Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Managing GLP‑1 Side Effects for Weight Loss Without Losing Muscle (Justin Silver) | Ep 358

Transcript

Managing GLP‑1 Side Effects for Weight Loss Without Losing Muscle (Justin Silver) | Ep 358 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: One in seven Americans are now on GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wagovi, but here's what doctors aren't telling you Over half of users quit within a year, and a third of those quit because of difficult side effects that disrupt their training, their protein intake and thus their ability to maintain muscle mass when trying to make the necessary lifestyle changes.
• 0:22
  Philip Pape: In parallel, my guest today watched his father get prescribed 19 different pills just to manage his ozempic side effects, and that nightmare sparked him to identify ways to manage them proactively.
• 0:34
  Philip Pape: You'll discover why nausea and fatigue from GLP-1s aren't just uncomfortable but actively work against your health and fitness goals, the clinical data behind supplementation to help with these side effects, and tips to stay consistent with your routine and progress while dealing with these medications.
• 0:51
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 1:04
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm very excited to be discussing a topic that affects millions but gets very little attention in the space, and that's the impact of side effects when taking GLP-1s and what you can do about it.
• 1:17
  Philip Pape: My guest is Justin Silver.
• 1:20
  Philip Pape: He's a serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of SymptoGuard, which he created after watching his father suffer through months of debilitating side effects hospital trips from Ozempic Now.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: Justin's background obviously gives him a unique perspective on both the business and personal sides of this huge health trend, and he's here to share what he's learned about the real world impact of these drugs and what we can actually do about it.
• 1:45
  Philip Pape: So today you're going to learn the latest clinical research about managing these effects, specific strategies to protect your consistency, your training, your nutrition and thus, of course, your muscle mass if you're taking or planning to take these.
• 1:58
  Philip Pape: And, justin, I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 2:02
  Justin Silver: Yeah, it's an honor to be here.
• 2:03
  Justin Silver: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:05
  Justin Silver: I'm really excited to discuss this with you.
• 2:07
  Justin Silver: I think we have the opportunity to help millions of Americans and I'm excited to do it.
• 2:13
  Philip Pape: So let's start right off with talking about side effects and how big of an issue that is.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: Like if you had to create a pie chart of all the reasons people maybe quit the drugs or have issues with these, where would side effects fit into that?
• 2:25
  Justin Silver: So side effect?
• 2:26
  Justin Silver: Someone already created the pie chart.
• 2:28
  Justin Silver: Thankfully I don't need to be that guy.
• 2:30
  Justin Silver: Side effects are the number two reason that people stop taking a GLP-1.
• 2:35
  Justin Silver: Number one is actually having to do with injection frequency both the fear, the frustration and just having to deal with needles, even the ones that automatically go in.
• 2:45
  Justin Silver: Injection frequency and fear is the number one reason people stop taking the GLP-1.
• 2:50
  Justin Silver: And side effects are a close number two.
• 2:53
  Justin Silver: They can have deep impact for people, especially the older you get, the more the side effects tend to impact people.
• 3:01
  Justin Silver: So when you're talking about people in their 50s, 60s and 70s for them is a truly pressing issue.
• 3:08
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about what they are, why it affects people when they're older, because I do like those demographic segments, because it kind of gives us sometimes an insight into other things, because we do that all the time when we talk about health, longevity, training and so on.
• 3:20
  Philip Pape: So tell us more about the side effects.
• 3:22
  Philip Pape: Which ones are the most common, perhaps?
• 3:29
  Justin Silver: and then why the age difference?
• 3:29
  Justin Silver: When it comes to people who are older, they've often been in the same way of doing things for decades.
• 3:33
  Justin Silver: So if you suddenly are 25 or 30 or 35, your ability and your body's ability to change and deal with eating less, you know dealing with a different speed of your, you know the food moving through digestive tract.
• 3:47
  Justin Silver: You're able to just deal with that a little bit better.
• 3:51
  Justin Silver: Your body is more able to cope with those differences.
• 3:54
  Justin Silver: I liken it to pregnancy.
• 3:56
  Justin Silver: You know if a person in their early 20s gets pregnant, you know they have that kid.
• 4:00
  Justin Silver: They walk out of the hospital the next day, assuming all goes well.
• 4:03
  Justin Silver: But if you're 40 years old and you're having a baby, regardless of how successful or healthy you are and how healthy the baby is, it's still a big impact on your body.
• 4:14
  Justin Silver: It's the same with GLP-1s, and so if you're losing 100 pounds at 65 years old and you've spent the past 35 years living a relatively sedentary life and overeating constantly, the impact is going to be much, much bigger.
• 4:30
  Philip Pape: Yeah, so that makes sense, and I know you have a personal story we alluded to in the intro here with your father that led to him taking a bunch of different medications to try to deal with the side effects and go to the hospital.
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: I'm wondering if that would be a good story to segue into.
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: What I'm curious about is the side effects, how they cascade and what you learn from with your father's experience?
• 4:53
  Justin Silver: essentially, yeah, of course.
• 4:54
  Justin Silver: So my dad got notification from his doctor when he was 62 years old and he said unless you can lose 100 pounds, you're not going to see your next birthday.
• 5:02
  Justin Silver: Type 2 diabetic, morbidly obese.
• 5:05
  Justin Silver: And he was having this experience where either he changed his lifestyle significantly or he wasn't going to make it.
• 5:12
  Justin Silver: And so we took a step back as a family, heard about Ozempic.
• 5:16
  Justin Silver: He started taking Ozempic and within nine months he lost 100 pounds For him, truly a life-changing drug, something that's allowed him to survive and, you know, to become a healthier person.
• 5:29
  Justin Silver: But losing 100 pounds, you know, in your early 60s, is not a very simple or very easy thing on the body.
• 5:36
  Justin Silver: And so, you know, he faced debilitating side effects nausea, dizziness, fatigue.
• 5:41
  Justin Silver: He would go to the restroom you know, use that and then, when getting up, he would face that same nausea, that dizziness.
• 5:46
  Justin Silver: He would end up passing out and my mom would find him on the floor passed out, and have to call an ambulance to come get him because she thought he was dead.
• 5:54
  Justin Silver: He would, of course, go to the hospital and the hospital would recommend different supplements each time that he could take to help combat this nausea, this dizziness, this fatigue.
• 6:04
  Justin Silver: And so he was taking everything from chromium to CoQ10, prebiotics to probiotics and more, and in the end he was taking 19 pills every single morning, and I knew there had to be a better way.
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: Okay, and physiologically, why is there so much distress?
• 6:21
  Philip Pape: Is it the rapid change that leads to this cascade and the body just can't quite handle it through the liver, the thyroid, all of the systems that are supposed to handle load and stress, or what's going on there?
• 6:33
  Justin Silver: Yeah, so it's across the board.
• 6:35
  Justin Silver: So some of it is from the actual drugs themselves.
• 6:37
  Justin Silver: Slowing down your GI tract allows your body to absorb more nutrients from that food.
• 6:44
  Justin Silver: That's great, you know.
• 6:45
  Justin Silver: You're not, you know wasting as much, essentially.
• 6:47
  Justin Silver: But when you slow that down, it not only pulls out the nutrients but it can also pull out the water and that could lead to constipation.
• 6:54
  Justin Silver: You also are, you know, getting the actual side effects of your body changing.
• 7:00
  Justin Silver: So suddenly you have gaps in your nutrition because you used to eat a you know 3,800 calorie diet that, while you know overeating and unhealthy, it generally filled your nutritional needs.
• 7:13
  Justin Silver: And now suddenly your hunger is evaporated, your food cravings are minimized and your seeking of nutritional food might not be all there.
• 7:24
  Justin Silver: So your body is changing.
• 7:26
  Justin Silver: You're losing weight, you're not consuming enough food and oftentimes there are gaps in that nutrition.
• 7:32
  Justin Silver: So, across the board, you're getting just a massive change in your body and your mind and the side effects are a result of all of that.
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: So that makes a lot of sense.
• 7:42
  Philip Pape: Constipation you know the gut issues that are happening.
• 7:45
  Philip Pape: I imagine your microbiome.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: We don't even begin to understand that yet and what's happening, even the body changing, I mean even when you're doing it with just lifestyle.
• 7:54
  Philip Pape: We know that you have to be aware of, okay, if you're in a big calorie deficit, not to have malnutrition, to eat enough fiber and nutrients and everything.
• 8:01
  Philip Pape: So I'm curious are there certain patients?
• 8:05
  Philip Pape: Okay, you mentioned age what about the lifestyle differences?
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: And what I mean by that is I'm sure there are a lot of people on Ozempic that are trying to lift weights and eat more protein and there are a lot that aren't.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: Do we see segmentation in that regard, where the side effects are minimized a bit from natural lifestyle changes before we go to then supplementation?
• 8:26
  Justin Silver: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:27
  Justin Silver: I think you know, especially if you're younger and so your body's able to change a little bit easier.
• 8:33
  Justin Silver: If you're eating a nutrition filled diet that's got protein and it has, you know, a good mix of vegetables, if you're doing all of that, you might still face some side effects, but you lower the likelihood drastically.
• 8:45
  Justin Silver: So when I talk to peers and I say, hey, if you're taking a GLP-1 and you're 25 to 35 years old and you're doing everything right, the likelihood that you're going to have side effects is actually quite low.
• 8:56
  Justin Silver: And you're not really somebody who is a SymptoGuard prime customer or someone who that should be top of mind where we're targeting as someone who is, you know, in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies.
• 9:10
  Justin Silver: These people have spent a lifetime of a sedentary lifestyle.
• 9:14
  Justin Silver: Generally, you know, nutrition is not where it could or should be, and we are helping to fill those gaps for those people because you start losing a little bit of weight.
• 9:25
  Justin Silver: Taking a GLP-1 does not mean you are a healthier person.
• 9:30
  Justin Silver: It's a whole bundle of stuff that can make you healthy and SymptoGuard plugs in to be part of that equation.
• 9:38
  Philip Pape: for millions of Americans, hey guys, I want to give a quick shout out to SymptoGuard for sponsoring today's episode and, honestly, it's a perfect fit given everything Justin and I have been digging into.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: If you're taking a GLP-1 med like Ozempic or Manjaro, you probably know that these side effects can hit really hard Nausea, low energy, digestive issues, nutrient absorption and that can make it tough to stay on track with your training, with your protein, the lifestyle changes that you're trying to make, and just feel like yourself when going through this process.
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: What I love about SymptoGuard is it was built for these with ingredients that you would recognize, that I would vouch for, like B12 and probiotics and ginger.
• 10:19
  Philip Pape: It's a solid evidence backed option for some of the side effects, like nausea.
• 10:23
  Philip Pape: In fact, in a 2025 study, 92% of users reported reduced nausea compared to just 24% on placebo, and that's a big deal when you're just trying to be consistent and when the side effects are the number one reason most people stop taking these meds.
• 10:39
  Philip Pape: So if you are on this journey and you want to feel better while preserving muscle and staying consistent, give SymptoGuard a try.
• 10:47
  Philip Pape: Check it out, just click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash SymptoGuard for 10% off your order.
• 10:55
  Philip Pape: That's witsandweightscom.
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: Slash SymptoGuard or click the link in the show notes.
• 11:00
  Philip Pape: Now back to our conversation with Justin.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: Okay, and that makes sense.
• 11:04
  Philip Pape: I appreciate the nuance because I definitely have spoken to people who are.
• 11:08
  Philip Pape: You know, there's conflicts of interest.
• 11:09
  Philip Pape: We people have to have their skepticism up, and that's I wanted to bring you on, because I know that you do your best to support all of this with what the evidence says, and you're trying to help people who have a legitimate concern with a tool that they're trying to use in combination with lifestyle and it's not for everyone, so we want to be honest about that.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: But also, I appreciate you saying like look, a lot of people face these side effects and it's the number two reason people quit and this is the tool we want to use, so let's try to make it all work together.
• 11:34
  Philip Pape: Having said that, when we talk about the quitting from the side effects, what does the segmentation data show in terms of which side effect, or two, is most prevalent and causes people to quit?
• 11:46
  Justin Silver: Yeah.
• 11:46
  Justin Silver: So the two that stick out are nausea and what is defined as general GI tract discomfort, gi, gastrointestinal.
• 11:55
  Justin Silver: You know this is anything to do with your stomach, your bowels, it, you know, ranges, constipation and diarrhea.
• 12:01
  Justin Silver: It's all that discomfort all in one.
• 12:03
  Justin Silver: So nausea and GI tract discomfort are the two biggest issues.
• 12:07
  Justin Silver: They impact you when you wake up, when you go to bed.
• 12:10
  Justin Silver: They have that kind of consistent feeling, things like dizziness, that often comes at a certain moment when you might be dehydrated because again, your craving for even water is minimized and so you might be dehydrated.
• 12:23
  Justin Silver: So it hits you when you get up or when you sit down.
• 12:25
  Justin Silver: Certain movements might trigger that, but you're not seeing dizziness, just if you're sitting down on the couch.
• 12:31
  Justin Silver: And you know, I think for all of these side effects they have their moments where they would flare up the most.
• 12:37
  Justin Silver: But generally that kind of consistent nausea, especially nausea post-injection or nausea in the morning, as well as constant GI tract discomfort, those are the hardest hitting side effects.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I could imagine that being an unpleasant feeling just from having one day of GI distress from like a bad protein bar.
• 12:57
  Philip Pape: I can't imagine you know months and months when you're trying to use this.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: So then that raises the question for people who don't quit the drug and just deal with the side effects.
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: What does it then lead to while you're on the drug?
• 13:08
  Philip Pape: Does it reduce the efficacy?
• 13:09
  Philip Pape: Does it change your eating and lifestyle patterns as a result?
• 13:13
  Justin Silver: Yeah, I mean you think about it like let's imagine you've had nausea all the time, right, I think?
• 13:19
  Justin Silver: you know, you wouldn't want to eat.
• 13:20
  Justin Silver: Yeah, I mean, that would be just a bad way to live.
• 13:24
  Justin Silver: You know, a big part of the reason people are taking these drugs in the first place is they want to live a healthier life.
• 13:29
  Justin Silver: Right, weight loss is the precursor to living a healthy life.
• 13:33
  Justin Silver: Just seeing a number on a scale is meaningless If you can't walk and function.
• 13:37
  Justin Silver: People are losing weight in order to spend time with their grandchildren, their children, in order to move around the world, to get in and out of their car easier, to feel good, and so that's what this all comes down to.
• 13:49
  Justin Silver: And so these side effects which are, you know, on your pathway to feeling good, if they're making it really hard to do that, you can imagine.
• 13:57
  Justin Silver: You know you stop taking the drugs.
• 13:59
  Justin Silver: It doesn't make it a pleasant experience and it could, just, you know, derail that progress.
• 14:04
  Justin Silver: So it's really about how do we live this healthy life?
• 14:08
  Philip Pape: And does it impact specific macro or micronutrients?
• 14:11
  Philip Pape: And what I mean by that is do you get less of an appetite for certain things, like less of an appetite for protein, or you know anything, in particular fruit, I don't know.
• 14:19
  Justin Silver: Yeah.
• 14:19
  Justin Silver: So there's a concept in the GLP-1 world called food noise.
• 14:22
  Justin Silver: It's basically that voice in your head that's saying you need to be eating food and then when you walk past our world, our environment and big food that has kind of trained us to seek food, you see McDonald's as you're driving through your town and then you suddenly are craving physically craving McDonald's.
• 14:40
  Justin Silver: You think about the French fries, the burgers, the soda, all of those things.
• 14:45
  Justin Silver: This minimizes that across the board.
• 14:47
  Justin Silver: What it does not do is make you a healthy eater, and so that's still on you.
• 14:53
  Justin Silver: But I believe in the American people and I think that most people want to eat healthy.
• 15:00
  Justin Silver: The reason we're not eating healthy, we're not living a healthy life, is because we're being chemically trained to not do that right.
• 15:07
  Justin Silver: There's billion dollar you know a hundred billion dollar corporations whose goal is to make you buy more food and not be satiated by it.
• 15:15
  Justin Silver: So we're all living in that world.
• 15:18
  Justin Silver: We're chemically trained and addicted to this food.
• 15:21
  Justin Silver: But now, suddenly, if you didn't crave it, if you weren't addicted and you could give yourself that choice, I think that many Americans are making the right choice and they're having a good protein filled meal but a diversity of food in there.
• 15:37
  Justin Silver: If you're given the chance to escape that chemically addicted side of this, you have the potential to make those good choices.
• 15:46
  Justin Silver: So there isn't necessarily a oh.
• 15:49
  Justin Silver: Suddenly you're not craving fats, you're not craving carbohydrates and you're going to crave protein.
• 15:55
  Justin Silver: It just limits that completely protein.
• 16:02
  Justin Silver: It just limits that completely.
• 16:03
  Justin Silver: So your cravings go down in totality.
• 16:04
  Justin Silver: But then it becomes an easier choice to eat right, if you're suddenly not chemically forced to eat incorrectly.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, and I would agree with that characterization.
• 16:13
  Philip Pape: I think that you hit on one of what I see as three major prongs with this, the first being what you just said, which is the food environment and the food noise, and I think that's coupled with what makes it very difficult for some individually, which is the brain-related genetics that we are well aware of now with appetite we had Dr Stephan Guionet on the show talking about this great guy in the field, right, researching this.
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: And then the other prong would be the yo-yo dieting and the kind of dieting history we know that there's an exacerbated impact of a dysfunctional appetite and hunger signals from a repeated history of dieting.
• 16:47
  Philip Pape: So I'm just kind of agreeing with you that when you combine all those, for some people it's such a huge hill to climb to get over that that they just need a tool to say, okay, let's take away that the noise, focus on the signal, and then we can build our lifestyle.
• 17:01
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:02
  Philip Pape: Having said that, even when they're doing that and then they have side effects, do the side effects then cause them to make any different choices with their eating, for example?
• 17:14
  Philip Pape: I'm thinking like nutrient malabsorption you mentioned.
• 17:16
  Philip Pape: So does it affect anything special that is worth mentioning what I'm getting at.
• 17:22
  Justin Silver: Yeah, I mean, think about it like this If you're nauseous, you're probably going to not eat enough, and so it might not necessarily be the choices.
• 17:29
  Justin Silver: But the situation is pretty simple.
• 17:32
  Justin Silver: If your stomach is really hurting and you're having issues going to the bathroom, you're going to eat less.
• 17:38
  Justin Silver: It's just like when you're sick in any way.
• 17:40
  Justin Silver: And when you're sick or when you're eating less, it becomes harder to have that right mix of nutrients and to fill that all out.
• 17:46
  Justin Silver: And that's where you get into this cycle of side effects and then malnutrition, and then side effects and malnutrition.
• 17:53
  Justin Silver: And so you know we're here to help break that.
• 17:57
  Justin Silver: But you know people are going through these journeys because it's a lot worse to be obese.
• 18:02
  Justin Silver: You know, and that's the fact, you know you have this whole.
• 18:06
  Justin Silver: We're talking about side effects like nausea and, you know, dizziness, gi tract.
• 18:11
  Justin Silver: But having type two diabetes, having neuropathy in your fingers, being unable to move around the world, you know this is worse than all of that, yes, and so we want to solve that and we're part of the system that's helping us solve that.
• 18:27
  Philip Pape: Part of the system.
• 18:28
  Philip Pape: I love that.
• 18:28
  Philip Pape: That's the trigger word for me in a good way.
• 18:30
  Philip Pape: System, because we talk about building your system, which is a combination of components right, it could be different tools, tools to support those tools, lifestyle.
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: And there's a funny story Somebody in our group coaching program.
• 18:42
  Philip Pape: He is concerned that he's not eating enough, he's on these drugs and he's trying to fix his lifestyle.
• 18:48
  Philip Pape: Let's just say, and his concern not even having side effects is I'm actually eating too little for what I'm trying to do.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: I'm trying to split the difference.
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: So it's even more important that if the side effects make that worse, that we deal with them.
• 18:59
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about I want to talk about the ingredients in SymptoGuard because I want people to know that I advocate for evidence-based solutions.
• 19:08
  Philip Pape: We don't fear monger.
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: I don't want to deal with any weird, non-supported herbs from some country that we've never heard of.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: Maybe there is something like that.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: Yeah, there's no foreign herbs here.
• 19:21
  Justin Silver: You know, really, this is as simple as you can imagine.
• 19:25
  Justin Silver: We are the all in one.
• 19:27
  Justin Silver: So my dad went to the hospital and he was.
• 19:30
  Justin Silver: They told him take zinc, take chromium, take CoQ10, take prebiotics, take probiotics.
• 19:35
  Justin Silver: We put that all in one, so you get two things when you take an all in one.
• 19:41
  Justin Silver: Number one it's easier.
• 19:43
  Justin Silver: I don't know if you've ever tried to swallow 19 pills in one morning.
• 19:46
  Justin Silver: I can tell you from my dad's experience it sucks and it's not the way you want to live life.
• 19:52
  Justin Silver: And even though you're taking these injections and you're trying to live a better life, taking 19 pills a day does not help you lead that life.
• 20:01
  Justin Silver: The second thing is we're saving people some money.
• 20:03
  Justin Silver: You know GNC and some of these big you know pharmaceutical guys.
• 20:07
  Justin Silver: They're going to or not, pharmaceutical big supplement guys.
• 20:10
  Justin Silver: They make money when you buy 12 different bottles.
• 20:13
  Justin Silver: You buy a bottle of CoQ10 for $20, a bottle of vitamin D for $20, a bottle of vitamin B12 for $20.
• 20:20
  Justin Silver: Yeah, they make more money.
• 20:23
  Justin Silver: We're putting that all into one and we're charging less than $50.
• 20:27
  Justin Silver: If you're on the subscription, it's less than a dollar a day.
• 20:30
  Justin Silver: We're really trying to make this affordable for people, because it should be.
• 20:35
  Justin Silver: You're already paying a bunch of money for these drugs.
• 20:39
  Justin Silver: Very few people are covered by insurance for GLP-1.
• 20:42
  Justin Silver: So you're self-paying for these drugs oftentimes between $179 and $500 for a brand name medication.
• 20:50
  Justin Silver: Let's not add on $200 a month worth of supplements.
• 20:54
  Justin Silver: Let's try and do that for $1 a day.
• 20:56
  Philip Pape: Yeah, exactly, and, listeners, by the way, you're going to see, I'm going to include a link in the show notes, for because we were able to arrange a deal to get you a discount, a nice discount, so we'll throw a link in there.
• 21:06
  Philip Pape: But you can check out the label, you can look at all the ingredients.
• 21:10
  Philip Pape: You'll see B12, you'll see ginger, CoQ10, very normal stuff that we've talked about a million times.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: It's funny.
• 21:15
  Philip Pape: You mentioned the 19 pills.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: I actually take a lot of pills, but only because for performance stuff.
• 21:20
  Philip Pape: But years ago I used to make my own pre-workout because it was hard to find a pre-workout with what we now know to be like kind of the bread and butter right Caffeine, L-citrulline, beta alanine and like one other I'm forgetting, and now you can get that in every pre-workout practically on the market.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: But I actually had like a segmented tub with all the powders with special scoops for each to get the right amounts mixed every day.
• 21:43
  Philip Pape: So I know what you mean.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: You got to be like super dedicated if you got to do that, but it's a pain.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: So having said that, then I know you guys have clinical trial results showing outcomes from these and I'm curious what those showed how significant improvements were in different measures, different side effects compared to placebo.
• 22:04
  Justin Silver: Yeah.
• 22:04
  Justin Silver: So we did a double-blinded trial 126 participants so the results are statistically significant.
• 22:11
  Justin Silver: On average, people saw a 50% reduction in side effects.
• 22:17
  Justin Silver: That's beyond what they had for the placebo, and so this is, you know, truly significant.
• 22:25
  Justin Silver: You know we are positively impacting people's lives and that was generally across the board for nausea, dizziness, fatigue and GI tract discomfort.
• 22:34
  Justin Silver: So those are the things that we are focused on and where we really made an impact that was all paid for out of our budget.
• 22:42
  Justin Silver: You know this has been bootstrapped up until now because for me, you know, I know there's a lot in the market.
• 22:47
  Justin Silver: I know a lot of people are spending a lot of money and they're self-paying for GLP-1s.
• 22:52
  Justin Silver: We're going to only sell them something that works, and so you know it's not for everybody, but for those people who are experiencing the side effects and we are filling those nutrition gaps.
• 23:02
  Justin Silver: We are really making an impact and we have 100% satisfaction guarantee because, again, we know it's not going to work for everybody.
• 23:11
  Justin Silver: So if you're taking SymptoGuard, you're not happy on it, all you have to do is reach out to us and we're happy to refund you, because we know we're going to be helping millions of Americans.
• 23:22
  Justin Silver: If you don't fit that because it's just not the right supplement for you.
• 23:27
  Justin Silver: That's completely okay.
• 23:29
  Philip Pape: Awesome, yeah, no, it's good to hear that.
• 23:30
  Philip Pape: It's good that you've tested these for listeners who want to try these out and do.
• 23:35
  Philip Pape: We're going to hold Justin to his promise, of course.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: Let me know if it works and let me know if it doesn't, and we'll keep him honest, and I'm sure the proof is in the pudding.
• 23:45
  Philip Pape: So when people are taking these then do you see any sort of?
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: I guess what I'm asking here is have you measured any lifestyle modifications or long-term effects once you've mitigated the side effects from your drug specifically, or is it just assumed that, okay, the symptoms are gone, so ergo it's going to be successful?
• 24:05
  Justin Silver: Yes, we don't have any kind of longitudinal over multiple years type of clinical trials or customer trials yet, but what we do have is evidence that we have this day on their GLP-1 while taking SymptoGuard.
• 24:24
  Justin Silver: And if you're taking the GLP-1 in order to lead a healthier lifestyle, minimize food noise and be able to eat a healthier diet without being impacted by big food and chemical addiction to food, we are allowing you to do that for a longer period of time.
• 24:35
  Justin Silver: So my hope is I can come back to you in a year or two and say here are all these case studies and all this experience, but right now, the main thing that we can say is we're making it easier for you to stay on a GLP-1.
• 24:48
  Justin Silver: And that's what you want to do in the first place.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: Makes total sense, pretty easy to understand the cause and effect there.
• 24:54
  Philip Pape: So, looking ahead in the future of these drugs, right, we'd say GLP-1s, which admittedly is a simplification because there are now dual agonists, there's now triple agonist drugs.
• 25:04
  Philip Pape: There's so many things that operate on different pathways and different hormones.
• 25:08
  Philip Pape: Are we looking at worse side effects profiles for those Like what's going on there?
• 25:12
  Justin Silver: You know it's all kind of happening in real time, but here's what I'll say.
• 25:16
  Justin Silver: In the beginning of the pod we talked about the number one reason why people stop taking a GLP-1, and that's injection fear, fatigue or frustration.
• 25:25
  Justin Silver: That's the first time I've used those three Fs, but that sounds great.
• 25:28
  Justin Silver: We're going to use that in the future Injection fear, fatigue and frustration.
• 25:41
  Justin Silver: And so that, if any of your listeners are very familiar with the industry Novo Nordisk is the maker of Ozempic they have set their targets and their research targets on actually minimizing the number of injections.
• 25:47
  Justin Silver: The frequency Right now it's weekly.
• 25:49
  Justin Silver: Their goal is within the next year to have that at monthly and within three years to actually have that at quarterly Kind of.
• 25:56
  Justin Silver: I mean a wildly impactful thing.
• 25:57
  Justin Silver: At that point you could just go to a doctor and they would be able to do it.
• 25:59
  Justin Silver: I mean a wildly impactful thing.
• 26:00
  Justin Silver: At that point you could just go to a doctor and they would be able to do it.
• 26:03
  Justin Silver: I mean it's only quarterly.
• 26:04
  Justin Silver: The impact to your life would be, I mean, so minimal compared to weekly.
• 26:08
  Justin Silver: But that does, as of now, temporarily worsen side effects.
• 26:13
  Justin Silver: And so for us, you know, the goal is to plug right into that system.
• 26:17
  Justin Silver: We want to be able to help people stay on these drugs longer in a healthier way, and to be able to feel those effects without feeling terrible.
• 26:26
  Justin Silver: That's our goal.
• 26:28
  Philip Pape: Yeah, no, that's good.
• 26:29
  Philip Pape: That's a good point about frequency injection too and how that would affect side effects because of the kind of the curve of that.
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: So you know.
• 26:36
  Philip Pape: Another question related to this then, in the future of the space is like what are your competitors?
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: Are there competitors in this space?
• 26:42
  Philip Pape: Are there more targeted interventions coming?
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: Are you guys looking to continue to improve the formula or change the formula?
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: I should say Maybe it doesn't need to be improved world, like you said.
• 27:01
  Justin Silver: You know, at some point you had a bottle and you were trying to create your own formulations.
• 27:04
  Justin Silver: You know I love to think of you know Brian Johnson I'm sure many of your listeners know him, the good and the bad, but he does say some things I love.
• 27:11
  Justin Silver: He says every calorie in his diet fights to be there, and that's how I think about supplements to support the GLP-1, where every piece of that supplement needs to fight to be there.
• 27:22
  Justin Silver: It needs to be proven, it needs to have an impact and if not, why are we taking it?
• 27:27
  Justin Silver: And so that's really what we're doing Right now.
• 27:30
  Justin Silver: We're focused on these side effects.
• 27:32
  Justin Silver: There is absolutely a world where we can expand that, offering protein being a big thing that is often lacking in the diets of people who get on GLP-1s.
• 27:42
  Justin Silver: There's something there and, long-term, we think there are lots of different drugs with lots of different side effects GLP-1s and others and to be able to support along the range of side effects in general, there's a big potential impact.
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: No, that's great.
• 27:58
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you know those listening who are thinking about taking them or currently taking them or can empathize with what you're talking about.
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: Yeah, supplements I always think of a hierarchy right, kind of what you just mentioned fighting for the space.
• 28:11
  Philip Pape: I think of it as a pyramid where you know you've got your training and your protein and adherence and like the big basics at the bottom and then supplements are kind of near the top.
• 28:21
  Philip Pape: But for some people the supplements might rise further up, depending on their needs.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: So I love that message.
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: And then maybe I'm going to get you in trouble here, but what would you say to doctors and prescribing physicians when it comes to these drugs and the side effects?
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: Because I feel like there's big gaps in prescriber education on these, as well as gaps in the advice and support that comes along with these drugs.
• 28:44
  Philip Pape: Sometimes it's just prescribed and other times there's okay, you need to maybe lift weights or exercise or move and eat your protein and things like that.
• 28:52
  Philip Pape: What is your message for the healthcare industry?
• 28:55
  Justin Silver: Yeah, I mean I think the message for the healthcare industry is, first and foremost, kind of to double down on your point.
• 29:01
  Justin Silver: You can't just start taking a GLP-1 and continue to live a sedentary life, eat less and think that equals a healthy outcome.
• 29:10
  Justin Silver: Simply losing weight doesn't mean you're getting healthier.
• 29:13
  Justin Silver: It's a step in the right direction, but there's a lifestyle change, there's leading a more active lifestyle, and that's simply walking.
• 29:20
  Justin Silver: For a lot of people, that's simply walking.
• 29:21
  Justin Silver: For a lot of people, that's just walking around, and so it doesn't need to be.
• 29:24
  Justin Silver: You're in the gym, you know, pumping iron for, you know, for five days a week.
• 29:29
  Justin Silver: It's small changes that can have a big impact.
• 29:32
  Justin Silver: Walking is a huge one of them, and also the natural movement helps to minimize GI tract discomfort because you're actually getting up and walking around.
• 29:40
  Justin Silver: There's a physical element to that as well.
• 29:42
  Justin Silver: So I think just pushing people to say it's not just that you eat less, it's that you need to change your whole lifestyle that's, I think, the number one thing.
• 29:53
  Justin Silver: The second thing is that a lot of telehealth providers and general healthcare providers, their first thought when they hear nausea is actually to prescribe Zofran, and Zofran is like dropping an atomic bomb when you need a small punch.
• 30:10
  Justin Silver: I mean, the nausea drug given to patients on chemotherapy is a very, very powerful anti-nausea medication, very powerful anti-nausea medication.
• 30:20
  Justin Silver: Most people on a GLP-1 are facing mild nausea, slight nausea that they want to minimize, and so I'd say it's a really good idea to look in the middle before we go straight Zofran to say are there supplements like SymptoGuard or others who are able to fill that gap for us?
• 30:40
  Justin Silver: Those are the two big things a great lifestyle, and let's focus on having the right kind of prescribed drug or supplement that's going to meet them where their needs are.
• 30:53
  Philip Pape: Yeah, what came to me was minimum effective dose and also the opportunity cost, like when you have an alternative now that helps you avoid taking something overly powerful.
• 31:02
  Philip Pape: That's great because that didn't exist in the market before and that is a net positive from just that perspective alone.
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: And look my wife when she had morning sickness and chewed the ginger gum.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: I know how powerful simple herbs like ginger you know.
• 31:15
  Philip Pape: Is it an herb?
• 31:16
  Philip Pape: What do you call ginger?
• 31:17
  Justin Silver: I guess it's a root right, a root exactly.
• 31:22
  Philip Pape: But how powerful something like that can be, and you've done the research to say, okay, here let's pick the right things, put them together into a supplement, all right, so, listeners, a few things coming out of this.
• 31:29
  Philip Pape: Here is you know, justin's obviously an expert in the area and seems to care about this, is passionate about it.
• 31:36
  Philip Pape: He's going to be in our Physique University doing a private live Q&A for anybody who's in there, and if you're not in there, another reason to join, because he's going to be in there answering your questions pretty soon.
• 31:43
  Philip Pape: But is there anything else that you wish I'd asked Justin about this space that people need to know?
• 31:50
  Justin Silver: Man, you asked a lot of great questions For me.
• 31:52
  Justin Silver: I'm on a GLP-1 myself.
• 31:54
  Justin Silver: I think this is going to have far-reaching impact.
• 31:59
  Justin Silver: One in seven Americans are taking a GLP-1 right now.
• 32:03
  Justin Silver: That's expected to go to one in four.
• 32:05
  Justin Silver: We've already seen results on weight loss, but we're seeing results in anti-addiction and leading a healthier lifestyle, and this feels like we're in not even the first inning, but we're kind of in batting practice for the baseball game that is the GLP-1 industry, and I'm just really excited to be able to be in that world, to be able to help people in my smallest way and to be making an impact.
• 32:30
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I agree, and I can tell you do it with a smile and the positivity and the energy is obviously there.
• 32:34
  Philip Pape: So I appreciate it.
• 32:35
  Philip Pape: And last thing, last thing, man, where can people learn about you and your work?
• 32:40
  Justin Silver: Oh man, check out SymptoGuardcom.
• 32:44
  Justin Silver: It's the best place to learn about SymptoGuard and what we do, how we do it, why we do it.
• 32:49
  Justin Silver: There's so much great stuff on there.
• 32:51
  Justin Silver: A lot of hard people have made that site look amazing.
• 32:54
  Justin Silver: And then, you know, also check out at SymptoGuard across different channels.
• 32:58
  Justin Silver: We have a SymptoGuard Facebook group where we have people who are taking GLP-1s, symptoguard, all of that.
• 33:06
  Justin Silver: They're able to get in there and have discussions about the experience.
• 33:13
  Justin Silver: You can follow me on Instagram at TheJustinSilver if you want to check me out.
• 33:15
  Justin Silver: I think I'm like the second or third most famous Justin Silver, so you can find me at the Justin Silver and, either way, I just hope that you get a chance to learn a little bit more.
• 33:26
  Justin Silver: And a fun fact, I'll let you in on something.
• 33:28
  Justin Silver: If you see any pictures of our bottle and there's a hand model holding that bottle, it is, in fact, my hand, so I am a famous hand model in the world of Simtoe art.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: That's pretty cool.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: All right guys, check that out.
• 33:44
  Philip Pape: I'm a big fan of education, so I definitely want you guys listening to get as educated as possible.
• 33:48
  Philip Pape: Check out their Instagram at SymptoGuard.
• 33:50
  Philip Pape: Check out the Justin Silver on Instagram and then, instead of going straight to SymptoGuardcom, click the link in the show notes and you'll get 10% off SymptoGuard and it is going to teach you about um.
• 34:01
  Philip Pape: It's going to take you to the site anyway and you could actually go to witsandweightscom slash SymptoGuard.
• 34:05
  Philip Pape: So it's easy on you guys witsandweightscom slash SymptoGuard, or hit them up for the education on Instagram.
• 34:10
  Philip Pape: Justin, it's been a pleasure.
• 34:11
  Philip Pape: Hopefully people can learn more about you and the product as they check things out.
• 34:16
  Philip Pape: Everybody be skeptical, as always, but I think this is good stuff.
• 34:19
  Philip Pape: That's why I'm vouching for it and I appreciate you coming on, justin.
• 34:22
  Justin Silver: Thanks so much for having me, man, this was great.