How to Get Off Ozempic (And What to Do Instead)

All right, today's episode is a little bit of a spicy one. We're going to be talking about the weight loss drug Ozempic. But before we do, a very quick public service announcement. I've created a brand new coaching program. I want to help men in their 40s and their 50s, men who are out of shape, burnt out, and are stuck in a cycle of putting their health last. And if that sounds familiar, this could be exactly what you need. Over 12 weeks, I will coach you through the exact mindset shifts, lifestyle changes, and the systems I had to figure out the hard way so that you can achieve in weeks what took me years. And this will be the end result. You will build a rock-solid lifestyle. You will finally start putting your health first, and you will get on the path to being able to get in the best shape of your life, as well as all of the other things that come with that— more energy, more discipline, and more confidence. Now, for this pilot group, I'm also offering something I will never repeat. 50% off the full price. And also so I can give my full attention to everybody that I'm coaching. I am keeping it really small, just 5 spots. So if you want more information and you want to know how to get involved, check out the link in the description. It's all there. That's it. Let's jump into the episode. How to get off Ozempic and what to do instead. Now, look, here is the truth. Most people don't end up on Ozempic. Because they really want to. They end up there because they just feel like they've completely run out of options. And look, I get it. I have felt like that, and I've been stuck in that loop many times myself. And when nothing seems to work and the weight just won't shift, Ozempic starts to look like the magic pill. Let's be honest, it kind of is. It gets results and it gets them fast. But here's the problem. While Ozempic is incredibly effective at helping people drop weight,— it doesn't really get to the root cause of why they couldn't do it themselves in the first place. And that means the second that you come off it, you're just right back where you started. So today I want to break all of this down. I'll explain why Ozempic is— sorry, Ozempic is never the real fix. I want to talk about some of the hidden downsides that come with it and also the exact lifestyle changes that not only get you off it, but they will make sure you never need it in the first place. So if you're on Ozempic or any other branded weight loss injection and you don't have an off-ramp, or if you're starting to feel tempted by it because you can't shift the weight yourself, this episode is definitely for you. So let's start with why people turn to Ozempic, and ultimately it's a pretty simple one. It comes down to this: they haven't been able to sustain an active lifestyle, and they haven't been able to sustain eating the right types and amounts of food themselves. Likely actually both of those things. And this has caused them to become overweight. And this is essentially where Ozempic comes in, right? It suppresses your appetite, appetite, and it means that you start eating a lot less and actually a lot less very quickly. And what that does is it brute forces you into a calorie deficit and you end up losing weight incredibly quickly as a result. Now, if you lose weight quickly, surely we're all good, right? What's the problem? Well, I actually believe that once you get onto Ozempic, it's a little bit of a trap and there are some consequences outside of losing weight really quickly. So let's cover those now. Here's really the main trap as I see it. You are now completely reliant on Ozempic to keep the weight off, and that's because most people's lifestyle goes completely unchanged. Ozempic is literally the thing that's holding it together. And actually, quite a few of the people I know that are on Ozempic, they are actually still eating mostly ultra-processed foods. Sure, a lot less of them, but they're still mostly eating ultra-processed foods, and they're not moving around very much either. They don't seem to have an active lifestyle. And the question I would have is, do you really want to spend the next 10 years relying on a prescription just to stay in shape? That's a trap. Now, there are also some consequences as well. Let's go through them one by one. So the first one, as I see it, is when you lose weight very quickly, and this is Ozempic or not, regardless of how you do it, when you lose weight quickly, you will lose a lot of muscle. And actually, any type of weight loss, even if it's a very sustained longer period, so you will always lose a percentage of muscle and a percentage of body fat. But it just so happens, if you lose the weight very quickly, which you always do when you take Ozempic or any other type of weight loss injection, you are going to lose a much higher percentage of lean muscle. And here's the problem with that. I've talked about this on previous episodes, but lean muscle is probably the most important thing you want to be focusing on when you're in your 40s and 50s, because the amount of lean muscle you have is not only predictive of how long you will live, but it's also predictive of the quality of life you will have in your last few decades. And as you get into your 40s and 50s, it actually becomes incredibly hard to build lean muscle mass, and it's quite hard to preserve it. So really, the goal is preserve and build if you can, and that's because it's going to help you live longer and a better life longer. Now, when you take something like Ozempic and you lose the weight incredibly quickly, you are going to lose a lot of lean muscle because you lose the weight so quickly. And this is muscle that, one, you're probably unlikely able to regain, um, even if you try very, very hard. So it's kind of irreversible. And that means you are then going later on in life with less muscle. And I've already talked about why important that is. So really, I can't, I can't stress this enough. You want to avoid losing muscle when you get into your forties and fifties and beyond. And if anything, you want to try and preserve it and add to it. And taking something like Ozempic and losing a lot of muscle with the weight gain is the complete opposite of that. And it arguably is going to become irreversible. And you hear this with a lot of people that are taking Ozempic. They tend to either look or they, they tell you they will feel a little bit weak, and that's because they've lost a lot of of muscle with the weight, with the overall weight loss. Now, the second consequence is you're starting to hear more about the side effects of these weight loss injections, as well as potential long, long-term health implications. And I won't go into those, but look, we're still in the fairly, fairly early stages of these types of prescriptions and medicines. And whenever you're putting something foreign into your body to get a result, there are always going to be some type of implications. So what I would say is that this is not without risk, and I would You know, Google some of the side effects and the long-term health implications. You're starting to hear more stories about them, and I bet we'll hear more and more. So it's not ideal. Anything is like this is gonna come with some type of risk. And then the third consequence is really the financial cost. You know, you, you're paying anything upwards of £100, but actually more often £200, £300, £400 per month to be on this type of medication. It's not a cheap thing. It costs thousands per year to be on this type of, uh, of medicine. So if you can avoid that, you're going to save yourself a lot of money that you could put to better use. So as I see it, they are the main consequences. Now, we have covered why people turn to Ozempic, and we've just seen why it's a trap and why there are very real consequences to going on Ozempic. So then the question becomes this: if not Ozempic, what is the real fix? And if you're on it already, how do you actually start to build yourself an off-ramp? Now, it's probably not going to come as a surprise, but the real fix, as I see it, is you have to get your lifestyle and your habits in order. Let's remember, people turn to Ozempic because they couldn't sustain their weight loss themselves. Now, the real fix isn't a training program. It's not a diet. It's not a supplement. And I don't think it's a magic pill. The fix is actually rebuilding your lifestyle and your daily habits from the ground up. You have to construct what I always call that base of the pyramid. And it's only this that will make you capable of doing what you need to do consistently without Ozempic, i.e., be active and eat the right amount and the types of foods. Now, if you'd have built the lifestyle and the habits before, you wouldn't have needed Ozempic because you would've been able to become an active person. You would've been able to get your nutrition in the right type of place. And if you are already on Ozempic, doing this is the only way off. You have to start layering in better health habits, and you have to start building an active lifestyle alongside Ozempic. Then you can start to taper off. So what does rebuilding lifestyle and daily habits from the ground up look like? Well, it just comes back to the 7 or 8 foundational health habits that I always talk about building. So let's look at some of the direct kind of effects of those. So for example, things like sleep, eating enough protein, fasting, eating whole foods. These are 4 of my 7 foundational health habits. All of these will help regulate your appetite and they will be, they will help you better control the amount of calories you're consuming and they will give you a much better chance of not overeating. You know, sleep 3 or 4 hours and then try and kind of eat a good diet the next day. It's never gonna happen. If you are eating a diet which is very low in protein, you're just gonna be eating more carbs, more processed foods, and you're gonna want to eat more and more and more. When you fast, you obviously shrink your eating window and you're much more likely to eat less. And very much like the protein element, when you are eating whole foods, you are much more likely to have a steady appetite and not want to keep eating more and more and more. So the habits of sleep and protein and fasting and whole foods are only gonna help you regulate, regulate your appetite and better control the amount of calories you're consuming. And then steps is another foundational health habit, right? For me, I consider that to be the one measure of as to whether you have an active lifestyle. Sure, you can have an active lifestyle outside of steps, but just building a habit of 10,000 steps per day is really the base layer of having an active lifestyle. And by the way, I have heard many stories of people that have managed to have a really good weight loss story, and the only thing they changed in their life was walking 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day. And that's because it really starts to get that calories outside of the equation up. You build a more active lifestyle. As I've already just called— sorry, I've only just called out 5 habits there that have a very, very direct effect, direct effect on either the calories you're consuming or the calories you're burning. Now, not only direct effect as well, but the foundational health habits that I talk about all of the time, they all have a very indirect effect, both individually and as a group. They help you build the right type of energy. They help you build or they help you become a disciplined person with willpower. And by building that base, you are going to just feel like an entirely different human being, and you're going to be capable of so much more. And I, I see it and I feel it all of the time. I am really, really focused every single day of trying to stick to my foundational health habits. And as I always talk about, I'm aiming for about 80% consistency throughout the course of the month. So I miss it here or there, but for the most part, I'm 80% consistent for all of these habits. Once I start to get into a bit of a streak of 2 or 3 or 4 days, which I really try and avoid, but sometimes it happens on any of these habits, a streak of not hitting them, I start to feel things unravel a little bit. I'm less tempted to work out. I find it harder to get those steps in. I start drifting towards crappier foods. Um, I start overeating and binging. Like, I can just start to feel myself slide there if I'm starting to not get good enough sleep, if I don't hydrate well enough. Um, it's, it's just so easy for me to see. And then I see people who, um, are really, really struggling to even put together training once, maybe twice a week. They're really struggling to kind of just, you know, be an active person and to actually eat properly. And most of the time you look at all of those foundational health habits I talk about, they're not very consistent with them. Um, and if most of them are completely missing in their lifestyle. So look, if there is one promise that I can give you, it's that if these foundational health habits go unchecked, You will never be able to sustain the efforts needed to lose weight and transform your health by yourself. And you'll never be able to get off Ozempic if you're on it already. So let's finish the video with a practical next step. If you're already on Ozempic, what you need to start doing is building these foundational health habits now. Don't wait until you start tapering off it. You need to start laying them in gradually while you're still on the drug. Start learning how to get your steps in, start eating more protein, start focusing on your sleep, start hydrating. I can guarantee they're going to make you feel so much better, and you will start drifting towards a more active lifestyle and eating, eating a better, much better diet. Or if anything, it's going to be much easier to do that. And over time, you're just going to realize you're becoming more capable of sticking to an active lifestyle and eating more sensibly. And then when it comes time to taper off Ozempic, the new lifestyle, the new habits, your efforts around being active and eating right are going to mean that you can hold the weight off without Ozempic. Now, if you're not on Ozempic, but you're starting to become tempted by it because you've just had enough of not being able to get the weight loss you want, don't wait until you feel desperate and out of options. Start small. Pick 1 to 2 habits a day. Start building them. If it was me, I would focus on probably sleep and steps and your relationship with alcohol. They're the big 3, actually. Focus on those. Build a tick sheet, start focusing on them every single day, and just start to try and build a streak of being in better shape with those habits. And again, over time, the new lifestyle and the habits are gonna lead to improved efforts around being active and eating right. And I guarantee that that will then lead to weight loss more naturally. So, look, to wrap the episode, Exembic can feel like a lifeline. I totally get it, but it's only ever a plaster. Instead, you need to build the lifestyle and the foundational health habits. And only when you do that, you'll finally have the foundations to get off Ozempic and stay off it for good, or you'll get into the position where you'll never need it in the first place. I hope that was useful, and I will see you in the next episode.