Maintaining your weight with ZAVA

Reaching your weight loss goal is an achievement. Once the celebrations are over, it can be confusing when you reach this point in your treatment. You may feel worried at this point about weight coming back, or how you might manage your goals going forward. This is called the ‘maintenance phase’.

At ZAVA, you don’t have to face weight maintenance alone. We can provide you with continued treatment, as well as nutritional and lifestyle advice, allowing you to feel confident and supported for long-term success.

This means we can prescribe weight loss medication even after you’ve reached a healthy weight – a BMI of 25 or less.

Here you can find more information on how the maintenance phase of your weight loss treatment works and what you can expect from ZAVA.

The ‘maintenance phase’ of your weight loss journey is when your focus shifts from losing weight to sustaining the amount of weight you have lost and the changes that have helped you achieve your goals.

When entering the maintenance phase, you may want to find ways to continue the changes you have made to your lifestyle (such as your diet, or exercise routine) but at a slower, manageable pace. Alternatively depending on your current health and progress, you might wish to stay on a maintenance dose of your medication, if your doctor approves it.

The maintenance phase might be different for different people in a range of ways. If you’re unsure about what to do here are some choices and reasonings based on how patients have felt:

Everyone’s needs are different. What might work for one person in helping them keep the weight off, may not work for someone else. That means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to weight maintenance – it’s about finding what works for you as an individual.

You may be ready to come off your medication and try out your new lifestyle without support, or you might need a little longer to find the right dose to help you cement your new habits to secure long-term success. The maintenance phase of treatment isn’t the same for everyone. Your goals are unique to you and so are your circumstances.

The choice is up to you. You might want to stay on medication if:

• you’re worried about putting weight back on
• you think you need more time to build your diet and exercise habits

Our doctors can assess your eligibility for maintenance but, ultimately, how you continue your treatment is your choice, you can either: continue your medication and adjust your dose, stay on your current dose, or you may want to taper off or stop.

Whether you prefer to continue treatment to help maintain your weight, or sustain your current weight through lifestyle and habit changes alone, we’re here to support you.

Our doctors are here to support you in maintaining your current weight if you:

• have reached or are nearing your goal weight
• are not actively pursuing further weight loss beyond your goal weight

Our doctors can help confirm your chosen maintenance dose is right for you, make sure treatment is still safe for you, check in regularly, and provide advice for stopping treatment as well.

See the section on “How to request maintenance treatment from ZAVA” for more information.

ZAVA maintenance service allows you to be in control of your weight loss journey no matter what phase you are in, with support so that you don’t have to face it alone, even if you want to come back and restart later. We believe supporting you in keeping the weight off is just as important to us as helping you lose it. Entering the maintenance phase will allow you to continue to receive your medication if you choose, in addition to other resources we provide, helping you sustain the success of your health in the long-term.

At ZAVA, weight loss maintenance is simple:

1. Request your treatment, just like before
2. One of our doctors will review your request, and assess your eligibility
3. If approved, your doctor will assess the right dose for you
4. Your doctor will monitor your progress on your new dose

Our doctors always review everything as usual, taking into account that you’re now in the maintenance phase of your journey. From there on, your progress will be monitored as you continue with the lifestyle changes you have made up to this point.

You may be eligible for the maintenance phase of weight loss treatment if you:

Simply place a request for treatment at the dose you want, and our doctors will review your consultation as usual. You don’t need to tell us you’re in a maintenance phase; that’s normally clear from your assessment and order history.

You can start your maintenance phase once you have reached a healthy goal weight, or are close to reaching it, and feel ready to transition to maintaining the weight you have worked so far to achieve.

You may be ready to start maintenance if your:

• weight has stabilised
• diet and exercise plans have become a part of your routine
• motivation has shifted from losing weight to keeping it off
• focus is now on long-term health

You will still need doctor approval to start the maintenance phase, but it’s good to know the signs you may be ready so you can go forward and discuss the next phase with your doctor.

Depending on which weight loss injection you have been prescribed for your weight loss journey, each has different strengths which you can use as your maintenance dose depending on your health, needs, and progress.

Why it’s important to think about your dose during maintenance

The maintenance phase can last longer than the weight loss phase of your treatment, so it’s important that you find a maintenance dose that works for you. Our doctors can work with you so you can be secure in your new weight long-term.

Your doctor can suggest a plan that works for you, both in terms of the right level of appetite control and minimising the risk of any side effects during your weight loss journey.

Why might your dose be different during the maintenance phase

When it comes to maintenance treatment, you can help decide which dose is right for you. This dose can be different for different people and potentially, any dose can be clinically effective for maintaining your weight, it just depends on you and your needs.

How to decide which dose you need

Questions to ask yourself when figuring out the right dose for you for maintaining your weight:

• Have I had side effects that have been difficult to manage?
• Do I feel my current dose is right for maintaining my current weight?
• How much exercise am I committed to doing?
• What is my awareness of my diet and food habits?
• What is my budget for treatment?

You can stay on your maintenance treatment for as long as it is safe for you to do so. This means as long as our doctors can still safely prescribe your treatment to you, they will.

Everyone’s journey with weight loss is unique to them. So, for however long you feel that you need extra support with keeping the weight off, we can provide that support. If at any point your circumstances change and our doctors can no longer prescribe treatment safely to you, they will let you know next time you request treatment.

If you stop treatment and you regain weight, you may be able to restart your treatment. You can request treatment again, the same way you did before. Just like when you started treatment, one of our doctors can check whether it is safe for you to restart your treatment. A doctor will consider:

• your current BMI – this does not necessarily need to be as high as the requirements for starting treatment in the first place
• your current lifestyle
• the length of time since you stopped treatment
• how well you tolerated your treatment before stopping
• your treatment and health history

We know that maintaining weight can be just as challenging as losing it. Life can get in the way, and sometimes progress isn’t always consistent. Staying committed to lifestyle changes such as exercise routines and diet can be difficult without the help of weight loss medication.

At ZAVA we can provide ongoing care so that you can feel confident in both losing weight, and keeping it off too.