Intentionally make healthy choices
It can be tempting to make the easy and convenient choice to eat junk food and rely on weight loss drugs to prevent you from overeating. But if you’re serious and want to be ready to transition away from the drugs someday, you have to make an intentional choice as soon as possible to improve your diet. Here are the three most impactful things to focus on.
Eat more protein – Protein will not only help you feel full, it will also help you protect your muscle mass as you lose weight. You can check out our article to help you calculate how much protein you should get. But as a general rule, build all of your main meals around protein – that’s a good start.
Get friendly with fruit and veg – They are good for your overall health, they reduce inflammation and provide your body with many essential vitamins, minerals, and fibre. They are great replacements for unhealthy snacks, make your meals more colourful and add some crunch and interesting textures.
Choose high-fibre carbs over low-fibre ones – Beans, lentils, whole grains, and starchy tubers like potatoes and sweet potatoes do a better job of helping you feel full and managing blood sugar than low-fibre, highly processed options such as white rice or refined grains.
Find ways to eat well despite side effects
The most common side effect of GLP-1 drugs are nausea, constipation, and other GI issues. They tend to resolve within several weeks for most people but it varies. This can be a big obstacle when trying to improve your diet at the same time. Here are a few tips that should help.
- Include more smoothies and pureed soups to make fruits and vegetables more palatable
- Avoid big portions, eat smaller meals more frequently
- Avoid greasy and fatty foods
- Limit ultra-processed foods
- Be careful of strong food smells that trigger your gag reflex
- Avoid sweeteners based on sugar alcohols like xylitol, erythritol, maltitol, and sorbitol, which can trigger diarrhoea
Prioritise strength training
Another common unwanted effect of GLP-1 agonist drugs is that 30-40% of the weight loss comes from lean mass, mainly muscle and bones. This may not be as alarming as it seems. People who are obese typically also have more muscle and bones to support their larger bodies. So, they can shed some if they are also getting significantly smaller in the process.
But the more important point to take away is that the muscle and bone loss doesn’t necessarily have to happen to that degree. Increasing protein intake is one way to help combat it as well as including regular physical activity, especially strength training. Aim for at least 2 full-body resistance training sessions a week. And try to regularly make small choicesto move more. Take the stairs instead of the lift sometimes, take calls while walking if you can, and walk whenever practical overall. Movement like this can also relieve some of the gut-related digestive issues.
Build resilient and healthy lifestyle habits
Improving eating habits and physical activity are two very important building blocks of a healthy lifestyle – but to make it resilient, you need to work on all pieces of the puzzle. There’s also sleep, social support, stress management, finding meaning and fulfilment, and more.
Many are motivated to continue improving, fuelled by the success in weight loss. But others can get overwhelmed. If possible, consider getting a coach. They can offer guidance, help prioritise, build skills, and create systems so that you’re set up to succeed in all aspects of a healthy lifestyle.
Then, when the time comes to stop taking weight loss medication, your ingrained lifestyle habits will make it much more likely that you maintain a healthy weight and all of the other health benefits.
