Healthy Habits for a Lifetime: Your Guide to Long-Term Wellness
Practical tips to maintain healthy habits, manage triggers, and thrive post-treatment.
High likelihood to discontinuing these medications! Use the time to build your new happy You!
Some diabetes medications have become popular for weight management, even for those who don’t have diabetes. They can work wonders by curbing appetite and, for some, even reducing alcohol cravings. While they’re great for giving you a head start on your weight-loss journey, it’s important to remember they’re not a forever fix.
When you stop taking these medications, it’s easy to slip back into old eating and drinking habits, which can lead to regaining weight. But here’s the good news: you can use this time on the medication as a fantastic opportunity to build healthy, long-lasting habits. These habits will be your secret weapon to staying healthy and feeling great—long after the medication is out of the picture!
But why is the usage of the medication often being stopped in the first place?
A lot of people stop taking the medicine within 1 year because of the gastrointestinal issues and the stomach issues.
Additionally, these medications can impact your mood. Did you know that 95% of serotonin—your body’s “feel-good” hormone—is produced in your gut? When hunger is suppressed, serotonin production may decrease, potentially leading to feelings of depression.
Depressive feelings can also occur from weight gain after stopping the medicine. Both reasons make it VERY important that you take this awesome chance of not feeling hungry while taking the medicine to develop new, healthy habits.
You NEED to make substantial changes in your eating habits, so that you stay happy and feel lively while taking these medicines and after taking these medicines.
This is an important consideration for anyone thinking about starting these medications. And establishing new habits isn’t just about willpower—it’s about leveraging your brain’s incredible ability to adapt. Neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to grow and form new neural connections, is your greatest ally. By consciously practicing healthier behaviors, you can rewire your brain and build the foundation for long-term success.
So, let’s make the most of this phase and create the new, happy, and healthy you. The time is now—let’s use it wisely!
Sustaining healthy habits while taking and after stopping medication is key to long-term well-being.
Set yourself up for success and use these medicines for a jumpstart for a better life!
Use the help of your weight loss drugs as a jumpstart to establishing new routines and good habits – a new lifestyle. In our newsletter, we will give you practical tips and steps how you can make it your reality.
While it is crucial to develop these new habits already for the time after you stop those medicines, some of the new habits are needed to even stay healthy while being on this medication.
The good thing is that it is easier to develop these new habits, while you still have the support of your weight loss medication. You start with these new habits directly when you start taking the medicine and uphold it all the time. It is going to be much easier, because you don’t feel hungry anymore. You can use this effect for your benefit. It is never going to be so easy!
After stopping weight loss medication, you can keep your good eating habits and drink less alcohol by following these steps:
Develop a routine
Just like you stick to a routine of exercise, good sleep, yoga, and meditation, keep up your eating and drinking habits even after stopping weight control medication. You can do it by setting regular meals and limit drinking alcohol or soft drinks to weekends.
Mindful Eating and drinking
You might have the longing to eat what gave you the most pleasure, before you started with your weight control medicine. You might think: “Now, that I eat only so little, then I want to reward myself with something I had always loved.” This might be something very sweet or very greasy, something pre-cooked and artificial, like highly processed food from the supermarket shelf.
Find good supplements
These medicines tell you brain that you have eaten. This is great! Therefore you eat less. When eating less, you do not get enough nutrients. But nutrients are essential for you staying healthy and not starving yourself. In all the euphoria that you loose weight, you have to understand that you need to substitute all the nutrients for your body. This is especially important when you take these medicines for months and years.
Manage Triggers
Identify situations, emotions, or people that trigger your desire to eat and to drink. Develop strategies to cope with these triggers, such as deep breathing exercises, walking away, or engaging in a different activity. Change the feeling towards these triggers immediately and find an immediate replacement other than eating or drinking. Feel actively into your heart in these moments and let the feeling of peace and love grow inside. These medicines fix hunger, but they do not fix the reward on stress. You need to find out, why you are having a food addiction or why you are using food to calm you down, which is also called “emotional eating”.
Find alternatives:
You don’t need dietary plans for weight loss, when you take these weight control medicines. But for forming the new habits, that will keep you slim also after taking these supporting medicines, you need to eat and drink other food and beverages.
Support System
Being around supportive friends and family can help you stick to your goals. You can also join a group that focuses on healthy living. Sharing your goals and challenges with others can help keep you motivated and accountable. Learn how to cook, shop at a grocery store, prepare whole foods, start resistance training, learn about your nervous system regulation, do muscle building, learn how to integrate protein in your diet, work on mental health and get a support for yourself around all those topics. Move to a better future and use these medicines for your support to get the motivation to work on all those topics.
Track Progress
Keep a diary of what you eat and drink to track your intake. And always write beside it, how you feel in this moment and what was the current emotional surrounding: e.g. did you feel lonely o helpless or stressed or did you have a conflict or fight with somebody?
Celebrate Progress
Reward yourself for cutting back on over eating and alcohol. You can do it by celebrating milestones – not with a cake or champagne – but with fun activities or activities that honor your body, such as a massage or a pedicure etc.
Using these strategies in daily life can help you keep the good habits you formed during your weight loss journey, even without weight control medicines.
This website is not meant to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or provide treatment. It is for informational and educational purpose only. We would like to encourage you to seek your primary care provider should you have medical concerns. The information provided on this website is not meant to be a substitute for a visit with a healthcare provider. Any comments made about specific products, medicines or treatment plans are not meant to diagnose, cure or prevent disease.