Nine habits that stall weight loss on a GLP-1
A registered dietitian and an obesity researcher told Newsweek that when progress slows on a GLP-1 medication, the same overlooked habits usually explain it, from too little protein to too little sleep.
GLP-1 use in the United States has grown quickly. Newsweek cites Gallup polling, published a month earlier, that put 11 percent of American adults on a GLP-1 for weight loss, with 15 percent saying they had used one at some point, a sharp rise from 2024. Alongside that growth, the outlet asked two specialists why some patients watch their results slow down. Kylie King, a registered dietitian and behavioral counselor who works with GLP-1 patients every day, and Dr. Tim Church, chief medical officer at Wondr Health and an obesity researcher, each described everyday habits that in their experience account for most stalls. Newsweek gathered them into a list of nine.
The late-week slide
King’s first point is timing. The medication changes appetite, she said, but it does not change habits, and she sees old patterns like frequent snacking, emotional eating and weekend splurges return in the back half of the weekly dosing window, often around days five and six. Her approach with patients is to map out those high-risk stretches in advance rather than count on the drug alone.
Food that is healthy but not light
Two of the nine habits are about what goes on the plate. King described a common assumption that a healthy food is automatically a weight-loss food, and named nuts, cheese, nut butter and granola as nutritious choices that are also dense in calories, quick to eat and not very filling for what they cost. Tracking intake, she said, is how people usually spot those hidden sources.
Drinks get the same treatment. Sweetened coffees, smoothies and alcohol can add hundreds of calories with little fullness, King said. With patients she talks through swapping or portioning them, keeping water as the default, and settling on how much alcohol to have before an event rather than during it.
Protein, fiber and water
Church put protein near the top of the list. Weight loss on these medications takes fat and muscle together, he said, and because muscle is built from protein, keeping or building it depends on getting enough. Protein also keeps people full longer.
Fiber tends to vanish first when appetite shrinks, King said, as patients unintentionally cut back on beans, fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and the result can be worse constipation and less fullness after meals. Church added hydration, noting that someone eating less has more chances to become dehydrated and that fluids also help with the nausea the drugs can cause.
Movement, in two phases
Both experts pushed back on the idea that the medication does the heavy lifting. In King’s practice, walking and any activity a person enjoys give the most return, while resistance training is what directly protects muscle. She frames strength work in two phases, preserving muscle while the weight comes off and then building it once a goal weight is reached.
Sleep and stress
King called sleep the factor people underestimate most. Poor sleep can work against fat loss and increase muscle loss while dieting, she said, and she pointed to a 2010 University of Chicago study in the Annals of Internal Medicine in which dieters sleeping 5.5 hours a night lost 55 percent less fat than those sleeping 8.5 hours on the same calorie-restricted diet, with more of the short sleepers’ lost weight coming from lean mass rather than fat. Stress management sits beside sleep as the other pillar she sees treated as an afterthought.
Expectations and support
Church’s points are mostly about mindset. The biggest mistake he sees is unrealistic expectations, because weight loss, side effects, energy and even where the body sheds fat vary widely from one person to the next, which makes measuring progress against someone else’s a poor guide.
He also said GLP-1 treatment, unlike a cholesterol or thyroid medication, usually calls for ongoing support, especially early on, both clinical guidance for side effects and longer-term help with lifestyle change. Unsupportive family or friends can undermine the effort, he said, and a community group can offset that.
His closing observation was that patients who are doing well often fixate on the one or two things they are not doing perfectly instead of the many changes they have already made, which he reads as a sign of how much weight has shaped identity over a lifetime.
GLP-1 medicines are prescription-only. Eligibility, dosing, risks and side effects are matters for the product label and a prescriber, and every observation above is King’s or Church’s as reported by Newsweek.
General information, not medical advice. Care decisions are between you and a licensed prescriber.