Pros and Cons of Semaglutide Injections for Weight Loss

If your struggle with your weight has been long and you’re tired of not making progress, you’re certainly not alone.  Nearly one in three adults are overweight and two out of five tip the scales into obesity. 

Thanks to new medications, we may finally have the key to America’s weight loss problem, Semaglutide.

Advanced Aesthetics Lopez Plastic Surgery team are thrilled to offer our Lean Shot which centers around what many refer to as the long-awaited answer for effective weight loss.

In this blog post, we take a look at some of the pros and cons of usingsemaglutide. Spoiler alert: the pros are really good.

How semaglutide works to help you lose weight

The active ingredient in our Lean Shot is semaglutide,  a GLP-1 receptor agonist. This medication accomplishes four key objectives when it comes to losing weight:

1. It mimics a hormone secreted by your small intestine that signals your body that you are satisfied so you are less likely to overeat.
2. It slows how quickly food leaves your stomach so you feel full longer and become full quicker.
3. It signals your pancreas to release insulin, which carries glucose to your cells rather than leaving it in your bloodstream.
4. It blocks your liver from producing glucose.

So, with our Lean Shot, you won’t eat as much because you won’t be as hungry and the blood sugar levels in your system will be reduced too.

Pros of Lean Shot

In outlining above how semaglutide works to help you lose weight, we already went over some of the biggest pros of this approach to weight loss. 

In studies, people who took semaglutide lost close to 15% of their starting body weight as  compared to only 2.4% with a placebo.

Not only does semaglutide help you lose weight, but it alters your body composition favorably toward less body fat — especially abdominal fat — and more toward lean body mass.

Another benefit of our Lean Shot is that it can lower the glucose levels in your blood (the medication was originally formulated to treat diabetes), which can boost cardiovascular health. As a result, you may be able to lower your risks for heart disease.

Please note that your results will be more sustainable and significant if you use this medication to change your eating habits and combine the medication with exercise.

Cons of Lean Shot

As with most medications, there are some potential side effects with semaglutide. These include:

• Nausea and vomiting — up to 20% of people report some nausea
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Gas and bloating
• Abdominal discomfort
• Fatigue 
• Belching
• Hair loss due to rapid weight loss

In rare cases, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, or gallbladder issues may arise, but these are uncommon.

Another con we want to address is that the Lean Shot works well while you’re taking it, but the weight can come back once you stop taking the medication.  As with any other weight loss programs, if you do not continue healthy eating habits and exercise, the weight can return.

If you’d like to explore whether semaglutide is right for your weight-loss goals, we invite you to contact us at one of our greater San Antonio, Texas, locations. Our friendly staff is available to assist and answer your questions.