WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS
A COMPANION PROTOCOL FOR THOSE ON WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS
With the growing popularity of weight loss drugs such at Ozempic, Wegovy, and Munjaro, it’s important to understand how they work, how to manage side effects and how to feel comfortable discontinuing them without gaining the weight back.
The drugs work by mimicking the Glucagon-like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) that is naturally produced in our bodies, they help people lose weight in a couple of ways.
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They slow how quickly food leaves your stomach which affects the release of insulin and glucagon from the pancreas which helps lower blood sugar.
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They affect the areas of your brain that influence satiety which suppresses your appetite and cravings.
Unfortunately, there can also be unpleasant and even harmful side effects including muscle loss.
Studies have shown that people having rapid weight loss on a prescription weight loss medication can be losing up to 40% of that weight as muscle. Which means that for every 10 pounds lost, 4 pounds is muscle.
Sparing muscle during a weight loss program is important for a few reasons:
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After the age of 30 muscle mass is already starting to decline as much as 8% a decade. It’s been shown that unless there is intervention, patients taking GLP-1s can be losing as much as 40% of their weight as muscle. So for every 10 pounds lost, 4 is muscle.
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Muscle is the engine that burns calories even when you are at rest. It’s hard to keep weight lost off when you now have to eat even less to maintain the weight because of a lower metabolism.
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Of course health is most important, but you also want to look and feel good when you get to your goal. If you’ve heard of ‘Ozempic face’, this is directly related to muscle loss. Skin is attached to muscle, and it will sag with muscle loss.
Weight Loss for Life is excited to offer a companion protocol designed to help people using GLP-1 weight loss drugs lose their weight quickly and safely. This coached protocol involves eating higher fibre foods and high-quality protein supplementation along with weekly weigh-ins using the Ideal Protein biometric scale which tracks your body fat and muscle %’s, ensuring it’s fat lost not muscle. Our clients typically lose 1-3 pounds a week.
Once you get to your goal, we transition you to healthy whole food eating (with room for a treat every once in awhile), in order for you to feel confident that you can keep the weight off on your own.