Weight loss is about fat loss. Too many people become fixated on a specific number, and that is not healthy or productive. If you lose 5 pounds of fat and gain 5 pounds of muscle, you look better, feel better, and are healthier, despite the fact that the scale has not moved. At Pillars of Wellness, we look at body transformation as the healthier way to make change.
What everyone needs to learn is that the medical model of calories in vs. calories out (CICO) is not how the body works. If that were how the body worked, we would see no difference in health, fat, or muscle if your diet was 60% sugar or 60% protein, as both sugar and protein are 4 calories. What does matter is what these chemicals do when they get inside your body. The macro-hormonal model of metabolic function focuses on the chemical changes in the body when we eat. Does this food raise my insulin levels? Does it provide critical minerals? Does this food create inflammation? These questions matter more than how many calories are in this food.
One of the other things we see a lot in practice is people who are metabolically blocked — no matter what they seem to do, they can not lose the fat. This is often due to things like sleep apnea. When you gasp for air at night, as is common with sleep apnea, your body views this as a panic response. That makes you release adrenaline and cortisol. Those tell your liver to release glucose into the system, so you can run or fight. However, you’re asleep, so you don’t use that glucose, and your body has to put it back into storage by spiking insulin. This is a very common way we build insulin resistance. This insulin resistance creates a block where you can not lose the fat, and your body can create visceral fat, which increases inflammation to the entire body and that also holds insulin levels higher.
The fix for this is breaking the metabolic lock that you have developed. This is most easily done with GLP peptides. GLP peptides, along with diet, can help change the way the body uses insulin, stores fat, and uses both glucose and fat as a fuel source. Once the insulin resistance and visceral fat are gone, the body can come back to more normal physiology, and diet will have more impact on your fat content. This process of reducing insulin resistance can also have a really positive effect on sleep apnea, diabetes, cancer, heart attack, stroke, energy, and pretty much every aspect of your health and your body. Insulin resistance is one of the most damaging things that can happen to your metabolism and your health.
Weight loss is much more than how you look — in a lot of ways, it’s tied directly to your health and your quality of life.
Semaglutide is just GLP-1. Tirzepatide is GLP-1 and GIP. Retatrutide is GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon. Each one targets the metabolic system a little differently, with retatrutide giving the most control over the system.
One of the key factors in hormone therapy (and a GLP-1 is a type of hormone therapy) is maintaining a stable, constant blood level. Taking smaller amounts every day helps you walk right up to the line of perfect and hold your levels there. Once-a-week dosing allows up to 60% of the peptide to wear off before you take your second shot. This causes massive swings in blood levels and is the source of many of the emergency problems you hear about with GLP-1s. Daily dosing is safer and much more effective; the downside is more injections.
By making sure your body has all the tools it needs. Your body will tear apart muscle tissue only if it runs out of nutrients. Keep your testosterone and amino acid (protein) intake high, make sure your vitamins, minerals, and nutrients are at high levels, and you will gain muscle tissue instead of losing it.
There are a lot. Testosterone is primary, then amino acids (protein), minerals, vitamins, and cofactors. Look up the nutrients in steak; that list is a good start.
We make sure the liver can produce the proper amount of clean bile. We increase the amount of bile produced, because if you’re going to be using more fat for energy, part of that pathway uses bile. The other issue is that as you burn through fat, you release toxins. Those toxins are bound to bile and excreted, so keeping bile levels up and flowing is critical.
Your body will react to whatever environment you put it in. If you change your metabolic function, diet, exercise, and sleep, more often than not you will keep your gains from the GLP-1 peptide. If you go back to eating and living the old lifestyle, you will get the body and health that lifestyle provides. This is why we offer coaching on diet, exercise, sleep, stress, and hormones, and you will learn how the body actually works so you’ll know what nutrients you need to stay healthy.
Very often we work with you to reduce and then eliminate many of the chronic disease medications a person needs. Blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol medications quite often are no longer needed as we go through the process, so we will help you know when to come off medications you no longer need. We see changes in blood pressure about 4-8 weeks in, blood sugar about 3-5 months in, and cholesterol about 2-5 months in. If you are using GLP-1s and have not had this discussion with your provider, it could be very dangerous; make sure you go over this. Never stop or change a prescription on your own; we adjust medications with you and your prescribing provider.
It depends on how much fat you have. We have seen losses of over 100 lbs. The “how fast” question brings up a major issue that not a lot of people are talking about: if you lose fat too fast, you can end up with hair loss and saggy skin. So we can lose fat very fast, but I don’t always recommend doing it quickly. Your body is different from everyone else’s, and I always recommend going the speed your body is OK with. This makes every plan we do more or less custom, but we can help you find your optimal speed.
Tell us what you would like help with, and a member of the Pillars of Wellness team will contact you about scheduling a consultation.
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