GLP-1 The side effects the commercials leave out

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are everywhere right now, and the loudest conversations miss the part that matters most: what kind of weight you’re actually losing. We’re not here to shame anyone or sell you on a medication. We’re here to talk like coaches and trainers about the side effect that can quietly wreck your long-term results: losing muscle while the scale drops fast.

We explain the simple mechanism behind GLP-1 medications (slower gastric emptying and longer fullness) and why that often leads to a huge calorie deficit without you meaning to. When intake crashes to 1,200 calories or less, your body can’t pull all that weight from fat alone, so water and lean mass get dragged into the loss. That may not feel like a problem until you come off the drug and your body has less muscle, a lower energy burn, and a much easier time regaining fat even on “healthy” food.

Then we give you the practical playbook: aim for a modest deficit (often around 500 calories per day), track intake so you know what’s actually happening, and prioritize protein so your body has what it needs for muscle and organ repair. We also outline a minimum effective strength training approach (even two days per week) focused on the big muscle groups, plus why progressive overload and sleep are non-negotiable for recovery.

If you want sustainable weight loss, better body composition, and a plan that still works after the prescription ends, press play. After you listen, subscribe, share it with someone considering GLP-1s, and leave a review so more people find the muscle-saving side of the conversation.

We’re a father-son coaching team behind Time Under Tension PT, and this podcast is built for men 30+ who used to be in great shape but now struggle with low energy, weight gain, and inconsistent habits due to work and life demands.

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Transcript

Why GLP-1s Feel Shameful

SPEAKER_01 0:06

All right. Today I want to talk about me, Vin Vin me and Vin Both want to talk about a really hot topic, and I think there's a lot of confusion surrounding this topic, and that is using GLP1s. I think people, a lot of people are ashamed of it, and you shouldn't be. And again, we're not here to be advocates of the drug or not to use the drug. What I want to talk about today is something I think it's missed when it comes to the commercials. They're always like the whole commercial is kind of funny in that it's all side effects. And one of the side effects is in probably the most important from our standpoint as personal trainers and nutrition coaches, is the how the weight actually comes off, right? So so let me let me just start with the GLP1, what it really does in its simplest terms, and it's this, okay. It as you take the drug, it slows down gastrocempting. So what does that mean? It just takes more time for what you eat to go from the stomach to the large intestines to the small intestines and ultimately the conversion into glucose into your bloodstream. So, so it's really about food converted into energy, and it does that slower so you feel full longer. That is pretty much it in a nutshell. And what it does, because of some of the other side effects, which are again nausea, vomiting, some of these are some of the more extreme ones, but you don't feel

How The Weight Comes Off

SPEAKER_01 1:38

like eating all that much. And so somebody who normally, let's say, is trying to lose a significant amount of weight and they normally eat 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day, now all of a sudden they can't even eat. And so they end up with around maybe 1200 or even less in many cases. And this in itself is a giant problem because now, you know, what's the statistics, what's coming through now, not that this surprises Vince and I, is that the the up to 40% of the total scale weight that you see ends up being muscle. And so that you're not going to notice that as a problem while you're on these drugs. It will definitely be a problem when you come off the drugs. And if you're looking at your overall general health, you want to have the most muscle mass that you can to preserve your health. And if if you're losing muscle mass along the way here, that is not a situation you want to be in. So I want to talk about that today. And it's really, really again, it's it's important. So let's first start with understanding the whole big process, and that is this. So the drug companies, what's their job? They're a business. So their job is to make the drugs, sell the drugs, and make a profit from those drugs. Okay, so that doesn't mean that there aren't scientists that work for these companies that really, really are in the game to help people. There's no question about it. That's for sure happening. But if you're an executive for a drug company, your job is to make sure the company's profitable. Then if you go to the doctor, now you have this new medicine that's been then produced by the drug companies. And American medicine is pretty simple too. You know, you go to the doctor with a problem, their job is to diagnose the problem and then give you some sort of medication or solution to that problem that way. Not diabetes. That I don't know that I've ever heard that story before. And it it is a story you should hear. So today you're gonna hear it from us, and it's really, really important because our interest isn't trying

What Ads And Doctors Miss

SPEAKER_01 4:10

to make a profit on selling GLP1s. I mean, our our our job is to make sure that, and we've got a couple clients right now that are just getting ready to start these drugs, and we want to make sure that they actually use these drugs the way they truly are recommended, but you just don't you just don't hear about it because it doesn't really fit the model. And so we want to talk about two things basically, and that is diet and what's important in order to preserve muscle from a dietary standpoint, and then also to resistance training to make sure that that that happens too. And at the end of the day, what we hope is that through whether your your weight loss journey is six months, nine months, or even a year, that by the end of it you've developed these habits that you feel so comfortable with that dieting is not even a concern because when it comes to weight loss, we always say that you know, we you should never have your goal to be a weight goal. Like that's never should be the goal. The goal should be to identify as a person who now eats healthy, to identify as a person who exercises regularly. That that's really the goal. And so that's what we want to make sure that you hear today because you won't normally, you certainly won't hear it in the commercials, and you probably might not get it from your doctor either. So so we're gonna we're

The Calorie Deficit Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 5:34

gonna do that. So so let's start with the basic fundamentals of the diet piece and why it's a concern, and that is this. So now remember, when you go from 2,500 calories down to maybe 1200 calories, this is an extreme calorie deficit. Vin, what, what would you normally recommend as far as calorie deficit if we were gonna say, okay, somebody wants to lose some weight, what would you start them with generally?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah, so uh again, we'll always advocate for a more moderate calorie deficit. So let's say somebody's you know, total daily energy expenditure is about 2,700 calories. For that person, we would start them around 2,200 and then kind of go from there and see what how their body sort of responds to that. When you start to consider that the deficit that some of these GLP1 drugs can actually create in some people can exceed a thousand, 1,500 calories in the whole every day, you you start to rapidly lose weight. And so what you'll find is that, as you mentioned a little bit ago, is that your body can't lose all fat that fast. It has to pull from other places, and so that's where you see some of your your your water and and your muscle actually go along with the fat. Not to say that you won't lose the fat, because you definitely will, but it's going to have to pull because of how quickly it's happening from other places as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

You mentioned 500 calories is a mod a moderate deficit. Is it okay to do 300 from food and maybe 200 from exercise as the total package? Was that is that okay? Does that work? Absolutely. Okay, good. Because I I think that gets missed too. I think people because it's really about the total deficit in combination. And so maybe there's days where you, you know, you're 300 calories is your deficit, and you know, you're you're doing some sort of activity that is the other 200, and then on days maybe you're not exercising, then you can try and make up those 200 the other way, so it's consistent. So why do people use why do people use 500 as the marker anyway? Do you do you do you want to share that for a second? You know why that is?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I think it's just as a just it's a good marker because it's it's been shown that it's not too aggressive of a deficit. So so because you're only taking 500 calories away at a time, right? It'll slowly be able to start to chip away at the fat without sort of compromising your your muscle and things like that that you want to actually maintain during during a calorie deficit.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So and look at it this way, too, because I mean, this is the the science behind this. And so if you do 500 calories seven days a week, that's 3,500. Well, 3,500 calories is what it takes to actually remove one pound of fat. Again, that's the science behind it. So that's why people say, but now think about that for a minute. So now you're talking about one pound a week. That's really modest weight loss. So these drugs are not like that. I mean, because now because why aren't they like that? They're like they're not like that because of the fact that it isn't a 500-calorie deficit. You know, it's way more. And and again, I think what people also do, people who are aggressive and really want to do a good job, they they get into this thousand, 1,500 calorie deficit, and then then they go hit the treadmill, and they're on the treadmill, you know, for an hour and a half every day, and now they're knocking out another 500 on top of it. And this really ends up being a huge problem because the body does not have sufficient amount of energy in order to sustain itself. And so let's talk about that, the food piece first, and what the recommendations are and what the safety net

Eat Enough To Avoid Adaptation

SPEAKER_01 9:17

is. And so, first of all, while you're on the drugs, it's gonna be challenging, but you gotta be aware of the fact that you've got to take in at least enough energy to maintain your body at rest, right? And again, not to get into the the science of metabolic rates and all this other stuff and the BMR, but bottom line is your body does need a certain amount of energy just to survive. Okay, so and if you if for some reason you go below that, even significantly below that, your body doesn't just sit still, it will adapt. And so it starts kind of you've heard of this slowing your metabolism down, and that's not exactly the best term for it, but it does start to adjust so you don't die. I mean, so that's really at the end of the day. And so it says, okay, well, because of that, we're gonna slow this person down, we're gonna slow everything down, we're gonna slow down heart rate, we're gonna slow down the amount of movement they do during the day. How do we do that? We're gonna make them tired. You know, so there's all these different things. So here's what's super important. Number one, you gotta try, it sounds so crazy. You gotta try and eat while you're on these drugs. And you gotta be aware of the fact that, you know, if you don't eat down the course day or you eat one meal a day, man, if you eat one meal a day and you're conscientious about it and you eat whole foods, you're not eating crap, it's kind of like to get 700 calories in a meal, that's kind of tough. Yeah, it's not easy to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Unless you're just abusing like healthy fats and things like that. But in in most cases, they're not good. That's that's not what people are doing.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

I'd give you a hundred bucks if you'd name me five people who even could list three healthy fats.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

It's not one of those things where you know it's normal. So, anyway, so number one, be aware of how much is coming in. So I would definitely track that. Get yourself My Fitness Palo, whatever it is, to track the food and say, okay, these are the things I'm considering eating for the day, and make sure that it again, it's in your deficit. And and again, hopefully the the side effects of the nausea and all that are not so bad that you can't eat. The second thing that's

Protein Targets That Protect Muscle

SPEAKER_01 11:26

super important when it comes to your diet is prioritizing protein. Now, everyone hears about protein and they immediately think of you know muscle, which certainly is a big part of it. But I want to clarify that the protein is essential for all organ repair, too. I mean, it's like it's not just about building muscle. So you need, in order for the body to repair itself everything, you have to have the protein there. And most Americans today are are not really close to where they should be. And even though they're eating in a calorie surplus, they're still not there because they're eating the wrong types of foods and they're not aware of what it is that they're they're targeting.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, let me interrupt you for a second. When when you consider that most people who have natural hunger signaling and and appetites that are that are untouched by an external source. In this case, we're talking about GLP1s and the and the implication that it has on your natural appetite. If you struggle now to hit your protein goal, this is kind of what you were just saying, then there is a brand new set of challenges that come along with essentially a glorified appetite suppressant, right? In in trying to hit this this protein goal, even it like the odds are even more stacked against you now than they are when you're not not on the drugs, is the way that I think about it. It just I think it would just it just makes it a little bit more challenging. For sure.

unknown 12:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

And so let me let me make this easy for people who are, you know, the the the people we're specifically talking to, if you're over 30 and you're looking at these drugs as a possible uh solution for you, is that what we usually target is 0.8 of your total weight that you want to be. So again, if you want to be 200 pounds, then you look at 0.8, that's 160. So you're looking at 160 grams, is where your target is. And so plus or minus, you know, 30 to 50 is gonna be okay, you know, because but again, most people in America or somewhere around that 70 mark, it's it's really kind of low. So it's important, even though, like I said, you know, you might be eating way more than you need to eat, you might be missing that marker, and so that's really important. So, so like write that down and make sure you know, okay, so it's gonna be 0.8 of what I think my total goal weight should be, and that should be what I should be looking at. And then, so how do you do this? It's important that you have some sort of a tracker or some sort of like whether it be my fitness pal, there's lots of them out there that are free, and you want to start. This is the key to this is don't eat, then track. Track first, look at and see does this match what I'm trying to do, and then eat. And then the next part of this, which I think is really important, is look, make this easy and make this boring. You know, if variety is the you know the spice of life and you really like different types of foods, it's just a little more challenging. What I'm recommending is that you know, you figure out, okay, what do I like to eat for breakfast that matches my goals? What I like to eat for lunch that matches my goals, and what do I like to eat for dinner that matches my goals? And eat those the same thing all the time. You know, I I Vin and I were talking about this the other day. Eggs as an example for breakfast. You know, you can eat eggs so many different ways, but like say you let's decide you you want to do three, okay? Gonna give you around 20 grams of protein in three eggs. You can have them sunny side up, you can have them over easy, you can have them scrambled. It it doesn't matter. Omelet. Omelet, man, there's all different choices, but you'll know then I know I'm gonna get 20 out of this part of it, you know. Then you start adding things, you know, lean turkey sausage if you like that, and or maybe yogurt and fruit, you know, the Greek yogurt in particular. So that those are and again, the key there is to just make it simple by eating it the same way all the time or the same actual foods day in and day out. So this gets challenging enough on these drugs without making it overly complicated. So, and again, these what what you're really doing is you're developing good food habits. Okay. I'm gonna throw this in here real quick at this point, because what I'll talk about at the end is the importance of sleep and all this too. So, because I know I mentioned diet and and and weight training, but sleep's a piece of this, and I'll have Vin kind of address this too.

Minimum Effective Strength Training

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So, Vin for people listening that are maybe like think thinking to themselves, well, geez, you know, this is kind of I think this is important. I'd like for you to talk about weight training. I want you to consider the fact that maybe a lot of people they just uh they don't normally do it, and that they don't have a lot of time. What would be your absolute minimum recommendation? You could start with framing what would be the best case scenario, but then saying, okay, well, let's let's not go there just yet. Let's start somewhere. Where would you start and how would you actually program that?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Right. So again, we'll just start. Best case scenario has nothing to do with GLP ones. If you're looking to build muscle every week, every body part should get around 10 to 20 sets of good hard repetitions, right? So that's what that's what you're looking at from an optimal. I want to build muscle. This is kind of the guideline that you want to, you know, use as far as when you're when you're developing your own training regimen, right? When it comes to just preserving your muscle that you already have while you're on GLP ones, I think that it becomes still a definite priority that you should take into account, but it it when when muscle preservation is is the goal, you don't have to you don't have to put in as much work as as the guy looking to become a an IFPB pro bodybuilder, right? So so it can just be, if you don't go to the gym at all, try two days a week, right? And just make sure that you're educated enough and you're using a program that targets all of your all of your body parts, right? And if you just go to the gym, let's say two days a week and you do bicep curls, this is not really going to help your case, right? Because a lot of the bigger muscle groups, your back, your chest, your legs, they're gonna suffer because they're not getting the sort of work that they require to be strengthened and to be preserved, right? So again, you do the resistance training, you break down the muscle in the gym. The most important part is what you do outside of the gym, right? And and so that's what's gonna dictate how much muscle you can hang on to, especially in a deficit. I think that, you know, people have this misconception, they go to the gym and it builds a bunch of muscle. No, dude, you're just breaking down muscle, and then you're going to go home and repair it and grow. That's what actually ends up happening. So in this, in this context, you you don't have to necessarily kill yourself in the gym to preserve the muscle. It's what you're doing when you get home and outside of the gym that's actually going to dictate how much success you see in in this facet of GLP1 usage.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

So if I if I go to the gym and I do this, I say, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna write myself this program and I'm gonna do arms, I'm gonna do chest, I'm gonna do back, and I'm gonna do legs. So we've got four different body parts, and then I say, okay, I want to do two extras two exercises per body part, and I want to do two sets of eight for each one of those two. Is that a good place to start?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

If you if the alternative is you are not gonna go to the gym at all, then yes, anywhere is a great place to start. Again, you want to talk about how efficient and how optimized you can be with with a program like that, then then we can start to nitpick and things like that. But if the alternative is GLP1 plus not eating plus no resistance training, well, yeah, I mean you can do pretty much anything at that point as far as resistance training is concerned, and it's gonna be better than the latter.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

And and I want to not not to beat a dead horse on the resistance training, but it is super important. And so we talk about this a lot. How many times do you go to the gym and what percentage of people are just moving around, they're doing different exercises, and nobody like we track everything we do. Well, why do we why do we do that? You know, and so this is important to really understand because muscle building over time requires consistency and and repetition, like and so what it's called again called progressive overload. But the key here is you you you need to know what you did the last time you were there in order to do this. And so again, you don't have to kill yourself, but it does mean maybe adding five more pounds, or maybe instead of doing eight reps you're doing ten. I you know this approach, if you again, if you're listening, this is a practical approach,

Coming Off Drugs And Regain Risk

SPEAKER_01 20:31

right? That that we want to make sure that you that you understand, and it it is so that when you finally get to where you know you think you're comfortable or your your met you know your biomarkers are coming back in place, in other words, the diabetes is has basically gone away, your blood pressure's in check, all these different parts. Once you get there, we don't want you to be in a spot where it's a time to get off the drugs, and now you're in a really bad spot because now you've got less muscle mass. You your body has adapted to this extreme calorie reduction because you haven't eaten enough. And so now the moment you start eating, even if it's healthy food, a little more than you're used to, now you're in a surplus. Guess what? The fact that now your body's in a worse position because it doesn't have the same muscle mass, now you start gaining fat back. This is very, very normal when it comes to the drugs, and of course, no one's gonna advertise that. That's bad marketing. You wouldn't you wouldn't want to sell the drug and say, oh, by the way, when you're done with this, you're gonna gain most of this back. And so, you know, in the course of a year's time, the studies are showing that it's significant weight gain. And so it's funny because commercial always says, I'm losing weight and I'm keeping it off. Well, yeah, as long as you're in a calorie deficit and you're taking the drugs, you are gonna keep it off. As a matter of fact, gonna keep going, you know, until your body just says, Okay, that's enough. You I can't lose any more weight. So, anyway, so that's

Sleep As The Recovery Multiplier

SPEAKER_01 21:55

that. So I I lead I alluded to this earlier. I want to just bring it up real quick, then you just kind of sort of. Mentioned it, what happens after the gym, but this part's important, and that is the sleep piece. I don't think people oftentimes realize the impact that sleep has on all of this, meaning that the muscle repair, the organ repair, all that stuff, that all happens when you are sleeping. Super, super important. And if you're somebody that doesn't get a lot of sleep, I get it, I understand. It's hard. I go through a ritual every night to try and get to sleep. Shut the TV off, keep the dark, you know, keep a darker room, try and keep it cool in the room, all these different little things you can do to make sure that you're gonna try and get at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night. And if you if you don't, you do you feel it, you know. And it's hard for me, and I'm sure it is with a lot of guys out there where it's just hard to shut the day off. You know, you've worked all day, you've got deadlines, you've got things like that. That all plays into you. I know it does to me a lot of times. You just lay there and you just get even more mad because you can't get to sleep. So that's the last the last

Simple Takeaways And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 23:03

piece of this. So just to kind of summarize it all and wrap it all up is again, if you're doing this, one, pay attention to the calorie deficit that you actually are in and know that maybe you might have to fight to get more food in you. Number one, so make that sure that's modest. Again, 500, you're gonna lose weight, trust me, you will. Two, prioritize protein in your diet to make sure that you have that nutrient available to repair things. Then next, get in the gym, even if it's two days a week, right? Real simple, you don't have to kill yourself, but make sure that you're doing at the very least, preserving the muscle that you have. You don't want to lose that, and then finally getting enough sleep. So uh hopefully today, and this was important to Vin and me talking about this because I know that it doesn't get talked a lot about it. And so if if you're listening and this is something that kind of struck a chord, please go ahead and reach out to us. You can leave us fan mail right on our on our page. You can do that, you can actually text us if you want right from the page. So we'd really love to hear from you, and if we can help, that would be awesome, even if it's just a simple you know conversation. So, again, as always, thank you so much for for listening, and we hope that this perspective has helped. And uh, we'll talk to you guys real soon. So, again, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, guys.