Everyone Around Me Is On GLP-1. Should I Be Too? - 131

The guy has not touched a GLP-1, not yet. He has not even called his doctor about one, but everyone around him seems to be on it. Guys at the gym, his brother-in-law, a guy in his fantasy football group dropped 30 lb since spring. He's maybe 15-20 lb over where he wants to be at, and he's starting to wonder if he's missing out on it.
But something's holding him back. He does not know what these drugs do to his body this month or 5 years from now. He wonders if he can lose the weight the old way in quotations, old way with food, exercise, without a shot, without a few hundred dollars a month, without a constantly having to go to the doctors. And underneath all that sits one worry that he really can't shake.
If he even does start one of these drugs, and it does cost him losing muscle. I went over that in episode 121 and 123 on Driven for Health podcast, does that make it even harder to lose the weight later once the muscle is gone? That's what today's episode is about, 17 questions from start to finish for the guy standing exactly where this scenario is right now.
Welcome to Driven for Health podcast episode 131. This is Coach Brian Prahna. And if you want to get a little bit more on this, I did 121 and 123 is where I had a couple specific episodes on GLP-1s straight away there. Now, of course, I'm a coach. I'm not a doctor. Nothing in this episode is medical advice. Your doctor does the dosing, the labs, your understanding how it works.
For me, what I do, I help with your habits, your lifestyle, the education and understanding to the application and implementation. Very much the implementation. Now, this episode's going to run a little bit different than some of the other ones. Uh We want to focus on more questions. Back-to-back the just the way they stack up in someone's head over 6 months.
And some answers are short on purpose and because we don't want to be redundant and the other episodes of 121 and 20 23 about protecting your muscle and what the good, the bad, the ugly is about the shots and some science-backed information on that as well. But, this is going to help every step and stop on the road along the way from getting started, should I even do it, to okay, I did it, what happens now, and how does that change my overall look, feel, body, and energy, and all that.
So, that is the the big things that we're going to do. Question one. Everyone around me seems to be using one and I haven't done anything yet with it. Can I lose this weight the natural way instead of using a shot and having to pay for it, insurance, doctor's visits? For a lot of men, yes. Food, exercise done with real structure, real approach, and fit into your everyday life definitely produces serious fat loss with no drugs involved.
I've proved it multiple times across multiple different episodes. Uh you can hear guys share their experience in episodes 129, middle gear mentality. Chandler dropped the all or nothing and lost 25 lbs. We've got episode 117. Chris, busy exec, running around all over the place, traveling, and he was able to lose over 20 lbs while leaving his home multiple, multiple times.
Mike, he's upwards of 59, lost 12% body fat in 100 days. Danny, he's lost over 40 lbs working with me. Ryan, he's So, Danny's 93, Ryan is 86. Episode One of the biggest losers in the 100-day fat loss was episode 53. That was Andy. This guy, he didn't even like vegetables. I tried to get him to eat vegetables and he just wouldn't.
So, we tried. We tried our darnedest and he just wasn't committed to just eating carrots the rest of his life, so we found another way. And that's the important thing is that's why you work with someone to help you figure out what is a sustainable long-term approach. This is what you should be doing with education.
And if you can't tell me how many calories you're having, how much protein you're having, or how to read a nutrition label, uh drug or no drug, I don't know if it's the right way for you. Now, doing it in just the way we do it, it's not It's simple, it's not easy, though. And that's an important factor to know that when you are learning about nutrition and fitness and how it impacts your everyday and what your behaviors and habits and routines are, you're going to see a lot of friction, and that's the point.
We have to overcome the friction so that you can push through. It's not just take a shot and just don't eat or fast or skip a whole food group, like say keto. That's not it. We don't need to appetite suppress. What we're trying to do is eat a lot of protein and vegetables that actually fuel your body and and change it.
Now, that's some of that the appetite suppressant is where a lot of challenges come with the drug. Now, on the money question, these drugs typically run a few hundred dollars a month. It ranges. They have pills now out, the shots, whether it's covered by insurance, you want to go to row.
I've seen these things all over the place, all over the my YouTube and Facebook and all this stuff. They are heavily, heavily getting advertised quite a bit. Now, food and training done right does cost groceries, but you'd be buying those anyways. On the doctor question, going the natural route means fewer required visits, though checking your lab once or twice a year is always smart, especially when you're over 40, to make sure that your body is not falling apart on you.
My honest answer, if your labs are green and you don't even have yellow or red, for sure no red, then you just have never given food and training a real chance. I mean, literally a real shot at understanding what you're eating at all, then that's definitely going to be the talking point, starting point for you first.
The drug becomes a stronger conversation for you once there are real metabolic risk, heart disease risk, diabetes risk that are showing up and you have attempted and failed not just doing it on your own or following an app or something, but you actually consulted with a real professional, not just someone on Instagram or something that's 22 and trying to get you beach abs.
Question two. I failed at this before with diets and willpower. Why would this be any different? Or is it another crutch? This drug does not touch your willpower. It touches a hormone called GLP-1. That's the name. It's something that your gut already makes when you eat, and it turns that fullness signal up.
It's like cranking it up another notch or three. The food noise that used to wreck the last 4 hours of your day, especially after 9, just it just fades away. That's a huge thing that we see present with a lot of people taking them is the food noise. They're not constantly thinking about food or what should they be eating. That is a real thing.
But, just quieting food noise isn't an actual real plan. And a lot of men starve themselves for a few months to hit a number, then stop, and then gain everything back, and possibly even more after. The drug can replace the starving. You won't feel it, but it's not going to replace habits and behaviors and understanding how to fill yourself up in the first place without the appetite suppressant.
Question three. Everyone around me seems to be on it. Should I feel like I'm missing out or I'm behind or if I'm not going to do it? About one in eight adults in this country are currently taking GLP-1 drugs. I had to check that stat to make sure I was certain. It's kind of odd. So, you know someone in your social circle or two or three people that are definitely taking it, for better or worse.
For weight loss specifically, that number is nearly quadrupled since 2024. And humans are always looking for the easiest way out. You know, admittedly, so am I. I want easier life, hence why every single year and everything going on is convenience, convenience, convenience. Everything is driven around that in our lives.
Solve a problem pain, get out of the pain, and things become more convenient for you. So, when it has quadrupled, it feels like everyone is on it, but not everyone actually is. Now, you really want to make sure that your blood panels will show if you decide that this is something on and originally that's what this medication was for. Type 2 diabetes, like A1C 10 plus, severely overweight, and then people notice that it created weight loss, and hence it all went on from there, right? That's exactly how it goes as people end up saying, "Oh, I actually can lose
weight, or this person's losing weight, and how do I make sure that that something that I too can do as well." Question four. How do I know if this is right for me? There's a guy who only wants to lose 10 vanity pounds. The strongest evidence sits with men carrying real metabolic risk. And this is kind of mentioned in a large One large trial found a 20% drop in major cardiovascular events in men.
Think heart attack, strokes. Who already had heart disease. That's a huge 20% drop of risk. That is a lifesaver, literally, and definitely a pocketbook saver, as well, cuz heart attacks, if you didn't know, that's a it's a hefty bill coming out of the the the hospital. You know, six figures, for sure. Another study found real drops in kidney complications and death in men with diabetes.
So, I went over this in episode 121 specifically and it's in the show notes there as well. Now, with the the kidney disease and diabetes, there's a strong [clears throat] case for even high blood pressure and that that high A1C. Now, if you have clean blood work and your labs are in a normal range, but you just want 10 vanity pounds gone, it is weighing a small upside against real risks like gallbladder disease or rare eye condition among them.
The mass, once you realize that the math might change what you're doing because as in the good episode 121, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, people have real issues with using this. There are real side effects just with any other prescription drug. It's not just, "Oh, I take this and I lost weight and yay." That's not it.
Question five, should I bring this up with my regular doctor or go through one of those online telehealth services people keep mentioning? All right, we see them like Ro and and there's so many more. The For the love, if you search GLP-1 in anywhere, even say it out loud, you'll start getting advertisements on it.
Both routes can get you legitimate prescriptions. You do have to make sure that it is a an advisable place that you're using. Your regular doctor already has your blood work, your history on yourself, and other medications that you might be taking. Which this matters. It's it's kind of important to be able to understand because there are contraindications as well.
What does that mean? That means that if you take one medication and you start taking another, there might be some conflicting issues between those that cause real life problems. Now, an online service can work, but you want a real doctor or nurse practitioner reviewing your case, not just a form or you fill out in a package that shows up a couple days later in the mail with nobody checking your blood pressure first thing.
If a website never asks for your blood work, that probably should be a red flag for you. Question six. I've been Googling this for weeks. How do I know what's real and what's marketing, especially when it comes to the the results? An easy filter. If the source is trying to sell you the drug, a supplement, or a course, read it as an ad first, a lot of marketing hype, and information second.
Okay? That it should be pretty easy to see those and because science-backed information, a medical journal, a hospital system, a source like that, your doctor, that's going to change the impact and how much that that source has, right? There's a big comparison there. Compounded versions sold outside a licensed pharmacy can be a real risk because there's dosing errors, contamination happens, and this should you should definitely be bringing a lot of questions to your doctor appointment instead of just trusting a comment
section on the subreddit on GLP-1s or retatrutide or any of that stuff. Question seven. My doctor bought brought it up. And I brought it up to my doctor or either way, what should I ask before I say yes? This is super important so that when you go in, you are actually prepared with some research and accurate questions, not just, "Oh, you're overweight.
Here, take this." That's not professional care. That's not the approach that we really want to go about this process so that you don't get sick or ill. For questions written down four of them that you want to write down before you walk in, well, one, what is the titration schedule? What that means is the dosage and how much and and are you going to go be going up or going down? What does that actually look like so that you can make sure that you are doing the right approach.
Two, the question number two, what is the plan if I cannot tolerate the side effects? You do want to talk about that. What are the potential side effects? We get a lot of nausea, there's stomach cramps, there's GI slowing, you just don't go to the bathroom for a while for days even for some people. You want to know this.
Question three, what will you be monitoring and how often? You want to know what the doctor is going to be doing for you to advocate for this whole process, not just hand you a prescription prescription and then off you go. Question four, what does my insurance cover? Since more than half of the men on these drugs are calling that the cost is a real strain, especially on their wallets.
I mean, $400, $500 a month, that does add up, especially if you have family and all. This is It does impact, especially with rising costs of food, just going to the grocery store. Those are four questions that you have to understand before you walk into that office and just say, "Sure, I'll take it." So, rewind it here last minute or so and write those down.
Question eight, the prescription is sitting on my counter and I have not opened it. What is going on there? And this is after you might have it. And we're not talking about procrastination. Uh Uh you're doing math nobody handed you a framework for. Before you open that box, you should be able to say yes to three things.
Doctor all those questions that you asked the doctor, you have a protein plan and a training plan ready to start on day one and you're committed to going and doing that. And you know what your exit plan looks like before you need it on the way out. So, yay, I lost all the weight. Now what? You don't want to be asking a question scared to come off of it because you're afraid the weight will come back.
Now, this part is about taking it. This is everything before the box opens and now that the questions about what is inside. So, that's what we covered before the box opens. Now, we've opened it. What's going on in there? So, question nine. How do you give yourself a shot? It's usually a once-weekly injection under the skin.
Usually a stomach, thigh, back of the arm. You rate rotate the spot each week so that you poking yourself with needles unpleasant ask any diabetic, especially over time. Pricking your fingers and such or having a continuous glucose monitor, not fun to constantly have to put those. So, you constantly have to rotate them. The the pen does most of the mechanical work.
This is just general education. This isn't instructions for any specific advice, right? Your pharmacist and doctor should be able to walk you through that in person. And skipping those that introduction and understanding how to administer it to yourself is a big mistake. What does it feel like after the first shot? It varies.
More than men expect. Some people appetite drop within few hours. Some get mild nausea for the first day or two. Some feel nothing for a full week. None of that tells you whether it is actually working or not. You have to give it a full week or two before you can start judging anything. Literally, if you're going to go do it, you probably need to be on it for at least four to eight weeks.
Specifically plan that this is the time that I'm going to use and do this so that I can see what happens and not just take it for a day and then skip on it. Question 11. What happens in the first few days? Appetite drops first. So, you're just not hungry. Before the scale moves, okay? Any no matter what, people even when people work with me, you don't just talk to Coach Brian and then the next day you're down 3 lbs.
Although I've had the people down 3 to 4 lbs in the first week through eating real food and moving their bodies and drinking water and getting more sleep and making better food choices and all that stuff, but it doesn't happen just because I inserted said medicine or took pill and things change. Nausea, if you do get it, it can peak in the first few days after each new dose and then it settles down.
You even will have that quieting of the food noise, but it can start to ramp up or hunger can start to ramp up as it starts to wear off. This is that window where men eat almost nothing and they're excited about it. Like, "Oh my gosh, I'm just not eating anything. I'm not even hungry." And this is where things can come undone if they're not having right amount of protein a couple times a day to get adequate amounts in and this can cause problems later on.
With your muscle. Again, episode 123 goes over a lot more of that. Question 12, what happens over the first few weeks? The scale usually starts moving inside the first month. We should see it going down. Early side effects typically ease up on you and they're not as prevalent. This is also the window where the muscle question starts to become more of a concern.
And again, 123 covered the muscle. Short version is you need protein at every meal, ideally 40 or 50 grams. That might be really hard when you're doing it. I've even had a guy message me just the other day. He's taking a GLP-1. He's like, "Man, eating is such a grind." Yes. It's a real thing. And then we absolutely need to do minimum two, but more like three or four sessions a week and you have to start immediately regardless of what your fitness history is.
And guys, don't go into the gym and just bust it out. Just just do basic strength training. Lift some dumbbells, put them down, get sore enough and then be able to come back the next day or two when it's time to work out again. Uh episode 17, I start to strength pyramid and it goes through proper programming and periodization and all that stuff around exercise.
And then also in episode five of the podcast, we have a lot of the nutritional pyramid that I actually just lay it out of what this actually looks like and makes this really easy. Question 13, what happens at the doctor follow-ups when you go in? Usually every 4 weeks on earlier on a weight check of course you can step on the scale you going to talk about the side effects and you're going to have a discussion about whether you move the dose up or keep it the same.
The doctors are going to keep rechecking your blood work every couple months and you make sure you bring your own notes on food, sleep, your exercise, your energy because if not you're really missing the boat on having an opportunity around really getting the truth around how this is going to best serve you.
And and how to get the actual doctor's best advice for you, too. Question 14. Why would I need to go up in a higher dose? That's titration. It's a standard plan and it's not something that necessarily that it's anything wrong. You start on a lower dose so your body can start to adjust and it's like crawling then walking and then running.
And then you step it up every few weeks toward the target that your doctor had set for you. Higher doses generally mean more weight loss but also potential for more side effects. Just not wanting to eat all day. That trade-off has to be a conversation with you and your doctor and you have to understand what's going on and this isn't something that you decide regardless of what the scale does or doesn't do.
Please for the love consult your doctor physician that is doing this with you. Whenever I have someone that is on a GLP-1 which I have plenty of people in the last 2 years working on and trying to figure out how to lose weight and their specific goals and reasons for taking it and not then we have to also ultimately they are all concerned with coming off of it for long-term success, and that's where I come in.
Part three, the result. After you've taken it and you've had hopefully some success, but some people don't. What's the question that when you're looking in the mirror, like, what happens now? Question 15, I lost the weight. What happens after the What happens after your 12-week program? What happens on week 13? Or after you've gone 6 months without carbs, what happens in month seven? And did I lose any muscle mass or not? Well, no matter what in a fat loss phase, a weight loss, losing weight, you will lose some muscle. Even bodybuilders
will do it when they're doing it in a cut, and they are pretty dialed in. Just want to throw that out there that you will lose it, but we don't want the larger percentage of your body weight to be muscle. We want to lose fat. Anything that I ever do or ever have talked about on these 131 episodes has been all about making sure that you are losing fat.
That's the only thing I want. So, when you as you melt away, people are like, "Dude, damn, what's going on here?" And you're looking and feeling amazing. Now, if you haven't been working out and eating enough protein, then there could be a lot more muscle mass lost. Again, episode 123, go into some of those details on specifics and percentages and all of risking losing muscle.
Now, the the one-line version uh uh the weight uh a slice of the weight that these drugs take off is muscle unless you're actively protecting it, and at 40 you cannot afford to lose muscle because you're not going to put it back on unless you're going to be in the gym like a a maniac for the next 5 years. It just doesn't work like that.
Question 16. I've lost the weight. What happens when I do decide to come off of it? Here's the number you need to know before you start, not after you finish. A majority of studies out there, people stop the drug regain about 2/3 of the weight within a year. The same thing with any diet or any other thing.
This is just human behavior where they just stop doing the things that work and they don't manage it. And because the GLP-1 managed your appetite then what happens when it comes back? You have to have a plan and you have to understand what and how to feed yourself in a way that helps you maintain weight. Cuz often times it's not even a weight loss issue, it's a weight maintenance issue that I see so many people struggling with.
I guys lose 30, 50, 80 plus pounds, but they still are 40 pounds overweight cuz they've gone through that cycle so many times. Question 17. Is there a smart way to come off of it without this GLP-1 taking over my life? And we're talking about Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy. We have Zepbound. Those are a couple of them.
There's plenty more, but we'll certainly just throw those names out there. So when you get off of these you have to talk to your doctor. There should be a plan and a process in place. Please don't just stop cold. You have to have that conversation with doctor if that's a good idea with any medication. You should be consulting your doctor on that specifically.
The habits have to already be in place before your last shot. Not just starting it after. Like, "Well, phase one is I'm going to do the shot and lose this weight. Phase two, I'm going to change my lifestyle." Not not a good idea. You should have regular gym sessions. You should be walking.
You have better cooking and meal planning skills, grocery shopping skills, being able to navigate food when you're out with your loved ones, with friends, all these things that the candy dish at work, the break room at work, what happens when you're in an airport, a client meeting that there everyone's drinking and and you're not sure if you should or not.
You need to have plans for this stuff so that when the drug's gone, you can feel confident that you can maintain the loss because just like any other diet, if you lose a lot of weight and you don't do it in a very good way a way, then you could regain it and it's not going to come back as muscle. You'll have less muscle and you'll weigh more and your metabolism will be that much more sacrificed.
So, here's where I stand after 17 questions. This drug is manages one of the a big variable for a lot of guys, their hunger, their appetite. It has never managed your muscle, your habits, or your identity around who you are and how you operate. This is something huge. That's the call and the call to rise.
That is your identity piece. Those are always things that you have to build and focus on and constantly come back to. Think about like a co-pilot on a long flight. A good co-pilot takes the weight off your shoulders, off the pilot's shoulders. But the pilot still has to know how to land the plane himself. Hand over every decision and never learn how to land and you have a real problem the day the co-pilot shifts ends and you're just stuck there.
You don't know how to fly the plane or land it and and and keep it there. Your prescription is sitting on your counter right now. Do three things from question eight before you open that box. If you've already opened it, use this window. The appetite suppression, the noise quietening down around food, start really focusing on the habits and the lifestyle.
There's so many podcast episodes that I talk about habits and and behavior change. You can go back to episode three and four. Uh well, episode number two talks about how fast can you lose fat? So there's a really good one for you. And episode three and four talk about some of the other pieces of the mechanics of this. If this will never be you, then and you're never going to change it, then you have to focus on the core components of the core four.
Protein, uh around protein-filled nutrition meals. We need to exercise, we need to drink water, we need to sleep, and the other two are time manage and stress management for sure. And that is something that you have to hold the line on every day no matter what. Again, I'm not a doctor. This isn't medical advice, but these are relevant questions that get you from the start all the way through the end of the journey if you do take it.
And there's no judgment on this either. If you're taking Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, or any of those, I've worked with people for years now on them trying to help them manage the challenging situation that is their body weight because it puts them in a disadvantage, a poor health situation where they have to get out so that they can be healthier.
There's literally a guy just the other day that actually signed up for the Call to Rise program because of episode 121 and 123. He was searching for GLP-1s cuz literally everyone was using them. And so he reached out to me and we started off and I've already given him within 4 or 5 days, he's he's like he's in a a college nutrition class but made it at a third-grade level so it's easy to understand.
But he's learning so much and he's he's understanding his habits and trips and and stuff and that the these episodes are why I ended up doing this one, a Q&A. I said, "Hey, this could be a really good opportunity to educate people around how to use this as a tool, not a lifestyle. For the love, you just don't want to take this thing for years and years.
" Now, if you don't want to do this and you're looking for a really good opportunity here, I have a lose 3 lbs in 3 days. You're going to head over to the call to rise.com. You can scroll down and it's literally in the middle of the webpage. So click on a red button or you could do the in the link in the show notes will be the call to rise.
com/lose the number three lbs pounds in three the number three days. So lose 3 lbs in 3 days. You'll click that button and you're going to get a really nice professional habit building routine process to help get a really quick win for you to be able to be successful early on and that's exactly why I created it.
It's to instantly jumpstart the process around having healthy meals. If there's recipes in there, there's ideas on how to move your body differently to help get an early quick win. And again, this isn't like a fad thing. This is literally the approach that I start my guys off and we just keep doing it for a long time and finding out where the challenge is.
Now, if you're beyond just trying to lose 3 lb and do it on your own and you really want help in this process, that's what the call to rise is. We have a five pillar system around your identity. I I call that the call. Then we have the forge, which is the exercise and activity. We have the fuel, which is eating the right foods at the right times in the right amounts.
You're going to learn more about nutrition than you ever have in probably last 10 years on what nutrition is. Even if you track food, you're still going to learn a crazy amount. I've literally been staring at people talking to them about nutrition for 23 years. We have the code. It's a mindset piece. The way you think is really important for you to be able to make decisions that improve your process. The aim principle.
Am I moving toward my health goals or not? That's what that is. And then lastly, the fifth pillar is the brotherhood. Best part, I'm your guide in this journey and just to get to your destination, your weight destination, your body destination. And then you have other men that are dealing with the same challenges. And again, I've listed a bunch of episodes in the throughout this podcast episode that you can go check out, but there's so many guys that just accept responsibility, take action.
So, if you're know a man with a prescription sitting on the counter right now and he doesn't want to take it, send this episode to him. And or even if you know someone that's taking it, send this episode to him so that they can be more educated to have a better experience overall. And lastly, leave a review uh on Apple, Spotify.
I read those things and they help give me a lot of insight on what other podcast episodes to do. That's it for Driven for Health. Have a wonderful night.