A new feature in Women's Health asks four clinicians and dietitians what actually happens when people come off GLP-1 medications, and what the evidence says about holding onto the weight they lost. The short answer from the experts quoted is that regain is the norm, not a personal failing.

GLP-1 drugs, the class that includes tirzepatide (sold as Zepbound) and liraglutide, were developed for type 2 diabetes and obesity and work in part by reducing appetite. People stop for ordinary reasons: side effects, insurance, cost, or reaching a goal weight.

The 60 percent number

The figure the piece leans on is from a 2026 review in eClinicalMedicine, which found that 60 percent of the weight participants lost was regained within one year of stopping. Dina Peralta-Reich, MD, an obesity medicine physician, says some people who built eating and exercise habits alongside the drug do hold their weight, but most get hungry again.

Whitney Black, RDN, describes her own version of this on the record: after two years on Zepbound she switched to a lower dose of the newer Foundayo pill to save money, and says her dysregulated hunger cues returned almost immediately along with about 14 pounds. She went back on Zepbound.

Why the body pushes back

Allison Reiss, MD, an NYU Langone internist who has researched GLP-1 discontinuation, describes a fat mass set point range: a feedback system in which body fat sends signals to the brain about when to eat. Changing that set point is possible, she says, but hard, which is the mechanism underneath the regain statistics.

The sleep finding

The most interesting data in the piece is not about food. A 2022 study in Sleep followed adults with obesity who lost an average of nearly 30 pounds on a two-month low-calorie diet, then assigned them to exercise, exercise plus liraglutide, liraglutide alone, or placebo.

After a year, those sleeping less than six hours a night had regained nearly 12 pounds, while those sleeping more than six hours maintained their loss, regardless of group. That result cut across every arm of the trial, which is what makes it worth more than another reminder to eat vegetables.

Bottom line

What the experts here converge on is that regain is biology, not willpower, and that satiety strategies, resistance training and sleep are the levers still available after the drug stops. None of them claims those levers match the medication.