You’ve probably heard it before: Eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly are essential to achieving a healthy weight. But if you’re one of the millions of Americans who is overweight or obese, you know it’s not as simple as it sounds.
While diet and exercise do contribute to weight loss, they aren’t the only factors at play. And if you’ve struggled to achieve your weight loss goals with diet and exercise alone, it’s time to try something different.
Tiffany Su, MD, and our team at Skin Shop medSpa offer compounded semaglutide sodium injections, a treatment that could help you shed those extra pounds and achieve your goals. Here’s how this advanced weight loss solution works.
Your appetite is a signal that tells you when and how much to eat. When you eat, your body digests the food and your metabolism converts it into energy that keeps you alive.
When you eat the same amount of calories that your body burns, your weight stays the same. When you eat fewer calories, you lose weight. But when you eat more, you gain weight. That’s because the energy that your body doesn’t use right away gets stored as fat.
Your appetite, metabolism, and digestion are controlled by hormones, along with numerous other factors. Your body secretes hormones throughout the digestive process, but hormonal imbalances can make you feel hungrier and eat more than you should — often making it difficult to lose excess weight.
Semaglutide injections support weight loss by tapping into your body’s hormonal process. Semaglutide was FDA-approved in June 2021 to treat excess weight and obesity, and it shows promise as a hormone-based obesity treatment. In fact, treatment could help you lose up to 15% of your body weight.
GLP-1 is a hormone that your digestive system secretes when you eat. It tells receptors in your brain when you feel full, and turns off your appetite. When you’re full, you stop eating.
Semaglutide acts as a GLP-1 receptor agonist. That means it mimics the GLP-1 hormone in your body and tells your brain you feel full. It also inhibits gastric emptying, which can make food stay in your stomach so you feel fuller longer.
With these effects on appetite and fullness, semaglutide injections can help you achieve your weight loss goals. It can make you feel more full after eating less food, and you may find you’re less tempted to eat large meals or snack between meals.
If you are overweight or obese and you’re struggling to shed excess weight, schedule an appointment with Dr. Su and our team.
We offer comprehensive consultations to help you understand your weight loss options and find a treatment that’s right for you. You could be a good candidate for semaglutide if your appetite often leads to overeating.
Dr. Su administers semaglutide injections underneath your skin, usually in your upper arm, abdomen, or thigh. We typically recommend weekly injections for most people, but Dr. Su tailors your treatment plan based on your health needs.
Some people choose to administer their own injections rather than come into the office once a week. If you administer your own injections, clean your skin with rubbing alcohol before each dose and rotate injection sites to avoid bruising.
We give you diet and exercise recommendations along with your semaglutide treatment plan. Over the course of treatment, we monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed. Individual results vary, and semaglutide may not work for everyone.
When a healthy diet and regular exercise aren’t enough to help you achieve your goals, weight loss injections could be an option for you. Book your consultation online or call our Houston, Texas, office at 713-701-1717.
