The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
Healthy Huddle: GLP-1 Basics, Benefits, And Tradeoffs
We unpack what GLP-1 medications are, how they work in the gut and brain, and why they help weight, hunger, and blood sugar. We weigh real benefits against side effects, long-term use, and how to protect muscle so results last.
• definition of GLP-1s and why they were created
• shift from diabetes care to weight management
• what “weight loss” includes across fat and muscle
• benefits for appetite, glucose control and heart risk
• how gastric emptying and brain signals change hunger
• common side effects and ways to manage them
• risk of weight regain after stopping and why
• role of strength training, protein and hydration
• cost, coverage and long-term unknowns
• practical steps to decide if GLP-1s fit your goals
Welcome to a healthy huddle. Thank you for taking a little time to join me today. What is our healthy huddle? If this is your first time to our healthy huddle, it is each week. I share a different topic on health and wellness that is going a little more detail than you know just in passing. It's almost think of it as a masterclass on whatever topic that is. And why is it called Healthy Huddle? A healthy huddle. I always think of a team when they're getting in a huddle to discuss game plan, discuss a play, maybe it's football, basketball, but they get in a huddle because each one needs to hear what the game plan is to be successful. And that's what it is. We're kind of huddling around, sharing you, share with you the game plan, and then we go out and execute it. So each week we have a little top different topic. This week is a little different. It's more about, I just want to be informative. In many of our healthy huddles or in-person ones that we do, we talk a lot about GLP1s. You know, about that medication. What is a GLP1? GLP1 is it stands for glucagon-like peptide 1. And so we're going to talk about that today. We're going to kind of go into a little more depth about it because you know I'm always asked, is that it's a medication for diabetics, but it's also used for weight loss. I'm always asked, is it the right thing to do? So that's really up to each one of us personally to decide if that is right for me. So thought about why don't we have a discussion about it and share a little bit about what it is, what it does, what are some long-term effects of it, so that you can make your own decision, your own choice about it. So it's GLP1 is really a hormone that is naturally produced in the body. It's produced in the gut, it helps regulate blood sugar and appetite. And the GLP1 receptor, Agnes, are medications that mimic this hormone. Now, originally this was designed 15 years or so years ago, and it was really with diabetics because it helps regulate the blood sugar. So it was to help diabetics regulate their blood sugar. So over the last couple years, it has become really popular as a weight loss medication that, you know, is just, you know, we go through cycles of weight loss medication. It was fentermine was this little uh white pill. It had little blue dots on it, but it was helped to be appetite suppressant, give energy. There was a big number of years ago, even before that, there was appetite suppressants, different, you can buy them at you know, your local drugstore, you can buy them at Walmart, you can buy them anywhere, but they were supposed to burn fat, speed up your metabolism, not make you hungry, all these different things. Um and so it's so there's just cycles as we go through that that as we uh progress, really the weight loss medications, you know, become stronger and stronger and more effective and more effective. All of them really work, they just work at a different rate. No different is with this GOP1. You know, it in and one of what does it do? It helps, if you're diabetic, it helps regulate type 2 diabetes. It's widely used for, like I said, weight loss obesity treatment, and it helps sustain weight loss, weight reduction even without major diet changes. So usually as a personal trainer, if I want clients to lose weight, I'm gonna say, hey, you know, we need to reduce caloric intake, we need to increase physical activity, some of those things. Whereas this GLP1 medication doesn't, you don't have to do that, and you're still gonna lose weight. But we're gonna talk really about you know what it does, um, what it does to the body, what it does to the brain, and uh what are some long-term thoughts on the use of it. Some of the popular GLP1 medications I'm sure you've heard of is semaglutide, which is Ozimpic Wagovie. It's loglutide, which there's some other brands for that, and the trizepitide, Moderno, and there's some other brands, but those are kind of the three that are the popular GLP1 medications. So let's talk about the benefits first. What are the benefits? The benefits, of course, are they can reduce weight, you know, and a significant amount of weight. When we talk about reduced weight and we talk about weight loss, um, we kind of need to clarify that a little bit. When we talk about weight loss, so and really what this medication is geared towards is weight loss. And weight loss is strictly just pounds on the scale. It doesn't, it's not saying you're gonna lose just fat, it's saying you're gonna lose fat mass, muscle mass, everything. It's just a weight loss medication. So you're gonna lose everything. There's no, it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle. It's gonna lose it all. So it is gonna have a a benefit on the scale and a reduction. It's gonna help improve blood sugar control because again, it helps regulate that. It's it's really uh was designed for type 2 diabetics, and they saw that the secondary benefit of it was the weight loss. It also has some cardiovascular benefits. Um, some have shown a reduced risk of heart attack and stroke in high-risk individuals. Now, the question sometimes can be you know, that's a benefit. Is that cardiovascular benefit because of the weight loss or of the medication? But it's still a benefit. You know, how it happens is not really as important as because it, you know, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer, and it's the most preventable that we can prevent against. And it may improve a fatty liver inflammation marker. So it has some real benefits to the medication. And so, you know, the question is, how does it work? How does how does GLP1s work? They really stimulate the insulin response or the insulin release in response to food, lowering our blood sugar. It suppresses glucagon, a hormone that raises blood sugar, so it's suppressing that that hormone. So, what does that mean? Simply said, food stays in the stomach longer, and what happens? You feel full longer. I like to compare it to like what happens after on Thanksgiving, a big turkey meter, like, whoa, you know, you pigged out of lunch or dinner, you can't eat another bite. And that's kind of what it's like. It doesn't, it's not really going anywhere, it's really slowly leaving the body, so you feel longer. And what happens? I mean, you have a big old meal at Thanksgiving lunch. Are you hungry in a couple hours? No. Are you hungry in four hours? Probably not. Five or six hours. You might be kind of thinking about food, but maybe not, because it just takes that long. So it's the same thing with the GLP one. It's going to take longer to empty. So you may have not eaten much, but you're going to feel fuller faster, and it's going to take longer to get hungry again. I've had many clients that are on GLP 1 medication, and I mean, they may come to work out the next morning and mention, oh, you know, I'm not feeling real strong today. Oh, you know what? I didn't eat supper last night. I didn't think about it. I ate lunch. I just was hungry all day. So, so, you know, you do have to kind of keep an eye on what you're eating to make sure you do have enough because we do need food for energy. It does help keep us going. And one of the interesting things I think it does is that it targets brain receptors that influence hunger and saity and reducing appetite. You might think of this as how does it work on your brain? It's really, if for me, I've always struggled with weight, always struggled with food. It's been a lifelong battle and balance of finding what works for me, what doesn't work for me. But all my life I've had might call food chatter. In other words, in my brain, I always think, you know, what am I going to eat? What am I going to have a snack? What's the next meal? It just kind of has always been in my brain. It's kind of always something that's floating around. And I have clients that have told me that that goes away, that that they don't have anymore. They don't think about when am I going to eat again? Um, it's just like forgetting to eat supper. You know, they take the medication, they ate lunch, and they were full and just didn't dawn on them. And there's some people that are naturally like that. And I'm always kind of jealous of those that, you know, really don't have that food noise all the time like I do. And I think there's a lot of us that have that food noise and that constantly is going on in our brain. It's a constant struggle, it's a constant battle. But it's what this GLP1 medication does, is it calms that because it works on the brain receptors. Um, but also then again, it says, it doesn't tell us when we're hungry and we need to eat until it's a little bit late and we go, man, I'm just zapped. That's because we don't have the energy, the fuel to do the activities we want to do. So going into a little bit more detail about what does it do? It mimics, like I said, it mimics in the beginning, it mimics that natural hormone. It's GLP1 is a naturally occurring hormone released by the intestines after we eat. And it communicates with several organs, um, especially the pancreas, the brain, stomach, the liver, to help regulate that metabolism. So is what the GOP1 medication does is there's there's the synthetic version, synthetic version, that just lasts longer and is it more powerful than the body's natural hormone. So really it's just putting that hormone on, you might say steroids, it's like, man, really putting it to work. It's just more powerful than what the body, the body produces. And so, so it kind of mimics that hormone. And then it also, you know, improves insulin response. It stimulates the pancreas to release insulin, but only when blood sugar is high. Well, what does this do? This helps prevent low blood sugar, hypoglycemia, and a key advantage for some older diabetic over older diabetic medication. So, again, insulin lowers blood glucose by allowing sugar to enter the cells for energy or storage. So it just kind of helps with that, helps take care of that. It also, like we talked about earlier, suppresses glucagon secretion. It's another hormone. Glucagon is another hormone that raises blood sugar, especially between meals when fasting. So is what GLP1 does, it blocks this glucagon, helping to prevent unnecessary glucose release from the liver. So, what does this do? It contributes to more uh stable and lower blood sugar levels. So it helps with that. And then again, you know, saying again that it slows the gastric emptying in the stomach. We don't we stay full longer. There's a slower rise in blood sugar after meals. This helps with our appetite control and our glucose stability. So it does, it helps in that manner. And just, and I think probably for me, the most interesting thing about this medication is how it works on the brain. I mean, how it it regulates that food noise in our brain. And it interacts with the hypothalamus, the brain's hunger regulation center. So it is it is working on that that when our brain says, hmm, I'm hungry. I want to eat. It is interacting with that. And it increases the the satisfied signal and decreases the hunger signals to the brain, which is more than really what some of the past weight loss medications have really done. This is this is something really uh unique to this GLP1 medication, is that what it does for the brain, which you know, which leads to a reduced appetite, lower food cravings, and smaller portion size because it's not taking as long to get full. Or it doesn't take as long to get full, yes. So those are kind of all the things that it does. Of course, uh we know that all medications have side effects. We watch a commercial and we see 30 seconds of the medication, and then we see 45 seconds of all the side effects. Some of just a few of the side effects of GOP1s is there's nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Usually they're temporary. Sometimes my experience with clients that I have that are are taking the medication is they have nausea for two to three days after they take their shot. Not usually vomiting, unless maybe they eat too much. It's more of that they they comment about the nausea. And they're usually good for a couple days, two, three days, and it's time again to take the medication. So it's kind of like you know, what do you want? Do you want weight loss? Do you want some nausea? But you're gonna have quite a bit of that. There's constipation that goes along with it. Um, those can cause can also create other issues for us. Like I mentioned, fatigue and dizziness assembly might be because of the medication, might be because of lack of food. Um so we have to be mindful of that, maybe lack of hydration. We have to be mindful of of those things. And those are things that we just have to set aside. Are those right for us? Are those things we are willing to do for that for that weight loss medication? And what are some things long-term to to consider about GOP once? It really it's something that is really required for long-term ongoing benefits. It's if you stop the medication, and this can also be, you know, really a side effect. But if you stop the medication, it's also gonna lead back to the weight gain. And also when you stop the medication with the weight loss, like I mentioned, you're gonna lose all your muscle, everything, muscle mass, fat, everything comes down. But with muscle mass loss, you're also gonna be reducing metabolism. So when you if you decide to discontinue the medication, then your metabolism is actually gonna be lower than when you began the uh medication. So you're it you can increase your metabolism, but it's gonna take some time through building muscle mass back and some other things. But just knowing that you'll have to continue taking it to be able to sustain that weight loss, um, or it will be regained. Um, those thoughts will come back as I want to eat, I'm not as full, all those things that it got rid of, it will start to come back. It only works while you're taking the medication. And you know, and really it needs to be combined with the lifestyle changes for lasting results, exercise, eating right, all those things. Can that weight gain be kind of minimized by changing some lifestyle habits? You bet it can. But it's still gonna be a challenge when medication is discontinued. It's also, you know, the cost and insurance coverage is it can be a limiting factor of how long you take it because some of them aren't cheap and they're kind of expensive, but it's something that, again, it's a medication. It's based on just like if you're taking a blood pressure medication, thyroid medication, it is really intended for a long-term use. What are those long-term use uh side effects? We don't know because it hasn't been used long enough for in regards to weight loss to see what those might be. So I just wanted to share with you today a little bit about GLP1s, give you the the really the 101 on them, kind of the basics, so you can decide if is this something that is right for me, or if you're on it, do I, you know, is it still right for me? Or is it something I want to discontinue, or is it something I want to start? So I really just wanted to give you a foundation, a 101. Maybe there's something in here that that piqued your interest, you want to look into a little bit more, then I encourage you to do that, even if you're on it or thinking about getting on it or thinking about getting off. Uh weigh all these options, think about all these things to help you make your decision. Thank you for joining me today on the Healthy Huddle, and I'll see you right here next time on Healthy Huddle.