Millions of Americans have successfully lost life-changing amounts of weight thanks to Ozempic, Wegovy, and other blockbuster obesity shots.
The safety of the drugs and how well they perform have won over doctors — yet what remains to be seen is how long the weight stays off when patients stop taking it.
Some experts, for instance, have suggested that weight re-gain is inevitable unless patients stay on the appetite-suppressing medication for life.
However, one patient who offers proof that the benefits may well outlive a prescription is Natalie Di Grazia of Austin, Texas, who maintained significant weight loss a year after coming off the drug.
In a video posted in June 2023, a full year after she stopped taking Ozempic, Natalie Di Grazia showed off her impressive sustained weight loss from 200lbs to about 162lbs
In an in-depth account of her health transformation shared with her 13,000 YouTube subcribers, Ms Di Grazia explains that she even continued to lose weight without medication.
In a July 2023 video filmed one year after she stopped taking semaglutide — the generic drug in Wegovy and Ozempic — Natalie weighed 162 lbs, a far cry from her original weight.
The content creator started taking Ozempic in January 2022, weighing 200 lbs when her doctor determined that she was prediabetic.
She’d lost 26 pounds in six months, and decided to stop shortly after having a dangerously low dip in blood sugar after drinking two cocktails, and used that experience to warn all of her viewers taking a weight loss drug to steer clear of alcohol while on it.
With the help of calorie tracking, exercising most days for at least 30 minutes, Ms Di Grazia has continued to shed pounds, now weighing around 162 lbs.
Natalie’s experience with Ozempic began in December 2021 at her annual visit with the gynecologist, who noted that her weight was high for her height.
At 5’3” and 200 lbs, Ms Di Grazia was determined prediabetic and was referred to an obesity medicine specialist who started her on Ozempic the following month.
When she stopped taking Ozempic in the summer of 2022, Ms Di Grazia was down to 174 lbs
Ms Di Grazia’s channel is an honest look at weight loss and its downsides as well as its benefits. In her videos, she is open about feeling uncomfortable in her skin
She found her appetite to be negligible to nonexistent while taking the medications. She said she would often go hours on end without eating simply because the urge was not there.
Her videos show that losing weight is not the end of one’s problems. She describes, even with her impressive weight loss, feeling bloated and uncomfortable in her skin some days.
In one of her videos, she describes the familiar unease at the prospect of putting a swimsuit on for a day at the beach with her boyfriend.
Throughout those six months, Natalie documented her week-long experimental forays into intermittent fasting schedules, the keto diet, mindful eating, and exercise fads on her Youtube channel.
At one point along her journey, she walked five miles on a treadmill. At another point, she vowed to burn about 500 calories daily to maintain her weight loss.
She has since become a gym regular with her boyfriend.
As Ms Di Grazia puts it, Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy, are tools in one’s arsenal. They do not cure obesity because obesity is a multifaceted chronic disorder with roots in both physiology and psychology.
Doing nothing to address the root causes of one’s obesity, such as an emotionally unhealthy attachment to food as a source of comfort, often results in weight rebound when the Ozempic injections stop.
An NIH-led study in 2022 reported that once patients stopped taking weight loss medications, the average weight gain rebound is about two-thirds of the total weight loss.
Solidifying healthy eating habits and making exercise a fixture in one’s life are highly effective safeguards against regaining the lost weight.
Wegovy and Ozempic are what are known as GLP-1 receptor agonists. Their active ingredient semaglutide spurs weight loss by mimicking the actions of GLP-1, or glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone in the brain that regulates appetite and feelings of fullness.
The drug Ozempic was initially intended to treat type 2 diabetes. Semaglutide works by helping the pancreas release the right amount of insulin when blood sugar levels are high.
