Calibrate: Hit a Weight Loss Plateau? Reset Your Metabolic System
If eating fewer calories and exercising more isn't making incremental strides in your weight loss journey, Calibrate wants you to turn to their program to treat your metabolic system instead. Their one-year virtual program is designed "for your biology, not your willpower," promising an additional 10% weight loss after traditional methods have caused a plateau.
“A metabolic reset is a whole-body reset that sets up every part of your system to have a healthy response to food, sleep, exercise, and emotional triggers. When you have control over not just your metabolism, but your whole metabolic system, you have control over your weight.”
As they detail in 8 steps, you'll get past this metabolic barrier by first doing a diagnostic test (lab work involved!), from which you'll get a personalized plan along with a Calibrate coach, as well as a prescription to an FDA-approved metabolic medication. You'll also get a smart scale and access to their app, where your coach will be able to see your progress and talk you through weekly tweaks to your plan. The plans are multi-dimensional, focused on the four pillars of weight health (food, sleep, exercise, and emotional health), and weekly goals are made into bite-sized (no pun intended) pieces to form habit changes.
The medication part is interesting - Calibrate mentions that the options are "safe, FDA-approved, and support successful lifestyle changes by telling your brain to decrease hunger, increase fullness, and regulate hormones." These medications are traditionally called GLP-1s (glucagon-like peptide-1s), and are a class of type-2 diabetes drugs that improves blood sugar control and are known to aid in weight loss. In fact, the Mayo Clinic states that on average, GLP-1 should help drop 3 to 5.5 pounds, and with lifestyle changes, research has shown that an additional 6 to 9 pounds of weight loss can be achieved.
Things to note - currently, you must have a BMI higher than 27 to be eligible for the program. Also, Calibrate needs a year of participation for you to achieve your goals. Generally speaking, in 3 months you should have lost 5% of your weight, and in 6 months you'll likely lose an additional 5%. The second half of the year is used to reinforce habits to keep those lbs off for good. While Calibrate has partnered with Affirm to offer a subscription plan, at $129/mo, the plan is a commitment. But what a great commitment it is, to one's health and future.
