How New Medications Are Tackling Biological Factors Blocking Weight Loss
Being healthy means not being overweight, right? And our bodies are built to be healthy by nature, surely? After all, being overweight leads to type 2 diabetes.
Well, not quite.
It might well seem that unhealthy bodies are always a product of bad habits and the modern world, and that if we could only shut all of that out and let our biology do what it’s supposed to, we’d be the healthiest we could be.
But that’s only partly true. Our biology is often the thing that gets in the way of our weight loss. When it does so, it’s often working exactly as intended!
Read on to find out how biology blocks better living, and how cutting-edge science can help to counteract it.
The role of metabolism
A fundamental process in your body is your metabolism. This is the rate at which your body turns calories from food into either energy to do stuff with or fat so it’s saved for later.
Your body’s metabolic rate can be split into three parts. Your basal metabolic rate, which is the rate at which your body burns calories even at rest to keep all systems functioning. The thermic effects of food, which is the energy your body uses to digest food and drink. And the energy you use during activity.
Because your body is always trying to ensure you have enough energy not only for right now but for the future, it will adjust its metabolic rate in response to changes in food intake and energy expenditure.
Unfortunately, that means when you cut back on eating and dial up the activity, your body sees this as a sign that there’s less food around and that you need to use energy more regularly, and it starts to slow your metabolic rate, so you have more energy stored away.
Medications like liraglutide and semaglutide do not directly affect your metabolic rate, but they can help mitigate these biological issues. By reducing appetite and giving you the chance to get active, they can help your body to reset more quickly to your new way of life as you implement a comprehensive wellness plan.
The role of hormones
There are several hormones involved with eating, hunger, and digestion.
An important one is leptin. This is the hormone that tells your brain you’re full and have had enough to eat.
But leptin is stored in fat cells. As you start to lose weight and shake off that body fat, the amount of leptin being sent to your brain is reduced.
This means you end up feeling hungrier as you start to lose weight, not just because you’re using more energy with your new gym schedule but because your biology is not recognizing that your full in the same way.
This is something that prescription weight loss medication like Wegovy or Saxenda can directly help with. Because these drugs slow the rate of gastric emptying – the speed at which food passes through your digestive system – they help you to feel fuller for longer.
So, while the change in leptin in your body is making you feel hungrier, the weight loss medication is doing the opposite, giving your body a chance to readjust without undermine the hard hours spent on the treadmill.
It might come as a shock to learn that your body is working against your weight loss efforts – after all your body benefits most from maintaining a healthy weight.
But this is just a function of how the brilliance of our biology. Which has developed over millennia, is at odds with modern living.
Nonetheless, it’s incredibly frustrating and disheartening when you’re trying to change your life for the better to discover all your hard efforts being undermined.
For a long time, there was no other choice but to work harder and harder for longer and longer. But with the emergence of these cutting-edge new weight loss medications, that’s no longer the case.
