For months it was quiet. You could walk past the biscuit tin without it calling your name. Food was no longer at the forefront of your mind, and you felt more in charge than you had in years. For the first time in a long time, food was just food.
And then you stopped the medication.
Maybe it was the cost, or the side effects. Maybe you reached your goal, or you simply didn’t want to be on a medication long term. And for some of the women I work with, the reason is a very happy one: they’re hoping to start a family.
Whatever the reason, within a few weeks the chatter starts up again. The ‘just one more’. The evening grazing. The thinking about food when you’re not even hungry.
If that’s you, I want you to know two things. First, this is completely normal and it is not a personal failure. Second, there is something you can do about it, and it works at a much deeper level than willpower.
Why the food noise comes back
Whether it’s a weekly jab like Mounjaro or Wegovy, or one of the newer daily tablets, most of today’s weight loss medications work partly by mimicking a hormone that tells your brain you’ve had enough. They slow digestion and turn the volume down on appetite and cravings. That’s why so many people describe the experience as ‘finally, peace and quiet’.
When you stop, the medication leaves your system and that effect wears off. A major review from the University of Oxford, published in The BMJ in January 2026, looked at 37 studies and more than 9,000 adults who had stopped weight management medicines. On average, weight crept back at around 0.4kg a month, and for the newer drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide it was around 0.8kg a month. The researchers projected that many people would be back at their starting weight within about 18 months to two years.
That isn’t because those people lacked willpower. The researchers themselves said it wasn’t a failing of the medicines either. It’s because the thing doing the heavy lifting has gone, and the patterns underneath were never actually changed.
The medication turned the volume down. It didn’t rewrite the song.
Trying for a baby?
I’ve recently had a couple of clients come to me because they’re trying to conceive and are worried about what the medication might mean for their fertility and a future pregnancy. It’s a really common concern, and the current UK guidance is clear.
In June 2025 the UK medicines regulator, the MHRA, advised that these medicines should not be taken during pregnancy, while trying to get pregnant, or while breastfeeding, because there isn’t yet enough safety data to know whether they could affect a baby. Their guidance is to stop Wegovy or Ozempic at least two months before trying to conceive, and Mounjaro at least one month before, continuing contraception during that time. They also warned that Mounjaro may make the contraceptive pill less effective for some people.
For many women, this comes at a time when they want to feel healthy, strong and at a comfortable, healthy weight, ready for pregnancy. Being asked to stop the very thing that’s been keeping the food noise quiet, at a time that’s already emotional and full of hope, can feel unsettling. It’s completely understandable to worry about old eating habits returning. That worry and stress can itself drive comfort eating, which is why having support in place before you stop can make such a difference. This isn’t about dieting during such an important time. It’s about feeling calm and in charge around food, so you can nourish yourself and focus on what really matters.
Always speak to your GP, pharmacist, prescriber or fertility specialist about your own situation before stopping or changing any medication.
Told you’re not eligible?
I also see clients who’ve been told weight loss medication isn’t an option for them at all, because of a pre-existing health condition or other medications they take. That can feel like yet another door closing. (I wrote about this in more detail in my recent post, Not Suited to Weight Loss Injections? Here’s Another Way.) Everything in this post applies to you too, because the approach I use doesn’t depend on medication.
Diets don’t work long term either
If medication isn’t the whole answer, surely a good diet is? Sadly, the research says otherwise. When psychologists at UCLA reviewed 31 long-term diet studies, they found that people typically shed 5 to 10 percent of their weight in the first six months, but that one-third to two-thirds of dieters ended up heavier than when they started within four or five years. The lead researcher concluded that diets don’t lead to sustained results for the majority of people.
Most people I work with have been on every diet going. They know what to eat. They know about portion sizes and five a day. If knowing were enough, nobody would struggle. The problem isn’t information. It’s the part of the mind that decides what you actually do.
When willpower and the subconscious are at war
Your conscious mind is the logical, thinking part, the part in charge of your willpower and good intentions. Your subconscious mind is where your beliefs, habits and emotional memories are stored. When the two are in conflict, the feeling, subconscious part of the mind usually wins.
I hear this time and time again from clients. They know, consciously, that a habit is harming them, sometimes that it’s potentially life-limiting or even life-shortening. And yet, against their best intentions, their common sense and all their willpower, they keep repeating it anyway.
That’s because the subconscious mind hasn’t been updated. It naturally moves you towards what is familiar and what it has learned to see as pleasurable or comforting, until it is specifically told to do otherwise. It doesn’t understand that two bottles of wine a night, 20 cigarettes a day, gambling or a drug habit is draining your money and your health. It just follows the old groove, believing on some level that this familiar habit is useful to you. Food works in exactly the same way.
Yet once the subconscious mind is guided, in a very specific way, to understand that this isn’t what you want any more, and to see the benefits of making something new feel familiar, it surprisingly gets on board. Many of my clients are genuinely surprised by just how quickly things begin to shift.
Why the word ‘loss’ works against you
Here’s something I find fascinating. In my experience, the subconscious mind doesn’t like the word ‘loss’. To the deeper mind, losing something is bad: we lose our keys, lose a job, lose people we love. Gaining, on the other hand, feels good.
So when you tell everyone you’ve ‘lost a stone’, part of your mind may hear that something precious has gone missing, and instinctively want to help you get it back. It’s one of the reasons that, when I’m giving suggestions in hypnosis for weight issues, I deliberately use different language: shedding, trimming down, slimming down. You’ll notice I’ve done the same throughout this post. Small words, big difference.
What kind of eater are you?
Eating is rarely just about hunger. In my practice I tend to see a few different patterns, and many people recognise themselves in more than one:
The comfort eater reaches for food to soothe difficult feelings: stress, loneliness, sadness, or just a hard day. Sometimes it’s about eating your feelings, and sometimes it’s the opposite, using food to try to feel something at all.
The ignorant eater (not in any judgemental sense) is simply unaware. Eating happens on autopilot, in front of the TV, in the car, finishing the kids’ leftovers, without really noticing what or how much is going in.
The angry eater uses food to push down frustration, resentment or anger that doesn’t feel safe to express any other way. It’s often fast, and there can be a sense of ‘I deserve this’.
The addictive eater feels a pull towards particular foods, often sugary or highly processed ones, that goes beyond enjoyment. One biscuit becomes the packet. (My post The ‘Addictive Personality’ Doesn’t Exist explains why this is a learned pattern, not a fixed part of who you are.)
The saboteur may have successfully slimmed down before, sometimes many times, only for the weight to return again and again. Often there’s an unconscious belief at work: that they don’t deserve to feel good about themselves, or that being slimmer might somehow be unsafe, perhaps bringing unwanted attention that feels threatening. Here the subconscious mind has gone into protection mode. It isn’t working against you; it genuinely believes it’s keeping you safe. Once we understand what it’s protecting you from, we can help it find a better way.
Where food got its meaning
Our relationship with food is shaped long before we’re old enough to choose what’s on our plate. For some people, food was scarce through hardship or neglect, or parents were overly strict and certain foods were denied or banned altogether, which can make them feel all the more precious. For others, food was given huge significance: be grateful, don’t waste it, always finish everything on your plate, feel guilty if you leave anything.
Over time, beliefs form quietly in the background. Food is love. Food is connection. Food makes me feel better. These limiting beliefs sit in the subconscious and drive behaviour long after the original situation has passed.
And it isn’t always painful memories. Often, when I’m working with a client to clear up a root cause, they go back to happy ones: baking with Grandma, being given sweets as a treat, family time around the table. The mind has linked those lovely feelings to the food itself, rather than to the connection with the people that was really happening. So it naturally keeps steering you back to that food, trying to help you reconnect with those good feelings.
Once we understand that, we can help the mind separate the two, so you keep the warmth and the memories, without needing the food to access them.
When your body became the topic of conversation
Another thing I see a great deal is the lasting impact of body shaming. Many clients remember a parent, relative, sibling or classmate commenting on their size or calling them chubby, plump or ‘big-boned’, sometimes when it wasn’t even true. A throwaway remark at eight or thirteen can shape how someone sees themselves for decades.
When that happens, food often takes on far too much significance. For some, it becomes a friend: a comfort when they feel judged or not good enough. For others, it becomes an enemy: something to fear, control and battle with. Either way, food ends up carrying an emotional weight it was never meant to carry. Clearing those old messages at a subconscious level can be one of the most freeing parts of the work.
Too much, too often, or the wrong things?
When clients first come to see me, they usually identify with one or more of three areas, and sometimes all three:
Eating too much: portion sizes that have crept up, or never feeling satisfied until you’re overfull.
Eating too often: snacking and grazing, eating when you’re not physically hungry.
Eating the wrong things: ultra-processed, refined and sugary foods that give a quick lift but leave you wanting more.
And underneath all three, there are usually the beliefs and associations we’ve just talked about. Working on the surface behaviour alone is like mowing the weeds. Working with the subconscious is pulling them up by the roots.
This isn’t about starving yourself
I want to be really clear: none of this is about starving, restricting or white-knuckling your way through hunger. It’s about sustainable, lasting change for a healthy mind and body.
It’s about enjoying good food rather than obsessing over it. Eating to live, rather than living to eat. Being able to have a slice of birthday cake and genuinely enjoy it, without it turning into the whole cake, or a week of guilt. When your relationship with food is in a healthy place, your body tends to find its own healthy, comfortable weight far more naturally.
How hypnotherapy can help
Hypnotherapy works directly with the part of your mind where those habits, beliefs and emotional memories are stored. Rather than relying on willpower to fight cravings every single day, we look at what food has been doing for you, and help your mind find calmer, healthier ways of meeting those needs.
Because the change happens at the subconscious level, it tends to be deep and lasting, and it doesn’t simply result in you swapping one unhealthy habit for another. Together we can work on:
Quieting the food noise by resolving the emotional triggers and habits behind it, rather than waiting for it to pass.
Rebuilding trust in your own body so you recognise genuine hunger and fullness again, without a medication doing it for you.
Clearing limiting beliefs about food, weight and your body, including the ones you may have carried since childhood.
Easing the fear of the weight returning, because anxiety around food often feeds the very behaviour you’re worried about.
Letting go of all-or-nothing thinking so one meal is just one meal, not the start of a spiral.
Many of my clients describe it as finally feeling in charge. Not battling their way through the day, but genuinely not wanting the things they used to reach for.
Planning to stop? Start preparing now
If you’re still taking weight loss medication but know you’ll be stopping soon, whether for a pregnancy, cost or any other reason, this is actually the ideal time to begin. You’ve already proved to yourself that change is possible, and the quieter period gives us a calm space to update the patterns underneath before they have a chance to return.
And if you’ve already stopped and things are sliding, it’s not too late. The sooner we start, the easier it is to get back on track.
Please note: always speak to your GP, pharmacist or prescriber before stopping or changing any medication. Hypnotherapy works alongside medical advice, not instead of it.
You haven’t failed, you’ve just reached the next step
The medication may have given you a head start, and that’s something to feel good about. Now it’s about making the change your own, so it lasts because your mind is on board, not because a medication is holding things in place.
If you’d like to talk about how hypnotherapy could help you after weight loss medication, while trying for a baby, or if medication simply isn’t an option for you, get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat. I work with clients in person and online. You can book through my Contact page or find out more on my Fee and Programmes page.
Karyn
Work Your Potential Hypnotherapy
Sources
West S et al. Weight regain after stopping weight management medicines: systematic review and meta-analysis. The BMJ, January 2026. University of Oxford summary: ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01-08-new-study-finds-stopping-weight-loss-drugs-linked-faster-regain-ending-diet
MHRA guidance on GLP-1 medicines, pregnancy and contraception, 5 June 2025. Summary: pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/mhra-urges-women-taking-weight-loss-drugs-urged-to-use-effective-contraception
Mann T et al. Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, April 2007. UCLA summary: uclahealth.org/news/release/dieting-does-not-work-ucla-researchers-report