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Keep the weight off: a 16-week maintain plan

Just reached your goal weight? Set a warning line a little above the weight you want to hold, weigh in once a week for 16 weeks, and see after each weigh-in whether you are on track, close to your line or above it.

Stopping your GLP-1? Choose "GLP-1 medication" when you start, and the chart also shows what the withdrawal trials measured after people stopped semaglutide or tirzepatide.

Free. Sign in with Google to save it. Last updated: 2026-09-27

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Holding steady for a few months? See whether that can lower your life insurance rate, and what loose skin surgery costs, with or without insurance.

Where the reference band comes from

Two trials took people off a GLP-1 and kept weighing them. Both measured weight during the months after stopping, but neither publishes a number for week 16 itself, so the chart draws each trial's published average as a straight line from your stop weight. That is a simplification, and the tirzepatide numbers show why: most of the first year's regain came in its first half.

Two-thirdsof the weight lost on semaglutide had come back one year after stopping. STEP 1 extension: 17.3% lost over 68 weeks on the drug, 11.6 percentage points regained in the 52 weeks after stopping, net 5.6% below the starting weight.
+9.9%of body weight regained 28 weeks after switching from tirzepatide to placebo, and +14.8% at 52 weeks (SURMOUNT-4, posted results). The paper's primary estimate for the 52 weeks is +14.0%, after a 20.9% loss in the 36-week lead-in.
16.6%of the SURMOUNT-4 placebo group kept at least 80% of the weight they had lost, against 89.5% of those who stayed on tirzepatide.

The formulas

With S = your stop weight, L = your weight before the first dose minus S, and t = weeks since you stopped (0 to 16):

SURMOUNT-4 line: S × (1 + 0.099 × t / 28) STEP 1 extension line: S + (2/3) × L × t / 52

At week 16 that is S + 5.7% on the SURMOUNT-4 line and S + 20.5% of the weight you lost on the STEP 1 line. The shaded band is the space between the two lines. Without a starting weight there is no L, and only the SURMOUNT-4 line is drawn. Trial averages include people who regained almost nothing and people who regained more than they had lost; they describe groups, not you.

Sources

  1. Wilding JPH, et al. Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: the STEP 1 trial extension. Diabetes Obes Metab 2022;24(8):1553-1564. doi.org/10.1111/dom.14725 · full text: PMC9542252
  2. Aronne LJ, et al. Continued treatment with tirzepatide for maintenance of weight reduction in adults with obesity: the SURMOUNT-4 randomized clinical trial. JAMA 2024;331(1):38-48. doi.org/10.1001/jama.2023.24945 · full text: PMC10714284
  3. SURMOUNT-4 results posted on ClinicalTrials.gov (percent change from randomization at weeks 64 and 88): NCT04660643

How much weight comes back after stopping a GLP-1?

In the STEP 1 extension, people who stopped semaglutide had regained about two-thirds of the weight they lost within a year: 11.6 of 17.3 percentage points, ending 5.6% below where they began. In SURMOUNT-4, people switched from tirzepatide to placebo regained 14.0% of their body weight over 52 weeks, and 16.6% of them kept at least 80% of their loss.

How soon does weight start coming back after stopping?

Within months. In SURMOUNT-4 the placebo group was 9.9% heavier 28 weeks after switching and 14.8% heavier at 52 weeks (ClinicalTrials.gov results), so about two-thirds of the first year's regain had arrived by week 28. The STEP 1 extension weighed people several times in its off-treatment year but published a number only for the one-year point.

How do I set a warning line after stopping a GLP-1?

Pick a weight a little above the one you stopped at and treat crossing it as your signal: this plan offers your stop weight plus 3%, plus 5%, or a number you choose. A line closer to your stop weight flags drift sooner. What to do if you cross it, including anything about medication, is a conversation with your prescriber.

This plan shows your own weigh-ins against a line you chose and against published trial averages. It is information, not medical advice, and it never tells you to start, stop or change a medication or dose.