episode 135: Let’s talk about injectable weight loss drugs
I debated for a LONG time about whether to do a podcast episode about the injectable weight loss drugs.
Then something happened a couple of weeks ago that put me over the edge and I realized I HAD to do it. I talk about what it is in the episode.
Right up front I want to be clear that this episode is not medical advice. I am not qualified to give medical advice. Please speak to your doctor and ideally an endocrinologist or obesity medicine specialist to know if these drugs are right for you.
While I’m not qualified to tell you whether these drugs are right for you, I am qualified to give you support and some guidelines to consider around your overall health and well being when it comes to fat loss, body image issues and body confidence.
The truth is that for people with obesity these drugs can change lives and dramatically improve physical and mental health and quality of life. For people who are using them to lose 10-15 pounds, these drugs also have the potential to change lives, but not for the better.
In this episode I talk about :
The types of drugs, names and what they’re used for
How they work
Who they were meant for and why
The main cause of obesity
Why people with obesity struggle with food and why the eat less/move more approach isn’t helpful or realistic
Why misusing them can negatively impact your physical and mental health
Who is qualified to support, consult and prescribe these drugs and who you should seek out if you have questions about whether they’re right for you
The negative impact of anti diet culture around people’s health and well being
The connection to body image issues and body confidence
Take a listen to episode 123 for more support around body confidence and episode 124 for everything you need to know about protein and why it matters for fat loss.
And this blog post covers the top 5 skills you need to lose fat without dieting by changing eating habits for good.
Check out Dr. Spencer Nadolsky for helpful info and resources around weight loss and the GLP 1 agonist drugs.
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[00:00:00] Hey everyone, it's episode 135 of The Diet Diaries, and today's episode is about something that I have debated for a long time now about whether or not to do an episode about this. And I'll just tell you right off the bat, I'm gonna talk about Ozempic, and I've debated about it because I'm not an expert and Ozempic, and I'm gonna say right off the bat, and none of this.
[00:00:26] It kind of goes without saying, but it doesn't go without saying is medical advice, right? I am not an obesity medicine physician and therefore I am not qualified to give you advice around whether or not this is the right medication for you. However, because I work in the nutrition and fitness and wellness and weight loss space, this is something that is very important.
[00:00:49] That is, I need to be educated on that. I think we all kind of collectively need to have some awareness of, because there's a lot going on with this drug right now. There's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of misuse, and I just wanna offer just some information. Um, I'm also gonna give you some other resources to get additional information should you want it.
[00:01:16] Um, But I'm getting a lot of questions about it. I'm talking about it with friends. There has been the cover article on New York Magazine and The Economist. Um, so this is like a big topic of conversation right now. And so something happened a couple of days ago, which isn't like a huge deal. I'll talk about it in the episode.
[00:01:34] That kind of was like the deal breaker. I'm like, okay, yeah, I need to talk about this. So, Here we go. Um, I just wanna start by just kind of explaining if you're not familiar, like what this drug is. Right. So it, that is a brand name. The generic name is called Semaglutide and it was approved in 2017 for treatment of type two diabetes.
[00:01:56] Um, and what the drug is it is, you'll hear it's a GLP one agonist. GLP one is glucagon, like peptide one. You don't need to know these things. I'm just sharing cuz I happen to like science. So it's fun for me. And it basically mimics, that's a hormone that is produced naturally in your body by your gut, and this drug mimics that hormone.
[00:02:16] It basically kind of produces more of it. And what that hormone does is it slows down and inhibits gastric emptying, which is kind of a fancy way of slanging. It slows a fancy way of saying it slows down kind of. How fast food processes through your digestive tract, it inhibits acid secretion and motility, right?
[00:02:34] All things are kind of slowing down the digestive process. This. Can and very often does decrease your appetite. It can also cause a lot of GI side effects, which is one of the side effects of the drug. Um, it can also decrease, it decreases, um, the natural spike of glucose that happens after eating, which is what a lot of people with type two diabetes deal with.
[00:02:55] The glucose goes up and then their insulin isn't responding properly and they have a lot of sugar floating around in their blood, and that becomes a really big problem. Then it starts to get stored as fat. They're pumping out more and more insulin, they're becoming insulin resistant. It's like a whole thing.
[00:03:09] Um, so overall what this drug does is essentially it reduces your appetite so you eat less, and we all know to lose weight, you lose fat. You have to be in a caloric deficit. So if you eat less, you're gonna lose fat. It also reduces cravings and urges for food and for people who have obesity, their ability to kind of regulate.
[00:03:32] And notice hunger and fullness and respond to those urges is different than people who don't have obesity. And this is a, this is a biological mechanism and this is new information that we haven't always had. Um, and I think this is so important to understand because there's a huge stigma against people with obesity and they are battling.
[00:03:52] Real challenges that not every other person is battling. This isn't a willpower thing, this isn't a motivation thing. This isn't a, well, you know, just eat less and exercise more. It's so simple thing for people who have obesity. Eating less is extremely difficult for people who don't have obesity, it's a lot, can be a lot easier.
[00:04:11] People who are more able to kind of maintain, um, a kind of a more average or a healthier weight range. They don't have those same urges, and if they do, they're able to respond to them in a way that is in line with their body's needs. Um, so I have to put my phone on silent. I forgot to do that. Hold please.
[00:04:38] Okay. Sorry. Uh, I'm not gonna edit that out. I just keep it real. I can't be bothered to edit out things like that. Um, of course I got distracted. I. So we kind of, we, we kind of just look at someone who has obesity and someone who doesn't have obesity, and we say, oh, it's that person's fault, right? They're eating more.
[00:04:56] They have no self-control. They're not trying hard enough. Well, they actually have, there's a difference in the way certain mechanisms are working inside of their brains than people who don't have obesity. And that is really important, just in the same way that someone might have a heart condition or someone might have like, um, you know, uh, Arthritis in their hip.
[00:05:15] There are things that happen in our bodies that impact externally what we're able to do, and we are not, it's not a level playing field, so, And that's really important to understand. So part of the reason I wanted to talk about this was to talk about that, that different people are facing different struggles and different battles of food.
[00:05:35] For some people don't get those urges, don't get those cravings are very easily to stop, very easily able to stop eating. When they're full, it's no big deal for them. For other people, those things are extremely, extremely difficult and basically take up all of their energy and all of their life. And because of that, it can often then result in obesity.
[00:05:55] This on top of our environment. Right. So one of the things I wanted to talk about is people will say, well, why was an obesity such a problem 75 a hundred years ago? Right. Our genetics haven't changed as humans. We have not evolved in a hundred years. True. What has changed is our environment two big ways.
[00:06:12] Our environment has changed. One, we move a lot less because of modern society, doesn't require us to move that much. And two, the types. A food that are available, the nutrition of them, the pricing of them, the quantities of them, the availability of them. It's a very complex, but if you think about the number of highly processed, highly palatable foods that are available today versus what was available a hundred years ago, and then the accessibility of those things, it's like, oh, well that makes sense.
[00:06:44] Right? So not only are people who have obesity are they. Having this, you know, they, they're genetically, biologically programmed to not be able to kind of regulate around food in the same way as other people are. Then on top of it, you've got all this food around that then makes that self-regulation even harder's, like a double whammy.
[00:07:07] Um, we know that like chips and candy and sweets and donuts and crackers and all this stuff, these are what we call hyper palatable foods. They are delicious and extremely over the easy to eat cuz they are nice, perfect combinations of, um, carbs and fat, the things that make food taste good. So those foods already, for someone who doesn't have a challenge regulating.
[00:07:29] Kind of cravings and urgency. Urgency and hunger. Those foods are already hard to regulate for someone who then doesn't have those internal mechanisms. I mean, it's like, that's what makes it so challenging. This is a huge factor in obesity and we need to understand this. Again, it is not a level playing field between all people.
[00:07:49] Um, so just kind of going back to a little bit of like, just a little bit of the science behind this and, and the medications. So Ozempic is the one that everyone has heard about, and Ozempic was actually first approved in 2017, not that long ago for the treatment of type two diabetes, and they found that when they were using it to treat people for type two diabetes, that they were also losing weight.
[00:08:12] So it's like, oh my God, what's going on with this? Why is this happening in 2021, only two years ago? So Ozempic is the brand name. Semaglutide is the generic name. Semaglutide the exact same drug as Ozempic was approved for prescription for weight loss under the brand name Wavy. So if you've heard Ozempic and Wavy and wondered what the difference is, one is prescribed on label for type two diabetes.
[00:08:36] One is prescribed on label for weight loss. They're the same exact drug. They can be dosed differently, right? There are different doses available of, of these drugs. Now that said, there are lots of doctors out there prescribing Ozempic, what's called off-label, meaning for something that the drug wasn't approved by the FDA for, and that happens a lot.
[00:08:55] That's very common. Um, sometimes when that happens, it's not always covered by insurance. Now, this being said, these drugs were approved and then there's a third drug, so lemme just talk about that quickly. There's a third drug called Manjaro, which is the brand name that was only approved just over a year ago, May, 2022.
[00:09:12] The generic name of that is called Eptide. That works very similarly to Semaglutide, except it has an additional receptor called G I P is the acronym. Doesn't matter what this thing is called. So it actually can in some ways, in terms of fat loss, Be even more effective. They're finding that the rates of fat loss and kind of the overall percentage of weight loss over time is actually a little bit greater with Manjaro than it is with Wavy.
[00:09:43] Um, and I have, I have a client on one of these drugs. I have a former client, one of these drugs. I have family members on these drugs. All people who have. Struggled with obesity, to be very clear. And that is kind of the point of this episode, these drugs are for people who have obesity. Obesity is currently defined by your bmi.
[00:10:07] Um, and there's different kind of ranges now. Yes, we know that BMI in many situations is very antiquated. Um, measure of health. There are other ways to measure. Um, one of them is your waist to height ratio. So if you take your height in inches and you take your waist circumference, your height should be more the double of your waist ratio.
[00:10:33] Another way to say that is your waist, not your waist ratio. Your waist measurement should be less than half of your heightened inches. So if you can do that measurement. Um, so like for me, my height is 68 inches, my waist measurement is 34. I carry my weight in my waist. So by some measurements I. I can be right on the cusp of obesity.
[00:10:58] You might not think fat looking at me, but because of where I carry my fat and carrying your fat around the belly is actually one of the least ideal places to carry it. It pr, it's the, puts you at the greatest risk for a lot of different things. One of them being cardiovascular issues. That's separate, like conversation anyway, so, and these drugs, Need to be coming, be need.
[00:11:26] You need to be treated by, if you feel like you qualify or you need one, you need to go see an obesity medicine specialist. Right? And here's the thing. If you don't have obesity, these drugs are not for you. And what's happening is, and you know, celebrities, everyone, it's not just celebrities. People everywhere are getting prescriptions for these drugs.
[00:11:49] Doctors are writing them and they are also coming from places you wouldn't expect. I mentioned at the top of this episode that something happened earlier this week that got me really fired up. Now is what I'm going to mention it. I was on the website of a local business. Um, a medical spa, local business that does, you know, Botox and fillers and all kinds of like laser facials and treatment and they are prescribing semaglutide, um, calling it medical weight loss.
[00:12:18] If you have obesity and you need support with fat loss to improve your health. You're not gonna be going to a medical spa to get that. You will qualify to go to see an obesity medicine specialist and be treated by someone who is an expert in how these drugs work. A place like Medical Spa that's giving Botox injections,
[00:12:43] my opinion, has no business prescribing semaglutide for weight loss because the people who are coming in for that are not going to have obesity. They're gonna be people looking to lose 10, 15, 20, maybe even 30. Pounds more for vanity. Th this is a problem. These drugs are not meant for vanity weight loss.
[00:13:05] Now, I'm not saying that I have a problem if you want to lose weight because of your appearance. That's not what this is about. This is about using a drug that was designed for obesity in order to do that. And here is why not to men, not to mention, I'll just mention the sidebar. If you don't have insurance, these drugs cost a thousand dollars a month, and what the science and research is showing is that these drugs are only effective for the time that you are on them.
[00:13:36] What they have seen in the research is that if you go off the drugs, you very often regain much or all of the weight. Now for people who have obesity, the benefits of what these drugs can do health wise, Outweigh any potential risks as they're looking at it right now for potentially having to be on a drug for the rest of your life.
[00:13:57] There are many people who take. Medications for their entire lives. I've been on thyroid medication for like 12 years and probably will be not, probably will be likely for the rest of my life. Um, so that's not an abnormal thing. These drugs are newer so they don't have the length of research and data that we might want to have, but you know, there's always cost benefit analysis and the benefits for people who have obesity.
[00:14:19] Can be tremendous, right? Not just in fat loss, but in insulin resistance. Um, there are in, in other comorbidities that happen as a result of ob of obesity, you know, so I. If you are trying to lose 10, 15, 20 pounds and you want to do that, great. This is not, I wanna be very clear. This is not me saying that I have a problem or that you need to have a problem with someone who wants to lose weight for appearance or other purposes, right?
[00:14:50] Because you can have, you can be carrying 10 or 15 extra pounds and maybe not feel great in your body and maybe it is impacting you and there's other things going on, however, Using a drug like this to do that is problematic. One, because it's a temporary fix for you, because you're not gonna be able to get a prescription through insurance cuz you don't have obesity, which means you're paying a thousand dollars a month.
[00:15:12] And clearly there are many people who can afford to do that because it's happening everywhere. But just know that when you hear about people who are on ozempic who don't have obesity, they're paying out of pocket. They're paying a thousand dollars a month. So this then goes back to like interesting, kind of like class accessibility.
[00:15:29] Issues around privilege, and there's some interesting things that I'm not gonna get into. Um, but that you would have to also then be spending a thousand dollars a month for the rest of your life. That's an insane amount of money. Like that very few people can afford to do. Only, let's be honest, like very wealthy people.
[00:15:48] So if you use these drugs, let's say you, you, you get a prescription, you go to a medical spa or even your GP prescribes it for you because that's definitely happening. So, Um, and, and to be honest, if your GP is prescribing this for you and you don't have obesity, that's a red flag. These drugs are meant for people who have type two diabetes, the ones that are prescribed for that and obesity.
[00:16:07] They're not meant to lose 10, 15 pounds. If your doctor's prescribing it for you for that, that is a huge red flag. Um, that they are not providing you the support that you need. Not that then the alternatives to say, oh, just eat less and exercise more. No, it's maybe giving you a referral to a coach or to a dietician.
[00:16:25] Or to some type of resource that's gonna help you figure out what's going on. Like, why do you wanna lose this weight? How's it gonna impact your life? And what are some skills to do it? Not just like a, oh, here, go do Octavia, or here just like, you know, eat egg whites for breakfast every day. Like, that's shit isn't helpful.
[00:16:43] Um, So just kind of going back to if you are someone who has taken it or is considering it or wants to, or you just wanna be aware of what's going on and why this is problematic. I. And why this is ultimately gonna end up in people with more disordered eating than ever before, is that you go on this drug, you lose the 10, 15, 20 pounds and then a either you can't afford to get a prescription anymore cause it's a thousand dollars a month.
[00:17:08] Or the person who was prescribing it is like, I'm only gonna give this to you for four to six months. Right. Cause I've, I've heard that to the doctor's like, yeah, I'll write you a prescription, but it's for four to six months and then that's it. You are going to gain the weight back. This is science, this is in all of the research.
[00:17:22] So then what are you gonna do? Like, Then to try and keep the weight off, you're going to struggle even more. You're gonna restrict food, you're gonna get really rigid. You're gonna get stressed out about what's gonna happen. And that is going to, if you already had disordered eating, make it even worse. And if you didn't, it's gonna create a new problem for.
[00:17:44] 10 for people who don't have obesity. Using this for weight loss, it is a short-term fix for people who have obesity. It's a long-term fix cuz they will be on it likely for a very long period of time. Maybe forever, maybe not, but likely for years and years. For everyone else, it's only a few months or six months.
[00:18:01] That's a fix. It's essentially no different than a hardcore diet, except it feels like it doesn't take effort because it just turns your appetite off and you don't have to like work for it. It just kind of happens without a lot of effort on your part. Um, and it goes back to like us not wanting to put in effort.
[00:18:22] Cause it's hard, I get it right. Losing fat and keeping it off Long term takes work. It doesn't take the work of following a diet and rules because. If that worked, you wouldn't be on this drug, you wouldn't be injecting yourself in your thigh once a week. And I've got no problem with injections, but that is how it works.
[00:18:37] It's a once weekly injection. Um, if all the diets you had done worked, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't need this drug. Right. You would've lost the weight and kept it off. Everything would be fine. I've read a lot of articles around this, just, you know, that had been like popular media. And they'll interview people who are on these drugs.
[00:18:54] Um, and you'll hear people talk about, like, I've tried everything. I've tried everything. It's the only thing that worked. People who have obesity. Yes. People who were, were, were talking about, oh yeah, I, I want to lose 20 pounds. You haven't tried everything cuz you haven't learned skills, you've tried every diet.
[00:19:10] Yep. Get it. Been there. Me too. But nothing changes. Nothing changes permanently until you learn skills around food. Hard stop. Um, And, you know, we just need to have awareness around this because people are, you know, you're seeing maybe friends or family or just people in your community losing weight and you're wondering what they're doing and it, it triggers, it's very triggering.
[00:19:35] It's hard. You're like, I need to lose weight. I don't need to do that. What are they doing? Well, just know that this is, there's a big presence of these drugs in. I live in an upper middle class community and I know that it's around here. I know that it's in other upper middle class communities where I live, right?
[00:19:54] Because you need money to be able to get this without insurance. Um, and the doctors who are prescribing this and medical spas that are prescribing this, like those are huge red flags that are part of the reason why we feel the need to constantly get smaller and smaller and smaller to be happier. And why there are so few resources out there to help people actually learn skills around what, why, and how to eat, why every, every solution is a diet or a drug.
[00:20:27] And again, drugs have their place. I wanna be really clear about this for people who have obesity, I am in full support of this, full support for people who don't, who are using it to lose 10 or 15 pounds that they've been gaining and losing and gaining yoyoyo dieting. This is not the answer. This is not gonna keep it off for you.
[00:20:49] Um, it's just, we just need to really understand like what these drugs are about, what their role is, who they're meant for, and who they can help. Um, you know, there's kind of another, another side of this, and I've had conversations with clients around this and former clients and that when we, and this is a little bit back to science, I'm like, you know, switching gears a little bit.
[00:21:15] Um, when you lose weights, you lose body fat and you lose muscle. No matter what you do, you're always gonna lose some muscle. That's just what happens, um, when you have a lot more weight to lose. Hopeful, hopefully more of it comes off as body fat. Like if you're carrying more body fat on your body and you have a lot of that body fat to lose.
[00:21:38] There's gonna be some muscle, hopefully more body fat when you have less weight to lose. When you're carrying less excess body fat, more of that is likely to come from muscle. And guess what helps you keep the weight loss? Focus on fat and not muscle. It's eating enough protein. No one's talking about this.
[00:22:01] So if you are not, if you are on these drugs and you are not eating enough protein, you're losing muscle. The body is not differentiating, right? This is impacting sort of your appetite and it's reducing the number of calories that you're eating. So when you do that, your body is then going to pull that missing energy from some other part of your body, right?
[00:22:23] It has. Your body still has to function, right? This is how weight loss works. Basically, if you're not eating the number of baseline calories your body needs to function. Do what it needs to do. The body will pull the energy from somewhere else. Ideally, we want that to be stored fat, but it can also be muscle.
[00:22:37] And if you're, if you are not eating enough protein, it will pull a lot from muscle. So if you're someone who's wants to lose 10, 15, 20 pounds and you're using this drug or thinking about using this drug and you're not eating enough protein, and by enough protein I mean like minimum a hundred grams a day, which is still gonna be on the lower end.
[00:22:55] You're gonna lose muscle and at the end of your time on those drugs, you're gonna be in a smaller body, you're gonna weigh less and you are going to be less healthy than you were before because you've lost muscle mass. And as women who are 99% of the people listening to this, and mostly women like thirties and up, who we are losing muscle mass on an annual basis, and then we go through menopause where we continue to lose muscle, that is a huge, huge problem.
[00:23:23] And not enough people are talking about this in relationship to these drugs. This isn't important for people who have obesity who are on these drugs. Yes, they need to be eating protein too, and resistance training, right? The strength training is what is going to maintain and hopefully build some of that muscle mass, and you need to be eating enough protein in order to do that.
[00:23:43] One of the references I'm gonna give you if you wanna learn more, is, um, Dr. Spencer Nadski, he is on Instagram. He shares a lot of great content. He, um, owns this company called Join Sequence. It's an online company that works with people who have obesity to prescribe, um, the drugs. They are also the company that recently partnered with Weight Watchers, right?
[00:24:06] So Weight Watchers is now, I don't remember. I think Weight Watchers bought joint bought sequin. Um, it doesn't mean that if you're on Weight Watchers you get these drugs, right. So, but it is interesting from a Weight Watchers standpoint in terms of like their business model and how they're trying to make money.
[00:24:22] Um, and to me in a way speaks a little bit to the long-term efficacy of Weight Watchers, but that's kind of a separate topic. Um, but I do think he's an obesity medicine specialist. So he has the background, he has the research, he has the education to really be, I think, a good source of information if you're looking for it.
[00:24:42] Um, so I just wanted to share that. And, but again, this kind of, this, going back to the protein thing, weight loss in isolation, I. Is not, certainly not always healthy, where that weight loss comes from. Fat versus muscle matters a lot. And again, if you are someone who has a smaller amount of weight to lose, And you are not eating enough protein and strength training, you're gonna lose more muscle, and that is actually going to make you less healthy.
[00:25:17] So you might be in a smaller body, you might wear smaller clothing, you might weigh less. That does not inherently make you healthier. This is very important. Very, very important. This is true even independent of these drugs, right? This is true for. Any diet that you're doing, which, because you know, people are still out there doing them.
[00:25:36] Um, and, and skills based. This is why I talk so much about protein. There's an entire, I did an entire podcast episode all about protein. It's like 50 minutes long. I'll link it here. Um, again, if you haven't listened to it.
[00:25:50] And then I think the last thing I'm looking at my notes that I want to talk about is that there's a lot of like anti-d diet culture, so, It is very much like love your body. Your body's wonderful. Doesn't matter. There's a whole movement, like health at every size. You cannot determine someone health simply by their weights.
[00:26:13] However, the the, the reality and the truth is, is that for people who have obesity, the excess body fat is causing health issues, is either causing or created by insulin or resistance. Um, Having it is causing cardiovascular risks, is impacting their mobility to walk, to exercise, to get up and down off the ground, um, to do like basic functional movements.
[00:26:40] And so in those cases, weight loss is self-care, right? It all comes back to your why. Why are you doing it for people who are in smaller bodies who also want to lose weight? Who believe that losing those 10, 15, 20 pounds are going to make them happier cause it's gonna change the way they look. That's a different conversation, right?
[00:27:04] There's likely not a whole lot of physiological health benefits happening there. There could be some mobility stuff potentially, but no one has a right to generically and broadly say that weight loss. Is bad or that weight loss shouldn't be allowed, or that if you want to lose weight, that you don't love yourself, that you don't accept yourself.
[00:27:30] That is so false. This is, I have a huge problem with anti-D diet culture around this. Weight loss at the expense of your mental and emotional health is a problem, right? And that's why using these drugs for people who are in smaller bodies and have much less weight to lose who don't have obesity. That is going to impact your mental health because once you've lost the weight and then you're off the drugs, you're gonna have a lot of mental and emotional stress going on about how you're gonna maintain that weight, what you're gonna do.
[00:28:00] It's gonna create a huge problem. You have to think long-term, not short-term. People who have obesity, who have health related challenges and issues. As a result of that, these drugs can be life changing. Um, The reality is that our food environment is not gonna change, right? All the accessibility, the availability, the types of foods that the food manufacturers are making not gonna change.
[00:28:24] It's probably only gonna continue to get worse. And I'm not saying that those foods are bad. Again, this is, this goes back to how do this, and this is why the skills matter. Are you using the right food for the right job? Yes, it is harder for people who have obesity to put the right food for the right job.
[00:28:42] It is, and that is why these drugs can be so helpful for people who don't have obesity, who may still need to want to or lose weights. That's when you have to lean into the skills. Um, basically what the, the, the medicine allows you to then use the skills. Um, I've talked at length, um, with a current client who was on one of these, and this is what we've talked about.
[00:29:06] Like it gives her the opportunity to do some of these things that she has struggled with so much before, tried so hard and struggled, and that is, that is life changing again, we're, it's not an even playing field for people who have obesity. These drugs start to even that a little bit. It gives them a chance to use the skills, whereas for.
[00:29:25] You know, other people who don't have obesity but want to or need to lose weight. It's about practicing and learning the skills around not resorting to a diet around putting in the effort around getting uncomfortable, right around not going to those quick fixes. So I just wanna be really clear that weight loss can absolutely be self-care.
[00:29:51] And that there's a part of this diet, anti diet, culture movement is that you can't love yourself and care about yourself and want to change things at the same time. And what's so frustrating about that is that is the, that is the, the definition of self-compassion is acceptance and action at the same time.
[00:30:12] Or sometimes sequentially you can accept that you don't like how your body looks. And I'm gonna list off, or this is not necessarily just about obesity, that you have obesity, that you have cellulite, that you have roles, that you can't get up and down off the floor, that you can't go up a, a flight of stairs without.
[00:30:31] Being out of breath. And you can also want to change those things to improve your quality of life. Accepting those things and then not taking action, not the cellulite piece that was so ignore that, that that did not fit in there. Really, these things that are impacting your quality of life. Accepting those, this is where I am, this is what's happening.
[00:30:50] I can't change where I'm at. I can't, I can't, I can't control that. This is where I am. This is where I am, this is, I'm here. I. That is reality. I can't control that. What I can control or the actions I take to respond to that, if I have obesity was one of the, would one of these drugs be helpful, right? Can I start eating more protein?
[00:31:11] Can I start adding in a five minute walk every day? Can I practice going up and down the stairs in my house once or twice a day to start to build up my capacity? Whatever it is. Acceptance and action are the very definition. Definition of self-compassion and telling people that they have to accept their bodies and not want to change them is a huge detriment.
[00:31:31] It's a huge problem. And so I, again, just to kind of circle this back, and not that like this matters, but it's my podcast. I'm gonna share it. I fully support these drugs for people who have obesity, life-changing. I also believe that along with that, learning the skills is super important. Even for people with obesity.
[00:31:54] The drug is not like a magic wand because you still need to be eating protein. You still need to be moving. You still need to learn how to plan nourishing and satisfying and satiating meals. You still need to understand that foods aren't good or bad, right? All of that stuff still matters. Now you just have the brain capacity and the ability to actually like, Do that and learn that stuff.
[00:32:17] Um, it's not one or the other. It's kind of like a both. And the drugs set you up and give you the ability to then take action on those things. Um, and that. Accepting things about your body and then that you can't change, that you can't control, and then taking action on the things that you can is the very definition of self-compassion.
[00:32:39] So if you are hearing or following or listening to people who are telling you that like you can't, to want to lose weight, you can't want to make changes, that's ridiculous. You're a human being. You have autonomy. You can make choices and you need to make choices that are have. Positive outcomes for your mental health.
[00:32:56] And so again, this comes back to you. If you're wanting to lose weight and it's at the expense of your mental and emotional wellbeing, that's a problem. But if you are align, if you understand what your values are and you know why you're doing things and you're being really honest with yourself, then yes, like make the changes.
[00:33:15] Work on fat loss, work on having more toned arms, if that's something that you want to do, just know why you're doing it and how it's going to impact your life. Um, that's a little bit, I guess of like a little bit of a tangent, but not entirely. And I think that's really everything I wanted to share on this.
[00:33:33] If you've got questions, reach out. I'm always happy to talk. Um, and. Thank you for listening. I'm kind of looking at my notes and making sure that I kind of talked through everything. Um, and I think I did. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here, and I'll be back more next week.