FAQs

Established in 2019, The National Medical Weightloss Programme* provides online CPD and SCOPE accredited education, exclusively to registered health professionals in the medical management of overweight and obesity. It is based on a calorie controlled diet, with the addition of a once weekly pharmacotherapy (a tiny injection pen) that you administer at home, to manage your appetite. It involves an online assessment tool to ensure you are fit and well. Then if treatment is suitable for you, you are eligible for consultation, treatment and on-going support.

This varies between individuals, however most people lose around a stone (6.5kg) every 4- 6 weeks, but that’s dependent on your Body Mass Index (BMI), will-power, exercise regime & how much weight you have to lose.

It usually takes around a few hours to start to work, that’s what most users report.

A fully accredited* team comprised of a clinical pharmacist, a patient co-ordinator and a GP to care for you under the program via a holistic approach to your well-being and who are happy to review you as the process continues.

Everyone is different in their approach to maintaining their desired weight. Some people find the habitual changes over a few months of being on the medication enable them to psychologically carry it forward. The medication will make you feel full most of the time; so when you do eat, it will be small portions of (hopefully) healthy food. You may not want to return to what you ate before. Other people stay on the medication long-term on a maintenance basis, because they see it as the only way to keep where they want to be. Others will be between these two scenarios. They may have positive changes but start over-eating again. They will sometimes utilise the medication again, but have long periods without it too.

No fasting is not part of it. You are encouraged to try to eat three small, nutritionally balanced meals per day. Some people just cannot face food because the medicine prevents the desire to eat at all (it also greatly reduces the desire for alcohol). In this case we recommend having nutritional supplements and bars/shakes etc, to ensure you are getting the vitamins and minerals you should have to be healthy.

Everyone has different experiences, but generally people say they “don’t feel hungry at all” on the medication. You may feel less effect as the week goes on but it’s unlikely. If you do start to get hunger cravings it’s best to tell us as soon as possible, so we can look at altering the dose or your Injection technique.

The injection is reportedly painless and the pen needle is tiny.

Yes it is 100% legal, it’s been previously developed as a medication for type 2 diabetes, so it has been clinically trialled and approved for this category of patients. We use this pharmacotherapy “off label” which means we are using it for weight loss rather than treatment of type 2 diabetes. Rather like us using haemorrhoid cream for puffy eye bags…. We know it’s not for that indication, but it works, so we utilise it.

The benefits of a loss of just 5% of your weight are (according to a Rethink Obesity Study) are as follows: ✅ A reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes. ✅ A reduction in cardiovascular risk factors. ✅ Improvements in blood lipid profile. ✅ Improvements in blood pressure. ✅ Improvements in osteoarthritic pain. ✅ Improvements in severity of obstructive sleep apnoea. ✅ Improvements in health-related quality of life. Apart from this study, what we see in anecdotal terms is that people regain their self-confidence and self-esteem, feel brighter and happier within themselves when they are able to reach their goal weight.