Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Preserving Muscle on GLP-1 Weight Loss Medications (or Rapid Fat Loss) | Ep 308

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Preserving Muscle on GLP-1 Weight Loss Medications (or Rapid Fat Loss) | Ep 308 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If you're one of the millions of people using weight loss drugs or thinking about them, you've probably heard about the impressive results on the scale or are experiencing them yourself.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: But you've also heard that there's a chance for massive muscle loss without the right lifestyle in place.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: So today I'm going to share with you some practical strategies to preserve muscle while maximizing fat loss on these medications, including how to adjust your nutrition, training and lifestyle, and then, if you choose to, you can maintain those results after you stop.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:47
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today we are talking about how to optimize your lifestyle, nutrition and training when using GLP-1 medications.
• 0:59
  Philip Pape: And this is both if you are considering them or you're currently on them, and, if you're on them, whether you want to continue using them or come off of them.
• 1:12
  Philip Pape: So I'm very open-minded to all the different scenarios here, and this is not at all going to be a judgment on the medications or your choice to use them, but rather how to make the best use of your lifestyle in the process.
• 1:20
  Philip Pape: I want to start by thanking Michael Kay.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: He's a fellow coach who we've been chatting for a while now.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: I actually did another episode in response to his sending me a question a while back, but today he sent me an email that helped inspire this episode.
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: Or I should say he sent me the email a while back, working with clients on these medications, which very much reflect what I have seen as well, and he said quote we have a great opportunity to shed light on this subject and keep our clients safe and well informed.
• 1:51
  Philip Pape: And, quote he emphasized the importance of the various lifestyle changes that must be made alongside these medications, and we are going to refer to some research as well.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: All of this perfectly aligns with what the evidence tells us and is also counter to some of the fear mongering like hey, you're just going to lose a ton of muscle, so why go on these meds?
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: When the reality is you will lose a ton of muscle when you crash diet, whether or not you are on the meds, and so the principles of how to counteract that are going to be the same.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: Now, before we get into it, if you are looking for personalized guidance on your approach, whether you are considering GLP-1s or currently using them or you're transitioning off, I've worked with all of these scenarios.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: We have folks in our Physique University and one-on-one clients who are in these various scenarios and what I do is I offer these free calls.
• 2:45
  Philip Pape: They're called rapid nutrition assessments and it's a 15 minute fast paced call where we identify what is your biggest challenge right now, why?
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: Why are you reaching out for help, and can we come up with two or three specific plans to address it.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: No sales pitch, it's just some advice.
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: I'm playing more of those on the podcast.
• 3:02
  Philip Pape: In fact, we're going to have one of those calls coming up soon that I did with Sam.
• 3:06
  Philip Pape: She was a more advanced person, experienced with nutrition and training, wondering if she should build, maintain or lose fat.
• 3:13
  Philip Pape: So you're going to hear that soon.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: But if you want your own version of that and you want to talk to me on a Zoom call and just get some clarity, click the link in the show notes to schedule that, or go to my website, witsandweightscom, and click the big button for the rapid nutrition assessment, and that could be pretty much just what you're looking for to optimize your approach if you feel like you're stuck.
• 3:34
  Philip Pape: So I want to talk about the medications, their impact on body composition, first, and then we'll set the stage for what's to come.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: So we're talking about GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide, which is Ozempic, or Wagovi, or terzepatide, which is Manjaro, and of course, this class of drugs continues to expand and get more potent, and they work mainly by reducing appetite.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: The way they do that is a little complicated, but effectively they can slow your gastric emptying, they can increase your feelings of fullness, and then they act on brain centers that control hunger, and that's critical, because we know how important brain related genetics are to hunger and appetite and is why so many people struggle with overeating, even when they know that that's the issue, and it's difficult to overcome, and that's often why some people are prescribed these meds.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: If you then are able to control those mechanisms, you then can have significant calorie reduction without the willpower struggle that many dieters experience, and that is why the results are so impressive.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: Across the board.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: We see clinical trials showing average weight losses of 15 to 20% of total body weight in about 68 to 72 weeks.
• 4:46
  Philip Pape: So it's fairly aggressive and way more effective than previous weight loss medications and, like bariatric surgery outcomes, things like that and the numbers are even higher for some of the more advanced, like terzapatide, is higher than semaglutide, and there are new classes of drugs as well, and it's effectively like doing a very rapid or aggressive diet on your own, but people tend to be able to stick with it and see it through because of the reduction in hunger and so on.
• 5:14
  Philip Pape: Now, what's important to understand about body composition?
• 5:17
  Philip Pape: Okay, there was a step one trial for semaglutide where researchers found that 40% of the weight lost was lean tissue.
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: Right, lean tissue includes is your lean mass and includes muscle.
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: It technically includes bone and water as well, but the vast majority of this is what we're talking about is muscle tissue.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: And there was a similar finding in the Sermount 1 trial for terzepatide.
• 5:40
  Philip Pape: Now, that does not mean these medications cause muscle loss.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: Very important to understand.
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: Instead, it is just a natural consequence of rapid weight loss without doing something to preserve muscle.
• 5:52
  Philip Pape: Very important Because, if we put this in perspective right, when you're not on these medications typical weight loss that we see with just your normal dieting approach a calorie deficit may also include some muscle loss.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: In fact, the average person losing weight without trying to hold on to muscle might lose 25 to 30% of their weight as muscle, right.
• 6:14
  Philip Pape: So the main reason the percentage is a bit higher with GLP-1s is the rapid rate of the weight reduction.
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: That's really all it is.
• 6:21
  Philip Pape: If you did this on your own and lost weight that quickly, you're also going to experience a 30 or 40% loss as muscle.
• 6:29
  Philip Pape: So the point isn't to be fearful or alarmed here, but understand this and then be strategic about it, just as we would implement specific strategies for any weight loss approach.
• 6:38
  Philip Pape: And, in fact, if you're listening and you have no desire at all or need to go on these meds, principles we talk about today are still valuable to you, and so we want to have these targeted interventions, and it would be awesome if everyone on these drugs everyone on these drugs had to be in a sort of patient-centered approach that had nutrition and lifestyle and training built in, like you had to do those things, but the real world and healthcare doesn't necessarily work that way.
• 7:02
  Philip Pape: So hopefully you're listening to this podcast and getting the power to do this on your own.
• 7:07
  Philip Pape: So I want to talk now about protein and nutrition, and then we'll talk about other lifestyle factors, especially strength training, of course.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: So the first, I guess, intervention for preserving muscle here is optimizing your protein intake, and I start here because for most people, this is going to be, I'll say, an easier play, in that we all eat food already.
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: You're already thinking in terms of weight loss and what goes in your mouth, and there are some things that make it a little more challenging on these medications because a lot of people experience reduced obviously reduced appetite, appetite overall, but sometimes an aversion to protein rich foods.
• 7:43
  Philip Pape: Others have an aversion to fat rich foods, right Like processed foods, which isn't the worst thing in the world when you just don't like to eat those things.
• 7:49
  Philip Pape: But when it's protein rich and you all of a sudden like kind of like a pregnant woman, all of a sudden like craves or hates a certain food, I've had clients tell me they suddenly can't stand the taste of chicken or eggs or something that they enjoyed and and, and we have to understand that.
• 8:04
  Philip Pape: So you have to be more deliberate and strategic about getting your protein.
• 8:07
  Philip Pape: So, based on the research I've talked about this many times before I recommend aiming for 0.7 to one gram per pound of body weight per day.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: So if your goal weight is and again, this is goal weight, ideal weight, whatever you want to call it and if you're on these drugs, you're probably trying to lose weight.
• 8:24
  Philip Pape: So if your goal weight is like 150 pounds, then that's say 110 to 150 grams of protein a day, and this is not a bodybuilder level protein intake.
• 8:33
  Philip Pape: This is very solid amount, shown in research, to preserve muscle mass.
• 8:37
  Philip Pape: When you are in significant calorie reduction because we have to make that assumption when you are in significant calorie reduction because we have to make that assumption I'm going to assume on GLP-1s, that you're going to be going at a rapid rate of loss.
• 8:46
  Philip Pape: However, however, we want to make sure that loss is controlled and we're actually eating enough food to prevent it going so fast that we still lose muscle even despite these interventions.
• 8:59
  Philip Pape: But anyway, back to protein.
• 9:00
  Philip Pape: All right, simple strategies If you have protein at every meal.
• 9:02
  Philip Pape: Back to protein.
• 9:02
  Philip Pape: All right, simple strategies If you have protein at every meal.
• 9:04
  Philip Pape: Prioritize protein at every meal.
• 9:06
  Philip Pape: Start with protein before moving on to other foods, because not only do you want to have the protein, you want to get ahead of your hunger signals that are less than someone else would have, and it ensures that you get the protein before you fill up.
• 9:19
  Philip Pape: Um, the second thing is, if you need liquid sources of protein, like protein shakes or Greek yogurt smoothies, right, it could still be whole food, like Greek yogurt, where you're smoothing, you're blending it, uh, even bone broth, like it's got to have a decent amount of protein, though, and it can sometimes be easier to consume.
• 9:35
  Philip Pape: And then you want to distribute protein throughout the day, and this is not because science says that's so much better for building muscle.
• 9:41
  Philip Pape: It's mainly to, um again, be able to get it all in right and not feel too stuffed or too full, and and there might be a tiny optimal advantage for muscle building, but I'm not asking you to do that for that reason.
• 9:53
  Philip Pape: Uh, and then the next thing is, of course, you know, if you have an aversion to a specific source of protein, like chicken.
• 9:59
  Philip Pape: You got so many other options.
• 10:01
  Philip Pape: You've got fish, shrimp, dairy eggs, plant-based options, you've got tofu, tempeh, all of that.
• 10:06
  Philip Pape: Just make sure you get enough, right.
• 10:08
  Philip Pape: Just make sure you get enough.
• 10:12
  Philip Pape: There's also whey protein versus pea and rice protein if you need to supplement.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: So the other thing that happens beyond protein is, of course, your nutrients, and I don't mean nutrition like your food, but your actual nutrient, micronutrient sufficiency, because when you're losing weight rapidly and you're not taking up in as much food or calories, you're then reducing your intake of essential vitamins and minerals, and so you may need to supplement more than you would in the past and you may lead to a deficiency if you don't right.
• 10:38
  Philip Pape: And so what are we talking about?
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: Well, I like multivitamins as a catch-all vitamin D if you need it, calcium if you need it, omega-3 supplements, magnesium, for sure.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: But you may have other needs.
• 10:54
  Philip Pape: Vitamin C, you know, you may have other needs, that, even iron, sometimes for women, but again, that's between you and your medical practitioner, based on your specific needs, based on your history.
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: And then I alluded to this already but you've got to be mindful of your actual calorie intake.
• 11:05
  Philip Pape: If anyone's taking GLP-1s and not tracking their food, I think they're doing themselves a disservice, because you're going to have significantly reduced appetite and could potentially eat way too little.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you're losing weight Great.
• 11:17
  Philip Pape: But you're also going to lose muscle and you're going to have additional nutrient deficiencies.
• 11:22
  Philip Pape: You're going to be low on energy.
• 11:23
  Philip Pape: It's going to be this kind of vicious cycle.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: It's not going to feel great.
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: So, actually, you know, determining your appropriate calorie target, which, in my opinion, would be no more, no more than 1% of your body weight a week maximum.
• 11:37
  Philip Pape: Okay, for most people that are not on these drugs, a half a percent is usually reasonable, maybe 0.75.
• 11:43
  Philip Pape: When you're on the drug because you have so much less appetite, you end up going more aggressively, but sometimes too extreme.
• 11:49
  Philip Pape: So track it.
• 11:50
  Philip Pape: Use Macrofactor.
• 11:51
  Philip Pape: Use my code Wits and Weights to get two weeks free.
• 11:54
  Philip Pape: Try it out.
• 11:54
  Philip Pape: Link in the show notes.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: Use Macrofactor and track your food so that you know how much you're eating and how much you should be eating to continue at that rate.
• 12:02
  Philip Pape: By the way, that's the only app that will do that for you, because it can calculate your metabolism and tell you true calorie targets for you.
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: All right, so if protein is the foundation of preserving muscle from a food perspective, then resistance training is what actually makes that possible.
• 12:19
  Philip Pape: So listen up, I could have put this as number one, but I wanted to start with the food side, because it's very unique to these meds.
• 12:26
  Philip Pape: But resistance training has been clearly demonstrated time and again as the most effective intervention to maintain muscle mass during weight loss and then when you're not losing weight.
• 12:37
  Philip Pape: Of course, it's how you build muscle, and this becomes even more critical when using these meds, mainly because the meds get you to go at a more extreme rate of loss, like we've talked about, but not too extreme, right, okay.
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: So in practical terms what this looks like is probably a minimum of two, but ideally three strength training sessions per week, potentially four once you get into it and you're like, hey, this is a lot of fun, I'm getting strong, et cetera, but three days a week, full body, mainly compound lifts and use progressive overload.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: Now we're not going to get into great detail on how to do all that in today's episode.
• 13:12
  Philip Pape: If you're not sure what I'm talking about.
• 13:13
  Philip Pape: I've got plenty of episodes on this.
• 13:15
  Philip Pape: I did one recently called strength versus hypertrophy.
• 13:18
  Philip Pape: I think it's going to be a classic.
• 13:20
  Philip Pape: It's a really good overview of this, of all the principles, and then from there you can branch off into other episodes or reach out to me.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: But I think the most effective approach, just at a high level, includes compound movements that engage multiple muscle groups.
• 13:34
  Philip Pape: So we're talking about squats or, if you can't do squats, leg presses for your lower body, deadlifts for your hamstrings and back and posterior chain, bench presses for your chest, for your triceps, overhead presses for your shoulders, and then like rows or pull downs for your back, for your biceps, things like that, and then you could throw other fun stuff in there if you've got the time and inclination.
• 13:58
  Philip Pape: But for those new to resistance training, I think a very simple three-day full body using these basic lifts is super solid, something like starting strength.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: We've got workouts in our Physique University that will get you started and then you can move up into more intermediate programs.
• 14:13
  Philip Pape: Definitely, working with a coach is super recommended early on, even if it's just a few sessions to get your form dialed in.
• 14:19
  Philip Pape: Or again, if you're working with us or in our Physique University, you can submit videos anytime for free as part of the program and get a form check and you're going to get where you need to be.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: You're going to get stronger, you're going to build muscle and then, if you're on these drugs, what this will look like is maintaining all that muscle so that you prioritize fat loss.
• 14:38
  Philip Pape: That is how you lose fat.
• 14:40
  Philip Pape: It's not cardio right.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: It's not cardio ever.
• 14:42
  Philip Pape: It's not cardio right.
• 14:43
  Philip Pape: It's not cardio ever.
• 14:43
  Philip Pape: It's lifting weights, building muscle, holding onto that muscle so that you lose fat, and so that's how we improve our body composition and you don't get skinny fat, frumpy, weak, low energy, all of that.
• 14:55
  Philip Pape: Speaking of energy, energy can sometimes be quite a bit lower while you're on GLP-1 meds because of the lower calorie intake, especially if you're going more aggressively.
• 15:02
  Philip Pape: So it's kind of ironic not ironic, but like you've got this ability to eat less because your appetite's less, but then there are other negative consequences if you do it too aggressively.
• 15:11
  Philip Pape: So many of my clients who are on these drugs, I still don't want them to go at the full level of aggressiveness because of the negatives to their other biofeedback, like their energy, like their recovery, their sleep, their stress, all of that stuff.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: So you want to have realistic expectations around your workout intensity, right your training intensity, because it could be compromised a bit if you're going really aggressively and you don't have much energy.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: And so I really focus on consistency right, getting to the gym three days a week and doing the program and trying to progress right.
• 15:44
  Philip Pape: You're not necessarily going to chase all time maximum personal records, but if you're listening to this podcast and you're not and this is all new to you anyway you're probably going to have some growth regardless.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: Just get in the gym three days a week and do it, do the training right, focus on slowly progressing and do the training.
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: The timing can also help, depending on your injections.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: So this is specific to the meds.
• 16:07
  Philip Pape: Some clients find that training shortly after their injection, when appetite is most suppressed, actually allows them to maintain their energy level, but others prefer training right before their injection or their meal, when energy might be slightly higher.
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: Right, so it's very personalized, but you need to track this stuff and figure it out.
• 16:26
  Philip Pape: Um, and then you you don't need to be a power lifter, a bodybuilder, whatever.
• 16:31
  Philip Pape: It's just moderate resistance training with barbells, maybe dumbbells and machines, depending on what you have access to is going to give you massive, significant benefits compared to just not doing it.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: You've got to train, you've got to resistance train and then do it for the rest of your life.
• 16:45
  Philip Pape: There's so many benefits to that.
• 16:47
  Philip Pape: We're not they're outside the scope of today's episode, but I have plenty of other episodes that get into that and then I think the final piece of the puzzle here is planning for what happens when I'll say if and when you decide to reduce or discontinue GLP-1 therapy and I say it in that subtle way because some people might feel like they want to stay on it for a while.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: They're asked by their doctor to do so.
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: There could be metabolic or health reasons for doing so.
• 17:13
  Philip Pape: Maybe you've come off of them and found that it's very difficult for you to continue maintaining your habits even when you've done everything right, and it's just your brain and your genetics are that way.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: Again, I'm not here to judge.
• 17:29
  Philip Pape: A lot of folks, though, want to try and then eventually get off of the drugs and discontinue them, and they understand that this is a lifelong thing, that we need to do this the right way and set yourself up for success, because the research is clear that weight regain is very common after stopping these meds.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: In the Step 1 Extension Study, participants regained two-thirds of their lost weight within a year after discontinuation.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: But guess what?
• 17:51
  Philip Pape: This does not have to be your outcome.
• 17:53
  Philip Pape: It's also a very typical outcome, even when people are not on these drugs and go through weight loss, and I think that's actually an empowering statement I just said, because what it means is it's not really the drugs, it's the fact that the drugs allow you to have a calorie deficit, and then the lifestyle is not in place at the same time to allow you to come off the drugs and maintain it, just like somebody who's not on these drugs loses weight the wrong way and loses muscle and then regains their weight that way, it's the same thing really.
• 18:23
  Philip Pape: So the wrong way and loses muscle and then regains their weight.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: That way, it's the same thing really.
• 18:25
  Philip Pape: So if you can plan properly, you can maintain your results, and this planning begins months before you stop the medication.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: So here is my approach to this.
• 18:32
  Philip Pape: I've done this with clients.
• 18:33
  Philip Pape: It works really well.
• 18:34
  Philip Pape: I can refer you to individuals who've done this.
• 18:38
  Philip Pape: It works okay.
• 18:40
  Philip Pape: The first thing you're going to do is gradually transition to maintenance calories.
• 18:45
  Philip Pape: You're coming out of a deficit.
• 18:48
  Philip Pape: You're increasing your calories to maintenance while you're still on the medication, and this gives your body time to adapt to higher food intake while the appetite suppressing effects are still present, with the caveat that you might want to reduce the dose.
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: So you do this in conjunction with your doctor and you talk to them and you say, hey, I've been working with Philip, where I've been listening to his podcast, I've been training, I've been tracking my food, I've been eating plenty of protein.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: Right, I'm active, I'm an athletic fitness lifestyle individual, not like I was before, when I first came to you, doc, but now I am, I've got my lifestyle in place and I want to eventually get off these drugs.
• 19:28
  Philip Pape: So maybe I'm going to titrate down by a fraction of the dose while you then increase the calories, all right.
• 19:35
  Philip Pape: The second thing is and this should go without saying, but I want you to make sure that your resistance training program, by this point, is consistent and progressive, because by the time you start tapering off the meds, this is going to be like a well-established habit.
• 19:50
  Philip Pape: It's just part of your lifestyle.
• 19:51
  Philip Pape: Strength training above all, okay.
• 19:53
  Philip Pape: Third, I want you to learn and practice mindful eating strategies while you're on the meds, that you're just going to continue, mindful eating strategies while you're on the meds, that you're just going to continue.
• 20:06
  Philip Pape: And that could be a number of things that could be simply eating slowly, you know, uh, planning your meals in advance, meal prep, meal planning To me, that is a form of mindfulness as well.
• 20:11
  Philip Pape: It could be, you know, learning to estimate your foods visually so you you eat reasonable portions, balancing your macros right.
• 20:21
  Philip Pape: That's what I mean by mindful, not just the you know, put your fork down between each bite type of thing, but more of the mindfulness of the eating and the mindfulness of the planning, prep, logging, tracking, all of it, all right.
• 20:32
  Philip Pape: And then I want you to connect.
• 20:34
  Philip Pape: So this is number four I want you to consider a gradual tapering strategy.
• 20:37
  Philip Pape: So I already alluded to this when I talked about going to maintenance.
• 20:42
  Philip Pape: But people have success tapering.
• 20:44
  Philip Pape: This is true of most things not all, but most types of dosing approaches where your healthcare provider can help design this for you so your body adjusts to the changing appetite signal because it is fairly proportional to the medication, right?
• 21:00
  Philip Pape: And so that way you don't just get a sudden rebound and all of a sudden feel like you're starving and you could eat anything.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: So for most of my clients, I'm gonna transition, or I'm going to recommend transitioning, not just to maintenance but actually slowly toward a slight caloric surplus that coincides with the tapering process and gets you into a really a building growth, a high energy state of thinking right, where you are now setting up structure and control about your eating, even when you're eating more enough to slightly gain weight.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: And it's a very different way to live than the reason you gained weight before, where it was uncontrolled, you couldn't control your appetite signals or whatever.
• 21:43
  Philip Pape: Now we're going to direct your increasing appetite toward muscle growth rather than fat storage and towards something that benefits you right, and that's a beautiful thing in my opinion.
• 21:56
  Philip Pape: So it's really about having a plan before you stop.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: I don't want you to just discontinue it and have no strategy and then, even worse, not having done any of these things to begin with.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: Anyway, right, you put the lifestyle in place, the training, the protein, the tracking very simple, right, just the simple pillars.
• 22:11
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you can get increase your step count.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: Yes, you should focus on sleep and stress.
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: All that's great.
• 22:16
  Philip Pape: But the big ones are really training, protein, tracking, right, consistency, controlling your mindfulness or having a mindful approach to not only eating but planning, prep and so on, and then tapering your dose down as you bring the calories up and potentially bring the calories even more up, past maintenance to a slight building phase, and it all just lines up really well.
• 22:36
  Philip Pape: After that you can see how you feel, not being on the meds, eating plenty of food, building growth.
• 22:43
  Philip Pape: It should help manage the hunger really well at that point, because most people who are gaining weight to build muscle actually don't have much hunger.
• 22:49
  Philip Pape: When they do, it's because they do need to eat more food, but it kind of mentally frees your brain from even having food noise because you don't get the hunger and you're off the medication, and it creates a nice positive association with food.
• 23:02
  Philip Pape: Then, after you build muscle for, let's say, six months now you can go potentially into maintenance or another fat loss phase without the medications and that's like your next phase of your overall approach that you can experiment with.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: That's well beyond the scope of today's episode.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: So what's really cool about these medications is they present a unique opportunity for body recomp.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: That isn't possible when you're not in the meds.
• 23:29
  Philip Pape: And I'm not telling everyone to go out and get your injections.
• 23:31
  Philip Pape: What I'm saying is is if you're on these medications, because they so effectively manage hunger, they can create an environment where you can be in a calorie deficit without the hunger or even brutal hunger, depending on how you've done it that normally accompanies significant weight loss.
• 23:49
  Philip Pape: Right, most people, when you're on these drugs, are not going to really be able to push at that 1% for very long, but when you're on the drugs, you kind of can.
• 23:56
  Philip Pape: I mean, I've had clients who are like yep, I'm not hungry, yep, I'm not hungry, and here we are in this like pretty significant deficit.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: So then you can get some substantial fat loss in a short amount of time while preserving your muscle.
• 24:08
  Philip Pape: If you do it with lifestyle, you've got to have the meds with the lifestyle, okay.
• 24:13
  Philip Pape: And I've had clients who've got amazing body composition transformations, who were on the meds initially just to lose weight.
• 24:21
  Philip Pape: We got them actually thinking in terms of fat loss and body comp training and nutrition and it helped them do it.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: I'll say faster, true, faster.
• 24:30
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 24:31
  Philip Pape: Let's just not beat around the bush, because they didn't have the hunger, but we didn't want to go so fast that it'd affect them in other ways and they got it over fairly quickly.
• 24:39
  Philip Pape: So you know we're talking 40, 50, maybe 60 pounds of fat over.
• 24:43
  Philip Pape: I don't know what are we saying?
• 24:45
  Philip Pape: A nine, 12 month period.
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: I may have the numbers off.
• 24:47
  Philip Pape: We don't want to go past 1% a week, but some clients come in and start there.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: You know they're 350 pounds, right, so it's all relative Um, and then they'll actually gain some lean mass in the process.
• 24:56
  Philip Pape: So actually get some recomp, which is totally possible when you have a lot of weight to lose.
• 25:01
  Philip Pape: And for many people that seems like an impossible thing to do without the appetite management benefits of the meds.
• 25:07
  Philip Pape: And that's why I am very open-minded to what you need as an individual, even though I'm not out there being like, yeah, come, take these drugs and then join my program.
• 25:16
  Philip Pape: It's not like that, it's hey, I want to help you do what you want to do with the drugs or without them.
• 25:21
  Philip Pape: Okay, the I want to help you do what you want to do with the drugs or without them.
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: Okay, the medications are not magic pills, although some would argue they're pretty close.
• 25:26
  Philip Pape: The problem is they're.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: The magic that they do cause is misleading, because weight loss by itself isn't going to get you what you want to be.
• 25:33
  Philip Pape: You want to have fat loss.
• 25:35
  Philip Pape: So if you pair it with lifestyle, that's where you're going to get the great results.
• 25:38
  Philip Pape: And then the habits and the muscle that you build during the process that becomes your foundation for the new you that doesn't need these meds anymore.
• 25:46
  Philip Pape: Potentially, right, potentially.
• 25:48
  Philip Pape: Again, I don't want to make anyone feel guilty Like, hey, I tried all this, I came off the meds.
• 25:52
  Philip Pape: I felt like I couldn't control my appetite.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: There may be deeper or more genetically linked challenges for certain people.
• 25:59
  Philip Pape: So main takeaways here GLP-1 meds are powerful tools to lose weight, but they work best when combined with lifestyle to optimize fat loss, body composition, holding onto muscle right.
• 26:13
  Philip Pape: Otherwise you can lose up to 40% of your body mass as muscle.
• 26:15
  Philip Pape: Number two you want to prioritize protein of 0.7 to one gram per pound of your goal body weight, even when you don't feel like you can eat it.
• 26:23
  Philip Pape: And that's where you have to get creative.
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: How do you get it in liquids, different timing, et cetera.
• 26:27
  Philip Pape: Number three resistance training has to be a non-negotiable part of your routine.
• 26:31
  Philip Pape: Resistance training, not just a YouTube workout, right?
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: Not just randomly going to the gym, but actually training with progressive overload to signal to your body that muscles should be preserved.
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: Number I think I'm on number four here.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: You want to plan for transitioning to a lower or off of the medication well in advance.
• 26:48
  Philip Pape: Come up with a plan to do it.
• 26:51
  Philip Pape: Reach out to me, work with your medical practitioner.
• 26:53
  Philip Pape: Now doctors, in my opinion, most of them don't understand, don't understand building muscle, losing fat, body composition, energy balance they really just don't.
• 27:02
  Philip Pape: They don't have much training and nutrition in lifting.
• 27:06
  Philip Pape: Some do right, more do now than in the past but many don't.
• 27:09
  Philip Pape: And so, unless you have a really good feeling for that being the case with your practitioner, reach out to me, listen to the show, join us in Physique University.
• 27:18
  Philip Pape: We'll help you do that.
• 27:18
  Philip Pape: And so it's a strategic approach, right, where these meds are just objective tools to help with the appetite.
• 27:25
  Philip Pape: They're catalysts, and if you do all the other things that's going to set you up sustainably for the rest of your life, all right.
• 27:31
  Philip Pape: So I hope that clarified your approach to these meds.
• 27:35
  Philip Pape: Whether you're thinking about them, you're on them.
• 27:37
  Philip Pape: You want to come off them.
• 27:38
  Philip Pape: You're unsure about the best strategy for a situation?
• 27:40
  Philip Pape: I off them.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: You're unsure about the best strategy for a situation.
• 27:48
  Philip Pape: I'm not offering medical advice.
• 27:49
  Philip Pape: I'm not recommending them one way or the other.
• 27:50
  Philip Pape: I'm just trying to help you navigate them, if that's in your realm.
• 27:51
  Philip Pape: So, if you want to talk about it, I offer a free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessment.
• 27:54
  Philip Pape: Again, during this Zoom call, which is not a sales pitch at all, we're going to identify your biggest challenge right now and create a plan to address it.
• 28:00
  Philip Pape: And if you want to talk through these meds maybe you're on them.
• 28:03
  Philip Pape: You want to know what's my plan to get off?
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: We can talk about that.
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: Just some advice that you can implement, starting right now.
• 28:08
  Philip Pape: Click the link in the show notes to schedule it or go to witsandweightscom and until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights.
• 28:16
  Philip Pape: And remember it's not about losing weight, it's creating a strong, healthy body that you deserve.
• 28:23
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.