Semaglutide is an exciting new medication that has shown great promise in helping people achieve meaningful weight loss. It works by mimicking the hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite and food intake. When taken regularly, semaglutide makes you feel fuller faster so you eat less without feeling deprived or hungry.
In clinical trials, people taking a weekly injection of semaglutide lost on average 12-15% of their body weight over 68 weeks. This amount of weight loss can have tremendously positive impacts on overall health, including improving blood sugar control, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, inflammation, and much more.
Semaglutide may be a great option for adults struggling with obesity, which is generally defined as having a BMI over 30. It works very well for people who have trouble losing weight through diet and exercise alone. Semaglutide is appropriate for use along with lifestyle modifications like improved nutrition and increased physical activity.
The medication does require a prescription and medical monitoring. At Renew Hormone Institute, our experienced weight loss specialists can determine if semaglutide is suitable based on your health history and weight loss goals. We develop customized treatment plans to help each patient achieve meaningful, sustainable weight loss.
There are two key ways that semaglutide helps patients lose a significant amount of weight:
Semaglutide makes you feel more full even when eating smaller meals. This happens because semaglutide activates receptors in the brain that control food intake. The result is being satisfied with less food.
In addition to suppressing appetite in the brain, semaglutide slows down the speed at which the stomach empties after eating. This means you feel full longer between meals. These combined mechanisms - eating less per meal while feeling satisfied for more time - is what enables meaningful weight reduction.
Over time, patients report changed relationships with food and hunger signals. Semaglutide helps "retrain" appetite regulation systems. This assists with long term weight management beyond the treatment period.
Semaglutide for weight loss is administered as a simple subcutaneous injection, similar to insulin injections used to manage diabetes.
To start, a low 0.25 mg weekly dose is used for the first four weeks. This helps minimize any temporary GI side effects as the body adjusts. The dose is then increased gradually up to a maintenance dose of 2.4 mg per week.
Injection instruction, sites, rotation, and proper sanitization technique are all covered during clinic visits. Most patients are easily able to self-administer at home.
During treatment, patients follow up monthly with our weight loss providers. This enables medication adjustments if needed, along with nutritional and activity counseling for optimal results.
We also order bloodwork at regular intervals to monitor for any metabolic changes and ensure medications are well tolerated. Weight checks at each visit help quantify progress.
Semaglutide was originally developed as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, but researchers unexpectedly found it also caused significant weight loss as a side effect. Further studies led to the approval of a higher dose semaglutide injection specifically for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight.
Beyond impressive reductions in body weight, semaglutide provides other meaningful health benefits:
With weight loss, most patients experience improvements in blood pressure, lipids, blood sugar, and other factors that reduce heart disease and stroke risks. For many, this also means reducing or stopping some medications for these issues.
Losing a substantial amount of weight with semaglutide enables improved mobility and activity capacity for most patients. Simple tasks become easier along with the ability to be more active without joint pains or poor stamina.
Above all, successful long term weight reduction markedly improves both physical and emotional quality of life for most people. Losing weight with semaglutide enables better self-confidence, body image, sleep quality, and an overall increased vitality day to day.
Addressing excess weight comprehensively is important for the best chance of long term improvement. Key reasons to take action today with semaglutide treatment include:
The impacts of overweight and obesity worsen considerably over time, including risks for heart disease, cancer, liver disease, severe arthritis, disability, and disfigurement. Early intervention prevents cumulative damage.
With aging, the body becomes less responsive to interventions like lifestyle changes and medications. Losing weight becomes much harder. Timely treatment preserves metabolic flexibility for better outcomes.
After years of failed diets for many people, self-confidence about managing weight is often low. Generating a major “win” like robust semaglutide-assisted weight loss helps restore self-efficacy to stick with long term behavior changes.
The weight loss specialists at Renew Hormone Institute understand the frustration many experience with sustained overweight. We perform comprehensive evaluations, education, close monitoring, and medication adjustments to promote the best results for every patient.
Successfully losing weight requires expertise both in safe, effective medical treatment along with practical lifestyle coaching tailored to each person.
At Renew Hormone Institute weight loss clinic, we leverage the unique training and experience of our providers to optimize every aspect of care:
Generic weight loss schemes almost never work well or sustainably. We personalize everything from caloric needs, activity planning, behavior change tactics, and more based on your unique needs and preferences.
Obesity contributes to many aspects of ill-health from physical to emotional. Our program addresses the whole person including resilience, stress, sleep, self-care, and purpose to support all facets of wellness.
Pharmacotherapy like semaglutide enables impressive results but only with expert dosing oversight, side effect mitigation, combination therapy when beneficial, and careful biomarker tracking to verify safety.
Medication alone is rarely enough for sustainable success. Our coaches focus intensely on nutrition quality, activity planning, environmental influence management, social support integration, and motivational enhancement.
With this comprehensive approach focused on your specific needs, over 85% of our patients achieve clinically-meaningful 5% body weight reduction. Over 60% realize life-changing weight loss exceeding 10% with improved health markers verified through testing.
Imbalances in key hormones due to aging, stress, obesity, or other factors can accelerate weight gain and sabotage lifestyle efforts.
Common issues our providers uncover include:
Deficient testosterone promotes loss of calorie-burning muscle mass and drives up dangerous belly fat even with diet and exercise. Balancing this key hormone resensitizes the body to reveal results.
Excessive estrogen from fat tissue accumulations in both men and women enhances weight gain. Resetting this balance empowers weight loss while improving energy, sleep and mood.
An underactive thyroid slows metabolism significantly while driving up cholesterol, bodyweight and cardiovascular disease risk. Restoring thyroid health revives energy levels and weight loss.
Spikes of cortisol from chronic stress or poor sleep impact appetite signals, drive sugar and refined carb cravings, and encourage belly fat accumulation. Controlling cortisol facilitates weight loss dramatically.
During initial evaluations at Renew Hormone Institute, we screen for common hormone imbalances that could be sabotaging weight loss efforts. Addressing deficiencies or excesses provides a key pillar supporting sustainable success.
Embarking upon a journey of profound personal transformation with semaglutide therapy is exhilarating and refreshing for most patients. To support positive lifestyle changes during treatment, Ithaca abounds with fantastic resources including:
This stunning lake provides 39 miles of shoreline to hike, swim, boat, or simply sit and destress. Enjoying this natural wonder inspires mental clarity and relaxation.
Ithaca is over 60% undeveloped green space perfect for walking, running and cycling. Parks like Treman State Park, Taughannock Falls, and Buttermilk Falls refresh the spirit.
The bounty of the Finger Lakes region provides exceptional produce, meats, and dairy to support clean eating. Local farmers markets and CSAs make eating fresh, nutritious food simple.
Reducing stress through practices like yoga, tai chi, mindfulness meditation or floating therapy enhances any lifestyle transformation. Many area studios cater to both beginners and experts.
Leveraging Ithaca’s phenomenal holistic resources magnifies the impacts of semaglutide therapy. Our lifestyle coaches skillfully integrate local fitness, nutrition, and wellbeing assets into each person’s success plan.
Crucial to excellent obesity treatment outcomes from both medication therapy and nutrition guidance is a thorough understanding of each patient’s baseline health status.
Key lab tests we order at intervals for precision monitoring include:
These quantify kidney and liver function, electrolyte status, proteins, and blood sugar to verify medication safety and adjust dosing if needed.
Measuring LDL, HDL, triglycerides and advanced lipid markers ensures therapy improves these critical heart health indicators.
Tracking red blood cell status, white blood cells proportions, and platelet metrics spotlights any nutritional deficiencies and guards against rare immune issues.
Testosterone, estrogens, cortisol, insulin, and thyroid hormones are checked to uncover common deficiencies driving weight gain and poor results.
C-reactive protein and homocysteine levels help gauge systemic inflammation from excess fat which damages arteries and organs.
Key micronutrients like vitamin D, B vitamins, zinc, selenium and magnesium are assessed to identify any insufficiencies impeding weight loss.
The extensive medical training and direct patient experience among our Renew Hormone Institute providers ensures optimal interpretation of testing data to both maximize health gains and prevent complications. We collaborate closely with specialty care teams if any issues emerge needing co-management.
Beyond direct effects lowering elevated blood sugars and blood pressure, substantial fat reduction from consistent semaglutide treatment significantly improves several obesity-related conditions:
Robust weight loss enables over 60% of patients to eliminate all diabetes medications with normalization of blood glucose. This reduces risks of blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage and amputation.
Body fat drives up estrogen levels and inflammation, accelerating cancers like breast and prostate. Maintaining major weight loss curtails multiple cancer types.
Eliminating visceral belly fat via semaglutide reverses dangerous fatty liver infiltration for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic types to restore normal function.
Each extra pound of body weight concentrates excessive force across hip, knee and ankle joints. Losing even 5% of weight markedly lessens arthritis irritation and degeneration.
The broad ranging health dividends from substantial fat reduction over time are indeed impressive. Our patients commonly attain boosted vitality, confidence, career success and relationships. We consider it a profound privilege to contribute to such poignant life transformation.
While semaglutide provides robust medical weight loss assistance, optimizing nutrition, activity, sleep and stress levels amplifies overall wellbeing. Our lifestyle medicine coaching integrates the following key evidence-based elements:
Eating abundant vegetables, fruits, beans/legumes, nuts/seeds, whole grains and omega-3 rich seafood provides high quality nutrition without excess calories. This reduces hunger, stabilizes energy and meets micronutrient needs.
Regular physical activity, like walking, cycling or swimming, normalizes blood sugars, promotes fat burning, boosts energy, relieves anxiety and enhances sleep quality. We provide personalized step and exercise plans.
Adequate deep sleep optimizes hormone balance and insulin sensitivity critical for appetite regulation and weight control. We offer extensive sleep hygiene education and tools to overcome common barriers like stress or pain.
Unmanaged emotional stress activates “fight or flight” mechanisms increasing cortisol, hunger signals, and driving fat accumulation. Our science-based stress mastery training bolsters long term success.
Embodying these core tenets of healthy living amplifies and sustains the spectacular gains achieved with diligent semaglutide therapy. Our compassionate coaches leverage evidence-based best practices along with the bountiful local resources to support maximal thriving.
We are thrilled to collaborate with these exceptional local health, fitness and wellness establishments assisting our patients’ journeys:
This laboratory offers direct-to-consumer comprehensive hormone testing without necesitating a doctor visit. Their panels assess key obesity related hormones to uncover common deficiencies.
With locations across Ithaca, Sunny Days stocks all manner of fresh, locally-sourced provisions to inspire home cooked, nutritious dining along with grab-and-go healthy meals for busy schedules.
This unique wellness center specializes in float pod therapy, an evidence-based stress reduction modality shown to lower cortisol, ease pain and enhance sleep quality powerfully.
We are sincerely grateful to partner with these community gems and many others helping our patients actualize sustained wellbeing transformation with semaglutide. Please reach out today to learn more about how our individualized medical weight loss programming can help you thrive!
