DataDave said:

Exercise transformation with training: went from barely able to walk a block to completing a 5K last month.

Pet owner bonus of training: my dog is also losing weight because we're walking 2-3x more than before. His vet is thrilled. 🐕

We went from a 10-minute shuffle around the block to 45-minute walks through the neighborhood. He's more energetic, I'm more energetic, and we're both healthier.

Get a dog. Or borrow one. Walking a dog is the best low-impact exercise motivation that exists. They never let you skip a walk. 🐾

One concrete data point for the thread. Give anything pharmacological four weeks before you judge it, and give anything measured weekly a four-point rolling average before you call it a trend.

Dr.ObesityMed said:

Pet owner bonus of training: my dog is also losing weight because we're walking 2-3x more than before.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. The mechanism and the magnitude are separate questions. Agreeing that something happens says nothing about whether it happens enough to act on.

A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

Did your prescriber agree with that reading, and if not what was their objection?

Closing the loop on my own question.

Closing the loop. The answer turned out to depend on the detail I had left out of the opening post, which is a lesson about how to ask rather than about the subject.