Ep. 86 | Considering GLP-1 Weight Loss Meds Like Ozempic? What You Should Know First + Natural Alternatives

In this episode of the 'Life Boost with Amelia' podcast, host Dr. Amelia, an integrative health and life coach, recovered burned out veterinarian, and entrepreneur delves into the science behind GLP-1 weight loss medications (like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro) and why our bodies might be failing to produce GLP-1 naturally. 

Dr. Amelia introduces a new resource, the GLP-1 Experiment, which combines scientific insight with guided hypnosis, aiming to provide an integrative approach to weight loss. 

She critiques the current healthcare system, detailing the importance of understanding the body's interconnectedness and exploring alternative methods for achieving sustainable health and weight management. 

Additionally, the episode touches on recent recommendations from the American College of Cardiology to prioritize GLP-1 medications over diet and exercise for weight management, urging a need for more holistic and root cause-focused studies.

Sign up for the free "GLP-1 Experiment" at www.lifeboost.today/glp1

Answer these two quick questions to find which of my free resources is the best fit for you. 

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical, mental health, or professional advice. I am a certified health and life coach, not a licensed medical or mental health professional. Please consult with a healthcare provider before making any changes to your physical or mental health routines. If you are experiencing a crisis, seek help from a qualified professional or contact emergency services.

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To learn more about my approach and the programs and free resources available to support you, visit my website: www.lifeboost.today

I love to hear from you. You can always reach me at amelia@lifeboost.today.

Transcript

0:44

Welcome to the Life Boost with Amelia podcast where we're changing the narrative around what true health and success look like. They should give you energy, not drain it. I'm your host, Dr. Amelia multi-passionate integrative health and life coach, entrepreneur, and recovered burnout veterinarian. Together, we'll explore the science behind how your brain and body work, including the unconscious mind while also connecting with what your heart needs in order to stand up to the norm of feeling stuck on a hamster wheel-working hard yet feeling exhausted and not where you want to be- and instead live a life that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning and in love with who you see when you look in the mirror. The reality is if you do what everyone else is doing, you're not going to feel good. Let's break the norm. Hi, friend. I need your help if one of these four things sounds familiar. Number one, you are frustrated with our healthcare system, like the lack of history taking, the complete separation between the body and the mind, the siloed approach where if you have two different things happening, you have to go see two different specialists instead of looking at the body as a whole. Two, if you are frustrated with diet culture and the typical approach to weight loss, where we're taught that our body is the enemy that you need to control, and there's just this focus on willpower and restriction and just calories and calories out, and your sick of that. Three would be if you want to lose weight, and maybe you have been tempted by the new weight loss medications, those GLP 1 meds like ozempic. But you haven't dove into that yet. Maybe you want to lose weight naturally. You don't wanna have to rely on that, or the side effects or the cost or having to rely on a medication long term is really unappealing. Or four, if you are currently taking one of those popular weight loss meds, one of the GLP one meds but you are curious and you also would love to get the results from this medication but not have to rely on it long term- you wanna be able to sustain whatever results that you get in a way that feels good. If one of those four sounds familiar, then I need your help. I created a new free resource because I'm curious and because I'm frustrated with our healthcare system and the typical approach to weight loss that doesn't respect the body as a whole, the mind body connection and doesn't get to the root, right. They don't ask why. Instead, we approach the body as if it's like this robot with separate parts that just need to be fixed rather than honoring and respecting that our body is this beautiful, intricate, wonderfully designed system where everything works together and recognizing that our body is the one thing that is completely designed to take care of us. And so when something doesn't feel good, when our body doesn't feel like it's cooperating, there is a really important message and we need to ask why in order to be able to get to the root of things for sustainable change. So I created this resource that I'm calling the GLP one experiment because I really want to experiment. I want to compare what happens when we do the typical approach that's happening now, where doctors are just instantly recommending these GLP one weight loss medications without getting to the root or respecting the mind body connection. And I wanna compare the results of those medications with an approach like the life boost approach, where we respect the body, we get curious and we use science. We dive into understanding what is disrupting the satiety pathways leading to weight gain, and we start to create change at the unconscious level. I think it's really important to understand why these GLP one weight loss medications work, what they're doing in the body. Why is the normal GLP one that our bodies naturally produce, why is that absent? And what gets in the way of our natural body feeling satisfied and helping to maintain a healthy weight? What is disrupting the normal, natural GLP one pathway? And so I really dove into the research and I created this resource where it's basically like a podcast length of information that walks you through how the mind body connection works, what's a peptide? And then specifically looking at like, okay, what disrupts the normal natural GLP one pathway and what can be done, if anything, to reverse that to repair it. And absolutely, there are lots of things that can, and then I've also combined that with a hypnosis recording designed specifically to support the body in already healing that pathway. And also, programming your brain to be shifting your relationship the way that you're feeling about food, satiety all of that into a really powerful like weight loss, satiety, confidence boosting hypnosis And I did this because this information is not readily available. It took me an insane amount of time to, to put it all together. The reality is that even when doctors are recommending this, they are not really giving the full picture. And that's a really important piece of the conversation. So what I'm doing is I have included the first two little mini lessons the welcome message giving more of a background of why I created this experiment, and then some really interesting facts about the mind body connection, just to see how much our thoughts influence the physiology and biology in our body. And then if you like it or you're interested, then I'll leave the link to sign up so that you can listen to the full thing, play around with the hypnosis and in terms of needing your help, I would love to have feedback, just letting me know what you think of it, or if this doesn't pertain to your goals, if you could just help to spread the word and share it with someone who you think may benefit. I would love that. I actually want to have this become like a formal study. I would love to really be comparing what happens when we have this approach of being really informed, looking at the body in a respectful way, and taking advantage of the mind body connection versus the typical approach of just jumping to these weight loss medications. One more thing before I share the mini lessons. After I created this a few weeks later, I saw this news that came out that just really made my blood boil, but makes me really passionate about why this is so important. So the American College of Cardiology actually decided that diet and exercise are no longer the main first line strategy for weight management. They are now using these GLP one weight loss medications as the first line. Before diet and exercise, they said, because those medications are more effective than lifestyle interventions. This is cardiologists not having conversations about diet and lifestyle factors. That is so concerning. And so I dove into this a little because I was like, okay, what. What lifestyle interventions are you talking about? Like how many approaches were you looking at? And so when I looked at the paper. They cited one study and it was one that basically the approach was for those who were 250 pounds or less, they fed them 1200 to 1500 calories per day. This was like total calorie in calorie out kind of thing on top of workouts. If they weighed more than 250 pounds than they got 1500 to 1800 and if they did not lose weight with that, then they would decrease it even more. So that first group, they could go down to a thousand calories per day. not like not asking why is the body needing an insanely low amount of calories in order to lose weight? Right. Just continue to cut.'cause that's gotta be the problem. Right? Let's not look at like what is hurting the metabolism. The other thing that really stood out to me was that in this, at least in the first month, they did liquid meal replacement. So two meals and snacks were just liquid shakes. There are so many reasons why I can see this not helping. For one thing that sounds really stressful and like a great way to dramatically decrease quality of life, just drinking those shakes, right? Because, that is totally taking away from social connection, because if you are having to drink those shakes, you're probably not getting to enjoy food with friends or even getting to have the same dinner as your family. They weren't asking about stress or sleep and also that just wouldn't be filling at all. And so if you listen to the GLP one experiment, you'll see why that would be so harmful in not really helping to repair the natural GLP one pathway or promoting whole body health in any way. So it's not that lifestyle interventions don't work or help to support cardiovascular health, it's that the typical approach to lifestyle interventions and the way that doctors are introducing them doesn't work. And of course when you are just focusing on something like calories and calories out and you aren't focusing on what is in those calories and the effect that it's having on the body, you are not addressing any of the root cause or looking at what is happening mentally, emotionally, that could be contributing. Then you're missing everything, right? And you're not respecting the body as a whole and we see examples of this, of how connected everything is. For example, there are studies showing that the gut microbiota and cardiovascular disease are linked when there is inflammation in the gut that is linked to cardiovascular health. But if we are only focusing on calories in, calories out, we're not focusing on gut health or having enough fiber or plant diversity in the diet, which is also going to help to feel full, then you're not repairing the source of inflammation or helping the body to go back into balance. You're just restricting and pushing and relying on willpower, which adds stress, especially if you're just cutting back calories more and more. And this is important and related to the GLP one medications because if you listen to the whole experiment, you'll learn that GLP one is mainly released from cells in the intestine. But when there is inflammation, that stops working as well. That's why the weight loss medications are delivering that similar peptide at a hundred to a thousand times the dose. It's because it's not using the typical gut-brain access to communicate satiety, and so they're just flooding the bloodstream with it so that it bypasses the normal pathway and goes straight to the brain, but then that's why you have nausea and why you have issues with GI motility because you are giving way more than the body was ever designed to do. And so it sends a really confusing message to the body. And the lifestyle intervention that they had linked to also had been put together by a couple associations, including the American Diabetes Association. And it's all connected. Like founding sponsors are eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, and those are the companies that create these weight loss medications. And so there's a bit of a conflict of interest certainly in these medications are ones that you are meant to be on long term, and so maybe they don't have a ton of incentive to show that lifestyle factors are actually more beneficial, and more effective compared to the medications. Since these organizations and societies like the American College of Cardiology are going to be referencing studies like this. This is where we need studies that are actually looking at a more holistic perspective and approach that does get to the root and that is really lacking because there isn't usually funding, right? Like these companies that are making these weight loss medications are often funding a lot of the studies and controlling the narrative, and that makes sense. Of course, they wanna show how effective their medication is, but it's also really skewing the results and the conversation around health and weight loss. So this experiment and resource is basically just giving you the information that is often missing from a lot of the conversations around satiety and weight loss. That way you have a more full picture. You are more informed and you get to decide what works for you and you get to actually experiment and see and observe what shifts when you have this perspective and when you use the hypnosis. So here's the welcome message and the first lesson of the GLP one experiment, so you can decide if you wanna dive deeper. Welcome. I'm so glad that you're here because it means we already share one thing, curiosity. If you've been curious about GLP one medications like Ozempic, wegovy, or Manjaro, you're not alone. The idea of finally feeling full and satisfied and effortlessly losing weight sounds genuinely appealing, especially if you've been struggling with cravings, constant hunger, or feeling like your body just won't cooperate no matter how hard you try. Your frustration makes total sense, and that mix of curiosity and frustration is exactly why I created this experiment. I couldn't stop thinking about this question. If GLP one is something our bodies naturally produced to regulate hunger and blood, sugar and weight, why are so many people suddenly needing medications to override that system with doses hundreds or thousands of times stronger. What's going wrong and can we restore the system naturally? I shared my hesitations about this miraculous medication a couple of years ago on my podcast when it was first becoming popular for weight loss. But since then, I've stayed open to the possibility that maybe it truly is as good as it sounds by listening to tons of different perspectives from people sharing success stories and horror stories, obesity experts, functional medicine practitioners, experimenting with alternatives, researchers and skeptics. There's certainly a lot of praise around it, but something still felt missing while reading molecules of emotion. A fascinating book by neuroscientist, Dr. Candace Pert, who discovered the brain's opiate receptor and helped pioneer our understanding of how emotions create physical changes in the body through peptides. I found myself thinking about that peptide. Everyone's talking about GLP one. Okay. We know our thoughts and feelings can change our physiology, and yet the MINDBODY connection is still often missing from conversations around health and weight loss, the power of conscious and unconscious change. That's what this experiment is all about. Combining conscious insight with the science of GLP one, the mind body connection and the environmental systems, disrupting them with unconscious transformation through a guided hypnosis designed to calm the nervous system, rewire limiting beliefs and support the body in returning to its natural balance. Here's the cool part. When you learn more about how your body works, you start to literally change what your brain pays attention to. That's thanks to something called a reticular activating system. The RASA brain filter that brings things into your conscious awareness based on what you think is important. As you go through this experiment, you'll begin to see yourself, your body, and your actions through a new lens. And as you begin to embrace your inner researcher, I'll invite you to observe yourself with curiosity tracking how mindset, environment, and unconscious patterns might be influencing your experience. This is an experiment, after all, A science-based integrative perspective. As a veterinarian, I have a strong science and medical background, like many high achievers. I spent years doing all the quote unquote right things only to find myself anxious, exhausted, and experiencing weird symptoms. Doctors dismissed. Experiencing burnout led me to dive deeper into the research and science to understand what went wrong for me and where we've gone wrong as a society when it comes to health. As an integrative health and life coach, I've explored gut health, nutrition, blood sugar regulation, behavior, changed, neuroscience and so much more. But it wasn't until I was open to exploring tools I had once dismissed, like acupuncture or somatic practices, reiki and hypnosis, that I was able to see an important piece that had been missing. It's not about either or, it's both. Because real sustainable wellbeing doesn't come from force or rigid rules. It comes from balance. The kind of balance that's often missing from typical approaches. We need evidence-based understanding and intuition thinking and feeling. Challenging yourself for growth and honoring your body's need to pause and recharge traditional health systems and holistic practices that treat the body as an interconnected whole. That's the lens I bring to this experiment and to everything I create. Here's what to expect. Short eye-opening lessons explaining the science behind the mind-body connection, and what may be disrupting your natural GLP one signaling suggestions for self-observation so you can embrace your inner researcher and start collecting data on what works for you. And a guided hypnosis recording to experience the power of the mind body connection so you can support your nervous system, rewire limiting beliefs, and enhance your body's natural capacity to heal and feel satisfied, nourished, and healthy. The good news, you don't need to do this perfectly. There is no perfect way of doing this. It's totally okay. If you're skeptical of hypnosis, we'll address that. You just need to stay open and curious. Maybe your body isn't broken. Maybe it's just trying to survive in a world it was never designed for. We're surrounded by fake food, unrealistic expectations, and constant pressure to do more. But the path back to balance isn't through pushing. It's through reconnecting with parts of you that you've been taught to resist or ignore this experiment is a gentle reset. A reminder of your body's wisdom, a chance to pause, reflect, and reconnect. You'll learn, you'll experience, you'll gather personal data, and you'll begin to shift not through force, but through curiosity, compassion, and gaining trust in your body and yourself. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to see what unfolds for you. Let's see what happens. Mini lesson one. The mind body connection. Imagine holding a juicy ripe lemon. You slice it open, lift it to your mouth, take a bite, and the juices hit your tongue. Does your mouth water just now even without a real lemon in sight? That's the mind body connection and action. It is a simply a powerful example of how your thoughts directly trigger real physical reactions. This incredible mind body connection shows up everywhere, not just in your imagination. Here are some fascinating examples. Your mindset changes your hunger hormones, the milkshake study. In this fun study, researchers gave people the exact same 380 calorie milkshake twice, but labeled it differently each time. One day it was 620 calorie indulgent shake, and the other day it was labeled 140 calorie sensible shake. Here's what happened when people believed it was indulgent, their ghrelin, the hunger hormone levels dramatically decreased, making them genuinely more satisfied. When they believed it was low calorie ghrelin barely budged and they stayed hungry. Isn't it wild how your mind's perception alone can change your hormones and fullness? Signals fake surgery, real healing. The Shammy surgery. Another fascinating study involved arthroscopic surgery for knee osteoarthritis. Two groups had real surgery lavage only, or with debridement. While the third group had a fake procedure, just a skin incision and pretending, but no actual surgery. The amazing part, there was no difference in pain relief or improved function between groups throughout a two year period. Belief alone created real physical improvements and relief. Imaginary eating real satisfaction. In this study, people vividly imagined eating 30 m and ms one by one. Later when offered real candy, they ate significantly fewer actual m and ms compared to people who had only imagined eating 3M and ms or who had focused on a different task, imagining putting quarters into a laundry machine. The same results happened when the imagined eating cubes of cheese. Isn't that interesting? The mind body connection is so powerful and is exactly what we'll be exploring so that you can use this to your advantage to gently encourage your body to naturally feel more satisfied, calm and balanced. If you found some of those studies interesting, then you'll love the rest of this GLP one experiment and the information I share. You can sign up by following the link in the show notes, or you can visit www.lifeboost.today/glp1. If you try it, please let me know what you think. I want to hear your feedback so that I can continue to build on this so that we can be working towards creating systems and approaches to health that make sense. Cheers to your inevitable health, happiness, and success.