How to Stop Ozempic?

Diet and Nutrition
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I am obese, type 2 diabetic, and I am fine with my blood sugar. Blood tests (HOMA-IR, HbA1c) are reporting that I am in an asymptomatic condition, i.e., I have to say that I am diabetic thanks to ketogenic diet.

My issue is this: I deal with my ketogenic lifestyle in a weak manner. Everything is a reason to cheat. Sometimes I rather think I am doing a ‘cheatogenic’ diet than an actual ketogenic one. These undesired events are responsible for a slow weightloss. But, due to covid, I am very interested to exit from the obese range to decrease my risks in case of be infected.

Hearing me, my doctor suggested Ozempic (semaglutide GLP-1) which is an weekly injectable drug which helps obese, type 2 diabetic patients. Another side-effect is that people feel satiated and can lose weight. There are some cases of 120 lb of weightloss using it. He told me this med can help me to keep focus on my meal plan and I can get a kickstart

The reason I wrote this post for you, nice people, is the following question.
How many of you took Ozempic, stopped it, even regained some weight (some little weight) and proceeded with your journey, keeping your new bodyweight range? I am skeptical about this drug and I think it was made for people use it for their remaining lives.

Cheers

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Hi @blwhaw, what does this mean? Is it against the rules or something?

Thanks

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I deleted sorry. You’re good I thought I was in the pharma forum lol.

Side note what does your current exercise regimen and diet specifics look like? Current height and weight? Age is dob 1968 I take it

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current exercise: micro-minimum 5/3/1, FSL (not full template, 5PROs + 5x5 guaranteed + some 1 or 2 assessory) mon/tue + thu/fri.
cardio: 30 min micro-mini muay-thai with my kid (more fun than serious thing) ~60% of maximum heart rate, 3x/week,

diet: Phinney/Volek keto diet (25-30 protein, 65+% fat, and less than 10% of total carbs).

Current weight: 134 kg (~295 lb)
height: 1,83 m (6’00’')
Age: 53 (yes, 1968.,…)

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Damn that’s pretty solid of a routine. Ever had your hormone panel taken including thyroid?

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It is a psycho thing, blshaw.
I do not allow myself to get a success.

I get success, celebrate progress, and every little tiny reason is a motivation to cheat the meal plan.

Thing is that keto gave me saiety, peace, and I realized the huge amount of time I took making maths, TDEEE, bf, myfitnesspal this, bioimpedance that, and everything goes to trash due to my desire to come back for my fake comfort zone: cheating, eating junk food. I do not miss sweet potatoes, I do not miss sweet fruits, rice, etc. I miss cakes, I miss KFC, I miss pizzas, and everything that caused me type 2 diabetes.

It is not a craving issue. It is a bad desired issue. So, it is isolated. Only the addiction food belongs to my desire, so it is easy to say “this shit is destroying me”.

Hearing this, my doctor said Ozempic could help me. But I am very worried about how people become dependent of this drug. But I can confess that every time I cheat is a well mapped situation related to caffeine excess.

Right now the only thing I have to try is to avoid caffeine. And wait. Wait if the junk food desire comes or not. But the Ozempic aid is something attractive.

If there is some good soul who got success with ozempic and could stop using it, please tell something. Bad histories - used this drug and, after stop using it, regained weight - are also wellcome

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Understood. Wish I could help.

1 Like
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Since @blshaw linked me, I’ll chime in even though it was wrongfully so lol

If you got a problem finding your motivation and how to stay consistent, look at this guys articles. These were the first articles he wrote on the subject so the system is more advanced now but it can point you in the right direction.

Another thing, if I understood correctly you are doing two strength routines and effectively work out once a day. How much cheating are we talking? Because at your weight and with your routine you should be able to lose weight on 3000 kcals, a Pizza would fit in there and you would still lose weight.

I’m cutting on 2600-2700 right now and pizza is on the plan 1-2 times per week, but these just have 1000 kcals so no problem hitting macros and kcals nonetheless and losing weight.

About Ozempic: I never heard or read about dependence with GLP-1-analogues. Normally medication that induced addiction as a side effect gets mentioned, so I don’t think it does. The good thing is that GLP-1 analogues reduce cravings of fatty foods. Side effects to look out for are pancreatic inflammation and dehydration, both are rare.
The most important thing for type 2 diabetics is not to further destroy your pancreas as when type 2 diabetes is diagnosed the pancreas is severely damaged. It’s not only that there’s not enough insulin, it’s also that the pancreas becomes incapable of producing normal amounts. That leads to a life with insulin injections every day (not to mention your vascular system, eyes, heart,…). You gotta stop the disease progression now. GLP-1 analogues are a rather good option (better than Sulfonylureas). But the number one thing is dieting and movement, without that, nothing works. The faster you get down to a healthy weight and diet, the better your chances.

Are you taking metformin?

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Oh thank you lordgains!

Very clear your explanations.
I was at 40 ui/20 ui insulin + vidalgliptin from 2010 to 2012.

On 2013 I could get success with 5/3/1 + “easy” ergometric bike + IIFYM on deficit (P ~1,6; F:~0,6 + 1 sunday cheat day). As a result I went from 142 kg (312 lb) to 115 kg (253 lb), gradually eliminated all meds (including insulin), blood results ok. Literally assymptomatic. From 2013 until 2016.

But…

On 2017 I decided to return to old lifestyle, regained the bodyweight and blood sugar levels could not be controlled with IIFYM + training anymore

Before returning to insulin injections and conventional treatment I decided to give keto diet a chance.

Answering your final question, right now I am only at 1000 mg of metformin + a ‘chetogenic’ diet and again, assymptomatic. I have to say that I am type 2 diabetic because HbA1c and HOMA-IR are ok!

One of my problems is that, at 53 yo, I’ve attempted so many times yo-yo effect that I even don’t now how Harris-Bennedict formula can be adjusted at a light deficit. On trial and error, currently, at home, my bet is that 2250 kcal can put me on a light deficit, believe it or not. And yes, including my ‘old man’ workout routine (~1h10’ to finish a long warm up + 5PRO + FSL squat day) it would expected that I could eat a little more. But, this not happens.

But the main challenge is to keep focus, to stay on track.
Funny thing is this. After this talk with you guys, knowing that Ozempic is there, on my refrigerator and has a expiration date at 2023, I am interested to give myself more one chance. If I fail, and if I decide to use this med, now I know that I can stop with it with those famous addiction problems related to so many meds bigpharma produces.

Thank you again lordgains

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You seem like a guy that’s really tying to fix this. I respect you for that.
You also made it once, that is tremendous.

Normally I’m really a fan of Keto for type 2 diabetics. I mean if there’s no sugar, you don’t need insulin amirite? (Nearly.) Also some people are motivated by hard diets. But you seem not to be the kind who takes it well.

(Edit: no shame in that. I did a Keto at 1900 kcals for 6 months and I nearly became a cannibal. The cravings and the depression because of the low serotonin are bad. The trick is to not drop down the calories too much too soon and then stick to it for 3 weeks, after that you’ll normally feel better.)

Diets are good and all but the problem is often sustainability. The yoyo doesn’t come from the diet not working it comes from falling back into old musters. You got to change habits.

  1. Find a diet that you can live with.

  2. Adjust calories down.

Here’s a few tips to make it sustainable:

  1. Don’t eliminate carbs or fat completely. Take a calorie goal let’s say 2400 kcals. Then calculate your protein needs, 250 g so 1000 kcals. Leaves 1400 kcals. Then take 200-250 g of carbs (over 150 needed to eliminate cravings) so 800-1000 kcals and the rest goes to fat. So 400-600 kcals equating to 45-65 g.

  2. Cheat sometimes but stay in the calories! If you eat a big (American fatty, greasy) pizza with 1500 kcals, then you got 900 left for the rest of the day. On average IIFYM for 20 % of your calories is completely fine.

  3. Weigh yourself every day and put it in an app so you can see a trend. Take pictures every week or every two weeks so you can see progress. This motivates.

  4. Weigh your food for at least 14 days straight. You and I wanna know how much you are really eating.

  5. Stick the course for 4 weeks. After about 30 days it becomes a habit. You’ll not fight with yourself everyday about not eating this or that.

I’m dieting right now and these things keep me consistent. If you want to well make a challenge. I got 10 pounds to lose over the next 6 weeks. Let’s see how much you get.

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cannibal… man, I laughed out loud here.

10 lb / 5 weeks is ok for me. Very manageable. I’m in!

What caused me surprise in your keto trial is that, after six months, the craving problems persisted. I thought that after a good fat-adaptation (~0.8-1.0 mmol/L) we could get rid of those feelings.

I am very curious try cyclical ketogenic diet - Lyle McDonald’s style. Something even not so strict, with those technical refeeds (4-5 g of carbs/kg… I don’t need such scandal). Just, let’s say, two days a week on carbs, could solve my inconsistencies. Something like one before squat days and the other… before THE deadlift day. I am not looking for a state of ketosis. Just a caloric deficit, as you said, for me, is enough.

Regarding diabetes it is ‘just’ to keep average blood sugar below 100 mg/dl (5,55 mmol/L). I am spending some money with a device - a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) - and I can extract the average daily blood sugar readings in a pdf report.

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135,1 kg (297 lb) today.

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88.9 kg / 198,2 lbs. Down 2 lbs from last week.

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Yes. The problem was I ran 1900 kcals per day while Training 2 hours a day 6 days a week. My body was shot. I made many mistakes while doing keto. Was 6 years ago.

Can work, I did something similar 5 years ago. You still got to go through the first 3 weeks without cheating to adapt. Otherwise you’ll run into problems. During the adaptation phase I would run 3000 kcals at least the first week, the second 2800-2900 and the third 2600. After that you can start your diet. So no harsh deficit while adapting!
A similar program is carb back loading. But I think they are overhyped.

Did you try intermittent fasting? For some people that works really well. Especially since you can eat one really big meal a day.

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Yes, I am doing the bro-pattern 16:8, three meals, from 12 to 8 PM.
Funny thing is happening. I enjoyed this thing happened as a consequence, not imposed: I almost do not need to eat my last meal.
So, I am planning to change to 2MAD and, after this, to decrease the feeding window.

I did not give up from a well-balanced 30/30/40% P/F/C diet, but I need to give myself this answer, to follow a month or two, strict and faithful to a keto-plan, mainly to feel this pleasure of not doing meds for t2d, to feel the scale drops at least 10 or 20% of my initial bodyweight. So, the pressure I usually impose to increase my maxes, is temporarly suspended. Just a hard train (I don’t like this adjective because hard is what for an old sttuborn man like me? progressive overload. period… lol) is enough. This is one of the main aspects I have to accept when dealing with keto.

135,1 kg (297 lb) - 2021/01/25
134,6 kg (296 lb) - 2021/01/26
Fat people have this advantage to see goodnews (badnews) everyday.

I miss this kind of conversation. Good feelings, good vibrations.

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There’s a sweet spot for everybody. Don’t decrease it too much. At 16 hours fasting you are very good.

Then do it my man! Follow the plan to a T. I follow mine. I count on you.

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89.1 kg today. The increase is probably due to my last meal being very late yesterday. 2600 kcals yesterday.

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135,1 kg (297 lb) - 2021/01/25
134,6 kg (296 lb) - 2021/01/26
134,3 kg (295 lb) - 2021/01/27

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Nice work brownbear!! Following your progress. Keep it up!!!

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Thank you @s.gentz!

135.1 kg (297.2 lb) - 2021/01/25
134.6 kg (296.1 lb) - 2021/01/26
134.3 kg (295.5 lb) - 2021/01/27
133.6 kg (294.9 lb) - 2021/01/28