lessthanhalf
Explorer
If you're not also pausing the GLP medication during that break, then in my view you're not using it the right way. When restricting and controlling calories still demands deliberate effort while you're on a GLP drug, then what you have, as I see it, is simply an ordinary low calorie diet with a little assistance from a GLP drug dose that isn't high enough.
Why this matters: the goal isn't just losing weight, it's keeping that weight off over the long term, and depending on willpower to manage food intake isn't a strategy that holds up long term. It can work for a while, but eventually mental fatigue or everyday life interferes, and the weight typically comes back. If the loss happens without needing nonstop mental effort, then it ought to be maintainable long term, provided you keep taking the GLP drug at the dose that does the job. Putting mental effort into limiting which foods you eat, instead of how much, may be a more workable approach.
Research on this is thin, in my opinion, but my guess is that metabolic adaptation to prolonged calorie intake is mostly driven by how much weight was lost and how long it's been, and probably plays out over long stretches, something like 3 to 6 months or longer. So short stretches of higher calorie intake, from a few days up to 4 weeks, likely aren't enough to meaningfully reset the reduced energy expenditure that comes from long term low calorie intake. From my own experience, big declines in energy expenditure or in the rate of weight loss took roughly 6 to 9 months before they showed up in measurements, losing 6kg per month during that stretch, and then it slowed down while calories stayed the same.
Also, quitting and then restarting GLP drugs, particularly if weight comes back in between, may not be wise, based on a recent mouse study that did exactly that, where the stop start group ended up with far less total weight loss.
Why this matters: the goal isn't just losing weight, it's keeping that weight off over the long term, and depending on willpower to manage food intake isn't a strategy that holds up long term. It can work for a while, but eventually mental fatigue or everyday life interferes, and the weight typically comes back. If the loss happens without needing nonstop mental effort, then it ought to be maintainable long term, provided you keep taking the GLP drug at the dose that does the job. Putting mental effort into limiting which foods you eat, instead of how much, may be a more workable approach.
Research on this is thin, in my opinion, but my guess is that metabolic adaptation to prolonged calorie intake is mostly driven by how much weight was lost and how long it's been, and probably plays out over long stretches, something like 3 to 6 months or longer. So short stretches of higher calorie intake, from a few days up to 4 weeks, likely aren't enough to meaningfully reset the reduced energy expenditure that comes from long term low calorie intake. From my own experience, big declines in energy expenditure or in the rate of weight loss took roughly 6 to 9 months before they showed up in measurements, losing 6kg per month during that stretch, and then it slowed down while calories stayed the same.
Also, quitting and then restarting GLP drugs, particularly if weight comes back in between, may not be wise, based on a recent mouse study that did exactly that, where the stop start group ended up with far less total weight loss.