Health Break: Weight loss medications: Why lifestyle still matters 

Camille: Weight loss medications can be a powerful tool for managing weight and improving health, but they’re not a magic fix.

Long-term success depends on more than just taking a pill—it’s about building healthy habits that last.

In this “Health Break,” we’re joined by Tish Rohan to explore why lifestyle changes like nutrition, exercise, and hydration are essential for getting the best results from weight loss medications and maintaining long-term health.

Welcome, Tish, and thank you for joining today’s “Health Break.”

Tish: Thanks for having me today.

Camille: Well, I’m really excited about this topic, so let’s jump right into it.

Tish: Great.

Camille: Weight loss medications can help people lose significant weight. So why is it important to focus on lifestyle changes, too?

Tish: There’s a variety of medications out there, and many of them were actually developed with chronic conditions in mind, but they have the added benefit of people losing weight on top of managing their conditions. And for many people, they lose weight very rapidly, and they appreciate the fact that their doctors will use this medication to assist them with that.

Weight is a significant risk factor for managing chronic conditions, so it’s an important one to be addressing and managing with your provider. However, you know, when we are reducing the risk with weight, it’s also important to address your overall health needs.

It’s important to discuss the benefits and risks of any medication with your provider, because tolerance and results can actually vary. They don’t work the same for everyone.

It’s important to also remember that many people are successful at losing weight without the assistance of medication. While the medications can help reduce risks and improve weight, maintaining overall health involves more than just a number on the scale. Not everyone tolerates medications well, so building sustainable habits now can help maintain weight loss without medication in the future if it changes.

Camille: Sustainable habits, I love that. I’ve had a couple clients and friends who have been on these weight loss medications, and they’ve talked about how they felt. Can you share more about—how can you feel your best while taking weight loss medications?

Tish: How you feel is really important, especially if you want to stay on a long-term medication because you’re not going to do well with it if you don’t feel well every day when you wake up.

If you and your provider do decide to use medications to help, if it’s appropriate for your specific conditions or for weight management, the side effects can be challenging for some people, but you can impact those by making good nutritional changes and making other good lifestyle choices as well.

So things like staying hydrated are really important. Just hydration overall makes you feel better throughout your day. But also eating enough protein and calories overall—a lot of people start these medications and they’re just not hungry. And so it is important to make sure you are fueling your body so you can do things like exercise and the other things that you want to do throughout your day.

And focusing on nutrient-dense foods. So choosing foods that are going to make you feel better overall. You know, a pound of jelly beans versus a pound of protein are not the same in fueling your body. And this will help you with long-term success on or off the medications. It’s really important to make small, gradual changes to your lifestyle habits, and it leads to better results and sustained weight loss over time.

But not just for nutrition. I mean, there’s other things you should do for your lifestyle—we want to make sure you’re managing your stress, making sure that you’re staying physically active—because those are also important components to managing your weight and other chronic conditions.

Camille: Nutrition, stress, and staying active. So let’s talk about that, staying active. Why is exercise so important when taking weight loss medications?

Tish: Exercise is important for many things in your lifestyle. It also helps specifically with weight loss medications. It helps keep your muscle mass, which can be lost along with fat during rapid weight loss. Physical activity is especially important when losing significant amounts of weight quickly. So we’re finding that a lot of people are losing large amounts of weight fast, and with that is coming their muscle. Maintaining muscle supports metabolism and long-term weight management and it helps to reduce the likeness of gaining the weight back if you were just off the medications.

Strength training and movement are especially important for aging and overall health. So beyond the benefits of weight loss or weight loss maintenance, exercise makes you feel good physically, but it also makes you feel good emotionally as well.

Camille: Don’t I know that. I exercise every day; I love it. So it sounds like you still have to, like you said, do those preventative health activities, those healthy lifestyle activities. How can someone find support for these important lifestyle changes?

Tish: Absolutely. I think it’s important, just in your personal life, to share with others in your life—that social support that you’re trying to make a change to your lifestyle, to your weight, to maybe chronic conditions that you’re managing. But we also, at UPMC Health Plan, have health coaches that we offer [as] free support to help members build sustainable habits.

The coaches can specialize in areas like weight management, nutrition, exercise, and they can personalize a plan to fit individual needs and help you with strategies that align with your personal goals. So if you are someone who is using weight loss medications, they can help create a plan that’s going to work well for you, with or without them.

Health coaching is available online and it’s easy to make appointments with us. You can find it on our UPMC health and wellness site and just schedule an appointment at a time that’s convenient for you.

Camille: Great. Well, thank you so much, Tish, for joining us today in today’s “Health Break.” I hope you join us again.

Tish: Thanks for having me today.

Camille: Weight loss is about more than just the number on the scale—it’s about building habits that keep you feeling your best.

Whether you’re taking weight loss medication or looking for long-term success, our health coaches are here to help.

Visit the member health and wellness section of our website to schedule your free health coaching session today.