James Corden says Ozempic didn’t help him lose weight, but a ravenous hunger can come when you stop
The anxiety is always in the back of your mind,” Suzy Cox is saying. She’s been on one the new drugs for weight loss for almost six months and, on Friday morning, she stepped on the scales to see a number starting with 10 stones for the first time in five years.
“It’s exciting,” she continues. “But I’ll be honest – usually when I lose weight and a dress size of clothes gets too big for me, I triumphantly take them down to the charity shop. This time, I’ve put everything under the bed. Because I’m so scared that if I come off the drug, I’ll go straight back up to a size 16, 18 or 20.”
Cox is one of a number of people whose lives have been changed for the better by Ozempic and other semaglutide and tirzepatide weight loss drugs – she wrote about it for The Independent in June. However, like many on the drug, Cox is now facing an agonising prospect. While the drugs are highly effective when being administered regularly, tapering off or stopping altogether some users report a “voracious” hunger returning once they come off it, with high numbers putting the majority of weight they’ve lost back on.
This week, James Corden explained that he tried the weight loss drug, but it didn’t work for him as he thinks his tendency to binge eat was more deep-rooted. The 46-year-old said: ‘I tried it for a bit and then what I realized was I was like, “Oh no, nothing about my eating has anything to do with being hungry.”
‘All it does is make you feel not hungry. But I am very rarely eating [just because I’m hungry].’
However, Ozempic users who then come off the drug are taking to TikTok and Reddit to share that insatiable hunger is exactly what happens when they stop taking the drug. “What are we eating to stay full? I cannot stay full,” influencer and comedian Claudia Oshry shared in a recent post. “I just had a 12oz steak and I’m starving so I’m eating popcorn. How are we staying full?”
“That was literally me after Monjauro,” one of the many comments in agreement underneath reads. “I was ravenous! No answers, just prayers.”
Since Ozempic was approved to be used for weight loss purposes on the NHS in September 2023, demand has been consistently high and is still climbing. It’s primarily used to treat type 2 diabetes – a chronic metabolic condition that occurs when the body can’t use insulin properly – its weight loss benefits are really what nailed down its popularity.
The use of the drug, which can now be bought at high street pharmacies for between £149 and £297 per month depending on the dose, is so ubiquitous some are using it for lifestyle reasons to “drop a dress” size ahead of a big event or holiday.
One acquaintance reported there were so many people on the drug at a friend’s 50th birthday party that they had to throw most of the food away. Spotting Ozempic face among celebrities and influencers has become something of a national sport.
In the first 10 months or so of taking Ozempic, some users can lose an average of 13-15 pounds, according to clinical studies. While the amount is dependent on starting weight, lifestyle factors and dosage, generally this can result in a 10-15 per cent reduction in body weight over the first year on Ozempic.
However, clinical research limits those on the drug for weight loss to two years of use. Many users stop after one year because, like James Corden, they realise their eating issues have deeper roots. At that point, many run into more problems, says Richard Holt, a professor in diabetes and endocrinology at the University of Southampton.
If people have lost weight, he says “It is quite difficult to avoid putting the weight back on. Because effectively, what the Ozempic is doing is telling your brain that your body doesn’t need to eat and that your body weight is fine.
“The body has a really complex mechanism of trying to defend its weight from times when food was not as plentiful as it is now – losing weight was really quite a major survival issue for humans, so the body naturally has some very strong physiological mechanisms to ensure your body weight stays pretty constant.”
Ozempic hijacks those mechanisms, or receptors which tell you when you’re hungry, Holt explains, allowing you to eat less to lose weight. “It does that very, very effectively,” he says.
“But the difficulty is that as soon as you stop taking the medication, the body thinks you’re in a situation of starvation, and therefore those mechanisms to get you to start to eat again kick back in. Which is why in all of the studies of people taking GLP-1 semaglutide, people regain weight very quickly after ceasing treatment. That weight gain can continue to go on for as long as a year after stopping the drug.”
It’s causing a lot of fear around withdrawal, says Sophie Medlin, a consultant dietician and chair of the British Dietetic Association for London. Recently she’s seen a spike in numbers of patients who are struggling with tapering off or stopping their weight loss medication.
“People will say that they just feel like they can’t control their appetite anymore. When they were taking the medication, they didn’t feel hungry at all, sometimes for them even just noticing that they are hungry again feels really overwhelming,” Medlin explains. Once off the drug, with the food noise rushing back and turned up to maximum level, she says people become scared and don’t trust themselves to make good choices around their eating.
“Because the difference between when you’re taking it and when you come off it is quite stark. When it’s completely out of someone’s system they begin to feel panicky they’re not going to be able to maintain their weight or the sort of benefits they’ve seen.”
