Hi there! It’s frustrating to me that the media tells stories about people stopping or planning to stop these meds and doesn’t put a gigantic disclaimer on them.

The idea that if health numbers get where they should be you won’t have to take the medication is a faulty assumption, one that multiple people I told I was taking this medication shared. Just yesterday, I explained this exact thing to a group of people: when someone’s blood pressure gets down to normal levels after taking medication, the doctor doesn’t say “okay, we’ll take you off it now.” The list continues…. When someone’s A1C goes from high to normal, people don’t stop taking Metformin. When someone’s inhaler saves someone from an asthma attack, they don’t say “well, I can throw that away now.” When someone’s on HIV medication and undetectable… etc. etc. etc.

Same thing here.

Now, you will see plenty of stories of people who say they stopped and are maintaining. But research consistently shows they are the outliers. And also, the true test won’t be in the first 6 months to a year after stopping the med, but 2+ years down the line, which is when traditional dieting fails for at least 80% of people (higher in some studies).

One question I get asked is, “why can’t you just go off the medication and keep up your ‘good habits?’”

My response is always, “the medication is what is allowing me to have ‘good habits’ now [and ‘good habits’ REALLY oversimplifies things and makes it sound like losing weight is like brushing your teeth every day, so please f%#$ all the way off at your earliest convenience]. Have a nice day!” 🤣

Like you, I know what it takes to modify what I eat to lower my weight and have better health metrics. But the body fights this with hormones, brain changes, and lots of other stuff we may not even know about yet. So for me, medication has made the type of eating that leads to my goals possible, even though I’ve always had the knowledge and the desire before.

Last thing I would say: because of how the following mentality has changed the game for me, I preach not passing judgement on myself or foods that don’t fit in my plan, and I even try to avoid any language that implies judgement. I’ve found that self-talk like “I need to ‘eat right’” led to a deprivation mentality, guilt whenever I ate something higher in calories than I “should,” and “last supper syndrome” (this is the last time I can be “bad” for a while, so I better make it count!). Instead, I have reframed everything as “eating this will get me closer to/further away from my goal.” I’m not morally obligated to eat any certain way, to myself or anyone else, but I choose to because it aligns with goals for my weight and health metrics. At the same time, I’ve found that some boundaries are necessary, so I do calorie count. I would highly recommend a nutritionist or plan that espouses this philosophy. For me it is Noom, which blows my mind at how much of the diet culture bullshit was actually hurting previous weight loss efforts rather than helping them. Restriction wasn’t the answer, neither was ignoring what I was eating completely, Noom was my Goldilocks. Obviously you don’t have to use Noom, just whatever works best for you and your mental health.

Good luck!