Optimizing Your Toolbox: Biohacking with Anti-Obesity Meds

If you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss journey—despite lifestyle changes and initial treatments—you might find yourself asking, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I make this work without more help?’ I get it—I’ve been there too. But what if adding another tool, like an anti-obesity medication, wasn’t a “failure” but part of optimizing your health?

In this episode, I’ll share how I’ve reframed these decisions in my own journey and why adding medications can be empowering rather than discouraging. We’ll explore the mindset behind embracing these tools and how they’re no different from other biohacking methods people use to optimize their well-being. Plus, I’ll talk about how to protect your peace by curating an environment—online and in real life—that supports your growth, positivity, and goals. 

Psst: This is part one of a two-part series. Next week, we’ll dive into some of the specific medication options, why you might consider them, and how they can support your journey—so stay tuned!

References

https://www.theminimalmom.com/

The Minimal Mom planner

Audio Stamps

00:30 - Hear Dr. Rentea’s reflections on the start to her year, embracing snowy adventures with her son and finding joy in getting organized and simplifying life.

03:40 - We explore the mindset behind adding anti-obesity medications when lifestyle changes and initial treatments reach a plateau.

08:50 - Dr. Rentea helps us reframe additional medications as tools for optimizing health rather than moral failures, focusing on what works best for your unique needs.

10:45 - Learn how to protect your peace by curating your environment—whether online or in real life—to ensure it supports growth, positivity, and your goals without negativity holding you back.

Quotes

"There comes this point where you have to make the decision, do I need more physiologic help?"

"If your cortisol levels are up all the time, it’s really detrimental... It’s really hard for your body to sit there and want to release fat when cortisol is really asking sugar to go up."

"If you’re someone where for decades and decades you’ve been struggling with this, for you to say, ‘I don’t want a medication for life,’ I want to know then what your solution is."

“You hear about biohacking all day—a different coffee or a supplement—it's accepted and celebrated. So why is adding another anti-obesity medication any different?”

“The problem here is not adding

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. So I know that we have listeners that are all over, not just in the U. S., not just in Canada, but all over the world. So you might have different weather by you, but I live in the Midwest and we've been having a lot of really cold weather. And also I think much more snow than we've had. At least it feels like that. I haven't found any official reports if that's true. But the snow that we got here recently, it was enough where you would want to go out, I have a five year old son, and,, build a snowman, things like that. Well, it was totally fluffy, so you can't do anything with that, but what was nice within a few days, it had really packed in. So when we had a babysitter one weekend, Adrienne, she's from Alaska, And she knows different tips and tricks compared to what my brains used to. So we had these piles on the side of our sidewalk because you had to put the snow there. And she took a shovel and dug out a little igloo hole. It was incredible. So my little five year old could go in there. He could sit in there. He thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then in the days to come, we actually made a little mini sledding hill on that. Now, again, you're imagining this is not a big hill. It's a two second thing, but you know how this is for a kid when you can bust out that little sled that you have. It's this little plastic thing that I'm so grateful my parents got it years ago when we were in Chicago. And of course we took it when we moved, when we moved back to Indy. And so we just had fun going on that little hill, playing in the igloo, and then we could even make a snowman with time because it had packed in enough. So you have to stay optimistic with the snow, people, even if, even if it's not snowing. Day one, it is fluffy pork quality. Come back to it. So that's been really fun. I've also been enjoying in the beginning of the year here. I am part of the minimal mom, her membership, and this is all about decluttering and organizing and really how to live your life in a simpler way. She has a. A planner that I'm just obsessed with. And so I had ordered that and this is the only one I've actually ever been able to stick to. What's nice about it, I mean, there's nothing super revolutionary about what she's doing, but she has a section monthly that's just, think a month at a glance. Okay, fine. But then there's weekly vertical for the days, so that's really. incredibly helpful so that you can kind of just write out I think there's everything from seven to eight at night sort of hourly you can write things out and then at the top there's a to do list and you can look at what you're making for dinner and then there's a brain dump section where I think I'm not sure if she does it monthly or weekly oh man I think it's weekly but the point is this is the only planner that I've ever been able to stick to week after week so I actually ordered one for two other friends of mine because I said This is incredible. And then I did give them the disclaimer. Don't worry if you don't like it when you get it. Just because I love it doesn't mean that you need to love it in the same way, but I've been enjoying in the beginning of the year here. having a hold on my calendar a little bit more. I'm always someone that follows my calendar, but being able to see things a little bit more. And what I also like about the minimal mom that she says, look, a lot of people are going to have a digital version as well as a printed in front of them. Right. And so it's not you know, a lot of people will be, Oh, we'll get everything off of paper. That sounds amazing, but you often have no visual perspective. Also, it leads to increased distractions. If you're then in your phone looking at your calendar, next thing I know I'm on Instagram or something else. So it just helps me out in that capacity. All right. So let's, let's kind of talk about what we're going to go over today. I want to talk a little bit about. if you need to add another anti obesity medication or not. I'm going to kind of call this episode part one and next week we'll do a part two on what those medications are. Today, I want to talk more through the mindset. So there comes this part, point when you're working on your metabolic health where, we talk about a lot of the core pillars, right? What's your hydration like? What's your protein and fiber doing? What's your movement doing? How's your sleep? How's your stress management? So we sort of have these different pillars, right? And so not just focusing on the hydration and the food you're eating and movement, but also that these other things really play a part, right? If your cortisol levels are up all the time, it's really detrimental. And I just bring up only cortisol just to keep this easy. But if you're stressed out all day long, it's really hard for your body to sit there and want, to release fat when cortisol is really asking sugar to go up. Okay. So talking through this, I often get to a place with patients where they have sort of reached as much as a medication will allow them to lose. And what this looks like is that for months on end, there's no movement. It's the same up and down with their weight. And so let's say that, you know, we talk a lot about with semi glutide on average, maybe they've lost 14, 15 percent total body weight loss, maybe it was semi glutide something upwards of 20. And that's great, but a lot of the patients that I specifically help will have a lot bigger of a journey than that. Now, some physicians in the bariatric world will say, well, if someone is, let's say BMI over 35, but especially 40 plus. And again, we know BMI is a poor indicator of health, but I'm just giving an example here. They'll say, well, if the BMI is over 40 or over 50 or in those categories, then you should do a bariatric surgery. You know, don't even start with the medication. I disagree on that. A lot of people are not. open to the idea of surgery. I think that a lot of things also can be multifactorial. So, over 60 percent of my practice has actually had a bariatric surgery in the past and either had regain or never worked to begin with for them. And so, it's nowadays we're understanding all these things can really work in concert together. But the point being that you reach this point where you realize, okay, I'm not going to lose more. As intuitively as it happened up to this point, because it might have really sort of things were just kind of rocking and rolling along when you, and I always give the example of a GLP one, but you were on, Whatever medication it is, whether it's an oral option or an injection option, and you just realize month after month things are not progressing. And so the decision then gets to be made, you know, first, I'm always wanting to optimize everything lifestyle wise. That's always the goal. By the way, there's always more that can be done there. But there gets to be this point where you have to make the decision, do I need more physiologic help? And the thing I really want to stress here is that everybody, I mean, maybe not everybody, that's a bad generalization, but most people view this as a failure. Oh, what's wrong with me that I need another medication or I can't believe I need another one or, you know, they're just this scared that we're quote unquote, we just keep layering things in. But what I want to talk about is the mindset of how you could maybe look at this differently so that you could achieve different results. And this is actually something that I've gone through myself again, coming up on the private paid podcast. I'll talk more about my journey. I'll really. Give all the numbers and the meds and all the things, but you know, there's these points that I've reached. There was a reason why I went from semaglutide to drzepotide and then a reason now why I've added in another medication. And the reason why I do these things is because I reach these points where I've done everything that I can and my body physiologically doesn't want to go anymore. And one thing I want to stress here, if you are someone who started with a BMI over 35, so 35, 40, 50, you know, you're in those categories, I want you to understand that the physiology is often a lot more challenging. It is not the same physiology compared to someone who starts with a BMI 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. It's just different. So we cannot ever sit here and compare the two. And I think that's where the problem comes in. Because people will say these sentences, I don't want to be on medication for life. And I say, okay, so then you're going to be right back potentially the same problems. Remember, unless you're someone that never really struggled with it to begin with. Maybe you had a depressive episode and over a six to nine month period you gained some weight and now here you are three months after and you're realizing I can't lose the weight. Okay, great. Maybe you don't need a medication for life because you never really struggled long term with it. But if you're someone where for decades and decades you've been struggling with this, For you to say, I don't want a medication for life. I want to know then what your solution is. It's definitely possible that you could come off the meds and do some really radical things that could be true, but a lot of people, once the physiology is really changed in that capacity, depending on where you're starting, and I don't care how you got to that point. Everybody has a different story and journey, and I often come from the perspective on this podcast that I want us to, from this moment forward, just keep moving on. because it's hard enough to make decisions today that support us, let alone to keep getting into the muck of the past. And again, if you need therapy and you're working through someone on that, that's different. But I'm kind of just talking day to day. I really focus on moving forward with people, at least in my clinic. And sometimes that requires getting some additional assistance. And I wonder if you think about it from the perspective of how can I biohack this? You hear about this all day long, people wanting to find a different coffee that does something or a supplement. You're just hearing this term biohacking all day long and it's accepted and it's celebrated and it's all the things. Why is it any different when you add another medication for an anti obesity regimen? It is something that you're trying to optimize. You're trying to help. You're trying to improve. And so I wonder if you start to think about it, what is it that I need? Maybe I need that additional thing. I will tell you, I wish a long time ago that I had done all of these things. All of these things that I've slowly embarked on over the past two years. I wish that I had spent less time beating myself up, saying that I wasn't working hard enough, doing this, doing that. I wish I had spent less time doing that and just moving forward and seeing if these tools help me. And, okay, if I didn't like it after a month, stopping it. But what I have come to realize is that I was letting other people's voices be louder in my mind. And it's not even people that are close to me. It's a little comment that I'll hear where someone says, I don't want to be on the medication long term. And then I think, well, what? Well, gosh, I'm, I'm not only on one, I'm on more than that. And how can that be? And the reality is we all have different needs. And if you were thinking about it from a perspective, of hacking, how you could get the best physiology possible for you, for your genetics, for your family situation, for your life, Would it feel differently to you? So the problem here is not adding an additional medication, the problem is the morality associated with it. And so again, I know this might not be everyone's struggle, but I see it often enough that I wanted to make an entire episode dedicated to it. I see this problem occur often enough that I just wanted to spend a few minutes on today's podcast talking about it. And the thing I want to suggest, I'm going to come back to a medical school example here. When I was in medical school, we had exams. I think it was every. Either two to three weeks we had these mega exams that were three to four hours at a time. So they were really long. They'd be all the different subjects, just back to back to back. I remember, they were so long that I didn't want to have to go to the bathroom during them so I would drink like a little Starbucks espresso shot. Because I knew if I drank it this far ahead, I'll have then gone to the bathroom one time. It was insane. But the reason I bring these up, there were certain kids that had a way of what I call polluting the environment. that. They would sort of be fear mongering. They would say, Oh, they would be bringing up all the negatives in the world. Now, here's the thing. Those kids were never the ones that did bad, but they almost did it as a way to psych everyone else out. And I got to this place where I couldn't obviously say this to these kids, but I realized these kids are polluting the environment. I'm not ever going to hang out with them. Like literally we'd be in front of the exam and I'd have to stand in a different place, not to hear them. And I realized. It is toxic, what is being said over there, and how they're thinking about it, things like that. And I feel that that same mentality of having to sort of protect yourself, and we could say protect your peace, there's so many different ways to say this. But I want you to question if people are really polluting your environment for you. I have worked really hard to curate who I'm following online. What I'm consuming, I'm very cautious with who's in my groups. We had a situation here a while ago, I hope this person isn't listening, but they joined the 30, 30 program and they couldn't get the additional supports that we had in the program to work and they were frustrated. And I said, no problem. You know, here's your refund. And the reason I did this is because it was a lot of negative energy that was entering the room. We help everyone through being able to figure out what's up and things like that. And. What I knew was I don't want a bunch of negative energy in here. We're actually not about complaining all day long within the program. We're really about let's share ideas. Let's share recipes. Let's talk through, if you're taste buds, you're not liking things. Let's talk through how to troubleshoot that or mindset or how to keep going. There's so much to work through. We can't afford to have. A lot of negativity all the time in there. And so I feel bad that this person was not able to partake of the group, but we had to do that because this person, it wasn't gone about in a way where. They were growth mindset about it where they were like, hey, help me figure this out. It was very negative. And so we had to do that to protect the container. I need you to think about for your own life, if you are maybe in this scenario where you're having to switch things up, things aren't working, you're having to try different programs, try different medications, try different things. Are the people around you supportive or are they polluting the environment? They're being negative. They're holding you back. It is hard enough to do change. It is so hard. You need all the support in the world. You do not need people holding you back, saying negative things, getting in your way. You only need help going forward. And so I just wanted to bring that up today to be very cautious of who are we taking thoughts from. If they're in our own head, okay, great. We can work with that all day long. Remember, we spend the most time with ourselves, so it matters how we talk to ourselves. That's one thing to work through, but if we're around people that are saying comments that are triggering us all the time, and of course we can make decisions, do I want to learn from this or not react in that way, okay, that's fine. But there's often scenarios where it's not supportive what's happening around you. And I want you to question how you could get more support following different people having different accountability groups, who are you really putting your energy into? Are they helping you in the way that you need help with? Okay, next episode, this is sort of part one. Next week, we will talk about what are some of those additions. Why would you make them? And we'll just talk through a few of those because I think that there are definitely people that are not achieving these optimal, max, amazing results. Me being one of them, I got good results, but it wasn't like super amazing on a GLP 1. And while it's helpful, and while you want that support, you might need additional things. So let's talk through a few of them. We're going to do that next week. So you'll have a nice little list of things that you could think through. Again, it's not that you have to do these things. It's just that, you know, that there's other options. Of course, remember there's a million things that you could always do with lifestyle as well. Even other things with nutrition that are going to, I'm really a fan of this concept of nutrition is medicine. It's definitely a part of your treatment protocol. If you're working on this from the lens of realizing that it's a disease with overweight or obesity. All right. I hope you have an amazing rest of the week. I want to remind you if you are loving this podcast, please leave a review where you are listening. It really helps us to get this podcast out to more people. All right. Have an amazing rest of the week and we'll talk soon.