2597: Before You Take Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro Listen to This!

Summary

Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2597: Before You Take Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro Listen to This!

Release Date: May 15, 2025
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews
Produced by: Doug Egge

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Introduction: The Rising Popularity of GLP1s

In Episode 2597 of Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth, hosts Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews delve into the surge of GLP1 medications—Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro—that are revolutionizing weight loss strategies. They caution listeners to understand the implications of these drugs beyond mere weight reduction, particularly focusing on the potential loss of lean body mass, including muscle.

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Understanding GLP1s and Their Impact on Weight Loss

At the [00:27] mark, Adam Schafer introduces the topic:

“A lot of people take GLP1s, but they screw it up... Before you take a GLP1 like Ozempic or Mounjaro or Wegovy, listen to this episode.”

GLP1s are acclaimed for their effectiveness in inducing significant weight loss. However, the hosts highlight a critical issue: up to 40% of the weight lost can be lean body mass ([01:51] Adam Schafer). This muscle loss poses serious health risks, as muscle is metabolically active and essential for overall health.

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Challenges of Using GLP1s: Appetite Suppression and Muscle Loss

Justin Andrews discusses the dual-edged sword of GLP1s:

“With Ozempic, Mounjaro, all these GLP1s, 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 in the other without the drug.” [02:30]

While GLP1s effectively reduce appetite, ensuring a consistent caloric deficit often leads to unintended muscle loss. Adam Schafer clarifies:

“GLP1s do not cause muscle loss... If you simply eat less calories and do nothing else, whether you're on a GLP1 or not, a significant percentage of the weight that you lose will come from lean body mass.” [03:03]

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Strategies to Prevent Muscle Loss While on GLP1s

The hosts outline comprehensive strategies to mitigate muscle loss:

1. Titrate Your GLP1 Dosage via Compound Pharmacies

   • Justin Andrews emphasizes individualized dosing:

     “Consider going through a compound pharmacy where your doctor can actually prescribe your dose and individualize it for you.” [14:04]

   • Standard dosing often leads to excessive side effects like nausea, making personalized dosing crucial to balance appetite suppression without compromising muscle mass.

2. Adopt a High-Protein Diet

   • Adam Schafer recommends:

     “Eat a high protein diet... around a gram of protein per pound of target body weight.” [16:53]

   • Justin Andrews adds:

     “Everybody was grooving undereating protein. Nobody was getting optimal protein... you have to get enough protein.” [19:44]

   • A high-protein intake supports muscle preservation and enhances fat loss, maintaining metabolic rate.

3. Incorporate Daily Weightlifting

   • Adam Schafer advises:

     “Lift every day... maybe 15 minutes a day, every day. Do two exercises a day.” [20:44]

   • Justin Andrews concurs:

     “You are not going to build muscle right now. You’re just trying to keep muscle by using it.” [21:07]

   • Consistent, moderate-intensity weightlifting signals the body to maintain muscle mass, preventing catabolism without overtraining.

4. Maintain Adequate Hydration

   • Adam Schafer recommends:

     “Drink about a half a gallon to a gallon of water a day.” [24:34]

   • Proper hydration is vital as GLP1s dampen thirst signals, and muscles require adequate fluid to function optimally.

5. Supplementation: Essential Amino Acids, Creatine, Electrolytes, and HMB

   • Essential Amino Acids:

     “They are easily digestible and can be taken even when appetite is low.” [26:36]

   • Creatine:

     “Creatine is very healthy for the body... it helps prevent water loss in muscles.” [27:43]

   • Electrolytes:

     “Ensure a good electrolyte balance with sufficient sodium to prevent muscle cramps and maintain energy.” [28:30]

   • HMB (Beta-Hydroxy Beta-Methylbutyrate):

     “HMB is effective at preventing muscle loss, especially if protein targets aren’t met.” [29:33]

   • These supplements collectively support muscle preservation and overall health during caloric deficits induced by GLP1s.

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Balancing Weight Loss and Muscle Preservation for Optimal Health

Adam Schafer underscores the importance of not merely focusing on weight loss but ensuring that the lost weight predominantly comes from fat rather than muscle:

“Obesity is the epidemic, but there's also an under muscle epidemic... losing muscle slows down your metabolism.” [06:49]

Justin Andrews highlights societal misconceptions:

“It's either super pro or extreme fear mongering... It doesn't cause muscle loss at all... same as without the drug.” [07:49]

By implementing the discussed strategies, individuals can harness the effectiveness of GLP1s while safeguarding their muscle mass, promoting sustainable and healthy weight loss.

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Conclusion: Empowering Informed Decisions

The episode wraps up with actionable advice, encouraging listeners to approach GLP1s with a comprehensive plan:

• Personalized Dosage: Work with healthcare providers to find the optimal dosage.
• Nutrition: Prioritize a high-protein diet tailored to target body weight.
• Exercise: Engage in consistent, moderate-intensity weightlifting.
• Hydration and Supplementation: Maintain adequate hydration and incorporate essential supplements.

Adam Schafer concludes:

“If you do it right and you are the right person for this, GLP1s can be game changers.” [11:28]

By following these guidelines, individuals can maximize the benefits of GLP1s, achieving effective weight loss without compromising muscle integrity.

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Additional Resources

• Workout Program for GLP1 Users: mapsglp1.com
  Use code 50offGLP1 for 50% discount.
• Follow Mind Pump Hosts on Instagram:
  • @mindpumpmedia
  • @mindpumpsal
  • @mindpumpadam
  • @mindpumpjustin
  • @mindpumpdoug
• Visit: mindpumppodcast.com
  for more insights and training protocols.

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Note: Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting or modifying any medication regimen.

Transcript

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[Sal Destefano]

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.

[Adam Schafer]

Mind Pump. Mind Pump.

[Sal Destefano]

With your hosts, Sal Destefano, Adam Schafer.

[Adam Schafer]

And Justin Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and energy podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode. Look, a lot of people take GLP1s, 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 one like Ozempic or Manjaro or Wegovy, listen to this episode. This episode is brought to you by a sponsor, seed. This is the world's best probiotic, hands down. Go check them out. Crazy. Go to seed.com mindpump use the code 25mindpump and get 25% off. Also, because we're doing this episode, we have put out a workout program designed specifically for people on a GLP1. It's called Maps GLP1. 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 50 off GLP1 to get 50 off. All right, here comes the show. GLP1 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 GLP1s and minimize those negative side effects.

[Justin Andrews]

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, right? Like, one of the challenges when you were helping a client 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, that is challenging enough as it is. And you'd have clients that would be good for a while, then, then eat overeat and then they'd hit plateaus and that. But with Ozempic, manjaro, all these GLP1s, 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 in the other without the drug. So it's very similar.

[Guest]

It's interesting.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Guest]

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, not reporting it to me. And you know this while like cutting calories like crazy, they're getting, they're losing weight. But we get into this place where it's just not sustainable real fast.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah, so, so I want to be very clear. So first off, the data does show that people who go on a GLP1 and do nothing else, right? They just take a GLP1, they lose a significant amount of weight. I mean there is, there is in never in history has there been a medical intervention, non surgical, that is even in the same ballpark in terms of effectiveness for weight loss. Okay. So nothing comes close. Now the studies also show that when people take a GLP1 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 cause we'll get to that as well. But I do want to say GLP1s do not cause muscle loss. So it's not the GLP1 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, it really does blunt your appetite. If you simply eat less calories and do nothing else, whether you're on a GLP one 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 1200 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 GLP1 or not. So the GLP1 doesn't cause muscle loss. In fact, we now have studies, and previous studies have shown this as well, that GLP1s may actually have a muscle preserving effect. In other words, you'll probably lose less muscle on a GLP1 versus you just cutting your calories. But that being said, if you take a GLP1 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. You will run into this problem on a GLP1, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose, you'll lose a significant percentage, but then you'll be stuck. And we run into this with people that we've coached where they had 80 pounds to lose. They lost, you know, 45 or 50 pounds. The last 30 pounds would not come off and they were eating very low calories. And like, what do I do now? I can't eat any less. Where am I going to go down below 1000 calories? Now I'm feeling terrible. I have low energy. How do I lose this excess body fat? It's like your metabolism adapted and so we don't want to lose muscle because that will make your metabolism slow down.

[Justin Andrews]

It did feel like that was pretty much everybody, that they would inevitably hit this plateau where they would need a reverse diet. Did not feel like that way. I felt that way with our experience. Unless you had a very small goal, like maybe someone who only needed to lose, say 20 pounds, but the big.

[Adam Schafer]

Weight loss, that's what they hit.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. People that had, you know, 50 plus pounds, most all of them that we dealt with eventually would hit a plateau and then would end up having to reverse diet. But I mean, bringing this up, the, the reason why I brought that point up to start this is because a lot of the content that you see online right now is it's either it's one extreme or the other. It's either super pro.

[Adam Schafer]

It fixes everything.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, it fixes everything. It's going to change every. It's for everybody. It's. And so you know, you have that and then you have the other side which is all the fear mongering that's going on around it. Like oh, it loses all this muscle and it's like, no, it doesn't. It doesn't lose muscle at all. It's the exact same thing that would happen to a client. And let's take the drug out of it completely. If you take two people, one of them is taking Ozempic, the other one is not taking it. But they both same body type, same sex, same everything identical. And they both cut their calories to 900 calories a day. They will lose the same amount of muscle. In fact, the Ozervic group, from what the studies are now showing might lose a little less muscle. So it has a little bit of a muscle sparing effect. So it is not the GLP one. It's that it crushes the appetite and the client ends up only eating 900. Where the client that doesn't use it is battling with the cravings more than the person that is taking the GLP1.

[Adam Schafer]

Dr. Yeah, the way that GLP1s 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 more insulin, better insulin sensitivities pro muscle. And you see this in the stronger GLP ones like Tirzepatide, I think Manjaro is the brain name of that one. And then now they have these, these even stronger ones that are coming out. So yeah, it doesn't cause muscle loss, but if you don't, if you don't offset what'll happen when you simply eat less, you're, you're not going to be in a great place. And my fear, because here's the deal with GLP1s, these are culture shifting compounds. I mean I, I think that you're going to see, you're probably going to see 2/3 of, of, of everyone in a modern society like America is going to be on these because that's how, that's how much overweight, you know, and obesity has now.

[Justin Andrews]

And it's also because sal. How effective it is. Yeah, it's because it's so effective. If it was, if it was mildly effective. Yeah, I, I don't know if we'd see it, 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, the, the gastric issues and their digestive issues like. And a lot of that has to do with the dosing.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

The other, the other problem that I have with the GLP one is that it's so early on in it that we have this kind of generic dose that we're giving.

[Adam Schafer]

We'll get to that. Because that's 100%. Yeah, that's 100%. You're 100%. They're doing a standard dose. There seems to be this individual variance with how people react. Some people need more and some people need less. 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 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.

[Guest]

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 a Lot. We even talked about, you know, even potentially pursuing like a reverse diet before even going into it would be a good idea.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes, I know. You know what's interesting too is I remember. Do you guys remember when they, when they, they, they busted the myth that obese people have more muscle?

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

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. So losing muscle when you're already don't have much muscle and you're obese puts you in a really bad place, Very fragile state. You can also get to. And I've seen some women that this has happened to where they were inactive, obese, they were eating bad, they went on GOP one, they just ate less, they maintained their inactivity, they didn't do anything else. And they got, you know, they went to the doctor, got a bone scan. Doctor's like you're getting, you know. Yeah, you might, you, you're getting osteopenia. Because if something makes you lose muscle, you can guarantee that it's going to also negatively affect bone. They're very closely connected. Building muscle builds bone. Losing muscle tends to cause bone loss.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, especially in the client like you, you're alluding to that didn't ever really strength train.

[Adam Schafer]

Right.

[Justin Andrews]

If you never strength train and then you go on a GLP1 and you just purely lose weight and if you fall in the category of the people that lose 40% of lean body mass, that's putting that person arguably in a worse situation.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. In fact, if you again look at studies there you have obese individuals, they have poor health outcomes. You know who's worse than obese individuals? Individuals who are underweight and fragile. They actually have the worst health outcomes because they're typically. These are people that are not eating much at all. They're inactive for whatever reason, could be because of depression, could be other reasons. They do very, very poorly. So in other words, what you don't want to do is rob Peter to pay Paul type of deal and put yourself in a worse situation. And not only that, but, you know, losing muscle just to get skinny doesn't necessarily look good either. And so this is where you get the, you know, some of the fear mongering, ozempic face and ozempic. What you're seeing is when people just cut their calories. First of all, skin requires protein and calories to maintain oil. 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. So here's the deal. Losing muscle is bad. How do you stop that from happening when you're on a GLP1? Let's start with the first thing.

[Justin Andrews]

Can we start with the point that I made? I feel like that's important.

[Adam Schafer]

All right, let's do that. Let's start with that.

[Justin Andrews]

Because I mentioned it already and I think that if you're getting started, I think that communicating this to somebody who, 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.

[Adam Schafer]

Compound pharmacy.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, compound pharmacy. Instead of doing these generic brands, this generic. These popular brands are already dosed for you. And in our experience, you know, and we've now worked with few hundred people like personally that we've actually met that are taking this. Almost every single person had a different dose.

[Adam Schafer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

And the people that had really bad effects as far as digestive stuff was simply by bringing the dose down, 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.

[Adam Schafer]

This will, this will be the standard. I agree. Yeah. Because when you're on, when you go with the brand names, because that's what you're talking about, right? These are the 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.

[Justin Andrews]

You forget.

[Adam Schafer]

Or you, or you're nauseous.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Or you have like, you stop using the bathroom because it slows down your gastric emptying. Like too much. Right. If you're not eating at all. Yeah. You lose weight on the scale. But that's not a good way to lose weight.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

And we've talked to people like that where they go on. Or like, I, I can't eat. I'm like force feeding myself. I feel like throwing up.

[Justin Andrews]

Well, I, 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, we, 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 told 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, oh my God, let's go eat. I'm so hungry and I'm like, oh my God. I have, I'm not hungry and I haven't eaten all day. Yeah, yeah, it just like, it just completely slipped my mind. The power of that was, 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, that were getting the, the Ozempic that would go via the ones that were in the preloaded pens were having that same similar experience.

[Adam Schafer]

I talked to a woman early on when this first started and she, she stopped taking it. So why'd you stop taking it? She says it felt like the first trimester of pregnancy when I was thrown up every single day.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So yeah. Now the experts that we've had on the show that talk about this, who are leading experts, they all titrate the dose. And so I think that's the case. So talk to your doctor and say, hey, I want to start slow and I want to work my way up to find the right dose. Because if it's too strong. Here's the deal. No matter what you do, if you eat too little calories, you lose muscle.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes.

[Adam Schafer]

Okay, so you need to eat enough to maintain or build some muscle during this process, otherwise you're totally screwed. So titrate your dose. We have [e-mail] by the way. If you don't have a compound pharmacy, okay, next point is to eat a high protein diet. So what do I mean by high protein? High protein, like the way that is defined by people in the health and fitness space who refer to the optimal amounts of protein. Because if you go by the fda, they consider high protein to be something completely different than if you ask me or if you go to the data and you look at what, what's the amount of protein that is the most effective or optimal? In other words, when do I get the upper limit of effect of or benefit from protein? That's what you want right here. Right? You don't want what you need because essential protein is very low. But you want, what is the amount of Protein that minimizes muscle loss to the greatest extent or maximizes muscle building. If I'm trying to build muscle, and that for most people is around a gram of protein per pound of target body weight, okay, it's around there, maybe even a little higher. So if you're trying to lose weight and you're like, my ideal body weight is 150 pounds. This needs to be your everyday, like, hard goal. I will eat 150 grams of protein a day and this has to happen. Now. Ideally you do this from whole foods. However, in this case, protein shakes are fine because I've worked with enough people on GLP1s. First of all, it's hard to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight without a GLP1.

[Guest]

It's just, you want easily digestible foods.

[Adam Schafer]

And not only that, it's just on its own, it crushes your protein is very satiating. So you're on top of the GLP1. Then you try to eat a satiating diet. It's very difficult. So what I tell, what I was telling these people was try to hit your target. At the end of the day, look at your leftover throw in a protein shake.

[Justin Andrews]

I mean, this is why I wanted to talk about the titrating first in this because I really think that 0.1 and 0.2 are. This is, this is the, this will make or break you. If you don't have your dose right, you're going to be nauseous, you're not going to like it. It's going to be too much if you don't have your dose right. Eating enough protein for the average client, not on Geopon has always been hard for us. We've, we've been talking about, we've been screaming it on this podcast for 10 years that every female client that I ever trained, I had to bump her protein. It was just like almost no matter what, no matter what their goal was, when I would sit down and then track with their protein intake, they were, most people were grossly undereating. Everybody was under eating protein. Nobody was getting the optimal and to your point. I mean, yeah, people I've trained a lot of clients that were eating okay amount of protein, but not for, not for building muscle, not optimally or not for sparing muscle when you're on a strict diet. And so I feel like the 1 and 2, this is like the main focus. You got to get enough protein. If you are already eating super low carb and then you're also eating low amount of protein. Oh boy. You're, you're just, you're, you're basically telling.

[Adam Schafer]

Your body to lose muscle.

[Justin Andrews]

Yes. We don't need this muscle. We're not feeding it enough calories. We're not feeding enough protein. Like we, we 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.

[Adam Schafer]

Yes. Yeah. So eat high protein. Prioritize it. Use Shakespeare if need be. And you know, again, the studies on protein are really interesting. Like you have two low calorie diets. One is high protein, one is, you know, 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. Well, 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.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

Then, then you're definitely gonna want to keep that muscle. Eating a high protein diet really, really helps do that. Next, one of the most important things we're going to say today, you got to lift weights is your body needs a reason to keep muscle. Muscle is active. It's expensive tissue. Your body, listen, it doesn't matter what you do if you don't lift weights. If you, if you were sedentary all day, you'll lose muscle anyway because your body only keeps it if you need it.

[Guest]

Yep.

[Adam Schafer]

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 GLP 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.

[Justin Andrews]

That's right.

[Adam Schafer]

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, that's it.

[Justin Andrews]

We are not, here's the thing, the point to get across, you are not going to build muscle right now. You're just not, not in this calorie deficit. So we're just trying to keep muscle. And so the signal that we need to send to the body is just let give it a reason to stay. That's it. And giving it a reason to stay is just use it. Like literally that's the way I would be communicating to a client is like listen, here's your two lifts. Just use it moderate intensity. You do not, I don't need you sweating like crazy. I don't need you go into failure. It's literally go through the motions, tell your body, hey, we need to keep this muscle because I'm going to lift weights every day. And that's it. To think like that. And that's the idea when you go into this is feed the body what it needs. Protein wise, send a signal to the body, just two exercises to let it know, hey, we're going to need some muscle because we're going to be doing this every day. But no reason to crush it.

[Adam Schafer]

Now someone might be listening, say well what if I just, what if instead of doing two exercises a day, what if I worked out like once or twice a week for an hour? You can do that, but I think lifting daily for a short period of time is more anti catabolic for sure or is more apt to preserve muscle than the two days a week workout. Even if all the time is the same because every single day you're sending a nice signal to the body daily that says keep muscle, keep muscle, keep muscle, keep muscle every single day. And it's just two exercises. Now the way you do the lifting by the way is traditional lifting. So you, you're lifting weights to get stronger. You're not doing circuit training, you're not hammering yourself with hit cardio. It's literally I'm doing eight reps and then I'm resting for two minutes and then I'm going do it again and then rest for two minutes and do two lifts that'll take you about 15.

[Guest]

I mean in two if you're going to base it all on one big workout, like you're just really not in a really high energy state.

[Justin Andrews]

That's true.

[Guest]

And so it's like it's pretty unreasonable to go long winded with workout versus like just these small hits throughout the week is such a better, smarter approach.

[Justin Andrews]

That's another great reason, because I. I mean, that was one of the other pieces. I remember telling you guys. I remember feeling so low energy on the GLP1 that there was times when it was like, okay, I'm gonna. I. I have enough in me to get in there and do an. An exercise. One or two exercises, or help my wife out around the house. Both ain't happening. It was like that.

[Adam Schafer]

I remember.

[Justin Andrews]

I remember having. Having that internal conversation of like, I just don't have the oomph to do both. And so I like it. To your point, Sal and Justin's just, I like the idea of this just moderate intensity every single day versus, oh, I'll just cram it in one day a week and muster up the energy and the push. And I just don't think, I don't think the body in this, in the, in the context of low, low calorie like these people are in, it's more advantageous to do less harder than it would be. More moderate, more times infrequent. I think that's a way better strategy for this person.

[Adam Schafer]

Great point. All right, next up, Dr. Drink about a half a gallon to a gallon of water a day. Okay, first off, this is, for most people, gonna optimize their health from a hydration standpoint. So, yes, it's more water than you need. You don't need that much water. But in our experience, training many clients, a half a gallon to a gallon a day improves people's health. Digestion reduces inflammation, they feel better. It tends to help with fat loss, muscle gain, et cetera, et cetera, even energy. But here in energy, here's why it's so important here for this group, though.

[Justin Andrews]

The.

[Adam Schafer]

What we find with people on GLP1s is not only is their hunger signal dampened, but so is their thirst signal.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

So when I said in the beginning of this episode, 40% of the weight is lean body mass loss. And I said, and a lot of that is muscle. It's because part of that was actually fluid. It's actually people lose hydration. 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, like, people have to track their water because they don't have an appetite.

[Guest]

Get away from them.

[Adam Schafer]

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 on the podcast. Make sure people 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 GLP1. 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 got, I saw, I talked to people on GLP1s 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.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Adam Schafer]

That they were able to.

[Justin Andrews]

Or even pill form.

[Adam Schafer]

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 oils.

[Justin Andrews]

I also thought, remember we covered this. His name is slipping me right now. From Kion.

[Adam Schafer]

Yep.

[Justin Andrews]

And he brought up some studies that even showed that even in the context of them hitting, hitting their protein intake.

[Adam Schafer]

And stuff like that, especially if the calories are low.

[Justin Andrews]

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 anytime 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 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.

[Adam Schafer]

Next up is creatine. Creatine is very healthy for the body. It's good for the brain. It also is muscle preserving. It will fuel your body with more ATP, gives you more strength, more energy. It also attracts water, so it helps prevent that water loss that happens out of the muscles. Creatine is a staple first of all this is a supplement I recommend everybody take anyway. But in this group right here, it's like this is one of the top supplements to take to stop muscle loss. You also have electrolytes. I think electrolytes are very important because when you reduce your food intake, here's what also happens. People eat less, they start eating less processed food, they eat less sodium, then start noticing things like muscle cramping, loss of energy, you know, whatever, electrolytes can help with that. But make sure you have a good electrolyte with a decent amount of sodium.

[Justin Andrews]

This is a, this is a huge one I think because I think what happens to a lot of people who have a lot of weight to lose. Typically we're eating highly processed foods and so they're used to a very high sodium intake and then they get this GLP1. They quickly find out that their body just does it rejects. I remember this too. Like the only thing that sounded good was like chicken and rice. Like your body because it slows down the digestive process. You'll see that the things that it has a harder time with processed foods, it doesn't digest well. And so you start to crave these healthier foods, which is a positive thing. Drawback of that is those have like no sodium in comparison to how high the processed foods are. So you take somebody who was already on a high calorie, overeating, highly processed, high sodium type of diet and then you put them on a restricted calories that's already automatically gonna lower and then they only are attracted to whole foods. And so I think that this becomes like one of those supplements that has to be mandatory. Every client that's on a GLP one should be taking some sort of an electrolyte.

[Adam Schafer]

Oh, and then one last one I forgot to add was hmb. HMB is a metabolite of leucine. It's an amino acid. It's very effective at preventing muscle loss. In fact, this is a supplement that they sometimes give to people who are bedridden or elderly or post surgery to prevent muscle loss. It's especially effective if you can't hit your protein targets. But I think if you're, if you eat high protein, lift weights, I mean you do what we're saying and then you go on a GLP1 you're going to see signif not like a little bit less muscle, like significantly less muscle loss. And then if you titrate the dose on top of it and you don't hammer your appetite and you eat in a deficit, but that's not too big of a deficit. I mean, you could potentially, especially if you're not lifting weights now, you could potentially even build a little bit of muscle through this process. And what a great place to be, right? You're not just losing weight, you're actually losing fat and maybe building muscle, but definitely, you know, holding it on. By the way, we have a program, a workout program specifically for people on a GLP1. It called Maps GLP1. Because of this episode, it's going to be half off, 50% off. If you're interested, you go to mapsglp1.com use the code 50 off. So 50 off GLP1 and that'll give you 50% off. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is mindpumpjustin. I'm mindpump distefano and Adam's mindpump.

[Sal Destefano]

Adam, thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.

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