Holiday season means meals—and a whole lot of it, from work occasions to social gatherings with family and friends.
“After I discuss to my sufferers, as an alternative of calling it essentially the most lovely time of yr, I name it essentially the most difficult time of the yr,” says Dr. Andres Acosta, a doctor within the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at Mayo Clinic.
For the 12% of adults within the U.S. now taking a weight-loss medicine that targets the GLP-1 and/or GIP hormones to limit urge for food or deal with diabetes—suppose Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound—the season is much more difficult.
“We’ve heard of individuals not skipping their injections however pushing them again,” says Michelle Cardel, chief diet officer at WeightWatchers. “So in the event that they usually inject on Wednesday, and Thanksgiving is on Thursday, they could give themselves their injection on Friday as an alternative, to allow them to have slightly extra room to benefit from the vacation meals and are much less more likely to expertise undesirable negative effects in the event that they overeat.” Others cease the medicines for longer durations throughout the vacation months, medical doctors say.
Normally, medical doctors don’t advocate altering something about your injection schedule. Not like most earlier anti-obesity medicines, medication like Wegovy and Zepbound work partially on the mind to dampen starvation indicators and scale back urge for food so that you don’t really feel like consuming. In an effort to obtain that impact with the fewest negative effects, the dose of the injections that individuals give themselves as soon as every week should be ramped up regularly over 16 weeks earlier than individuals attain the utmost dose that they then keep. Usually every injection can efficiently management starvation indicators for a few week, and simply as its impact begins to wane, you give your self one other injection.
Skipping or shifting injections has a domino impact. For these shifting from a Wednesday dose to a Friday dose, for instance, their future doses will now happen on Friday. And other people skipping doses must be ready to expertise the identical negative effects that they felt once they first begin their doses—similar to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and different gastrointestinal signs—once they restart their doses.
“I counsel my sufferers towards stopping their medicine as a result of we’re managing persistent weight problems,” Acosta says, and altering a longtime dosing schedule can have further penalties. If sufferers cease their injections for multiple week, they should return to decrease doses and work their approach again as much as the dose they achieved earlier than they stopped, which additional pushes again any weight-loss targets they could have set.
Learn Extra: Learn how to Add Extra Protein to Your Thanksgiving Recipes
Dr. Andre Teixeira, medical director of the Orlando Well being Weight Loss and Bariatric Surgical procedure Institute, has seen some severe examples of those spillover results amongst his sufferers. “Some individuals can’t work again as much as the dose the place they had been earlier than,” he says. As a result of these are hormone-based medicines, he likens the impact to what some girls expertise on various kinds of contraception; sure manufacturers are related to extra excessive negative effects that make the capsules insupportable for some.
And naturally, any time sufferers cease taking Wegovy or Zepbound, their weight finally goes again up. “I inform my sufferers that we don’t wish to burn all the hassle they’ve put in to drop some weight over the entire yr over the six weeks of the vacations,” says Acosta.
As an alternative of messing with their medicine, Acosta advises individuals to plan forward with dietary and health changes. On Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, for instance, don’t eat massive meals earlier within the day. “You don’t have to have an enormous breakfast or an enormous lunch,” Acosta says. “Go train that morning—everyone advantages from an extended stroll or a hike. We’re tremendous good at planning meals and dinners with family members; we also needs to plan to go for a stroll within the park with our family members. And if the climate isn’t good, then go the mall. Do one thing that requires bodily exercise so that you burn some energy.”
He additionally reminds sufferers in regards to the penalties of overeating whereas on the medicines, and advises them to not overdo it, even when they could really feel strain to at a household gathering. You would possibly take into account letting family members learn about your scenario. Since these medication are mentioned overtly on social media and gaining reputation, “it’s grow to be slightly extra acceptable to share that you’re making an attempt to drop some weight and utilizing anti-obesity medicines.”
And it is not simply navigating meals—however alcohol as properly—that may be a problem for individuals taking the medicines. Many expertise nausea, vomiting, and different GI points in the event that they drink whereas on the medicines. WeightWatchers carried out a research to chronicle how anti-obesity medicines affected alcohol consumption and located that 45% to 51% of individuals taking GLP-1 and GIP medication decreased the quantity of alcohol they drank. It wasn’t clear from the research whether or not individuals made this variation as a result of they needed to keep away from negative effects or if they simply determined to drink much less as a part of their total need to be more healthy. However, says Cardel, “my guess is that it’s a mix of each.”
What’s most necessary for navigating the vacations is to plan forward in order that if you’re taking one in all these medicines, you’ll find methods to maximise your enjoyment of long-standing household traditions whereas nonetheless staying on observe along with your dosing schedule.
