Glps: what you’ve heard vs. what’s real.

Welcome to the Biohack Method. I am Lindsey Burwell. I break down the science, cut the fluff, and give you real tools to optimize your body with peptides, transdermal patches, and root cause biohacking that actually works. All right. Yay. I am so excited. Welcome back to the Biohack Method podcast. Today I'm going into something so fun for me, it's the GLP myth. Okay? We're going to do some myth busting when it comes to glp, because I am on calls all the time, consults, working with clients, and, and I hear the same kind of fear and concerns over and over. And I'm like, you know, I feel like we need to dive into the research and we needed to shed light. We need to expose it, wring it out, clean it out, and really get to the root of where these things are coming from and really get to the nitty gritty of, like, how these GLPs work. I will say I am a fan of GLP. I'll just be out there, right out the gate. I think that GLP peptides are phenomenal for regulating blood sugar and insulin. And I am a metabolic expert. And so metabolism, metabolic health, that's your body's ability to be effective at converting food into energy, which is literally your lifeline, has everything to do with longevity, has everything to do with hormone regulation, has everything to do with energy, has everything to do with weight loss. All is rooted is, is in insulin. Okay? The hormone insulin is very much responsible for, again, how your metabolism works, how if you can basically convert food into energy whether or not you get migraines, hormone regulation, longevity, anti cancer, anti dementia, all these things that are true metabolic in nature, all rooted in insulin. Let's back up really quick before we get all into the MP and just ask the question, like, why is this such a topic? I will say, let's see. Okay. My daughter is now almost six. Okay. About six and a half, seven years ago, I was learning about blood sugar and this whole hormone certification. I was thinking, and I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, none of this applies to me because I am not diabetic and I don't have blood sugar problems. And I ignored literally the whole entire course are part of that course. And fast forward, what I have found out is so much more. How blood sugar is so much more important than just hormones. It has everything to do with everything we just talked about. So it's very important. Take it seriously. Even if you aren't quote diabetic with high A1C or elevated glucose because it is pertinent to you. And really these GLP peptides, why I'm so passionate about them, is because what they do is regulate insulin, okay? They were not designed as weight loss, weight loss drugs. They were actually designed to correct insulin and balance blood sugar, get that broken process working correctly. However, in the biohacking space, people realizing too, oh, if metabolism is tied to insulin and blood sugar, why don't we use these peptides, gops to fix metabolic metabolism problems, right? And lose weight. So that's really where some of the popularity and the hype came in and people were losing weight on them. People went crazy, right? And what was it, 20, 20, 2022 people, this went absolutely crazy on these peptides. They gave it a bad name. Then all of a sudden there are all these smear campaigns and like fear tactics of this could kill you and gastroparesis and blindness and thyroid problems. So that's where a lot of the fear comes in, is because of that huge outburst where people were taking it, taking so much of it. They weren't guided people, practitioners really weren't sure what to give a non diabetic O dosage, right? And so people were just not adequately supported. They were not taking the correct dose and they were taking pharmaceutical compounds. And really, that is just like a recipe for disaster. But ultimately, these DLP peptides were designed to heal and support that insulin and glucose process, which is foundational to longevity and metabolic health. Now what's interesting is again, they're not weight loss peptides. They're not, they weren't designed for weight loss. But what happens when you balance insulin? But sure, the byproduct is a healthy body. A healthy body can lose weight. You don't lose weight to be healthy. Your body gets healthy and then it will lose the inflammation and then it will lose weight. I firmly believe if you dose it, you couple it with a really great diet with lots of protein, healthy fats and fiber. You are strength training, you are exercising, you are sleeping good, you have those foundations in place. It can be absolutely amazing what that peptide will do for you. But let's go into some of the myths, let's go into some of the scary stuff. Let's strip it down, get in, pull the covers off if you will, and talk about, like what? Why are these things so scary? Why are people so scared of them? And really, what does their research actually say? And so really the biggest thing that I hear all the time, number one, is like, GLPs cause muscle loss and we need muscle for longevity. And if we lose too much muscle, we're going to die and we're going to shrink and it's going to, we're going to lose body fat and muscle. Let's talk about this for a second. Peptides or not. Whether you're doing peptides or not, when you lose weight, you are at risk for losing muscle. This is not a peptide problem. This is a like a biological process of the body. And how you protect this process is by lifting weights. Okay? When you lift heavy weights, it signals to your body, I need this muscle. Keep this muscle. It will break down the muscle tissue to rebuild stronger muscle, right? So whether you're on peptides or not, GLPs or not, you need to be strength training because you're, you want to signal to your brain, hey, these muscles are important to me. We use them every day. So let's activate them, let's break them down and actually make them stronger. We can't skip this step. But GLPs in and of itself do not cause massive muscle muscle loss. What does cause massive muscle loss is when you take way too much GLP and you don't eat anything. Maybe a cracker, maybe one thing a day and you're not exercising. You're definitely going to lose muscle. You're lose weight and you're gonna lose muscle. You're gonna lose muscle if you don't eat anything on any extreme diet and you lose weight too fast because your body's looking for resources to keep you alive. So it's not the peptide, it's the really the diet and lifestyle that's promoting some of this. There's even some really great studies that promote this. So In a trial, 80% of the weight loss from both tirzepatide and semaglutide was from fat. Only 20% of it was from muscle. And this is what people doing that diet, doing that lifestyle again. Yes, you may lose some muscle when you lose weight. Okay? That's just what happens. You can't like totally guarantee you won't lose one ounce of muscle. But how do you maximize preserving muscle, gaining muscle with really that weight loss? It's that recipe. I just said protein, fat and fiber and strength training, okay? It's that perfect dose. I've seen so many clients talking, hundreds of clients on these GLP peptides. And I tell them, okay, you can't get on this unless you are exercising and you are eating good and you're staying properly hydrated and you are doing it the right way and micro doing it and strength training. And when you do that, you will see great success, long term success. You won't have to be on the peptide forever. You know what I mean? So with protein you're going to want to prioritize about 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per ideal body count. So let's say you want to be 130. Let's try to get 100 to 130 grams of protein in. Okay? That's going to be most of your protein. Lift some heavy weights, lots of heavy weights. Don't be scared if you've never lifted a weight. Start at 5 pounds, then go to 10, then go to 15. Really avoid that crazy crash loss. Like you don't want to lose £10 in a week. That would be a lot. That'd be a little stressful on your body. You probably will lose muscle. But that two to five pounds a week, one to five pounds a week, perfect with that diet, with that lifestyle. I have my own personal testament, Tony on this one. So I have microdose gop. I am the strongest I've ever been and there's more actually going to share about my bone density, all that good stuff. But I promise you if you do it the right way, you will not just wither away of muscle. You just really need to be doing it the right way. Okay, let's talk about blindness. So I actually had someone like can GOP is made me blind. That does sound super scary. So let's look at some studies. Okay. And it's the same six study six small kind of subset of people with advanced diabetes temporarily lost vision when they were on GLPs. And here's why it's with if you have already very high elevated blood sugar and you take a large dose of GLPs and it drops your blood sugar really fast. I'm talking like, whoop, that could cause blindness. Okay, that could be a problem. So for non diabetics though, or people without severe preexisting eye diseases, no increased blindness risk was identified on the study. So really again, we got to peel those layers back on some of the smear campaigns to see is this someone with diabetes? Is this like a normal person that doesn't have diabetes? Look at the data, read the research, don't just read the title. If you do have diabetes too, like for sure, work closely with a provider, be working with a doctor to closely monitor your dosing, closely monitor your blood sugar, your symptoms. Like as with anybody, full disclosure, I'm not clearly a doctor. I'm just sharing this based on my research, my education, and my experience working with clients and using these peptides myself. Okay. Another myth that I get a lot is will these peptides cause kidney or liver damage? Okay, let's look at this, because this, to me, is false. It will not do that. In fact, GLPs may be even protective over liver and kidney. So I'm going to read this study. The flow trial actually showed that se semaglutide reduced major kidney events by 24%. And then a meta analysis showed 18% lower kidney failure and 20% lower, all cause death, lowered by GLPs. And then on the liver side. Okay. Another study, step one and surpass three and lean trials, all showed reductions in fatty liver and even reversal of nash, that is nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. So that's a combination of fat inflammation and scarring. So here's why. NASH liver inflammation is glycogen stored glycogen. Stored glycogen is from excess glucose in the body. So when you are on these GLP peptides and they're clearing out, they're regulating glucose, they're balancing insulin, and they're clearing out glycogen. This is very liver supportive. Okay. So my perspective on this in the GLPs is that they're really doing way more than weight loss. Again, they are actually reversing metabolic stress that drives organ damage. It is so powerful. Again, doing it the right way, the right dose, with the right diet and the right nutrition and the right exercise program, and it is a chef's kiss. Here's another myth. GLP is lead to bone loss. People come to me and they will say, oh, my gosh, I don't want to lose bone density. I've heard it can, like, cause osteoenia, osteoporosis, and you'll get osteoporosis if you lose weight, are doing this. And so, again, total myth based on research. So let's look at these studies, peel back some of these layers. With the research that's out there, there is really no indication that the GLP specifically is increasing risk of fracture or bone density loss. Really, what's happening is it's the extreme caloric restriction that causes bone risk and again, not lifting weight. So this is not a peptide issue. This is a user. If you are on a high dose of GLPs and you're not exercising and you're losing a lot of weight and you're not eating, you become depleted, you have nutrient depletion, and your body will start pulling those Nutrients from your bones. And so that's what causes bone loss. It's not from the peptide, it's from the user not living the right diet. Diet, lifestyle, exercise. So what's also very fascinating is not just do GLPs not cause bone loss, but they actually have protective and bone forming effects. There's actually they form bones. So it's a, it's again, there's a right way to do things and there's a wrong way to do things in anything in life, whether you're on a peptide or off doing any kind of diet. That's why doing things the right way, let this be a tool, let it be a vehicle, let it be something powerful for you. And you're tapping into regenerative therapy to move you forward and move you along. But you're not just using it like a crutch and like withering away. We don't want that. We want long term results. Feeling amazing, Feeling incredible. Myth number five. Myth number five is that JLP has caused gastric issues and gastroparesis. This is where literally your intestines, like snap and break and stop working. The Internet literally will say that these drugs paralyze your stomach. So here's the reality. GOP do slow digestion. They slow gastric emptying. And that's really like one of, one of the big mechanisms of them to help you feel fuller, longer. But will it actually create lasting gastroparesis? It's very rare and it's usually reversible and it's likely in scenarios where people again are taking way too much. That's why the lowest effective dose and titrating in slowly is so important and so powerful, because you're not just flooding the system with GOP that you don't even know how you're going to act and respond to. I will say I was really nervous about this because I've always had my gut is like my Achilles tendon. Okay. I don't want to flare up my gut when already I'm sensitive to things. I don't want to feel like things are moving through me slower. Like that just sounds awful, right? So I'll tell you my journey with peptides. I'm just going to share it right here. I started with microdosing GLP1s. I just wanted to try it. I didn't really have a weight loss goal. I felt pretty fine. I did a lot of healing, a lot of metabolic healing and blood sugar healing on its own. But I just want to try it, especially because I was coaching clients on it and I offered it as a service to my clients. And I tried it and I. I did, I did a very small dose. And I will say I ate a very easy to digest meals. So I didn't take a large dose and then go to In N Out burger or Applebee's, right? Like, I had my dose. I ate easy to digest foods because I knew things are gonna be moving slower. I took a digestive enzyme, a probiotic. I really listened to my body intuitively of what it was feeling, how it was doing, and not intentionally overdoing. And what I experienced when I microdose with semaglutide was slower digestion, not in a painful respect, but more of just not hungry, really. I just felt full for a great amount of time, but not overful, not overstuffed. So I think there's a right and wrong way to do it for sure. There's appetite. I had no fullness issue, just no cravings for sugar and sweets. And then retatrutide. I've microdosed and I have not had really any slow digestion, if you will. I will say that there's less of an appetite curve because it has that glucagon receptor. But I do have more Energy on GLP3. So go listen to the last peptide overview I did. That kind of dives more into those different GLPs. Okay, let's go into this next one. So this next myth that GLP1s cause hair loss. Okay, let's talk about hair loss. What causes hair loss? Hair, skin and nails are a secondary function of the body. Okay? So when your body is under stress, when it's micronutrient depleted, let's say it's got some internal stressors going on, like pathogens, mold, candida. Maybe you have external stress, right? Emf, WI fi, Bluetooth, radiation exposure. Maybe you just have some, like, high cortisol. Maybe you've lost weight too fast. There's so many reasons that your body could go into a restrict nutrient circulatory kind of phase, because it's like there's a lot of shots and I need to reserve these for the primary functions, right? So hair is going to nail, secondary function, fertility, secondary function. If you are not getting all those foundations in, your body's going to prioritize those, those nutrients to those primary functions. The heart, the liver, the lungs, like the brain, because it wants to keep you alive. So it's okay. These nutrients I do have, I mean, a reserve here for keeping Lindsey alive. Hair, skin, nails, fertility is going to have to go. That's really what causes the majority of hair loss. It's not necessarily the GLP is doing this. Again, not a peptide issue, a user body root cause issue. People have lost hair on GLPs, and it's usually because they've lost weight way too fast, fast, and they're not getting proper nutrients in. And also it could be temporary. Your hair could be going through a temporary shedding triggered by that rapid weight loss. So my suggestion here is really just make sure you're getting a good micronutrient diet in. Lots of proteins, lots of healthy fats. You're being intentional with your eating. You're being responsible. Lots of hydration, right? And you're not losing like 10, 20 pounds a week, because that can really stress your body out. And with that, hair can be. Hair loss can be a byproduct. But really, just a caveat like this again, can happen with any major weight loss loss. It's not a peptide issue. This can be literally with keto, with gastric bypass. It could be with certain medications you're on. Like, this could cause a lot of that. Just really make sure you're supporting yourself with enough protein. Again, micronutrients avoid the extreme deficits. Hair health follows overall metabolic resistance. So you can do this. I also want to go back to that osteopenia stuff because I don't think I shared my story. So I did used to have osteopenia. This was after the birth of my last daughter. That means I was at risk of osteoporosis, like bone loss. I was so scared when I saw that. I was like, oh, my gosh, what have I done wrong? Like that internal guilt shave cycle and fast forward. Been strength training my Kant diet, totally micro dosing GLPs. I went in about 6 months ago. I am 80th percentile in bone density. Okay. The strongest I've ever been, strongest bones I've ever had. And I feel great. So I do believe a lot of this is rooted in just doing things the right way, right? Being smart, being responsible, and coupling it with really important foundational components like diet, lifestyle, stress, nutrition, all of that. Will there be side effects, though? I'm not guaranteeing you doing peptides and GLPs, there will be no side effects because every body is different. We are all so unique. No, I don't know what perfect dosing is for you. You're gonna have to go through a little bit of trial and error to figure that out. But the lowest effective dose, starting low, is a great place to go. Are they dangerous this? Are they muscle wasting? Are all the or are the headlines just trying to fear bait us into other narratives? You can decide on one. I truly again disbelieve that GLPs are an amazing tool. So with paired again with those intentional efforts and nutrition, it's amazing. It's truly phenomenal. I love witnessing the transformations of my clients on these and I look forward to the evolution of GLPs and more new ones coming on. I think think that we are just at the beginning of glps and I just fully support people who, whether you have five pounds of inflammation or feeling off or people who have significant weight loss they need to do. I'm fully supportive of trying them out for yourself. Full disclosure, of course. I'm not a doctor. I'm not here to prescribe, I'm not here to recommend. I'm just here to share my research, my experience with myself, with my clients and my knowledge just based on what I have learned on these peptides. So if you have any questions at all, you can totally drop them in the comment box. I so appreciate. Anytime you like you comment, you subscribe. It's like a big deal in the podcast world. You can find me on Instagram, I'm at Lindsay Burwell Wellness. You can also find the peptides I work with the naturalpeptides.com or the biohacked Solution on Instagram and we will chat later. That's it for today's episode of the Biohack Method. If this lit something up up in you, do me a favor, share it. Tag me at Lindsay Burwell Wellness and drop a review. Ready to dive deeper? Head to the show notes for peptides, patches and programs that are changing the game for high performing women like you.