GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and Ozempic can help with weight loss, but it’s important to use them the right way to avoid losing muscle and bone mass. These drugs work by affecting appetite and blood sugar levels, but keeping lean muscle is key for long-term health. Diet and exercise play a big role in staying healthy while using them, along with understanding the effects of processed foods, inflammation, and insulin resistance.

Beyond just taking the medication, long-term success comes from a balanced approach that includes strength training, proper nutrition, and hormone health. Simple strategies can help support fat loss, avoid common pitfalls, and transition off these medications without regaining weight.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:02 - GLP-1 Medications Are Powerful Tools

01:32 - Understanding Lean Mass Loss

04:37 - Inflammation & Toxins in Diet

06:13 - The Right Way to Use GLP-1 Medications

09:21 - Fat Burning & Insulin Resistance

12:32 - Long-Term Health & Sustainability

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:02] All right. I get lots and lots of questions about, uh, GLP one, semaglutide, ozimphic, trisipatide, we'll go these, all these things. There, I want to start this one off by what I'm about to say might make it sound very safe and innocent and totally fine. Um, these are tools. These are powerful tools. And if you don't know what you're doing with them, you can hurt somebody. You know, I keep using the reference like a chainsaw or a blowtorch, like phenomenal things like fire, fantastic things. Eat your food, you know, dries your clothes, makes you warm, all those great things, but burns your house down. So, you know, we got to be careful with them. I would work with somebody who understands how they work. I understand it's metabolic biochemistry. Um, the easiest way to tell somebody to understand is metabolic biochemistry is if they start talking about calories, don't work with them. You need to understand the whole, the metabolic biochemistry, the functions and how the body actually works. Um, you know, gluconeogenesis, lipolytic function, uh, glycolytic function, um, you know, Corey cycle, like all, all these things, you know, hell, even the Krebs cycle. They have to understand these things and not in any one of those metabolic chemistry pathways is a calorie cause calories don't exist. We've talked about this before. Um, if you're, if you, if you're working with somebody who's trying to help metabolic function and they think that sugar fiber and 13. are all, all work the same way in the body, which is what calories in calories out says. Um, I wouldn't work with that person using tools like this.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:32] So first of all, and these things can hurt you if you don't use them properly. Um, I mean, we think we've seen that over and over and over again. Uh, all right. So one of the things I want to make sure that we get, we cover. So a lot of times when, um, this is what I'm noticing is people are telling me things. So I know how to read DEXA scans, and I understand what the verbiage is. So it's a little bit different. So I wanna kind of tell you guys some of these things that might change the way you view the shock and outrage about some of the GLP-1 stuff. So when it talks about that 40 to 50% of all the weight that's lost is lean mass. Okay, what you have to understand is that when you say lean mass, you think muscle. That's not, yes, you're losing muscle, but that's not what lean mass is. When you look at a DEXA scan, The DEXA scan says... Here's bone and fat, and then everything else is lean mass. So water that's in your, like inflammation, like water your body is holding. Organ tissue, all sorts of muscle mass, obviously, all sorts of other stuff. And you're like, well, I don't want to lose organ size. Yeah, you do. You actually do. So if you've been eating a lot and your stomach is this big, and then you do, you start fasting, you change your diet. Do whatever you eat less, you get on a GLP one and it helps you eat less and your stomach goes from this big to this big. Well, guess what? Now you get full faster. Now you've more satiated. You might not have needed that stomach that size, but that's lean mass that you're losing. And that doesn't happen over the first two or three days that happens over weeks and months. And the same thing happens with fasting. The same thing happens with, you know, dieting properly. So you do want that to happen.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:17] One of the things that we see... that happens a lot is when you put people on the proper diet. So when, when I do these things, when I walk people through these, we put them on the right diet, um, so that when they come off, they don't have, they don't get on the weight back. We make sure that their testosterone levels where they're supposed to be. So they're gaining muscle mass, not losing it. Um, we make sure that they're on special nutrients. They don't have liver gallbladder issues. Um, and so what we're actually going for is some shrinking of the stomach, some reduction of size in the intestines. We're definitely looking for a massive reduction. and inflammation. And the great thing about these is that when we're talking about inflammation, you have to understand the vast majority of our health comes from the things we put in our mouth every single day. So if you're putting things in your mouth every day, they're toxic. They have glyphosate on them that are highly processed that have high high fructose corn syrup and all these, you know, chemical dyes and all the trash that everybody's now, you know, in the past couple of months, I've been like, oh my gosh, there's things that are toxic in our foods that we've been talking about for, I don't those things cause inflammation. And then remember, inflammation is where your chemistry in your body breaks down and doesn't work the way it's supposed to. When that happens, your body has extra waste, which is even more toxic stuff. And so your body holds water to decrease the how much toxin there is per square inch.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:37] So think of it this way. You have a glass that's six ounces or let's say there's four. You have a four ounce glass of water and you have two tablespoons of salt in it. You taste it, you're like, wow, that's super salty. You make that a 10 ounce glass of water. Same amount of salt. Now it's not as salty. That's what your body's doing. It's holding water so that you're not as salty. You're not as, you know, you don't have as much nasty chemical per unit of fluid as you do normally. That's why your body holds that extra stuff. Well, if you stop poisoning yourself and you stop eating this trash like constantly, your body doesn't need to hold as much water. So it can release some of it. It is gonna release some fat. We're gonna release a lot of this stuff. pretty much all diets that have a restriction function on them. So you're eating less, whether it's a calorie restriction or it's a macro restriction, or you're doing, you know, a GLP wine, which is restriction of, of everything. Um, you're going to lose some muscle mass. Now you don't have to, like we, when I, when I program out faster people will do six, seven, eight, 10 day fasts and people will gain muscle mass on them because of the way we do them. Um, you can, you can easily gain muscle mass. while using GLP ones and things like that by consuming the right supplementation, having your testosterone in working out. Yes, you can work out. You can work out really well on a fast. Um, I run a 22 two, so I eat once a day and I'll do three or four day fasts all the time. Get great workouts while I'm doing it. Um, you know, gain muscle mass, the whole deal. So it's just, again, it goes back to that chemistry of how you're doing it. But what we have to be worried about, you know, there's some bone loss and stuff like that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:13] So, again. when you're doing a GLP one, if you just take it, and this is how a lot of providers are doing it. They're just like, take it, take it like this once a week and the fat comes off and you'll be fine. And that is a hundred percent a lie. If you're not supplementing properly, if you're not working out properly, if your hormones aren't where they're supposed to be, you know, you take a GLP one, you know, and just don't eat for, you know, six, seven, eight months or eat very little, you're gonna lose a lot of muscle mass, you're gonna lose bone density, you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose some fat, but you're gonna lose a lot of things that you don't wanna lose. So it's again, one of those things where if you do these things properly, you're going to have all the health benefits that you want. Now, the other funny thing that I was talking to people about is everyone suspects that like, Oh, I'm just fat. If I lost the fat, I'd have the super ripped body underneath the whole leg. I've got a great six pack under, under all this stuff. you don't have the muscles that you want to show off if you don't build them. So you can lose all the fat and you'll have soft, you'll have, usually you'll have loose skin and you won't have a defined body that you want. And it's always funny cause I read these articles and like, you know, oh, the fitness people are freaking out about Ozempic because people are just taking Ozempic and they look great. That's not true. It's not true at all. Like everybody's seen the people who've used Ozempic for too long and you're like, you look weird. It's cause they didn't do anything to maintain muscle mass. And they've lost the fat above it and they're, they're just, they look sunken and they just look unhealthy, um, which is they are.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:41] So if you're going to do these things, do them properly. Now, don't freak out about the, you know, loss of mass, like lean muscle, lean mass, cause it's, there is a little bit of lean muscle mass that's lost, but there's a giant amount of other stuff that's lost fluids, uh, organ size. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in there that you don't necessarily need size wise, uh, inflammation, like a lot of that stuff's pull it out and you do want that stuff to leave. But you're also going to lose, you know, a decent amount of fat. So if you do them right, they're, they're pretty functional. They're pretty healthy. Uh, you can do them really, really well. They, they really help start kickstart the whole process. So like I use them a lot when we do dimension diabetes work. They're fantastic for that. Uh, but again, you have to understand again, it's a tool. It's not magic. So if you're going to use these things, you've got to, you know, implement the right diet. You've got implement right exercise function, supplementation. hormones, all the things to get yourself actually healthy. If you'll do that, you're going to end up, you know, at the end of the, into the course, you're going to be leaner. You'll have more muscle mass. You'll look great. You'll feel great that you can come off the GLP ones. And because you're on the right diet, you will then maintain that function. Like we've had, you know, people who, after they get off, they continue to lose fat and it's always one of those things where like, well, no, I don't understand what's because your body is now programmed the way that we do it. Your body is now programmed to burn fat. The GLP ones initiated the system that makes your body burn fat. The G from GLP one stands for glucagon. Glucagon is the hormone that has your body burn fat. Insulin is the hormone that has your body store fat and insulin levels will actually block your body's ability to burn fat.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:21] So if you So if you get into a system where your body is burning fat, you're having your, the diet you're having is specifically geared towards burning fat, and then you have your body work on burning fat for four or five, six months, and you're like, just do this. Your body actually gets better at it. Anything that you, that you do over and over and over again, your body will get better at more efficient tests and there's all sorts of research on this and I don't want to bore you with it. Um, but the thing is, is that if your body is used to burning sugar as its primary fuel source, and it hasn't burned fat for. Years or ever like as its primary fuel source, it's not gonna be very good at it So if we see this and like usually what i'll do is i'll pull i'll pull blood on it We look at fasting insulin levels if your fasting insulin levels are too high, you know above 10 So the way that I look at it is above 10 between 10 and 15 You're looking at what I would consider like a pre-diabetic function from an insulin resistance phase And above 15 is pretty much diabetic from an insulin resistance phase because everybody's producing in a 12 hour fasted state 15, 17, 18 units of insulin, you know, your body has way too much insulin in it all the time. And so what these things help do is they help shift your body or force your body into a fat burning state. And so we can start watching these levels start ticking down. And so now you're in a healthy state. So now your insulin levels gets between five and 10. And what ends up happening is that your body is burning fat for its primary fuel source. Your body has to, you know, when you're doing this, your body has to be like, oh, how do we make more bile? How do we make? 10, 20, 30 times the bio we were making is the bio you're making safe. And is it clean without methyl to be six? You guys are not going to have make proper bio bio is actually how we dissolve fat, how we digest it. And so that's a liver function. This is why the liver gallbladder keeps coming up as a problem for people on GLP once,.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:11] But again, this is one of those things. If you understand the chemistry, if you understand how the body does this, you're not going to have issues with this. If you think it's calories, you're going to have gallbladder issues, liver issues, you're going to have all these things. So. Once you get the body kind of geared up to, oh, we now burn fat and you put them on a diet where it's mostly fat. All of a sudden they're going to continue to burn fat. They're going to continue to lean out. And if you do it right, all the, you may not get a lot of the process chemicals, you like not got a lot of the toxic dyes now all of a sudden they're eating substantially healthier and they're in a diet that is designed to burn fat. So, and like when we do it, one of the things I do is I'm like, give me your 10 favorite foods. I'll take your 10 favorite foods and I'll show you how to get those 10 favorite foods, at least most of them. Like usually we'll get eight, I can't do French fries. French fries are hard. We got some stuff that kind of resembles French fries, but they're not fries. I actually kind of like them better because they're chewier, but they're not fries. We're about to do some stuff with rice. I think we're going to get rice in there, but the vast majority of stuff, the cookies, the cakes, the pies, the pizza, the nachos, the, you know, soft drinks, all that stuff we get in there. So it's not, it's not that difficult. Most people actually enjoy this diet more than than they had before, and so it's easy to stay on. That's just the way that it rolls out. And so all of a sudden people are eating foods they really enjoy and they're healthier and they're finally leaning out and staying lean.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:12:32] So these things are great to start with. I wouldn't recommend trying to do them all the time. I would definitely not recommend doing them as your primary source of diet. Like there are people who are yo-yoing with these things. They'll do them for six months, come off for three or four, jump back on, eating a trash diet and then wonder why they're unhealthy at the end. At the end of the day, your health is substantially tied. Mental health, physical health, psychological health, all of it is directly tied to what you're eating every single day. So if you really want health, you're gonna have to work on your diet. So just straight out, there's no way around it. You know, we say things like you can't out train a bad diet, you know, you can't out supplement a bad diet, which is kinda true, kinda not true. But if you'll focus on your diet, you can radically reduce your supplementation. You can radically reduce your fat, your weight, because your inflammation falls off you. You know, there's a lot of things that you can do with diet. And now here's the thing, and I realize this, change is difficult and change is, you know, awkward and hard and stuff like that. That's why we work so closely with people for the first, you know, however long it takes them, months, two months. But once you get into the habit of doing this, it becomes less and less and less of a hassle and just more and more of just what's normal. You look at people who go to the gym, right? And they, so they go to the gym, you know, and I'm going to go start going to the gym every day and man, it is a flipping hassle, right? Cause you like change your life and change your schedule.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:59] And, you know, you're tired and you're sore. You don't want to go with the guys and the women people who just gut it out and go every day for a month. Now it's that route, that's the routine. That's what they do. And so all of a sudden it's not that big of a deal. And once it becomes a routine, now it's weird if you miss. And so if you guys will just suck it up and be like, all It's gonna be It's gonna be difficult. It's gonna be irritating. It's gonna be hard, but I'm gonna do it for a month. Just do it. Just do it for a month, you know, whether you're gonna cook every day, whether you're gonna meal prep, whatever you're gonna do. Do it for a month and you'll find that it's massively easier than you thought it was. And plus at the end of that month, you're gonna be like, oh, look at my gains. Like I've lost this fat. I feel so much better. I'm sleeping better. The sex drives up. I feel awesome. Maybe this is the way I should do it for the rest of my life. And yes, you should. So if you guys are having issues with that, if you guys are having questions with that, hit us up, you know, charlmerswellness.com, pillarswellness.com, we're moving over to pillarswellness.com. So pillarswellness.com, or, you know, you guys can DM me like you always do, but that's gonna be the easiest way to kind of get this stuff knocked out. If you guys wanna kind of use the GLP ones to kickstart your diet, kickstart your healthy living, that'd be great. But like I said, man, these things are powerful and they're awesome, but if you use them wrong, you're gonna hurt yourself. So get with people who know what they're doing, get with people who understand that'll walk biochemistry, or you're gonna have issues. So. If you guys have any other questions to this up questions@chalmerswellness.com or like I said, DMing me all the time. Uh, but anyway, I'll talk to you guys later. Have a great day. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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