#181: Ozempic, Wegovy, Semaglutide... Should You Take Them for Weight Loss?

Hey beautiful, it's Dr. Tabatha. I want to share something with you that I believe God is doing right now in women's health.

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I can't wait to see you in there. Hi, I'm Dr. Tabatha, the Gutsy Gynecologist.

I'm a triple board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine physician.

I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey, and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health.

And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more Band-Aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place.

And I wanna be your gutsy gynecologist.

So welcome.

Welcome back. This week we are talking about weight-loss drugs. These are all the rage right now. Everybody's like, should I get on this drug? Should I get on it? They're watching their friends get on it and drop a ton of weight, and it's very popular right now. So I just wanted to jump on here, no makeup, not prepared at all, and just give my 2 cents because There really are some things that you need to know about these medications that are super popular. They are called GLP-1 agonists, okay? Glucagon-like peptide 1. So glucagon is a form of glucose that's stored in your liver, and it's affecting that. So these classes of drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, the generic semaglutide, were traditionally used to treat type 2 diabetes. Okay, they work by mimicking the action of the GLP-1, which is a hormone that our body naturally makes. So GLP-1 gets released by the intestines in response to eating food, and it plays a crucial role in regulating your blood sugar. So naturally, when GLP-1 gets released, it stimulates the pancreas to release insulin in response to your blood sugar levels. So you eat the food, you absorb it— carbohydrates, which are one of your 3 macros. We have carbs, proteins, and fats. Carbohydrates, no matter whether it's a healthy sweet potato or it's a piece of licorice candy, gets broken down into sugar molecules, and glucose is the primary one. And our blood sugar starts to go up because we've absorbed it into our bloodstream, and we can either use this for energy production, or if we're not going to go jump out on the trampoline or go for a jog or ride our bike, or, you know, do anything that requires much sugar intake, then our body has to store it. It has to keep it for later. And so the pancreas releases insulin in response to this glucagon-like peptide that got stimulated when we ate the food in our intestines. And so insulin takes the blood— the sugar out of the bloodstream and starts knocking on the cells of like your liver and other places and says, take this sugar and store it. And so insulin, that's its main job. It's a fat storage hormone. And your body can do do this effectively for long periods of time. But if you constantly have elevated blood sugars because you're eating too many carbohydrates, too many simple sugars, you know, drinking pop, soda if you're in the South, eating candy, eating potato chips, cookies, all the things, bagels for breakfast, all those carbohydrates, when they get broken down into sugar, they get stored as fat thanks to the help of insulin. And if your cells are full and there's not a lot of room left to keep storing stuff, or your cells are inflamed from toxins and chronic sugar exposure and so many other things, then the cell stops listening to insulin. And insulin says, why aren't you taking this sugar out of the bloodstream? You need to store it. And so your pancreas produces more insulin to send that signal, and the pancreas It's like it's yelling. It's like a mom who yells at her kids all the time to pick up their clothes and to pick up their mess and their toys. If she's yelling all the time, pretty soon the kids just learn how to tune her out and ignore it, right? And so she screams louder and it doesn't necessarily help. They might listen if she screams loud enough. And insulin does the same thing. Your pancreas keeps pumping out more insulin. to yell louder, take this sugar up and store it, until the point where your cells finally listen. And when your insulin levels get really high like that because of that dysfunction, that's called insulin resistance. And so you're losing the sensitivity of the cell to hear the signal from insulin. And so these drugs come in and what they do is they act like the GLP-1 agonist, And they are stimulating your pancreas to make insulin to regulate your blood sugar levels. And this was really helpful for diabetic patients because they have insulin resistance. And so you take these GLP-1 agonists, and they're injectable medications. You have to inject them. And in combination with diet and lifestyle, we saw that they were getting blood sugar control and they were also losing weight. So of course, it's all the rage to say, okay, let's figure out how anybody can use this drug to lose weight, even if we don't have insulin resistance. So there's all kinds of these medications out now. Wegovy is specifically indicated for overweight and obese people to lose weight, whereas Ozempic was marketed and created for type 2 diabetes. So the drug companies alter a couple things to patent it Again, so that they can have their own branded form to, like, you know, charge big buco bucks. These injections are typically over $1,000. They're very expensive. And so that's why you see different versions— Wegovy, Ozempic, all these different drugs come out. Okay? So they're really expensive. They help you drop your blood sugar and with your insulin sensitivity. However, if you don't have insulin resistance, that could be an issue for you. So there are some side effects. Ozempic and Wegovy and all of these drugs, the biggest side effect that they cause are gut issues. And this is my main beef with them because, hello, I'm the gutsy gynecologist. So the most frequently reported side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, and loss of appetite. So that is how they're helping you lose weight, is you are not hungry. And I've heard so many stories of women who had to literally force themselves to eat because they weren't hungry. Your stomach and your intestines slow down their function, and now we're getting reports of stomach paralysis. called gastroparesis. So your stomach actually is paralyzed and it stops contracting and pushing food through into your intestines. You guys, this is such a big deal. This is so problematic. I remember in residency seeing a woman who had gastroparesis, and she ended up on a PICC line IV and got fed nutrition through an IV for 6 months because They couldn't fix her stomach and make it work again. So these are a big deal. This is a big problem, okay? And I know that so many women who have problems carrying extra weight already have GI problems because, hello, that's the root cause of most weight-loss resistance is gut issues. So we are taking these drugs and we are compounding the problem and making it worse instead of getting to the root cause of the issue. We're making it so much worse. So I implore you, don't jump on these meds quickly. Okay? You can get injection site reactions. You can drop your blood sugar too low. Like I said, if you don't have insulin resistance or diabetes, your blood sugar can get really low, and this can cause a lot of issues. You can get pancreatitis, which is an inflammation of the pancreas. It can be Lead to severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting. You might have to go to the emergency room and get him into the hospital for IV hydration. The whole works like it's a hot mess. And thyroid tumors, which the studies were done in rodents, and they were given super high doses. So I don't know how that correlates directly with human beings in lower doses. But for me, my main problem with this is the gut stuff. So I don't love this. So I've seriously been on a mission to figure out how can we support this weight-loss mechanism because GLP-1 is a really important hormone. How can we stimulate your blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity? I love berberine and inositol. Those are 2 supplements that work super well together, and alpha-lipoic acid. My supplement glucotame does a really good job of helping lower that blood sugar, but some people really like that appetite control, that appetite suppressant piece of these GLP-1 agonist drugs. So I've been like working really hard with my supplement company, and they have come up with. a natural herbal blend that stimulates that appetite suppressant, and it doesn't slow down your stomach and cause gastroparesis. It's not going to cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, and potentially really harmful side effects. Oh, and did I mention that semaglutide also causes you to lose muscle mass? So weight loss is great if you're losing fat. But if you're losing muscle, then you're going to be in a world of hurt. You don't want to lose any muscle mass. Your muscle is where your blood sugar is actually regulated, and you need your muscles to pump your blood, to pump your lymphatic system, which is your garbage can, to get all your dead, broken cells out of your body. You need your muscles for your strength and your balance to age beautifully and Vitally. So these drugs are not safe, you guys. I don't recommend them. So here's the deal. Try Metabolift. It really is— I'm just so excited about it because you reduce your hunger, you speed up your metabolism, and you lower your blood sugar without all those dangerous side effects. So at the end of the day, it's about becoming insulin sensitive again, having that metabolic flexibility to be able to eat some carbohydrates, along with more healthy fats and more protein. So I get women all the time asking me if I recommend intermittent fasting. These are women who are new to my Community. I absolutely recommend intermittent fasting. I love intermittent fasting, especially for perimenopausal women and beyond, because that is our superpower to get in control of our weight, okay? Getting in the gym is not going to help you lose weight. It's going to get you strong. Weight loss comes in the kitchen, okay? So intermittent fasting is key. You really want to give that pancreas a rest, give that stomach a rest, and you want to make sure you're eating enough healthy fats, enough protein, and cycling your carbs. This is where the magic really happens. I've studied This a ton, and I run programs based on this. If we stay low carbohydrate all of the time, we are essentially eating a low-calorie diet, and that will shift down our metabolism. It will tell our thyroid, she's starving us to death, turn everything down, so that it can conserve resources because it doesn't think the food supply is coming. And that is the last thing that you want. You want your body to be in thrival mode. You want it to be feeling safe to burn fat for fuel and carbohydrates for fuel. And it won't do that if it thinks there's not your next meal coming. So it's really important to regain your metabolic flexibility and be able to have a high-carb day 1 or 2 days a week, lower-carb days 5 or 6 days a week. I recommend 2 high-carb days a week for people with hypothyroidism and adrenal dysfunction. If you have 100% flat-out adrenal fatigue issues, then you should just be eating in a time-restricted window of 16:8. So you should really just be eating in an 8-hour window. I want you stopping your meals 3 hours before bedtime. Give your body a chance for repair and restoration because, you guys, the digestive process— once you're done eating that last bite of your meal, your digestive process goes on for the next 4 to 6 hours. So your body isn't done digesting when you're done eating, it's just starting. So really, your fasting hasn't started for 4 to 6 hours later. I know that blows some people's minds, like, oh my gosh, I just finished eating at 6:30 or 7 o'clock at night. Your body's not even done digesting that food until almost midnight, okay? And so it's really important that this is not happening at 2, 3, 4 in the morning. That's why you have to stop. at dinner time. You have to give your digestive system, your pancreas, a break. That is going to really help shift things. And I know that it's summertime, we're all enjoying, um, just having a good time. We're enjoying our cocktails too much, we're eating whatever, and pretty soon we're going to need to reel it back in here because that's not healthy long term. So the next season We're coming into fall. We're going to hit the reset button. I'm really excited and we are going to be relaunching Fast to Faith, my 40-day awakening. And if you feel like, yes, as soon as Labor Day is over, I want to hit the reset button, just know that we are here for you. This is going to happen. The program will be up and running. We're going to teach you how to be metabolically flexible again, to drop that excess weight, okay? Weight gain is a side effect. It's always a side effect of something deeper going on. So let's fix what's going on in the deeper issues and the weight will release. You will let it go because you're no longer having those system dysfunctions. But Metabolift, an amazing beneficial supplement to speed that process along because it does reduce your hunger and your intake overall. speeds up your metabolism, helps your thyroid think, okay, we're safe, we're good, we can burn some energy by maintaining that blood sugar. So I hope this was a helpful episode. I keep getting so many messages about it. I'm really not a fan of these drugs because of their real and substantial side effects, and it's imperative that we Love our gut and take care of our gut. Our gut is the root of our health, like it is the root of all disease if we don't take care of it. So love your gut. Think of your gut first. Okay, you guys, and if you enjoyed this, please, I would be so grateful if you would just give me a five-star review. Leave me a quick, you know, message. It literally takes thirty seconds to sixty seconds to just hit that review. And say, oh my gosh, this is what I got out of this episode. And then pass it along to your friends. Pass it along to somebody who's been struggling holding on to that excess weight that you know that they would benefit from this because this is a sisterhood. We're in this together, you guys. I'm so grateful and honored that you take the time to listen and let me know what else you want to hear about, okay? So I love you guys. I'm here for you. I'll see you next week. Hopefully I'll have some makeup on next time, but it's all good. Whatever. Bye, guys. Bye.