Hims is a US-based telehealth company that offers a variety of medications and treatment options for men seeking to lose weight. As part of Hims & Hers Health, a publicly-traded company (NYSE: HIMS) founded in 2017, Hims aims to make it easy for men to get weight loss medication to suppress appetite, burn fat, and achieve long-term weight loss results. This article delves into the specifics of Hims' weight loss programs, examining their offerings, comparing them to competitors, and considering customer reviews.
What is Hims?
Hims solves male health problems via Hims.com and solves female health problems via ForHers.com. Today, Hims offers a variety of medications and treatment options for men seeking to lose weight. Hims’ weight loss plans start at $79 per month and are available without insurance.
Getting Started with Hims Weight Loss
To get started, complete the online quiz at Hims.com to determine if you’re a candidate. Then, schedule a no-cost consultation with a licensed provider. The provider analyzes your profile, determines if you’re a candidate, and prescribes medication if appropriate. Then, Hims ships medicines to your doorstep. Unlike other weight loss pharmacies, Hims’ medication is not injectable.
Here’s how you get started with Hims:
- Complete the Hims medical intake form, answering questions about health history, lifestyle, and goals 100% online.
- Wait for the provider to evaluate your form. A medical professional reviews your intake and determines what’s right for you.
- Receive a personalized plan. No in-person visit is required, and you don’t need insurance.
How Hims Helps with Weight Loss
Hims can help with weight loss by providing the custom treatment plans, prescription medication, and over-the-counter products you need to achieve significant weight loss results. Some of the ways Hims helps with weight loss include:
Read also: Is Hims weight loss effective?
- No restrictive diets or magic supplements - science-backed weight loss medication: Hims takes a more practical approach to weight loss, offering “prescription weight loss treatment designed to fit you,” including FDA-approved medications proven to work.
- Address underlying factors preventing weight loss: Hims develops a custom treatment plan to address these underlying factors.
- Improve health: Hims explains, “If you’re at risk for certain medical conditions or concerns, healthy weight loss may help."
- Build your weight loss profile: Hims uses this profile to help create its weight loss system.
Weight Loss Medications Offered by Hims
Hims currently offers five weight loss medications, including Bupropion, Metformin, Topiramate, vitamin B12, and Naltrexone. The dose you initially use may not be the right dose for you, and Hims provides ongoing support and dosage changes. Here are all weight loss medications available through Hims and how they work:
- Bupropion: Bupropion is an FDA-approved treatment for major depressive disorder, although many physicians prescribe it for other conditions - like obesity. Common side effects include anxiety, insomnia, and nervousness. Multiple studies have connected Bupropion to significant weight loss.
- Metformin: Metformin is an FDA-approved medication for controlling blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. However, physicians may prescribe Metformin for weight loss and appetite control. Studies show people with diabetes who are prescribed Metformin tend to lose 2% to 3% of their body weight within the first year of starting the drug. Other studies have connected Metformin to significant weight loss in non-diabetic individuals.
- Topiramate: Hims offers a compounded version of Topiramate, which means the Topiramate is created at a compounding pharmacy unique to your physiological profile. Compounded Topiramate, like all compounded medication, is not approved by the FDA but is made from FDA-approved ingredients (because the compounded medication is customized to each patient, the FDA does not individually approve each dose or combination of medication).
- Vitamin B12: Vitamin B12 can help with vitamin B12 deficiency, the root cause of many people’s tiredness and poor weight loss. Some Hims medications are compounded formulas with vitamin B12 and weight loss medication, helping to correct vitamin B12 deficiency while promoting weight loss in other ways. Some studies suggest vitamin B12 boosts metabolism, increasing the calories your body burns each day.
- Naltrexone: Hims offers a compounded version of Naltrexone. Like Hims’ compounded Topiramate, Hims’ compounded Naltrexone is made by a compounding pharmacy and customized to your unique physiology. Multiple studies have shown Naltrexone is safe and effective for weight loss in adult patients.
Compounded Drugs
Hims also offers access to compounded and branded GLP-1s, as well as oral medication kits that can include metformin, bupropion, topiramate, vitamin B12, and naltrexone. Taken as a once-daily pill, these medications work in different ways to support your weight loss goals. If eligible, your provider will help you find the right medication based on your custom weight loss profile.
Individual and small-scale compounded drugs are produced with prescriptions at state-licensed 503A compounding facilities like community or hospital pharmacies. Larger quantities of compounded medications can be produced at FDA-registered 503B outsourcing facilities, which can manufacture and distribute pharmaceuticals without individual prescriptions. Compounded drugs aren’t FDA-approved. However, when drugs, such as semaglutide, are listed on the FDA shortage list, some restrictions-like those preventing companies from compounding copies of previously approved drugs-are relaxed.
What Makes Hims Unique?
There are other weight loss companies available today. What makes Hims unique? Here are some of the features that distinguish Hims from competing providers:
- Doctor-Trusted Medications: A licensed provider reviews your profile and determines the best medications to help you achieve your goals.
- Includes Ongoing Support: All Hims customers enjoy ongoing support. You can get answers to questions at any time, for example. Plus, the care team checks in with you to verify the medication is working as intended, adjusting the dose if necessary. You access this ongoing care 100% online and at no additional cost.
- Developed in Partnership with Industry Specialists: Hims developed its weight loss programs in partnership with industry specialists, including certified professionals with decades of weight loss expertise.
- 360-Degree Weight Loss Care - from Medication to Nutrition Plans: Hims offers 360-degree weight loss care, including nutritional principles, behavioral programs, and custom lessons in the Hims app. You can tackle weight loss from multiple angles using multiple proven strategies.
- Compounded Medication with Multiple Drugs in One: Many Hims customers use multiple weight loss medications for targeted effects. Instead of only taking Topiramate, for example, you might take a compounded weight loss drug featuring a blend of Bupropion, Metformin, Naltrexone, and Topiramate, helping you attack weight loss from multiple angles.
- Assisted by App: Hims offers in-app tools and tracking, making it easier to stick to your weight loss plan and lose real, meaningful weight.
- Support Better Sleep: Hims aims to support sleep to help you lose weight. 90% of hormone production takes place as you sleep. If you’re not sleeping right, then your body’s hormone production could be inhibiting weight loss results.
- No Injections: Instead of injecting yourself with Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, you can lose weight without injections with help from Hims. Hims non-injectable weight loss drugs include Propionate, Topiramate, Metformin, and others.
Comparing Hims to Competitors: Hims vs. Found
Hims and Found are both telehealth companies offering access to prescription medication and support to help people with excess weight and obesity lose weight. Both Hims and Found help support people on their weight loss journeys, but they offer access to different medications and services - and they have different prices and subscription plans.
Read also: Is Hims Weight Loss Worth It?
Weight Loss Medications Available
- Hims: Offers compounded semaglutide, Wegovy®, Ozempic, Mounjaro®, Zepbound®, generic liraglutide, Naltrexone, Metformin, Topiramate, and Bupropion.
- Found: Offers Ozempic Wegovy®, Mounjaro Zepbound, Trulicity®, Saxenda®, Victoza®, Metformin, Naltrexone, Topiramate, Rybelsus®, and Zonisamide Bupropion.
Other Weight Loss Services Offered
- Hims: Personalized treatment plans, in-app tracking for meals, water, activity, and results, 100+ recipes, nutrition advice, and meal planning developed with nutritionists, tools and tips personalized to your unique eating patterns, science-based sleep and behavior techniques designed by psychologists, and continuous access to licensed providers trained in weight management.
- Found: Personalized treatment plans, behavioral change support, tracking tools, meal plans, unlimited access to health coach and AI coach, monthly provider consultations, and an online community.
Cost
- Hims: Oral Medication kits personalized to your health history and goals - from $69 a month, for a 10-month plan paid upfront in full. Compounded semaglutide starting from $199/mo for a 6-month plan paid upfront in full.
- Found: Monthly membership fees from $99 to $149 a month (doesn’t include the price of GLP-1s). Oral medication included in membership costs starting from $99/mo. GLP-1 injections are between $650 and $1500 a month.
Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Hims is one of the internet’s best-known telehealth companies and online medication providers. The company has thousands of reviews from men across the United States who have successfully lost weight using Hims medication and over-the-counter solutions.
- Reddit communities tend to have good reviews for Hims, finding the company’s weight loss medications worked as advertised to provide significant results with minimal hassle. One Redditor claims he lost 10lbs in just under a month while taking a combination of Bupropion, Metformin, Naltrexone, and Topiramate prescribed by Hims.
- Many customers have praised Hims for its ease of use. Complete an online quiz to build your health profile, then get the weight loss medication and treatment program you need to achieve powerful results.
- Many customers are also satisfied with the price they paid with Hims. With plans starting at $79 per month and up, it’s one of the more affordable treatment options among major weight loss firms.
- Hims customers also tend to have good things to say about the medications they received. Instead of receiving one type of weight loss medication, for example, many people take compounded weight loss medication with multiple active drugs, helping them lose weight more effectively in various ways.
- Hims’ weight loss programs have also attracted attention from major media. For example, the Los Angeles Times praised Hims for offering competitively-priced weight loss plans.
Examples of Customer Experiences:
- One customer shared that they lost 20 lbs in 6 months, stating, "I chose Hims because it seemed to have the full package of what I was looking for - the weight loss supplement at a reasonable price, a doctor or nurse practitioner I can meet with regularly whenever I needed to."
- Another customer lost 34 lbs in 7 months and said, "I have no regrets starting the treatment other than I wish that I would have started it sooner. The cost for the medication has absolutely been worth the results I have seen so far."
- A customer who lost 52 lbs in 6 months noted, "I chose Hims because I had reached a point where I knew I needed help beyond just diet and exercise. I was drawn to the accessibility, transparency, and ease of their program."
- Conversely, some customers have reported negative experiences, citing issues with customer service, incorrect prescriptions, and difficulties in obtaining refunds.
Potential Side Effects and Considerations
Like any prescription medication, weight loss medications from Weight Loss by Hims may cause side effects in some people. It’s common to experience some side effects while your body adjusts to new medication. They're usually temporary and are easier to manage when you know what to do.
- Metformin's potential side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and upset stomach.
- To help your body adjust, a fast-acting anti-nausea medication is included with treatment at no extra cost, if eligible.
It's important to remember that results aren’t instant, and because everyone’s weight loss journey is different, the timeline for results may vary from person to person. Medication is a long-term use weight loss treatment not meant for short-term use. When you stop taking it, the triggers that previously drove unhealthy eating behaviors may return. Always speak with a licensed medical provider before stopping treatment.