A few tips for those who are on or thinking about GLP-1.
Last week I wrote about weighing the risk-reward of the medication. If you haven’t read that, be sure to go back and give it a quick read.
This week, I want to give you a few tips that can help you along your journey with GLP-1 meds.
These are not in order of importance.
Have a plan. If you are injecting yourself and then eating like dog shit, you can be doing even more harm. Even though these are not in order of importance, I will say this one is the biggest takeaway. This is the main problem I see when people get on these drugs. Their doctor prescribes the drug, then sends the patient home with no education on what to do. To me, this is a doctor who doesn’t care about you. Will you lose weight? Yes. Is it healthy? Nope! Will you ever be able to get off the drug? Nope! At least not while being able to keep the weight off. You simply shouldn’t be on this drug and choking down big macs, pizza, and honey buns every day. If you are, you are missing the health benefits of this drug. YOU NEED A PLAN!
Hire a coach. The first point brings me to the second point. You need someone who is educated not only on nutrition, but habits and lifestyle coaching. The reason you are overweight is not your genetics, it’s because of your habits and lifestyle. This has to change! I repeat… this HAS to change! There is a reason you make poor food choices. If you have a good coach, they can make small changes over time that will have a huge impact on your weight and health. They shouldn’t just tell you what to eat, they should dig into why you make the decisions you do. Then give you tips to work around them.
Keep protein and produce high. As you take the drug, you won’t be hungry enough to consume a large amount of calories. That’s why these drugs work. The tough part is getting enough nutritients in. You have to make sure you keep the protein (take your goal weight and multiply it by .7. That’s how many grams of protein you need per day) up as much as you can so that you can keep your muscle mass. You also need to make sure you are getting enough minerals and vitamins. This should come via produce. We usually shoot for 6 cups a day. Try to get at least 4 cups. Vitamins and drinks will be ok, but not as good as produce.
Exercise.. Preferably with resistance training. Can you get away with injecting yourself and just going for a walk? Sure, if you want to look like a Kenyan marathon runner, without all the endurance and fitness. Those guys are about 110 pounds with no muscle mass. If that is sexy to you.. again…I’m not here to judge you. If you want a good, healthy, strong body, you need to include resistance training to keep your strength. Shoot for 3 or more times per week. Of course I firmly believe in CrossFit as you will get the resistance training along with the cardio of Kenyan and a coach to help you through it.
Build strong habits so you can eventually get off the drug. I believe your goal should be to eventually get off the drug. To do this, you have to build strong habits with everything.. nutrition, exercise, dealing with stress, your schedule, and everything else that got in the way and put you in this position. If you can build these habits really really strong, you can have a chance of success with getting off the drug. If you don’t build habits, you can lose all the weight you want, but as soon as you come off the drug (if you come off the drug), your appetite will come right back and the weight will come back as well.
Look, I would love to help you through this journey. I really think I can help most of you. Even if you don’t want to join my gym, or let me coach you in your nutrition (you don’t have to be a CrossFit member for nutrition coaching), still feel free to shoot me an email with any questions you have. If I can point you in a direction that can help you, I’m good with that.
I’m here to help. All you have to do is reach out.
Good luck!
Drew