Menopause Rise and Thrive | Helping Women Navigate Midlife and Menopause

116. GLP-1 Medications & Midlife Metabolism: What Every Woman Needs to Know

• Dr. Sara Poldmae | Healer, Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and Functional Medicine Practitioner

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Are GLP-1 Medications Right for You? What You Really Need to Know First

Have you been hearing a lot about GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and wondering if they might be the magic fix—or if they’re just another fad? Maybe you’ve already started using one, but feel unsure how to support your body while you’re on it. In this honest and empowering episode, I sit down with certified nutrition coach Danielle McColloch to talk about what no one else is saying: how to use GLP-1s safely, effectively, and with your long-term wellness in mind.

Whether you’re just curious or deep in the journey already, you’ll walk away with practical strategies and a whole lot of reassurance that you don’t have to do it perfectly—you just have to do it intentionally.

 

In this episode:

  • Danielle’s personal journey from food perfectionism to freedom—with the help of GLP-1s
  • How GLP-1 medications can change your metabolism and relationship with food
  • The 4 non-negotiables every woman needs to support her body on these medications
  • Why building muscle is critical (and what to do if you don’t know where to start)
  • A mindset shift that helps reduce food guilt and rebuild trust with your body
  • How stress and shame affect digestion, metabolism, and weight
  • Why the “calories in, calories out” model is too simplistic for women in midlife

 

Connect with Danielle McColloch:

 

Connect with me, Dr. Sara Poldmae:

Website: https://risingwomanproject.com

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/drsarapoldmae


Have a question I can answer? Send me a message! I love to hear from my listeners!

Sara Poldmae:

Sarah, welcome to menopause. Rise and thrive. I am Dr. Sarah pulled me and this podcast is your go to guide for navigating perimenopause and menopause. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, trust me, you are in great company. Each week, I'll bring you expert advice, raw, honest conversations and simple tips to help you stay grounded and maybe even find some humor in the process. Let's rise, thrive and tackle this wild ride together. Hello, everybody. Today, I am joined by Danielle McCulloch. She is a certified nutrition coach who helps midlife women feel better in their bodies, especially those using GLP one medications like semaglutide. She focuses on simple, sustainable habits around protein mindset and stress that actually work in real life. She helps women say goodbye to diets and hello to eating in a way that fuels a strong, healthy body. As a mom of four and a middle aged woman herself, she knows how important it is to find what fits you without all the pressure and perfection. When she's not coaching, you'll find her hanging out with her wonderful husband, her kids and their three dogs. Welcome to the show. Danielle, I can't wait to get into

Danielle McColloch:

it. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Sara Poldmae:

All right, so let's get started just with your journey with GLP ones, and then we can kind of talk about how you help others, and I'll probably ask you a few questions. It's a really hot topic right now, so I'm excited to share with my audience.

Danielle McColloch:

Yeah, it really is a hot topic. So I actually was introduced to the GOP one a few years before, and I was a hard pass, an absolute no. I was always very holistic and natural. And so I just said no to it. And then a doctor I really trusted brought it up, and I dove into the research, The Good, the Bad, all the emotional things, and I decided to go for it, and it has completely changed my relationship with food, my metabolism, my body. I was already on the path of getting rid of the all or nothing mindset, moving away from diets, and it just really helped fine tune that for me. And so I knew that I needed to take my knowledge I was already doing nutrition nutrition coaching, but really hone in on women who are using the GLP one and help them do it correctly.

Sara Poldmae:

Amazing. So let's talk about first, how it changed your relationship with food. What does that mean for you, and what have you seen that mean for other women?

Danielle McColloch:

Yeah, definitely. So prior to the GLP one, I was a food perfectionist. The more I learned, the more I tried things, and I got to the point where my knowledge started to consume me instead of empowering me. And I will never forget one day I went out, I was always eating meat and vegetables, and know this and know that, and I just said, forget it. I had a cheeseburger, and I felt better than I had in a long time, and I realized my relationship with food, my stress around food, my shame, my guilt was was messing with my system. I didn't really fully understand how yet, but I knew that there was a piece there about stress and food, and I started that journey. So when the GOP one came into my life, I realized that it quieted that that food noise, which I didn't understand why yet, but I stopped obsessing, and I started allowing myself to eat things I hadn't had in a long time. And it just I opened my eyes to. I took away the all or nothing, I guess, right, because I was either on a diet or I was off one. And I started telling myself, I can have a cookie tomorrow. So that really paired well with what I was already doing. And so I try to teach women the same thing. Basically, I

Sara Poldmae:

love that. I love that. And how would you say that it influenced your metabolism?

Danielle McColloch:

I can feel it. So I have insulin resistance. I had insulin resistance when I was skinny, and then 60 pounds heavier, I always I just had it. What I've learned is that being thin and having very little muscle was the precursor to that. It was not being overweight, and I understand that now I didn't then, you know, I grew up in the slim, fast and cardio days, and we didn't, we didn't build muscle, right, right? But as I got more insulin resistant, after I had babies, I mean, I would eat a bagel and gain three pounds, and I would just, I could, I could easily gain eight pounds in a week with insulin resistance, if I just didn't pay attention to how I was eating. So I started eating carbs and kind of playing with carbs and protein and going, oh my gosh, for the first time in probably 15 years, I can eat carbs and not gain five pounds overnight. So I can I can feel it in my body, which is absolutely amazing,

Sara Poldmae:

amazing. And so when you say that, you coach women on. Uh, protein. Give me an idea of, like, what your recommendations are for women, for using GLP ones and making the most out of them and staying healthy while on them. Yeah, definitely

Danielle McColloch:

it's interesting, because it's almost always the same, but it's always custom, if that makes sense. So I have kind of my foundation for everybody, and that is, if you're doing a GOP one, and a lot of people are not guided correctly, there needs to be a protein goal, there needs to be a water goal, there needs to be steps, and there needs to be a component of strength training. It does not need to be 50 minutes, five days a week, like we hear a lot on social media. Ideally, we may get to something closer to that, but that is, I have those four foundations for everyone now, from there I go, where are we? Do we? I have clients that are eating only fast food and have a very low movement lifestyle. I have clients that are doing CrossFit and are tracking macros and can't lose that last 20 pounds. So how we fine tune those goals are going to depend on where the client's starting, and then we're going to get there piece by piece, with small, attainable goals. What I'm trying to teach people is that the way you're going to eat forever is very similar to the way you're going to eat when you lose weight because I I've done the I've lost 20 pounds, 1015, times, but I've always gained them back because I went off my diet. So instead of telling people you can only eat this much, you can't have sugar, you can't have this I'm gonna go, how are you eating and how can we make that better so that you can obviously we're gonna eat less as you're losing weight, but how can you turn around and have these tools in the future when you go on vacation, when you have Christmas at your family's house, and not protein everything, but maybe add some protein to the things you're eating, and pick and choose how to how to maintain this forever? Basically,

Sara Poldmae:

yeah, and I think it's so important to meet our clients or patients where they're at I was in Asheville, North Carolina, this past weekend for a yoga Festival, and I sat next to a woman at dinner that I didn't know. She is a nurse, and she specializes in wound care, and she goes through rural Appalachia, with which is like extremely poverty stricken. And you can't take someone that lives in a food desert and expect them to eat, you know, all organic if there's no organic markets there, nor do they have the financial resources. You can't expect them to meet their protein goals. You have to start with where they are. And it's so important that you brought that up, because in social media, they're, you know, everybody's bright, shiny, happy, but they're also, like, preaching all of this perfectionist lifestyle, and it can really get in your head, I think especially in in women, where we feel like it has to be perfect, or it's it's all or nothing. And I think that the 80% rule is a great way to go. You know, like I succeed in nourishing my body 80% of the time, the rest can kind of sort itself out. And I think that that that GLP ones can really help to get that food noise out of the picture so that you don't have to feel like you have to be perfect all the time. That doesn't mean you should eat like crap, like again, we still have to try and meet those protein goals. We still have to, you know, do all the things, but all the things can can be a lot different, or look a lot different, because you're not setting yourself up for failure. You have another tool besides what you're eating to help shift your metabolism, and it also works on your brain and helps you to kind of stay away from that obsessive thinking about food. And I just think it's such a perfect match.

Danielle McColloch:

It really is, and that's that's really why I try to pair that type of, you know, eating style with it, because they think you get the best long term results, whether people stay on it or not, they're establishing habits that that go long term and yeah, people have different situations. So I fell for the social media trap. Like I said, it was. I was a food perfectionist. The more I learned, the more I cut things out, and I was so stressed. So I always tell my clients, don't compare your reality to other people's fantasies, because that's what we're doing. When we look at people on social media, we're seeing the highlight reel. And you know, we don't always have the same the same circumstances to start with. So 100%

Sara Poldmae:

Yeah, I think that it's so beautiful to have been through this journey yourself. So you're an expert on one end of the spectrum, but then you've also lived the experience on the other end. And I think that's so valuable, because you can kind of walk hand in hand, rather than being like the teacher student. If that makes sense, what about exercise? Do you talk with your clients a lot about. Strength training and the value in that,

Danielle McColloch:

yep. So the clinic I partner with, we have two exercise specialists that are there that offer services. So in our initial nutrition consultation, we do bring it up. And again, I'm gonna start where people are. So if I have someone that is, you know, has a lot of weight to lose and is dealing with, you know, lots of pain or issues with moving. We're gonna, we're gonna maybe just start the conversation. You know, if I have somebody that's a little bit further along, we may make a goal, a very common one I make with people who are able bodied and ready to go, but just aren't motivated to do it. Is we work on the discipline of doing maybe three times a week for 15 minutes, something that is so attainable that we know that they're gonna do it, and we start there. So some clients are doing a YouTube video three times a week with some starting weights. Some are working with the trainers that we work with, and some are finding their trainers. But we really stress the importance of it, whether it starts day one or we're revisiting at day 30, the fact that maintaining muscle, insulin sensitivity, bone health, hormones are so, so important, I mean, to the point where I would say, if you're not willing to do some strength training, I don't know that utilizing a GLP one is is the right fit, like it's that important. So definitely,

Sara Poldmae:

yeah, I would 100, 100% agree with that. And I think that there, although I think that this can be an amazing medication, I don't think it's for everybody, and I think it has dangers, you know, I do think that there are, and that's with any medication if it's not used appropriately, obviously. So I think it is, I think it is really important that providers out there that are, you know, dispensing these medications, do it responsibly, because if a woman or a man, but if a woman, especially is not willing to put in the work of getting those protein meat needs met and building that muscle that can cause some real problems with bone density and just general health in particular. So you know, being skinny but not being healthy is not really the goal with these medications when used

Danielle McColloch:

properly? Yep. And I think, you know, being skinny, losing the weight, and not doing it well, is gonna cause more harm, probably, than staying heavy, is what we're seeing, right? Because you're gonna lose muscle, you're gonna lose insulin sensitivity. And what I started to see, I love information. I love good, bad, negative, emotional. I think social media is a very emotional place over factual, right? But a lot of people are talking very bad about how dangerous they are. And like you said, yes, there are dangers, but a lot of the side effects we are seeing, the hair loss, the muscle loss, all these problems are coming from using them too high of a dose, too quickly, without the proper, you know, nutrition and all that. And I agree, if

Sara Poldmae:

you can't get your proper nutrients and you are going to lose hair, like we need micronutrients in order to keep healthy out of hair. So yes, 100% and that, you know, goes back to protein goals, but it's also important to, you know, have a balanced diet as well. I think sometimes, although protein is probably the number one part of the dietary picture. It is not the whole picture. By evidence, like you said, you have to nourish yourself, and that doesn't mean just just meeting a whole protein goal. For

Danielle McColloch:

sure, absolutely. Yeah, we talk a lot about carbs. A lot of the women that I work with and my journey includes it too, came from carbs are bad, and so everyone's scared of carbs and sugar. So that's typically an initial conversation that we have about, I talk a lot about what we do tells our body a story, and if we're not eating, you know, carbs and fiber our our primal body hears that there's not carbs and glucose for fuel. And so it's kind of switches things around. The keto community loves to say, well, now you're a fat burner, but you're not always a stored fat burner. You're just not burning glucose, right? So we do talk a lot about the importance of if you're going to eat carbs, and you want to have carbs to eat them now while you're losing weight, and kind of train your body that that's a fuel source, and that carbs are good, and fiber is so important, and all of those nutrients, so we definitely talk about that too well,

Sara Poldmae:

and it's so important to talk about that. And also you mentioned dosing, I think it's really important to put out there the disservice that Eli Lilly and some of the people out there are putting as like you have to get it refilled, and you have to up your dose. And you know, if you're on a smaller dose, and it's working, why would you have to go the next step up? And then all of a sudden you are nauseated to the point that you cannot eat. You know, it's one thing to not have an appetite, but to absolutely like not be able to eat, that starts to get a little scary. So I think by forcing people to up their dosage on certain time intervals, I don't understand why that's not being called out more. Yeah, I agree,

Danielle McColloch:

and I think that there are very specific situations where people do better with less. And a lot of times people think. Oh, if I have more weight to lose, I need more some of the science does show that with more weight to lose, they may benefit, but they have also seen people with 10 to 20 pounds needing the full dose, and people with more to lose doing very well at a starting dose, right? So, and that's I always suggest that people work with a practitioner and aren't just getting it online and doing their own thing, because those things should really be paid attention to. It would be like going to get an antidepressant and taking this much because your friend takes it right? Like, just because there's standard dosing doesn't mean we all are gonna be on that dose. So 100% I think the medical provider is a big piece of this, that somebody should be working hand in hand, for sure.

Sara Poldmae:

Yeah, and just having the support system, not just the dispensing provider, but also the support system, like yourself or the exercise coaches, like having a whole team around you, because, you know, we're dealing with something that's changing your biochemistry. We're not, you know, we're not just popping like, you know, a magnesium and going to bed like, this is real stuff, like, this big stuff here, we need help. You know, I've had friends reach out to me that have started GOP ones having horrible side effects, and I'm glad to help them through but, and I always am happy to, you know, help my friends out in whatever way. But my concern is like, I'm not your doctor. I am a doctor. I'm not your doctor. And why isn't the person that prescribed that medication helping you? But you know, again, getting it online, there's there's some that are better than others. The online dispensaries, that's often what they are, dispensaries, rather than medical clinics. You know, I think again, choosing wisely, it doesn't mean you should never get the medications online. I think there are some that are better than others, but you do have to watch it, because if you don't, she had emailed this particular company because she was asking, or the provider at this company asking about her side effects, and she did not get an email response in five days, and this woman, like literally, was not able to eat for a couple of days when the medication was really high in her system. So, you know, there's concerning things out there, and that's not why I brought you on the show. I want to kind of touch base on both the negatives and the positives, because I am a believer that this tool is amazing for women, but we want to make sure that they're working with providers that can really help and with people like yourself that can help people to understand their protein goals, their exercise goals, all of that stuff. So how else do you support women while they're going through this journey? Tell me about the mindset piece, because that's one of my favorites. Yes,

Danielle McColloch:

mindset piece is huge, and like I said, I kind of dove into it. It's been about five years since I started having this realization of, like, how I was thinking was affecting the way my body was processing food. And so I really started reading about the stress response. And I actually worked in a chiropractic office for a while, and the doctor did a lot of talks on stress, and I kind of put, you know, things together, yeah, like, if you are in fight or flight, naturally, you're not in rest and digest. And we already all have traffic and taxes and Bill, all these things we're already stressed about. But as women like you mentioned, the perfection we look at a piece of cake in our body, our primal body, sees a lion. We go we go into fight or flight, right? A delicious lion, a delicious lion, and our body's like, what's wrong? So then we have this bad food, and our body isn't equipped to do what it's supposed to do, which is turn off the stress, get the blood flow back to the gut and digest and assimilate nutrients. So I talk, I kind of find out where they are with the first intake. So we do have some, you know, questions that ask about the relationship with food. I would say 98% of women I've talked to, and I think I've had, you know, 55 ish clients. And since we really dove into this, have a problem. Have that relationship with food problem. A complicated relationship with food. It varies where it is, but, you know, we have this is how I should eat, this is my diet, and this is how I like to eat, and this is I'm off and I'm on. And yeah, in some respects, all of these women have a component to that. So I start with correcting the bad and I say there's no bad food, which coming from me. If you talk to my kids, they laugh, and they say, if 2014 Danielle, could see you now, right? They weren't allowed to have fast food, and I was afraid of anything that wasn't organic. And you know, right, what we've what I've learned, is that food has calories, and calories can sustain your life. So we're going to start with that. So there's there's good food, it can keep you alive. And then there's better food, which has fresh ingredients and nutrients and, you know, makes you feel good. And then maybe the best, you grew your vegetables and made your sourdough and awesome. It didn't stress you out, right? If you can be in that middle category, most of the time you're good. It's like the 8020 rule. But. Really more focusing on how you feel around food. So we we kind of start with that. I try to remove the bad, the junk, the crap, you know, the things people say about food, and just shift it a little bit. And then from there, we really work on, like bettering the food. So if you're going to have a brownie, if you're going to have something right, you could make it healthier. That's an option. You can make a protein brownie if you want, right? Or go cut a piece of a brownie and put it on a plate and maybe grab some like cheese or something high protein, you know, get get your tea or a mocktail, or whatever you're gonna do, put all the food away, go sit down, look at it, take a few deep breaths and enjoy that brownie, right? As opposed to, you can't have brownies now, but maybe you can when you're skinny, but Right? Or if you have a brownie it's bad, or we just slice a little piece and then a little piece. So really, just kind of working on how we eat the foods we love and changing how we feel about it, yeah, that does something to our mind, too. When I say I can have a brownie today, I can also have a brownie tomorrow, right? So I'm not going to finish the brownies today, because I'm going to be this new person tomorrow. Yeah. So removing the idea that if I just have a little piece, you know, a lot of us, we just pick a piece, we pick a piece, and we end up eating more and enjoying it less. So I try to teach women to eat it and enjoy it. And I have, I have a 71 year old client who actually is not on a GOP one. She's just kind of starting the process of changing the way she feels about food. And we first started working together, she said to me about chips. And she said, Am I allowed to have chips? And I said, Well, do you like chips? Do you want to eat chips? And she said, Well, yeah. And I said, Sure, have a portion of chips with your sandwich. And so she did that for a few weeks, a long story, but she ended up losing weight over these few weeks. And about week four, she said, I just don't even really feel like eating chips anymore. And she was like, but I'm eat. I'm enjoying food again. I'm enjoying the way that, you know, I'm enjoying meals and they look pretty, and I'm making them look nice. And so there's so much there that we're again, telling our body a story every time we sit down to have a meal. And is that story that we're running from a wild animal, or is it that we're sitting down to nourish our body and our body will respond? What needs to change is, is us, is what we're saying, is what we're the message we're sending.

Sara Poldmae:

So how do your providers work with women when they're actually prescribing the GLP ones? Or is your clinic more of like on the micro dosing model that we hear about? Or is it more the standard dosing?

Danielle McColloch:

They're with the standard dosing. There's the most evidence on standard dosing right now, and so they typically stick with that. I was super happy to be partnered with them because we have a nurse practitioner and a nurse and they're both on the same page as me. As far as you know, it can be dosed too quickly, too high. However, it can also be dosed too low and too slowly. And there are on the other end of the spectrum, providers that are afraid to move up to an adequate dose for someone. And there are patients that are afraid to they want to take the smallest dose for the shortest amount of time. So the providers I work with have a very good balance. They do an extensive medical background, blood work, ongoing check ins. What they found is that before they brought on nutrition coaches, they were being the nurse and the nutrition coach. They were troubleshooting the protein. They cared so much that they were doing that piece, and it was too much. So we've now, you know, have the divide and conquer. Every client sees nutrition coach once a year, minimum. We have a lot that are seeing us monthly. Some more often we're looking at the possibility of having, like, a membership so they can just have ongoing support, but it is so needed, and it is so appreciated, so but they do stick with regular dose to answer your question, and very specific too, if, if there's side effects happening, if there's nausea, they're not going to move up, even if the scale isn't moving until we combat that, that is the most important thing. So they're very good about that.

Sara Poldmae:

Okay, great. And where is your clinic? And do you work with people online or just locally? Give me some more information so that our listeners out there can get in touch with you. Yeah,

Danielle McColloch:

definitely. So emerge, the clinic is in Idaho. We have one in Nampa and one in Meridian, and so we see a lot of local clients and patients. We also have a nurse in Washington now, and I can't remember where she is in Washington. She just started, but she does Washington state. So those two states can be telehealth. I can talk to people all over the United States because I'm not prescribing, I'm not working on dosage. And then Laura, the other nutritionist that works with us same we're just talking about food. Laura has more of a sports nutrition background. I have more of the, you know, mindset and stress, piece behavior change. I have a certification in sleep and stress and recovery. So we just kind of bring different things to the table. So we can see, you know, anybody doing a GLP one, I do prefer that they are working with a. Provider, as opposed to just getting it themselves and coming to me. So that is something that I usually ask that they're working with a provider, but, yeah, we're looking to, you know, expand that piece as far as working in other states.

Sara Poldmae:

Okay, great. And what is the best way for our listeners to contact you,

Danielle McColloch:

to contact me, would be through my stand store or on Instagram. In my stand store, I have, you know, links to request. Actually, I can do a free 15 minute consultation, which honestly ends up being more of like a 30 minute because we end up talking. So I should probably just have it be that. And I do have a free GOP One Jump Start Guide in there as well that just kind of gives those basics for people and some ideas, great, but yeah, requesting appointment through there on Instagram, just my first and last name would be a great way to reach me.

Sara Poldmae:

Great. Well, we'll make sure to obviously have all of your links in the show notes so people can find you on Instagram. All that good stuff. Is there anything else that you want women out there to know? Any more talking points or final kind of wrap up points that you wanted to include in this conversation that you think are

Danielle McColloch:

important? Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing that I want women to know is to not listen to the naysayers. On Instagram, there are a lot of very opinionated and I just have to say it, Jim Bros is what I call them, because there's a lot of men out there got, frankly, gaslighting women. And when I am outspoken about a GOP one, I usually get an angry guy here and there saying, eat less, exercise more, all the things. They've typically never been overweight. They've definitely never been a woman. And we're the we are living true, lived experiences where we have counted our calories, where we have weighed our food, and some of us have, you know, made our metabolism not work. In theory, calories in, calories out, scientifically, works. We know this, but there are factors that, again, our primal body changes things, and for some reason, that just makes these guys really mad, like and there's women too, but a lot of them are men. So my message is, don't listen to them. Give yourself grace. I think the biggest thing I want to teach women, and I have to remind myself on a regular basis, is to give ourselves grace. We are doing all the things, and on top of that, trying to eat our reach our protein goal, trying to drink enough water, spending enough time with our kids, getting sunshine. So take deep breaths and give yourself grace and appreciate you for the amazing women that you

Sara Poldmae:

are. I love that that's beautiful. Thank you. That's such an important part of the lesson that most women, including myself, need to learn. Let's give ourselves grace. Yep, I love it. Well, thank you so much, Danielle, for being on the show. I really appreciate it, and I hope that some of the audience members reach out, because, again, this is a great tool. It's not to be scared of, but it should be taken seriously. And you can do that in a really simple, easy way, by just working with the right providers. And you know, then you can accomplish anything right with the right team around you. Absolutely. Yep. Thank you so much, wonderful. Well, thank you again, and thank you everybody for tuning in, and we'll see you next week. You

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