Done with Dieting Episode #109: Ozempic & Wegovy: Separating Fact from Fiction

 Hey, have you been hearing all of the hype about the new weight loss drug Wegovy, Ozempic, or Semaglutide?

Today’s podcast is for you. In today’s podcast, I am talking all about how those drugs work. What they do for you. If you want to use them, what are some of the things that you need to consider. And how to protect your investment?

Let’s get started.

You are listening to the done with dieting podcast. The podcast for women in midlife, who are done with dieting, but still want to lose weight and feel good in your clothes.

You know that diets don’t work long term. But you feel like there’s this secret that everyone else knows that you just haven’t figured it out yet.

I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman. And I’ve helped hundreds of women get off the diet roller coaster, change their relationship with food, exercise, and their bodies.

Through this podcast, my goal is to help you too.

Welcome. Let’s get started.

Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. And if you’re listening to this in real time, happy Valentine’s Day. Do you love Valentine’s Day or not? I kind of love Valentine’s Day because there’s hearts all over the place and there’s pink and red and I don’t know, I just love Valentine’s Day. There’s also chocolate. I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate? Strange people don’t love chocolate. I’ll admit there are people who don’t love chocolate.

But today, we are talking about Ozempic and Wegovy. And if you did not know what these two things are. They are a medication that the underlying chemical that they’re using in there is something called semaglutide. And I’ve been having conversations with so many of my clients recently who have been coming to me asking me, is this something that I should be looking into?

So, let me back up. If you don’t know what Semaglutide is or Wegovy or Ozempic, what it is, it started out as a diabetes drug and it’s still a diabetes drug. It is designed to help lower blood glucose levels. And what they found was that it actually helped people lose weight at the same time. For a while, people were using the diabetes drug as a weight loss drug. And eventually, they filed for a patent and Wegovy is the weight loss version of this drug.

What it is, it’s something that you inject into your body, into the subcutaneous fat cells of your body, like into your belly. Once a week for however long. And clinical trials are actually really favorable of it that clients or patients are able to lose up to 20% of the weight that they have. And it’s actually working really well because what it does is it helps you to believe, it sends the hormones from your gut into your brain that signal, hey, we’re full. And it does it on lesser food than you would normally eat.

Now, when you go on this drug, what happens is you have to build up to the largest dose. And in doing so, some of the side effects are vomiting, nausea, and just not feeling very good in the process. However, as you build up your tolerance to the drug or your ability to metabolize it. Those side effects go away.

And so, I wanted to create this podcast for you because if my clients have been bringing this topic up in our coaching conversations, I figured that you might be having some of the same questions. Is this the right thing for me?

Now, understanding that the name of my podcast is the Done With Dieting Podcast. You may believe that I have certain thoughts about using medical intervention for losing weight. But you might be surprised at what I say in this podcast episode because I think that I’m going to surprise you.

Now, let me say right here that only you and your doctor can make the decision whether this drug is right for you. Whether Wegovy or Ozempic is right for you and your decision. So, I want to say that right now that no one else gets to decide this except for you.

But in this podcast what I’m going to do is I’m going to provide you with some really great information to help you make those decisions. And I also encourage you to take a listen to episode number 32, which is how to make decisions. And so, what you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to take a look at that episode.

Because in that episode, I talk about the process of decision making and how you can’t just make a pro-con list and decide which one is longer, and so that’s the way you want to go. Instead, what I do is I suggest that you take a look at the pros and cons. And then, decide which items on the list resonate with you more. So, that’s just how to make decisions in a nutshell.

The other thing that I really want to talk about in this episode is in the second half, I want to talk about how to protect your investment. And what I mean by that is that you’re going to be investing time, you’re going to be investing money in creating this result. So, how do you protect it?

In other words, how do you make sure that the results that you’re looking for stay, and that you don’t go back to where you are right now. So, we’re going to talk about that in the second half.

Okay, let’s answer some questions that you might have. The first question is what is it. Semaglutide is the medication, and Ozempic and Wegovy are the brand names of this medication. And it’s originally used as an anti-diabetic medication. However, in 2021 it was also FDA approved to be used as a weight loss drug. It’s also available for people with polycystic ovarian syndrome or P C O S, as well as other types of diabetes. And it was first approved by the F D A in 2017.

Now, here’s the thing. Both of these drugs should be used in conjunction with a diet and exercise program to improve your blood sugar. And if you don’t know what that means, I am going to invite you to take a look at the ‘eight basic habits that healthy people do.’ It’s a guide and a checklist that I have available for you, and it’s available at elizabethsherman.com/habits. And there, you will find what the basic habits are that you can be doing in conjunction with this medication, so that you get the best results possible.

So, now how does Ozempic work? How does Wegovy work? What it does is it increases the hormones that are in your belly, in your stomach. And it sends them to your brain to tell your brain, Hey, we’re full, we’ve had enough. But it does it on lesser food than we normally have.

Again, how do you take it? It’s taken once weekly as an injectable pen form. So, similar to an EpiPen. And initially, when you’re taking it, you’re going to be taking it in very small doses, but then you will eventually increase those doses to be the maximum. And with that maximum, as I said, the research shows that you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. Depending on where you are or how much you need to lose.

Now, some of the potential side effects are, as I mentioned. There is nausea, there is dizziness, and there is fatigue on the lower doses when your body is getting used to the drug. And then, there are some other more serious side effects like thyroid tumors, and in fact, it has been correlated to thyroid cancer. There are also allergic reactions, like skin reactions. You can also have pancreatitis, changes in your vision, low blood glucose, and then also kidney issues such as kidney failure.

So, the side effects to this drug, like any drug, are going to be something that you need to be aware of and if it’s something that you actually want to do. So, I think that that’s something that you really want to take into consideration and have at least a conversation with your doctor about that.

Now, other than the side effects, I want to discuss the pros and cons from a different point of view, then you might be thinking about. And so, let’s start with the pros. So, what I like. What I think is actually really compelling about using this drug is that it creates an environment for you to get some wins.

So, I have this client and she’s not on the drug. However, she recently got Invisalign. You know, those invisible braces that we get as adults now. And like we didn’t have those as kids, right? So, Invisalign is kind of like a retainer, it’s invisible, theoretically. It’s an invisible retainer that straightens your teeth without having to actually see braces.

And so, one of my clients has this. And the reason that I’m talking about this is because there are very strict rules about what you can and cannot do with the aligners in your mouth. So, what happens is when you want to eat or you want to drink, you need to pop them out of your mouth so that food and colored liquids don’t get caught in between the aligner and your teeth. And you need to wear these things for 24 hours a day and only pop them out when you’re eating, and then immediately brush your teeth and put them back in to continue aligning your teeth so that your teeth are going straight.

And what my client, Nancy has figured out is that it’s creating this environment for her where she can’t just walk by and pop a chocolate into her mouth. She can’t just walk by the desk in her office and if there’s a plate of cookies, just eat one, right? It has to be a little bit more intentional.

So, what happens then is that if she wants to eat a cookie, she has to take the Invisalign out. She has to eat the cookie, brush her teeth, and then pop her Invisalign back in. And that takes a lot of intention. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of forethought and for many of us, for her, what she’s finding is that going through that process creates so much friction that she doesn’t actually want to do it.

Many of her patients and clients will bring cookies into her office. And so, she has this environment where sweets and things like that are always available for her. By having the Invisalign in her mouth, what’s happening is she’s finding that it’s easier for her to resist those treats. And in the process, what we’re doing is she’s forcing the issue of really questioning, do I want to eat that?

And so, why I bring her up is because taking this injectable is kind of like doing the same thing. If you are someone who eats emotionally or who eats out of habit. What’s going to happen is you are still going to want to do those things but having this drug, it’s going to force the issue where you’re going to ask yourself, well, I don’t even want that. Because you may feel nausea, you may feel dizziness, you may not feel like eating. So, it kind of forces that. And this is actually very similar in concept to weight loss surgery.

I have worked with many clients who have actually gone through weight loss surgery. Because even though, weight loss surgery is the same type of environment, what many find is that they still have after going through this process of getting gastric bypass, or getting the band, or balloon, or whatever it is that they still have a disordered relationship with food. And so, what happens is they come to me because they want to have a better relationship with food. They don’t want to use food as an emotional crutch anymore. They don’t want to use food and exercise as a way to manage how they feel.

For each of these things, whether you’re getting Invisalign, or whether you’re getting this injection, or weight loss surgery, we still want to look at the underlying issues around why it is that we are doing the things that we’re doing.

And so, the cons of using this type of treatment is that when you stop using the drug. If you have not done the work to improve your relationship with yourself, and with your body, and with food, what’s going to happen is that weight is going to come right back on because you are still going to use food as a way to manage your emotions. You’re going to use food in ways that aren’t necessarily the most helpful for you for a long-term life commitment. If you stop using the drug, what’s going to happen is that weight is going to come back on.

In some respects, you can look at using this drug as a forced diet. So, once you stop using it, the weight is going to come back on. Just like if you go on Weight Watchers and you follow the rules for a period of time, and then you quit Weight Watchers, right? The weight is just going to come right back on.

This is one of the reasons why diets don’t work is because when we stop doing the treatment, if we haven’t done the work in order to improve our relationship with food, to improve our relationship with ourselves, to improve our relationship with our bodies. And also, learn what our programming is, what our beliefs are. Clean up our environment. Do the eight basic habits on a regular basis so that we have the foundation in place.

So, if we don’t do those things, then the weight is going to come right back on. And so, the cons are again, do you want this to be a lifelong commitment. Now, for someone who has diabetes, they’re already in it for life, right? I already have diabetes. So, if you have type two diabetes, there is evidence to suggest that if you do reduce your body fat. That you may be able to go off medication. But not if you don’t change how you’re eating and how you’re exercising.

As I mentioned, just like weight loss surgery. It creates this environment for you to get some wins. But it also forces you to not use food as a coping mechanism. And here’s what’s really interesting. There’s evidence to suggest, there’s research to suggest that when folks have used food emotionally. That after they have weight loss surgery, if they don’t do the work to manage their emotions and not run to food, because now they can’t. Research shows that weight loss surgery will transfer to other addictions. Like shopping, like working out too much. I know you might think, what? What, Elizabeth, what are you talking about? But using exercise in a negative way.

So, using exercise as a way of running away from your problems as opposed to enhancing your health. And other addictions like gambling, like alcoholism. When we force ourselves to not be able to use food, those emotions, those feelings are still there. Situations are still going to prompt us to deal with our own sh*ts, right? And so, if we don’t have a healthy way of a healthy outlet, then what’s going to happen is we’re going to run to something else.

The other con is that most of my clients who come to me, they don’t want to stop eating food altogether. And so, this may not allow you to partake in some celebrations because you might feel nauseous, you might feel dizzy, you might feel fatigued. Just be aware that you might not feel great, and so you might want to go off the drug.

As I mentioned, it’s so super important and any doctor that you talk to who will prescribe this medication will tell you that it is supremely important to make lifestyle changes such as improving your diet and increasing your physical activity in order to achieve sustainable weight loss.

And so, therefore we cannot solely rely on medication like Ozempic, like Wegovy in order to sustain us for long-term weight loss success. We need to be able to change our lifestyle behaviors. We need to deal with why are we the size that we are in the first place. What are the things that we’ve done? How is it that we’re looking at food? What are my beliefs about my body, and how I should be using food that actually have created the size that I am. So, those are some questions that you really want to ask yourself.

Now, if you don’t know the answer to these questions, that’s totally normal. What can really help is of course, hiring a coach to help you with behavior change and cleaning up your beliefs about food. Creating skills of being able to say, no, I don’t want that.

The other night, I was at dinner with some friends. And there was some mild peer pressure going on trying to get me to eat or drink something. And if I had not cleaned up my issues around food, I would’ve totally given in. And then, I would’ve had the head trash monster, the inner critic beating me up like, oh, Elizabeth, why did you do that? Now, you feel gross. Right? We do that type of stuff.

When we don’t feel clean about why we’re making the decisions that we’re making and other people try to influence us, it leads to people pleasing. It leads to not sticking to our decisions. And that’s why we regain the weight. That’s why we go off the diet when we don’t feel good about the decisions that we’ve made to not eat the cookie or not eat the chocolate, or not eat the burger. When someone’s like, oh, come on, I know you want it. Why don’t you just have some? In those cases, what happens is we give in, right?

Working with a coach like me, either one-on-one or in a group setting can really actually be completely beneficial in order to help you protect your investment. In doing something like weight loss surgery, or even if you decide to do this drug. Of course, you do not have to do weight loss surgery or do the drug in order to change your relationship with food, or change your relationship with yourself.

You can actually learn those skills on the side. It’s just that these other interventions are going to support what it is that you’re wanting to do, even when you don’t feel like it. And so, that is actually one big pro of using one of these medications. That may force you to stay on plan. Now, that is something for you to be worried about. If you’re thinking, oh, okay, then this is for me. Then I am really going to suggest that you look for a coach. It doesn’t have to be me. Of course, I would love to be your coach, but it doesn’t have to be me.

However, if you’re thinking I need this in order to be successful. To continue through those periods of time. In that case, then that should be a huge red flag that you have some work to do to improve your mindset around why it is that you’re doing the things that you’re doing.

You might wonder, what is it like working with a coach? Wondering that question, I have a few different podcast episodes that I am going to share with you. The first one is episode number 20, ‘ Growth in the Plateau with Annie.’ And in that episode, we talk about plateaus and how to stay on track. And imagine what’s possible with Stephanie. That’s an episode in the seventies. I’ll put it in the show notes. And in her episode, she really talks about coaching and therapy and the difference between the two. And then, in episode number 77, I’m talking with three of the women from the Feel Good Sisterhood, and in that episode, we talk about what it’s like to seek support in a group coach setting.

And so, what working with a coach is all about is oftentimes we all know what it is that we should be doing. Now, if you do not know what you should be doing, then in that case, I am going to recommend that you go to elizabethsherman.com/habits. Download the eight basic habits that healthy people do. And take a look at that guide and checklist. And see, am I doing all of these things?

Now, the reason why that is so important is because when we go onto diets, or do medical intervention like Wegovy or Ozempic, or get weight loss surgery. If we are not doing the basics, if we are not eating until we are satisfied. Not full. Satisfied. If we’re not managing our treats. If we’re not drinking enough water. If we’re not eating enough vegetables. If we’re not moving on a daily basis. If we’re not sleeping. If we’re not managing our stress.

Then, what happens is we are not going to be able to function at that higher level and really take advantage of that next layer that we’re really looking for. That we’re forcing ourselves into. And so, when we can start with the basics, the basics are what most of us actually need.

Now, here’s the thing. Most of us already know what we should be doing. The thing that’s going on in the back of your head right now is why am I not doing it. If I already know what to do, why am I not doing it? That is the answer that coaching provides. So, we can dig into what does eating on the weekend looks like for you. Why do you choose those foods? Are you eating when you’re not hungry? Are you overeating at any time? Are you eating in order to satisfy boredom, or an emotion, or is it a time of day. How do we get you out of the habit?

So, coaching can provide accountability and it can provide the structure that you need in order to be successful. And coaching, in my opinion, is the cheapest option. It’s the cheapest option because after you do coaching, I guarantee that you will never feel like you have to go on another diet ever again because it is that effective.

There are no clinical trials for coaching. There are clinical trials for this drug. And the drug forces you into doing the thing, right? With coaching, you’re on the hook yourself. And for many people that’s really scary. And the questions that come up in your mind are. Is it going to work for me? Right? And I might suggest that if you’re willing to go through the pain and agony of injecting yourself on a weekly basis, or getting weight loss surgery, or doing something else that you are committed enough to yourself in order to put in the work to do coaching.

In listening to this episode, you might be assuming that I am against any medical intervention. And I want to let you know that I am not. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, only you know whether weight loss surgery or taking one of these drugs is going to be right for you.

There is no right or wrong way to lose weight. You’re going to hear from people who are not going to be forthright about how they’ve lost weight because they think that there’s going to be a judgment that other people are going to judge us about how we went about it. It’s so weird because there’s some belief that we have that we should be able to do this on our own. That we should have the strength in order to be able to lose weight, to eat right, and exercise, and have that weight come off.

And so therefore, any additional treatment is a cop out. And so, I really want you to think about that. Are you judging other people or are you judging yourself that you should not do one of these medical interventions because otherwise you are not doing it right.

And please if you are, I want to coach you on that. I totally want to coach you on that because there is no wrong way. And plus, it’s nobody’s business. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.

So, whenever my clients come to me and ask me questions, sometimes I’ll be working with a client and they’ll say something like, I know you’re going to judge me for this. And it’s so interesting because I really don’t judge my clients on anything. I love looking at problems from a place of nonjudgmental curiosity. And so, when a client comes to me and says, I want to go on a 500 calorie diet, or I want to do the H C G diet, or I want to go to my doctor and get a prescription for Wegovy. I’m going to say, why? What’s it going to do for you? Do you like those reasons?

I don’t know what the right answer is for you. But I’m willing to work with you to figure out what the right answers are for you through looking at your brain. Understanding the reasons why you want to do one thing over another.

So, to summarize this podcast. If you’re someone who is interested in doing one of these medications. Again, you are the only one to make the decision. However, if you are going to make this decision, be aware that if you don’t do lifestyle and behavior change. It’s very possible that the weight will come on after you stop taking the drug. And so, do you want that to happen?

If you don’t, I’m going to suggest that you protect your investment by hiring a coach. Again, it doesn’t have to be me. But hiring a coach to help you improve your relationship with yourself. And I say, ‘yourself’ because when we have a good relationship with ourselves, we don’t overeat, and we will process our emotions and have compassion for ourselves. Instead of having to fill up our emotions, fill ourselves with food.

So, protect your investment if this is the way that you’re going to go. And increase your chance of achieving long-term weight loss success by figuring out how to do lifestyle behavior change.

Now, again, if you haven’t done it yet, I’m going to invite you to download the eight basic habits that healthy people do. Just go to elizabethsherman.com/habits and you can get it right there. And if you are interested in understanding how coaching can work for you, I’m going to invite you to schedule a consult call with me. All you have to do there is go to elizabethsherman.com/consult. All of these links are going to be in the show notes. Have an amazing week, everyone. I will see you next time. Bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out the Feel Good Sisterhood. It’s my small group coaching program where we take all this material, and we apply it. We figure out what works for us, and we don’t ever look at another diet ever again. Join me over at elizabethsherman.com/groupcoaching.

I’d love to have you join me in the Feel Good Sisterhood. See you there.