Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2597: Before You Take Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro Listen to This!
Thu, 15 May 2025
Before You Take Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro Listen to This! The challenges for people taking GLP-1s. (1:10) GLP-1s do NOT cause muscle loss. (3:10) The under-muscled epidemic. (5:48) The way GLP-1s work and what they do. (7:45) Obesity vs. under muscled. (11:12) Losing muscle is bad. How do you stop that from happening when on a GLP-1? #1 - Titrate the dose if too strong. Why you should go through a compound pharmacy. (13:30) #2 - Eat high protein. (16:49) #3 - Lift daily. (20:32) #4 - Drink ½ to 1 gallon of water daily. (24:18) #5 - Use essential amino acids, creatine, electrolytes, HMB. (25:42) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: MAPS GLP-1 50% off!! ** Code 50OFFGLP1 at checkout ** Visit Seed for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Promo code 25MINDPUMP at checkout for 25% off your first month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01® Daily Synbiotic** Changes in lean body mass with glucagon-like peptide-1-based therapies and mitigation strategies Muscle Mass and Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists: Adaptive or Maladaptive Response to Weight Loss? Visit Transcend Mind Pump #2360: What You Need to Know About GLP-1 With Dr. Tyna Moore Mind Pump #2110: Ozempic the Miracle Fat Loss Peptide: The Truth With Dr. William Seeds Mind Pump #2410: How to Maximize Fat Loss & Preserve Muscle on GLP-1s (Introducing MAPS GLP-1) Mind Pump #2432: The Truth About Essential Amino Acids with Angelo Keely HMB benefits, dosage, and side effects - Examine Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources
Chapter 1: Why should you listen before taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic?
You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, look, a lot of people take GLP-1s, but they screw it up. In today's episode, we explain to you how you can prevent muscle loss. So before you take a GLP-1 like Ozempic or Manjaro or Regovi, listen to this episode. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor.
See, this is the world's best probiotic. Hands down. Go check them out. Go to seed.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code two five mind pump and get 25% off. Also, because we're doing this episode, we have put out a workout program designed specifically for people on a GLP one. It's called Maps GLP-1, and we're going to put it at 50% off because of this episode.
So if you're interested, go to mapsglp1.com. Use the code 50OFFGLP1 to get 50% off. All right, here comes the show. GLP-1s, Ozempic, Wegovy, Manjaro, they're taking the world by storm. But pause before you take them. Listen to us because 40% in some of the studies of the weight you lose can come from lean body mass, which includes muscle. That is not a good thing.
Today, we're going to talk about how you can prevent that from happening and maximize the effects of the GLP-1s and minimize those negative side effects.
The interesting part about this is this is a challenge for all clients that were pursuing fat loss, even if you weren't taking one of these drugs. The only thing that this has really changed, at least for me, from my perspective as a trainer who's helped a bunch of people try and lose weight, is it just guarantees they're not going to eat a lot.
One of the challenges when you were helping a client lose with weight loss was getting them to adhere to the diet consistently, consistently enough that they were in a caloric deficit day in and day out so that their body would then basically metabolize fat and lose body fat, right? Well, that's the goal. Right, that would be the goal.
But that is challenging enough as it is, and you'd have clients that would be good for a while, then overeat, and then they'd hit plateaus. But with Ozempic, Monjaro, all these GLP-1s, getting the client to restrict from calories is not difficult whatsoever.
But the same challenge is presented as the one that I would have with a client who actually did adhere to eating low calorie without the drug. So it's very similar.
It's interesting. Yeah. Thinking back to like some of my clients, even that... We thought was like a real big success out of the gates. It's like I find out later that they're doing an excessive amount of cardio and not reporting it to me. And, you know, this while like cutting calories like crazy, they're getting they're losing weight.
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Chapter 2: Do GLP-1 medications cause muscle loss?
Now, the studies also show that when people take a GLP-1 and do nothing else, that up to 40% of the weight that they lose is lean body mass. Now, lean body mass is anything that's not body fat. So some of that's water. We'll get to that. But a significant percentage of that is muscle. And that's a big problem. So let's put a pin in that because we'll get to that as well.
But I do want to say GLP-1s do not cause muscle loss. So it's not the GLP-1 that causes muscle loss. So when you're taking this, it is not telling your body to lose muscle. It's also not telling your body necessarily to lose fat. It's doing a lot of things. But one of the main things that it does is it really does – blunt your appetite.
If you simply eat less calories and do nothing else, whether you're on a GLP-1 or not, a significant percentage of the weight that you lose will come from lean body mass. Now, the reason why this happens is that the body, what it does is it tries to meet the new energy intake by lowering its energy demands.
In other words, if your body is used to getting, let's say, 2,500 calories a day and you're not gaining or losing weight, that means you're burning the 2,500 calories a day. But if you suddenly drop that to 1,200 calories a day, your body will lose body fat to try to make up the difference. But then it also learns to adapt and slow its metabolism down. It starts to reduce its energy demands.
And muscle is very demanding of energy. Muscle is very metabolically active. So one of the things it does is it reduces muscle mass. And this happens whether you're on a GLP-1 or not. So the GLP-1 doesn't cause muscle loss. In fact... We now have studies, and previous studies have shown this as well, that GLP-1s may actually have a muscle-preserving effect.
In other words, you'll probably lose less muscle on a GLP-1 versus you just cutting your calories. But that being said, if you take a GLP-1 and you do none of the stuff that we're going to say in this episode, you can pretty much bet your bottom dollar. You can guarantee the fact that a lot, almost half— of the weight will be muscle. And you don't want to do that.
You do not want to do that because although too much body fat is a big health risk, too little muscle is also a massive health risk. In fact, I talked about this with a doctor friend of mine. over this weekend, obesity is the epidemic that we always hear about, but there's also this under muscle epidemic that's happening.
And if you look at the data on people with heart disease or cancer, it's true that a majority of them are overweight, but there's a sizable minority to the tune of tens of millions of Americans that get diabetes and cancer. And part of the reason why they do is they're fragile. They're weak. They have too little muscle. And muscle is very metabolically active. It's anti-cancer.
It's insulin sensitive. It's good for testosterone to attach to in both men and women. And of course, it makes you mobile. It allows you to move and you fall down. You don't break something and hurt yourself and you can do things. So you don't want to lose muscle. And then finally, losing muscle slows down your metabolism.
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Chapter 3: What is the 'under-muscled' epidemic?
Yeah, the way that GLP-1s work is they essentially tell your body you ate. They do increase the secretion of insulin. They do improve insulin sensitivity. This is all independent of weight loss. That's probably why there's a muscle-preserving effect because better insulin sensitivity is pro-muscle. And you see this in the stronger GLP-1s like Terzepatide.
I think Monjaro is the brand name of that one. And then now they have these even stronger ones that are coming out. So yeah, it doesn't cause muscle loss, but if you don't offset what'll happen when you simply eat less, you're not going to be in a great place. And my fear, because here's the deal with GLP-1s, these are culture-shifting compounds.
I mean, I think that you're going to see, you're probably going to see two-thirds of everyone uh, in a modern society like America is going to be on these. Cause that's how, that's how much overweight, uh, you know, and obesity, um, has now.
And it's also because Sal, how effective it is. It's because it's so effective. If it was, uh, if it was mildly effective, um, I don't know if we'd see it penetrate the entire society that's overweight. But because it's so effective, I think – and honestly, a lot of the negative talk around it is like the other real popular negative or fear-mongering that goes around the –
gastric issues and their digestive issues like and a lot of that has to do with the dosing yeah um the other the other problem that i have with the glp1 is that it's so early on in it that we have this kind of generic dose that we're giving we'll get to that because that's a hundred percent yeah that's a hundred percent you you're a hundred percent they they're doing a standard dose there seems to be this individual variance with how people react some people need more
Um, and some people, uh, need less. Uh, but nonetheless, like if you do a GLP one, right. And there's a lot that goes into this. We're only going to really cover like how to prevent muscle loss, but there's a lot more that, uh, that we've talked about in previous episodes. If you do it right and you are the right person for this. I mean, I am, I think these are great.
I think they're great compounds. If used properly.
With the right setup. I mean, really, like, what we're trying to describe is, like, what you need to consider even going into it first. And we even talked about, you know, even potentially pursuing, like, a reverse diet before even going into it would be a good idea.
Yes. Now, you know, what's interesting, too, is I remember – do you guys remember when they busted the myth – That obese people have more muscle. Yeah. And they did those scans on them. So sarcopenia or weakness or muscle weakness is actually more common in obese people than it is in healthy weight individuals. Yep.
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Chapter 4: How do GLP-1 medications work?
It doesn't necessarily look good either. And so this is where you get some of the fear-mongering, ozempic face. What you're seeing is when people just cut their calories, first of all, skin requires protein and calories to maintain. So skin starts to look saggy, and people just look not so great. However, if you do it right...
These can be absolute game changers, and I firmly believe they are game changers if done properly. For sure. So here's the deal. Losing muscle is bad. How do you stop that from happening when you're on a GLP-1? Let's start with the first thing.
Can we start with the point that I made? I feel like that's important.
All right, let's do that.
Just because I mentioned it already, and I think that if you're getting started, I think that... Communicating this to somebody or maybe someone's considering getting started, I think the first thing that you should consider is actually going through a direct pharmacy where you can actually get – Compound pharmacy. Yeah, compound pharmacy instead of doing these generic brands.
These popular brands are already dose-free. And in our experience – and we've now worked with a few hundred people personally that we've actually met that are taking this – almost every single person had a different dose. And the people that had really bad effects as far as digestive stuff was simply by bringing the dose down.
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Chapter 5: What are the pros and cons of using GLP-1 medications for weight loss?
Fixed it.
Fixed it completely. So, you know, if you're considering this, consider that. Consider...
going through a compound pharmacy where your doctor can actually prescribe your dose and individualize it for you i really i think this is i think right now we're just in this weird time that this isn't happening i think in the future this will become mandatory this will this will be the standard i agree yeah because when you're on uh when you go with the brand names uh because that's what you're talking about right these are brand name ones there's a dose it's like some of them are pens that you click or whatever and that's your dose and here's how you know
you're on too too too strong of a dose your appetite isn't suppressed it's gone crushed gone you forget or you or you're nauseous yeah uh or you have like you stop using the bathroom because it slows down your gastric emptying like too much right uh if you're not eating at all yeah you're gonna lose weight on the scale but that's not a good way to lose weight yeah and we've talked to people like that where they go on like i i can't eat i'm like force feeding myself i feel
Like throwing up.
Well, I experienced that early on. Remember, we we had just flown out to Florida to do a talk and I just started it. And I remember like normally when we do these these events, I mean, we we go we're like all we're flying, we're moving and we're talking. And all of us are normally like just ravenous. We're so hungry because we've been talking for long periods of time and we don't get to eat.
We don't know our normal eating windows. And I remember looking at you guys like at 10, 11 o'clock at night, and all you guys, oh, my God, let's go eat. We're so hungry. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not hungry, and I haven't eaten all day. It just completely slipped my mind. The power of that was wild to me.
And just an example, obviously, everyone's going to be different, but I have found that a lot of the people – that were getting the Ozempic that would go be the ones that were in the preloaded pens were having that same similar experience.
I talked to a woman early on when this first started, and she stopped taking it. I said, why did you stop taking it? She says, it felt like the first trimester of pregnancy when I was thrown up every single day. Now, the experts that we've had on the show that talk about this who are leading experts, they all titrate the dose. So I think that's the case.
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Chapter 6: How can you prevent muscle loss when taking GLP-1s?
We're not feeding it enough calories. We're not feeding it enough protein. Absolutely, it will pare down. And then you will fall into that statistic that you talked about when we first started, which is losing 40% of lean body mass.
Yes, yes. So eat high protein, prioritize it, use shakes. if need be, and again, the studies on protein are really interesting. You have two low-calorie diets. One is high-protein. One is what's considered adequate. The high-protein diet loses less muscle and or typically loses more body fat. So here's the deal, everybody.
Not only are you going to lose less muscle eating a higher-protein diet, you'll probably also encourage more fat loss. And by the way, just to be very clear, keeping muscle maintains – more of your metabolism than losing muscle will.
So if you want your metabolism not to slow down a lot, which will make fat loss easier and fat loss more sustainable later on, unless you, if you plan on at some point coming off a GLP one, you don't want a metabolism that's really slow. Yeah. Then, then you're definitely gonna want to keep that muscle eating a high protein diet really, really helps do that. Uh, next.
One of the most important things we're going to say today. You got to lift weights. Your body needs a reason to keep muscle. Muscle is active. It's expensive tissue. Listen, it doesn't matter what you do. If you don't lift weights, if you were sedentary all day, you'll lose muscle anyway because your body only keeps it if you need it.
Lifting weights sends a signal to your body that says, I need strength. So let's prioritize muscle. Now, the recommendation that we make here for lifting is to lift every day. Now, let's pause there for a second. I don't mean work out hard or for hours every day. In fact, one of the big mistakes people make on a GOP one is they go, they're like, oh, I got to lift weights.
And they suddenly go to the gym and hammer themselves. Terrible idea. Suddenly adding a ton of stress to your body, which weight training is, while simultaneously eating less calories is a recipe for, ready for this, muscle loss.
That's right.
It's called overtraining, and you'll lose a lot of muscle. So what do I mean by lift daily? Lift maybe 15 minutes a day, every day. Send a signal every day that you need muscle. Easy. And do two exercises a day.
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Chapter 7: Why should you consider using a compound pharmacy for GLP-1 medications?
Now, keep in mind, your muscles are 70% fluid, and a muscle that isn't well hydrated also tends to cause muscle loss. So what you want to do is you want to keep yourself hydrated, and this is more important for this group. And when I've talked to our friends who are doctors and experts in this, they tell me, oh, yeah, people have to track their water because they don't have an appetite.
It gets away from them.
Yeah. They also don't want to drink any water. And so this is a recommendation that they told me that I should make when I talk about it on the podcast, make sure people are drinking a good amount of water. And then lastly, there are supplements that are going to help with the catabolic effects of reducing your calories, okay?
In other words, these are muscle-preserving supplements or supplements that help counter all of the things that we're talking about on GLP-1, and they are essential amino acids. Now, essential amino acids, I know someone's like, well, protein powder, right? Doesn't that have tons of amino acids? Yes, it's true.
But I talked to people on GOP Ones where their appetite got so hammered that by the end of the day, they couldn't even drink a protein shake. But essential amino acids are so thin, it's like flavored water, that they were able to- Or even pill form. Or even pill form, that they were able to swallow that. And essential amino acids also help. It's not as good as protein, but it's pretty close.
Because it gives you the amino acids that your body can't produce itself. That's why they're called essential.
I also thought, remember we covered this, his name is slipping me right now, from Keon. And he brought up some studies that even show that even in the context of them hitting their protein intake and stuff like that. Especially if the calories are low. Yeah.
In the context of a low, low calorie diet that they found that there was muscle preserving benefits to taking the, I mean, the last time I did my cut was the first time that I really tested that myself. And I attribute the fact that I held on to all my muscle. Like it's not, It's hard to when you're in a cut. not lose some muscle, right?
And so we're really trying to just minimize as little as you possibly can. So any time that you can only lose a half a pound or a pound of muscle in pursuit of losing pounds of body fat is a huge win. And this is an easy thing to add, either through just an easy liquid, adding it to your water, or if you can't even do that, just taking pill form. So I do think this is a solid investment.
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