Atlanta Wellness Clinic Podcast

Post GLP-1: Life After Weight Loss Medication

• Catina Wilson • Episode 15

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The Post-GLP-1 Plan: What Happens When You Stop the Medication? 

What happens when the GLP-1 medication stops but your weight loss journey continues? Consider these medications as training wheels on a bicycle—temporary assistance while you develop balance, confidence, and the skills needed for the long ride ahead.

Licensed nutritionist Catina Wilson explains that successful post-medication weight maintenance hinges on the habits formed during treatment. Those who approach their GLP-1 journey as an educational opportunity—embracing proper nutrition, hydration, movement, and strength training—position themselves to sustain results long after the prescription ends. While some patients with genetic predispositions may benefit from continuing maintenance doses, most can successfully transition off medication with the right foundation.

The conversation delves into the critical psychological aspects of weight management, examining how stress, sleep quality, and workplace environments impact hormones and hunger signals. One patient faced the tough choice between a sleep-disrupting job schedule and her health goals, highlighting how comprehensive weight management often requires reassessing multiple aspects of life. Perhaps most fascinating is how the body itself transforms—patients report that after adapting to cleaner eating, previously enjoyable indulgent foods suddenly make them physically uncomfortable, creating natural reinforcement for healthier choices.

Ready to build sustainable weight loss habits with or without medication? Visit ATLWellnessClinic.com or call 770-726-8978 for a free 10-minute weight loss consultation. Remember, developing lasting habits now creates the foundation for maintaining your results forever.

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:

OP1s are effective, but they're not forever. In this episode, we explore what happens when the prescription ends and how to create a smart, sustainable plan for maintaining results long after the medication is gone. Welcome back everyone. I am Millie M, co-host and producer, back in the studio with licensed nutritionist and clinic owner, Katina Wilson. Katina, how's it going? It's going great. How are you Doing well? Emotional eating is something so many people struggle with, including myself. I know our listeners will gain a lot from this conversation. Let's talk about the post-GLP-1 plan. What happens when you stop the medication?

Speaker 3:

Hopefully, as you were going through your GLP-1 journey, you thought of it as riding a bike with training wheels. Right, you're learning how to ride that bike and eventually, as you're learning to ride that bike, you become more competent and you take the training wheels off and you no longer need them. So hopefully, like as you're on this journey, one of the things that we work with our patients on is improved nutrition, hydration, movement, especially the strength training. Hopefully you know you're learning all of these good techniques and tactics and tools so that when you come off the medication, you will be able to sustain that weight loss over time. Now what I will say is there may be some people who never get off the medication. We do have patients who will probably be on it forever, and a lot of it's because of genetics or maybe even hormonal right. So for those individuals, they tend to stay on more of a maintenance dose. They don't want to necessarily lose, but they don't want to necessarily gain the weight back because of something that's genetic, something that they're predisposed to, that's going to cause them to gain the weight. So I do want to say that Most people will come off, but there are some, through no fault of their own that will probably need to stay on the medication really for the for the rest of their life. But for those who don't want to and that's in our clinic that's most of our patients they really want this finite you know amount of time where they're actually on the medication.

Speaker 3:

This is your opportunity to really embrace nutrition, getting the protein, eating more clean, getting the fiber, certainly getting dehydration. If you're doing all of those things in partnership with the medication, the weight's going to come off. If you continue to kind of reinforce those habits once you're off the medication you should be able to maintain. It's really just that simple. So for us, when we have new patients come in, that's one of the first things that we talk about. We really try to understand, like, what their goals are. Do they want to be on this medications forever or do they want to get off? Most want to get off, and so we reinforce, starting from the very first appointment and throughout their journey, the importance of clean eating to the best of their ability. You know, real foods, hydration, hydration, fiber and movement.

Speaker 2:

So who are those patients that find themselves doing a more long-term plan? Do you know of or have you seen any side effects from being on the medications long-term?

Speaker 3:

Not really. You know, these medications have been around for a very long while. There are people who are diabetic, and that's really you know, kind of the basis of these medications to begin with. That's primarily what they were used for in the beginning. And there have been people, you know, as a result of being diabetic, they've been on these medications for 10 plus years, if not longer. So these medications have been around for a while and so for most again, the side effects initially are very minimal. Longer term, we're not necessarily seeing any major side effects other than the weight loss and everything that comes with losing weight, that sort of thing. So no, we're not seeing a lot of long-term issues, if you will.

Speaker 2:

Understood. And I love that bike analogy because they say once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget. So it's one of those things that I feel like once those healthy habits are in place, even if you cheat a little bit or fall off the wagon, you always know you can get back on.

Speaker 3:

And everybody understands that analogy. I think just about all of us as children, at some point, you know, we learn to ride a bike, and we didn't just jump on the bike and we're immediately able to go. We started with training wheels, and so it's such a great analogy because, regardless of like who you are and where you are in life, we all probably went through that journey, and so that's one of the reasons why we do use that analogy in clinic Love that.

Speaker 2:

So is there a way that you all cause I know you're not therapists, but again there's so much psychologically that's connected to weight loss how do you help your patients establish those healthy coping mechanisms when they want to emotionally eat?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, that's such a great question Because we do even sometimes with people who are even on the medication. Sometimes they'll call us and they're like I'm still gaining weight or I'm still having the cravings and they could be on a fairly high dose of the medication. So that's when we start to kind of dig in.

Speaker 3:

So tell me what's going on with life, what are your sleep habits? Send me pictures of your food. We want to see what your food, because you know our doctor he's funny some people think something's healthy and they're really not right. And so we're really trying to not only educate but we're also trying to coach, and so you know we will dig in in people's business. But we're really trying to understand, like well, what's going on with them day to day, because stress is a huge factor in you know, your ability to lose weight and so if you're completely stressed, you know your hormones are out of whack, especially that cortisol, you know. And sometimes you can just look at a person and you see and you're like, yep, they've got a level of stress right. People who work kind of odd hours and aren't getting much sleep, it's going to throw those hunger hormones off, and so they are. Even with the medication, they are still going to likely be hungry.

Speaker 3:

So we talk to our patients about those things and you know and what some different tactics are that they could do or should try.

Speaker 3:

You know whether it's meditation and things like that. Or maybe, you know, reconsider your health or that job, maybe try a different job if it's not going to allow you to get the appropriate amount of sleep. We have one patient that was literally having to wake up every two hours to do her job, and you know, and she was struggling to lose the weight, and again, with that lack of sleep throwing off those hunger hormones, you know, it was no wonder that she was struggling. And so she's got a tough decision that she's going to have to make. You know, as it relates to her health versus her job, you can have both. You should be able to have both. So she's got a tough choice that she's going to have to make. So we try to ask a lot of questions, a lot of probing questions. We're listening with an empathetic ear. But, you know, once we kind of uncover what we feel like are some of the root causes, we try to coach our clients with various tactics that they can try.

Speaker 2:

Sounds like a lifestyle change. It is. It absolutely is With jobs, not just sleep. But there's a lot of temptation. I remember I started a job and they took us out to eat and they had cakes and cupcakes and candy all within the first two weeks and my body was like no ma'am. So there is a lot of temptation and at first I was thinking why would you need to develop good habits if you have these medications? But I would think that seeing the results would make you want to stick with the habits. Does that Absolutely?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, and so not even just seeing the results. But I'll use another example. We had another patient. She's going through this journey and she talks about the fact that she's eating better foods. Now you know the clean foods. Now, when she goes to a restaurant and she eats something bad, or she goes to somebody's house and she eats something that's like really, really indulgent, she doesn't feel good. So cleaning up your diet teaches you, in a way, like how you should feel, how your body should feel. You know, if you're eating junk all the time, after a while it just feels normal. But once you clean it up and you start to feel different, when you start to eat something bad, something that's overly indulgent, you don't feel so good anymore and you don't like that feeling. And so we she and I chatted about that a bit, because that was reinforcement for her that wow, I am going down a better path, because eating this thing that used to bring me so much joy, now I just don't feel good anymore.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful side effect of changing your habits. You can retrain your body and your taste buds to create the right things. Thank you so much for opening up this discussion and giving people a plan to step off of these medications and go on in the future of their lives. I appreciate you. We'll see you next time, 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.