When you stop Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro, the appetite comes back and for most people a large part of the weight comes back too. In the STEP 1 trial, people regained about two-thirds of the weight they had lost within one year of stopping semaglutide. Studies after diets suggest the weight that returns is mostly fat, so muscle lost on the way down doesn’t simply come back. Whether and when you stop is a decision for you and your doctor. What you can prepare is your training and your protein.
What happens to your weight after stopping
Three pieces of research give a clear picture.
In STEP 1, 327 people were followed for a year after they stopped semaglutide 2.4 mg. They had lost 17.3% of their body weight over 68 weeks. In the year after stopping they regained 11.6 percentage points, so they ended 5.6% below where they started (Wilding et al., 2022). The lifestyle program stopped at the same time, which is worth knowing.
SURMOUNT-4 tested tirzepatide. After 36 weeks on the medication, people had lost on average 20.9%. Then 670 of them were split into two groups. The group switched to placebo regained 14.0% of their body weight over the next 52 weeks. The group that stayed on tirzepatide lost another 5.5% (Aronne et al., 2024).
In 2026 a team from Oxford pooled 37 studies with 9,341 people who had stopped weight-loss medication. On average the weight came back at about 0.4 kg a month. That was faster than after diet and behaviour programs, by about 0.3 kg a month (West et al., 2026).
These are averages. In every one of these studies some people kept much more of the weight off than others. Nobody can tell you in advance which group you will be in, but you can do a lot to move the odds.
Why lost muscle makes it worse
The main reason the weight returns is that the appetite returns. Muscle doesn’t change that. What muscle changes is what the regained weight is made of.
In a study of women who regained weight after a diet, every kilo of fat they lost took 0.26 kg of lean mass with it. Every kilo of fat that came back brought only 0.12 kg of lean mass (Beavers et al., 2011). That was a small diet study, not an injection study, and the difference between the two numbers was not statistically certain. But the pattern is what I worry about. You can end up at the same weight as before with less muscle and more fat than when you started.
There is also a small effect on energy use. A kilo of muscle burns about 13 kcal a day at rest, a kilo of fat about 4 kcal (Neeland et al., 2024). Per kilo that is not much. I mention it because people often hear the opposite story, that muscle melts fat away on its own. It doesn’t. It helps a little, every day.
How much muscle you lose on the injection, and how to keep it, I explain in how to limit muscle loss on Ozempic.
Before you stop: the months that count
If you know you will stop at some point, the best time to prepare is while you are still on the medication. The weight is still moving, and the training you build now is what you keep when the injection stops.
Start strength training now if you haven’t. In a meta-analysis of six trials with older adults on a diet, resistance training three times a week for 12 to 24 weeks prevented 93.5% of the lean mass loss the diet caused (Sardeli et al., 2018). The more muscle you have on the day you stop, the better your starting point.
Get the protein in. A joint advisory of four US obesity and nutrition societies suggests 1.2 to 1.6 g per kilo a day during weight loss, or 80 to 120 g a day as a simple target. The same advisory recommends strength training at least three times a week plus 150 minutes of moderate cardio (Mozaffarian et al., 2025).
Measure where you are. A body composition scan before you stop tells you how much lean mass you have. Without it you only have the scale, and the scale can’t tell you whether the next kilos are fat or muscle. If you want to understand the scan first, I explained it in what a body composition scan is.
Build the habit on fixed days. In my experience, the people who keep training have a fixed slot in the week, same days and same time. When the injection stops, your appetite changes. Your Tuesday and Thursday sessions don’t have to.
How to stop, all at once or slowly, is a medical question. The medication is decided and managed by your doctor, and that includes stopping it. Talk to them before you change anything.
After you stop: the first months
Keep training. This is the moment the fixed slots are for.
A trial from Copenhagen is the closest thing we have to an answer here. After a short diet, people kept their weight down for a year with liraglutide (an older GLP-1 medication), with exercise, or with both. Then everything stopped. In the following year, the liraglutide-only group regained 9.6 kg, the group with liraglutide and exercise regained 7.1 kg and the exercise-only group regained 3.6 kg (Jensen et al., 2024). The exercise was supervised indoor cycling followed by circuit training. It wasn’t a pure strength program, and it was a different drug, so I don’t read too much into the exact kilos. What I take from it: the groups that had trained regained less than the group on liraglutide alone, and a year later they were still more active on their own. That is what the fixed slots are for.
When your appetite comes back, a plan helps. Plan your protein at each meal, the same way you did on the injection. If you want help with the food side, our nutrition coaching with Roberta Burla is there for that.
Keep logging your sets. Every set is logged at VAULT, so your coach sees straight away if your strength drops. If the scale goes up a bit but your lifts hold or go up, that is a very different situation from the scale going up while your lifts go down.
Scan again about three months after you stop. Then you know if what came back is fat or muscle, and we adjust the plan on real numbers.
Keep your muscle on weight-loss injections: the 12-Week Transformation
For people on Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro, and for people who plan to stop, we do this in our 12-Week Transformation. It already has everything this article talks about:
- A body composition scan in week 0, so we know your fat mass and lean mass before the plan begins.
- Strength training 1:1 with your coach, written down and progressed every session.
- Nutrition coaching with Roberta Burla, so the protein gets in even when you are not hungry.
- A second scan in week 12. We sit down together, look at what changed in fat mass and lean mass, and plan the next block from there.
You find the whole program on the 12-Week Transformation page.
It starts with a free trial session at VAULT Training, Brandschenkestrasse 150, 8002 Zürich (Enge). First we talk about your goals and where you are with the medication. Then we train together, so you see how we work before you decide anything. Book your free trial here.
Frequently asked questions
Will I regain weight after stopping Ozempic?
Most people regain a large part of it. In the STEP 1 trial, people regained about two-thirds of the weight they had lost within one year of stopping semaglutide, ending 5.6% below their starting weight on average (Wilding et al., 2022). Results vary a lot from person to person.
How fast does the weight come back after stopping Wegovy or Mounjaro?
A 2026 review of 37 studies found an average regain of about 0.4 kg a month after stopping weight-loss medication, faster than after diet programs (West et al., 2026). In SURMOUNT-4, people switched from tirzepatide to placebo regained 14.0% of their body weight in 52 weeks (Aronne et al., 2024).
Does strength training help keep the weight off after stopping?
Exercise seems to help, but the evidence is still limited. In a Copenhagen trial, people who had trained for a year regained 3.6 kg in the year after all treatment stopped, against 9.6 kg for those who had only taken liraglutide, and they were still more active on their own (Jensen et al., 2024). The training there was cycling and circuit work, not pure strength training. Strength training also protects the muscle you have.
Should I stop the injection slowly or all at once?
That is a medical decision, and it belongs with your doctor. What we can do is make sure your training and your protein are in place before and after you stop, and measure your body composition so you see what changes.
If you are on a weight-loss injection or about to stop, book a free trial and we plan the next months with you.