Saxenda weight loss claims: what TikTok gets wrong about liraglutide

What did @celinaestrada64 actually say?

At week 10 of Saxenda (liraglutide), she's holding at 172 pounds after a birthday weekend that pushed her up to roughly 178. She's honest about the whiplash: weight came back off, but now she's stuck. Her bigger concern is that the drug doesn't seem to be doing much anymore. "I haven't felt any symptoms at all these last two weeks," she says, describing hunger patterns that feel like her pre-medication baseline, some days skipping food entirely, other days eating past fullness. She's added running and plans to return to the gym, hoping exercise breaks the stall. There's no extreme claim here, no miracle cure language, just a candid account of a plateau and fading drug effect. That honesty is worth something, but a few pieces of what she's experiencing deserve a closer look.

Does the science back this up?

The plateau and the fading appetite suppression she describes are both well-documented phenomena with liraglutide. Yes, this is real and studied. The SCALE Obesity trial (Davies et al., 2015, NEJM) showed that weight loss with liraglutide 3.0 mg typically slows significantly after 16 to 20 weeks, with many patients hitting a loss ceiling. What's less discussed in that trial is the subjective experience of appetite suppression fading before weight loss stalls. A 2022 study by Wilding et al. in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism found that GLP-1 receptor agonist appetite effects can fluctuate based on dose timing, dose level, and individual receptor sensitivity. The birthday rebound she experienced, gaining four to six pounds and then losing it, is consistent with how liraglutide behaves: it reduces appetite but does not block caloric intake entirely, and a sustained caloric surplus will still produce weight gain.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

She got more right than wrong here. The observation that "some days where it's 3, 4 o'clock and I haven't eaten anything" alternating with days of uncontrolled hunger is a real and under-discussed feature of GLP-1 therapy. Appetite suppression with liraglutide is not linear or consistent. That's accurate. Where things get murkier is her implicit assumption that adding exercise will restart weight loss. Exercise is valuable, but the research is cautious here. A 2023 meta-analysis by Petridou et al. in Obesity Reviews found that aerobic exercise added to GLP-1 therapy did improve body composition modestly, but did not reliably break weight plateaus on its own without dietary adjustment. She doesn't mention whether her dose has been adjusted, which is a significant omission. At week 10, many patients are still titrating upward to the 3.0 mg target dose of Saxenda. If she's on a lower dose, that could explain both the plateau and the fading appetite effect.

What should you actually know?

Plateaus on Saxenda around weeks 8 to 12 are common and are not evidence the drug has stopped working. Liraglutide's mechanism, slowing gastric emptying and modulating hypothalamic hunger signals, does not disappear, but its perceived effect often dampens as patients adapt. The clinical term is tachyphylaxis, a reduced response to a drug over time at a fixed dose. This is one reason the Saxenda titration schedule exists: doses are meant to increase incrementally to 3.0 mg. If she's plateaued and symptoms have faded, the most likely clinical explanation is that her current dose is no longer sufficient, not that the medication has failed entirely. Exercise is a reasonable addition, but it is not a substitute for a dose conversation with her prescriber. Anyone on Saxenda who feels "back to the way things were when I first started" should bring that up with their provider before assuming they've hit their ceiling.