Weight Management

At Alchemy Wellness and Weight Care, we understand that weight management is more than just numbers on a scale. It's about nurturing your body, understanding your needs, and setting achievable goals. Our tailored programs are designed to harmonize with your lifestyle, offering support, guidance, and the tools you need to embrace a healthier, more balanced life. Discover the benefits of mindful eating, active living, and a supportive community, all working together to help you achieve lasting wellness.  

We offer:

nutrition plans -from the provider or a dietician

movement plans - from the provider or a physical therapist

behavioral modification counseling - from the provider or a licensed counselor

medication

Why medication isn't a last resort; it's your best offense. 

So many have tried so hard to eat less and move more to lose weight—and were excited to lose a little weight. But it always seem to come back on. If this is you, You’re not alone. In fact, an estimated 80 percent of people who lose weight will regain it within the first year. And we’re here to tell you that it’s not due to a lack of willpower. With medication you’re able to step in and succeed in weight loss as another tool for success where traditional efforts alone have failed. It isn’t necessarily that people fail diets, often diets are failing people. The average person may try and fail a diet more than 125 times in their life and around 80% of people who succeed in losing weight will gain it back in 12 months.  This gives us an illustration of why successful weight loss and management isn’t about willpower, but about biology.  Seventy percent of weight is genetically determined. There is a way to work with your biology, instead of against it with the use of medication. According to the Obesity Medicine Association, prescription medication along with a healthier lifestyle, doubles to triples the odds of losing 5%-10% of your body weight and serves as an important tool for safe, sustainable, long term weight loss.  This doesn’t mean that eating well and movement as part of a healthy lifestyle and weight management program are not part of the equation. However, with medications, you’re adjusting your biological dials to overcome cravings, balance blood sugar and help you feel fuller longer to finally overcome the barriers to weight loss and discover a happier and healthier you. 

Research shows that biological factors such as hormones, genes, and metabolism largely determines our weight. Yet, there’s not much talk about how medication can support many of these factors and bridge the gap between biology and lifestyle. The good news is there are many effective medication options.  Often, people hesitate to consider medications to help with weigh loss.  Having another way to look at the use of medication to help with weight loss is helpful. When we think of having increased weight as a medical condition like high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol we can start to see things differently.  

If you had tried to manage diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol with lifestyle modifications alone without success you might not hesitate to consider taking a medication to help with treatment of these conditions.  So, if you’d take prescription medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, or depression, why not consider one to help with management of weight? 

People often feel that using medication for weight care is “the easy way out”. This is because obesity is still stigmatized as a choice or lack of willpower rather than a chronic condition that may require long-term use of medication to maintain weight loss. Many people who have struggled with their weight for many years -or a lifetime -will tell you that despite many things they’ve tried and as hard as they’ve worked they still have not been successful with long term weight loss and maintenance.  Weight loss and maintenance isn’t all about willpower or a choice its about biology. 

Approximately, 1% of healthcare providers are certified in obesity medicine and many weight management clinics having long waitlists.  Additionally, clinicians who aren’t familiar with obesity medicine tend to take their patients off the medication once they achieve their desired weight and have them maintain it on their own. Often, medications are needed for weight maintenance to some degree in the long term.  Again, think back to managing a condition like high blood pressure or diabetes, you wouldn’t hesitate to continue a medication in some form to manage your blood pressure if it was well controlled because the medication was helping to keep it well controlled. 

Do you need prescription medication? 

When you begin to lose weight, your body can do some frustrating things to prevent further weight loss—like decrease the level of leptin in your body (a hormone that signals fullness) and increase ghrelin (one that helps you feel hungry) which can lead to weight regain. This may have been a survival mechanism from way back in our hunter-gather days. These appetite hormones can remain out of favor for someone working to lose weight even after a year of losing weight—and possibly longer. This is known as “metabolic adaptation”.

Medication may help by working with your biology while you make all of those great, healthy lifestyle changes. Some medications affect your appetite, some help reduce cravings and compulsive eating, and others stabilize blood sugar. All of these things can assist you in continuing to work toward your goals. 

Knowledge is power and this knowledge can help to break the stigma around weight loss medication. It’s not “the easy way out”. It can be a path to lasting success. 

COMPOUNDED PRESCRIPTIVE MEDICATIONS

Recently, many of the medications that have made a huge impact in weight management have had issues with supply.  Frustratingly, these medications are also not well covered by many insurance plans and often if they are covered there is a very high co pay. Some people are fortunate to have these medications covered by insurance but the majority are not.  Hopefully in years to come this will change and these medications will someday be well covered by all insurance plans and accessible to all who need them.  In times of reduced supply, when medications are not able to have access to medications, specialty pharmacies are able to produce medications to alleviate the shortage even if the medications have a patent from the manufacturer. Legitimate compounding pharmacies are safe. They are government regulated pharmacies who undergo vigorous sterility testing. They are supervised by licensed pharmacist(s), physicians, and even third-party professionals to ensure their safety and efficacy. Compounding pharmacies are regulated by the FDA and overseen by the state board. The FDA ensures no compounding operation may mislabel or misrepresent compounded medications or their ingredients.

The FDA oversees compounding operations to ensure they meet the necessary regulations and guidelines for compounding. If a compounding operation fails to meet these requirements or violates their obligations under the FDCA, they are then subject to all the requirements for conventional manufacturers. This means that non-compliant manufacturers must then pay for the verification and testing necessary for FDA approval before resuming business.

Compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide refers to a patient specific medication developed in a state board of pharmacy or FDA license compounding facility following a prescription from a licensed healthcare professional. Compounded medications adhere strictly to ingredients sourced from FDA licensed facilities and undergo testing for potency, stability and purity. Well compounded drugs are legal they do not undergo premarket approval from the FDA, as they are not mass produced for public consumption; rather, they are created on a case by case basis upon specific orders from medical professionals. As a result, variations in dose, route of administration, and efficacy exist while compared to commercially available, brand-name drugs. At Alchemy wellness and weight care, we exclusively work licensed sterile compounding pharmacies in the United States to ensure the highest standards of quality and safety.