaglutide.

You can win the weight-loss battle when you have the right tools and support. 

Are you ready to lose those unwanted pounds once and for all? Call our office in Cedar Hill or Austin, Texas, or book an appointment online today. We can even meet through telehealth.