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IMAGINE gaining weight every single time you eat anything – it’s most people’s worst nightmare.
Unfortunately for Ashley O’Driscoll, who has recently stopped taking weight loss jabs, it’s a grim reality.
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At her heaviest in 2022, Ashley, from Dublin, tipped the scales at 22st.
She then lost an impressive 12st (76kg) while taking Ozempic – an injectable medication containing semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist which suppresses appetite.
But since being forced to come off it in June in preparation for surgery, Ashley has regained 1st 8lbs (10kg).
The patient coordinator, 39, tells Sun Health: “I gain a pound if I eat a banana.
“The fact is, I could eat 100 calories a day and still gain weight.
“I need medical intervention for my condition, and weight loss injections are my medication.
“I was a heart attack waiting to happen at my heaviest of 22 stone, suffering with high blood pressure and breathlessness, and I will never let that happen again.”
Having struggled with her weight for most of her teen and adult life, Ashley had tried every method going to slim down.
“You name it, I’d done it,” she says. “Calorie deficits, WeightWatchers, Slimming World, high protein, all of it.
“I’d see some results initially with a few pounds lost here and there, but nothing like what I wanted.”
Utterly miserable, when Ashley first heard about Ozempic, she spoke to her doctor about being one of the first patients in Ireland to go on the prescription weight loss drug.
Ozempic is a type 2 diabetes medication, while Wegovy, which contains the same ingredient (semaglutide), is prescribed for weight loss in England.
“It was all new back then,” says Ashley. “It was mainly a diabetic drug, but it was starting to be prescribed off-label to treat obesity.
“I’d seen it on social media and had read about it online, so I spoke to my GP about giving it a try.”
‘Finally something was working’
Ashley started the jabs on June 27, 2022 and says: “The weight came off very quickly. I responded to the medication well, and I noticed changes almost immediately.
“I was incredibly emotional because after 15 years of being morbidly obese and five years of trying to lose weight naturally, finally something was working, and the change in my body was amazing.”
Although she had bad side effects to start with, including nausea and vomiting, she put up with it “because changing my life was so important to me”.
“I’d take the dose right before bed so I’d hopefully sleep through most of the side effects,” Ashley said.
But when Ashley started taking Ozempic, she discovered that there was a reason she’d struggled to keep the weight off over the years.
The mum-of-one claims she was told by her doctor that she had a condition called metabolic adaptation – which is when the body becomes incredibly efficient at using energy when calorie intake is low.
As a result, her body clings to any source of fuel it can get, making fat storage more likely.
It’s not ‘the lazy way out’ people think it is. It’s life-saving for so many people like me
Ashley O’Driscoll
Ashley says: “It basically means that when I try to eat in a calorie deficit – fewer calories than I burn – my body conserves the calories, which makes losing weight really hard.
“It also means when I eat normally, I gain weight way more than another person in the street would.
“It was at the beginning of my journey, after a few months and loads of discussions and bloods [that I found out].
“I’d talked to the doctor about how I tried to lose weight naturally, and when I did, it would just go straight back on, plus even more.
“The doctor realised I’m one of those suffering from the disease of obesity and a metabolic adaptation.”
Ashley reached her goal of 12st by June 2024 and stayed on a small dose of Ozempic to maintain her weight loss.
She says: “My weight loss only slowed down towards the end of my journey. You’re only meant to lose an average of 15-20 per cent of your body weight on these meds.
“The fear of coming off the jabs didn’t really set in until about a year into my journey.
“I went on them very early, so really, no one really knew what would happen when you came off them. But once we realised I had a metabolic adaptation, it became very apparent I’d need to be on these for life.”
‘I can’t stop gaining weight’
Suddenly, in June 2025, Ashley was told she’d need to come off Ozempic after three years of using it.
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Could YOU have metabolic adaptation?
Metabolic adaptation is why many people’s weight loss can stall.
It’s where the body adapts in response to a reduction in weight loss by slowing down the metabolism.
Essentially, the body is clinging on to any fuel (from food or body fat) to survive – and will make it much harder for you to lose weight.
The phenomenon makes it harder to keep weight off in the long term and may even lead to weight regain.
The London Obesity Clinic gives an example:
Sally needs 2000kcal every day to maintain her current weight. She cuts her calorie intake down to 1600kcal. The number on the scales starts going down for a while. Then all of a sudden, she stops losing weight and maintains her new weight, despite still eating as little as 1600kcal.
What happened? Her body adapted to the smaller supply of calories to prevent further weight loss and starvation. This means that 1600kcal is her new maintenance level of calories, which will keep our weight stable. In order to continue losing weight she would have to either cut more calories or increase her physical activity. At some point, this may become impossible as her calorie intake is already low and it is difficult to sustain such a low-calorie diet without feeling hungry or run-down.
Metabolic adaptation can stop the body from burning more calories in various ways, such as subconsciously reducing movements (such as fidgeting), increasing appetite hormones and reducing the bodies metabolic rate (sometimes called basal metabolic rate, or resting metabolic rate) so that the body uses as little calories as possble for daily functions.
The signs are sometimes as simple as you’re not losing weight, but you feel fatigued, potentially cold and low in energy.
You can try and work against it by:
- Reducing calories slowly and changing habits to lose weight in the long term
- Having a high protein diet to maintain metabolism
- Strength train to keep muscle mass, which prevents RMR from dropping too low
Some experts do not believe metabolic adaptation exists – such as the late Dr Michael Mosley, who created the Fast 800 diet.
He said in a blog post, “there is no evidence that starvation mode is anything other than a myth”.
She says: “I have stomach issues unconnected to the weight loss injections, so I had to come off them ahead of surgery for my bile duct and sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD).
“They’re both digestive issues which can cause abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and my doctors said I can’t be on weight loss injections while I’m pre, and post, surgery.
“But since stopping the jabs, I can’t stop gaining weight.
“I literally gain a pound if I eat a banana because of metabolic adaptation. I hate it.”
The weight gain and being unable to resume the medication until she has recovered from the procedures mean her mental health has taken a serious hit, Ashley says.
“It took two years to lose 12st,” she adds.
“I was running and doing weights and feeling great. I had confidence like I’d never had before.
“But now I feel really low. I hate passing a mirror because all I can see is what I’ve gained.
“I’m low a lot of the time. I know when I can go back on it, I’ll get the figure I had back, but it’s such a rollercoaster.”
Feeling like she’s back at the start of her weight loss journey, Ashley says the minute she’s cleared to start taking Ozempic again, she’ll be in line at the chemist and will maintain her dose for the rest of her life.
She says: “I was one of the first people in Ireland to be given Ozempic.
“My daughter Chloe, 16, was so proud of me when I started taking it.
“She saw what a difference it made to my body, mind and my energy levels.
“She’s seen how hard I’m finding it at the moment, so as soon as I can, I’ll go back on it.”
How do weight loss jabs work?
WEIGHT loss jabs are all the rage as studies and patient stories reveal they help people shed flab at almost unbelievable rates, as well as appearing to reduce the risk of serious diseases.
The injections work by suppressing your appetite, making you eat less so your body burns fat for energy instead and you lose weight.
They do this by mimicking a hormone called GLP-1, which signals to the brain when the stomach is full, so the drugs are officially called GLP-1 receptor agonists.
They slow down digestion and increase insulin production, lowering blood sugar, which is why they were first developed to treat type 2 diabetes in which patients’ sugar levels are too high.
In the UK, there are several licensed GLP-1 medicines, including semaglutide (sold under the brand names Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus), tirzepatide (Mounjaro) and liraglutide (sold under various brand names).
Side effects are common but most are relatively mild.
Around half of people taking the drugs experience gut issues, including sickness, bloating, acid reflux, constipation and diarrhoea.
Dr Sarah Jarvis, GP and clinical consultant at patient.info, adds: “One of the more uncommon side effects is severe acute pancreatitis, which is extremely painful and happens to one in 500 people.”
Other uncommon side effects include altered taste, kidney problems, allergic reactions, gallbladder problems and hypoglycemia.
Evidence has so far been inconclusive about whether the injections are damaging to patients’ mental health.
Experiences of weight gain after stopping the injections has been mixed.
One study showed that patients on Wegovy regained two thirds of the weight they had lost, while those on Mounjaro gained 14 per cent of their body weight after a year.
You can discover ways to avoid the dreaded post-jab weight gain with our ultimate guide to coming off the medication when ‘food noise’ creeps back in.
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Ashley adds: “We’re at a point now where a lot of people are starting to come to the end of the weight loss phase and are going onto maintenance phases.
“Some people will be able to come off these jabs completely, and that’s great for them.
“Some people will use them intermittently, and some people – like me – will probably be on them for the rest of their lives.”
It’s generally considered safe to use weight loss jabs for up to two years, and it is often recommended to lower your dose gradually.
In theory, you could use a low dose indefinitely – but the long-term side effects are still being studied, and prescriptions would be costly, between £130 and £150 per month for the lowest dose of Mounjaro.
Ashley says: “I was paying around €160 a month for it, and looking at other medications and their price increases lately, I do expect that to rise in the near future
“Fortunately, my partner was very supportive and helped me financially.”
Despite her decision to stay on them forever, Ashley says people shouldn’t be so dismissive of their effect and how many lives they’re saving and helping.
“I have obesity,” she says. “It’s a medical condition which requires treatment.
“If I had high blood pressure, no one would think twice about me taking medication for it. And it would be the same if I had asthma or high cholesterol.
“It’s not ‘the lazy way out’ people think it is. It’s life-saving for so many people.
“As dramatic as it sounds, this medication saved my life, and not having it could literally be a coin toss between me living a full and healthy life, or becoming morbidly obese again and losing my life young to a horrible and debilitating disease that has no cure.”
The 13 reasons you’re NOT losing weight
By Lucy Gornall, Health Journalist and Personal Trainer
IF you have ever tried dieting, then the chances are you have hit the dreaded weight-loss plateau.
You’ve lost weight but despite your best efforts the scales just won’t budge any further in the right direction. But why?
Chloe Thomas, a personal trainer and lifestyle and nutrition coach, tells Sun Health, that if you are struggling to shift those last few pounds, it may well be down to two key factors.
One is ‘metabolic adaptation’, where extended periods of calorie restriction start to take effect.
Chloe explains: “Your metabolism slows down in response to decreased caloric intake. This adaptation can make it difficult to keep losing weight or maintain weight loss.”
Meanwhile, we all have a weight ‘set point’ — and your body might resist veering too far from it.
Chloe adds: “It represents the weight at which your body functions optimally and maintains physiological stability without the need for extreme dietary measures or excessive exercise.”
Your set point is influenced by all sorts of factors, including your body composition, metabolic rate, appetite regulation, and genetic predisposition.
Chloe says: “While your set-point weight can fluctuate slightly in response to changes in lifestyle habits or environmental factors, the body typically defends this weight range through mechanisms that regulate hunger, energy expenditure, and fat storage.”
If you’re struggling to beat the plateau, we take a look at 13 things that might be getting in your way — and how to overcome them.
- You’re falling for diet foods
- You’re eating your meals too fast
- Your diet lacks fibre
- Your hormones aren’t helping
- You’re stressed
- You need more sleep
- You’re not moving enough
- You’re not drinking enough water
- You’re lacking key nutrients
- You don’t track what you eat
- You’re not lifting weights
- You’re not eating enough
- You keep skipping meals
You can read more about each one here.
