Atlanta Wellness Clinic Podcast

Protecting Your Strength While Using GLP-1 Medications: A Nutritionist's Guide

• Catina Wilson • Episode 5

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How Do You Preserve Muscle Loss When Using Medical Weight Loss Medications? 

Dropping pounds on GLP-1 medications? The number on your scale might be moving, but are you losing the right kind of weight?

Licensed nutritionist Catina Wilson tackles one of the most overlooked aspects of medical weight loss - preserving precious muscle mass while shedding unwanted fat. When these powerful medications suppress your appetite, your body might turn to muscle for energy instead of fat stores. Catina shares the protein-focused nutrition strategy that ensures your body composition improves even as your weight decreases.

Most valuable are the practical implementation strategies shared throughout the episode - from meal timing techniques that work with medication-suppressed appetite to the accountability tools that ensure you're losing fat, not muscle. The Atlanta Wellness Clinic's comprehensive approach combines medical intervention with nutrition science and body composition tracking to deliver transformative results.

Ready to transform not just your weight but your body composition? Visit atlwellnessclinic.com or call 770-726-8978 for a free 10-minute weight loss consultation. Because successful weight loss isn't just about getting smaller - it's about getting stronger, healthier, and more confident in the body you deserve.

To learn more about Atlanta Wellness Clinic visit:
https://www.ATLWellnessClinic.com
Atlanta Wellness Clinic
1827 Powers Ferry Rd. SE, Bldg 1 STE 250
Atlanta, Georgia 30339
770-726-8978

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Atlanta Wellness Clinic podcast Hosted by licensed nutritionist and clinic owner, katina Wilson. We're here to kickstart your weight loss journey Because, let's be honest, the only thing we want gaining weight is our wallets. From medical weight loss and nutrition coaching to body contouring, we help Metro Atlanta women get real results. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Medical weight loss medications can be powerful tools, but how can you ensure you're losing fat, not muscle? Here's how to protect your muscle mass while shedding unwanted weight. Welcome back everyone. I'm Millie M, co-host producer here in the studio with licensed nutritionist and clinic owner, katina Wilson. Katina, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

Hello, hello, hello again.

Speaker 2:

So, katina, can you just fill everyone in how do you preserve muscle while using weight loss medication?

Speaker 3:

Question the number one thing that we tell our patients when they come into the clinic and they sign up for one of our GLP-1 programs is to really try to focus on getting in the right protein. So for all of our patients, we do supply a meal plan, and that meal plan really over-indexes on protein. You know protein for breakfast, proteins as snacks, protein for lunch and dinner right, we really try to over-index and we even supply our patients with different kinds of shopping lists. And when we're talking protein, we're talking healthy proteins, right, you know. So the lean chickens and beef, that sort of a thing, nuts, cottage cheese, eggs, beans you know for sure we want people to try to get as much protein, because when you're on these kinds of medications you're really not hungry, and so when you do eat, it's important to make sure you're eating the right kinds of foods, particularly like proteins, and so we really try to encourage our patients to focus on eating the right kinds of proteins.

Speaker 3:

The other thing that we do is we spend a lot of time talking to our patients about the importance of exercise, and a lot of people, when they think exercise, they immediately think cardio Cardio is great for cardiovascular health, but when you're trying to preserve muscle, you really have to do some form of resistance training. When you think resistance training, it's definitely like weightlifting, doing squats, calisthenics, those kinds of things, or even Pilates or barre. Those are very popular types of resistance type training. The more resistance that you're doing, the more you're giving your body an opportunity to not only build muscle but also maintain muscle as you're going through this fitness journey are there any adverse effects of having too much protein, because we've talked about that a lot um, I think it depends on the person, and it depends on what's going on with their health, and they certainly should have a conversation with their doctor.

Speaker 3:

For some people, especially if they've got kidney types of issues, too much protein potentially could be a bad thing. Certainly, though, when you're eating a lot of protein, you definitely want to make sure you're staying adequately hydrated. Water is extremely important because you want to flush out not only the toxins, but you also want to flush out many of the excess things that come along with having a high protein diet.

Speaker 2:

Makes sense. So what role do vitamins and supplements play in maintaining muscle mass?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there are definitely some great supplements that are out there Amino acids in particular, that can help a lot of people. Creatine is very popular and it's a combination of various amino acids that are known to help not only build but also preserve muscle. Glycine is another one that's super popular for maintaining and building muscle and those sorts of things. So supplements certainly can help. Now, it's not one size fits all because, depending upon the supplement, it can have adverse effects, depending upon what's going on with the individual. So make sure that, as you're considering any type of supplement within your diet, that you're having these kinds of conversations with your doctors and that you're picking and choosing the right things or some sort of a healthcare provider that can help make sure that you get the right types of supplements. The supplements can absolutely help with preserving muscle as well.

Speaker 2:

Are there any specific weight loss medications that minimize muscle loss better than others?

Speaker 3:

Are you talking like the GLP-1 medicines specifically? I wouldn't say so. I mean, these medicines work so well and they tend to. Not only do they remove the food noise, so people aren't craving all the different foods, but it also slows down digestion. So, people who are on these medications, they're going to be full, they're going to be satiated a lot longer, and so, regardless of whether you're on the first generation GLP-1 or a second generation, they work about the same just in terms of what they do to the body. I would not say that one is better than the other. In terms of trying to preserve muscle, and again, because these medicines work so well and they work so fast, the risk is that the body starts to eat away at the muscle instead of the fat, and so our goal is to focus on getting the right kind of nutrition intake, focus on the protein and definitely try to focus on some level of resistance training.

Speaker 2:

Do you recommend any tips or tricks, I guess using timers or calendars or things like that? So do you find some of your clients don't? I mean, obviously don't want to eat as much as they did before, but are there any ways to make sure people are getting adequate, actual meals in on top of the vitamins?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, timers are great. You know, I do that sometimes to remind myself to drink water right, and I even have a special water bottle that does remind. So there's a lot of like electronics and things out there that will help remind you. There are apps that are out there that can also help remind you. You know it's time to eat, it's time to drink, that sort of a thing, you know. So there are different apps that are out there that people can use. You can also go the old school way and put little time blocks on your calendar and that way it pops up on your phone or whatever device you're using.

Speaker 3:

It is important to remember to eat. One of the things that we do here is weekly check-ins with our clients and we do ask like are you eating? You know, are you remembering how? About your hydration? And again, when we do our body scans, we're going to see all that. We're going to see how hydrated you are, are you really drinking the water? We're going to see between one month versus the next did the amount of fat go down or did the amount of muscle go down? We'll be able to tell.

Speaker 3:

Somebody can say yes, but the scan doesn't lie. Our scans will tell the story of whether somebody is actually really like working on their protein, really staying hydrated, really doing the resistance training, because, again, we want to see that muscle number either stay the same or start to go up and we want to see that fat number go down.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. Catch you on the next episode. Have a great one, thank you.

Speaker 1:

That's a wrap on this episode of the atlanta wellness clinic podcast. If you're ready to kickstart your weight loss journey, and not just your bathroom scale and frustration, visit atlwellnesscliniccom or call us at 770-726-8978 for a free 10-minute weight loss consultation, because the best time to start was yesterday. The second best time right now. See you next time.