The great Ozempic debate – ask the experts edition
In the last newsletter I discussed my fears over injectable diet drugs. Today the experts I trust reveal their opinions on the Ozempic conversation...
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
I voiced my opinions on the big fat Ozempic debate earlier this week. For today’s newsletter I wanted to speak to a handful of experts I work with to garner their thoughts on the diet drug phenomenon.
I’m going to leave my opinions fully at the sideline this week. Have a good read!
Until next week, Kids.
Sarah Lindsay is a triple Olympic Speed Skater and co-founder of Roar Fitness.
Roar has three sites – two in London and last year opened their first in Dubai. Roar’s ethos is all about weight training to stay fit, healthy and happy. They’re very much known as THE go-to for people striving for a body transformation done the right way. Celebrities including Piers Morgan, Ed Westwick, Pixie Geldof, Nick Grimshaw, Henry Holland and many more are fans of Roar. Check out Roar HERE to start your fitness journey.
Having spoken to you, your main concern is muscle atrophy from using diet drugs - can you fill me in on this and how it’s a worry?
My main problem with these diet drugs is muscle atrophy. So, if somebody is overweight and loses weight fast, they’ll be losing fat and muscle at the same time. To maintain as much muscle mass as possible when you’re losing weight you have to weight train.
Are there any benefits at all to these drugs?
Sure, for people who are severely overweight or obese and they’ve not managed to lose weight any other way then these diet drugs can be a last resort and a good thing. If prescribed by a doctor and it can help break habits. Some overeating can be very much habitual so if it stops that or makes an adjustment for people and it breaks that cycle then that can be a positive thing to reframe how you think about that food. But you must weight train to try and hold on to muscle and ensure it’s about fat loss only. Because there’s a difference between weight loss and fat loss or weight loss and recompositing of the body. The reason you lose weight which includes muscle is because you under eat. You’re not eating enough to fuel your body, so you are in a fairly extreme calorie deficit. If you don’t fuel the muscle and train the muscle, then you will atrophy.
Tell us more about muscle atrophy – why is this such a worry?
The reason this is a worry is because it’s the same reasons we talk about with people needing to gain muscle for longevity – essentially, a longer life.
The stronger you are as you head into your later years of life the better. The more muscle you have the denser your bones are, and you can put off osteoporosis or all those brittle bone issues.
Gaining muscle and weight training is the best thing you can do for anti-ageing. If you lose these muscles, you become weaker and you get injured, have falls and are more likely to have brittle bone disease. The weaker you are and the less strength you have means everything in your life will be harder. So, if you lose muscle mass it can have a profound effect on your health as you age. When somebody is weaker and less stable, and they fall they can’t save themselves or break their fall. That’s when you’ll have terrible accidents.
What do you think Ozempic, and other drugs are doing to us as a culture?
As a culture it’s already changing things, when you look at the psychology of this with slim people taking it. It’s abuse. It’s turned into a scenario where we have thin people trying to be thinner. Personally, I thought we’d moved on from this? I felt people wanted to be strong and more athletic.
Sure, these things do go in trends. But being as thin as possible and restricting nutrition just isn’t healthy and it feels so backwards for 2024. If you’re under eating or restricting your food, you are going to end up malnourished. You need to fuel your body with enough to essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals to be healthy. It’s hard work being healthy. But it’s essential. With undereating there’s no way you’re going to get these in. Now, counteracting that with the problems that come with obesity there’s a dilemma there about which option is best. Both are terrible. But what I see a lot of is people who are already thin who just want to be thinner and that’s dangerous. This fast culture of instant gratification is wild. Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter – for obvious reasons with things like social media enhancing and speeding ‘time’ up.
Also, instant results become addictive. You see things change super quickly and you want more. So, it’s no surprise it has become a trend like it is. That feeling of something working super-fast. It makes it a hard thing to give up once you’ve reaped the changes from a diet drug. And now everyone’s fibbing about using it – which worries me. I think it’s going to get to the point where there are more people using it – whether they admit – than not. It’s also going to be interesting to see the faces in the industry who suddenly release a book or start to pump their Instagram with “their secrets”. It’s going to be a case of them lying.
And then there’s everybody who gets in shape the right way using a nutrition plan and a training plan and then everyone assumes they’ve just been on Ozempic. So, it becomes a case of guilty by association in the fitness sphere.
People seem in general lazier as a nation - this is only adding to that right?
I don’t know if Ozempic will make people even lazier than they already are. I guess the thing people who take these diet drugs is they’ll find out the negative effects of using the drugs. They’ll be tired, malnourished, possibly sick and then there’s so much more that, in reality, we just don’t know about. I wouldn’t want to be feeling tired all day. Who would? Exhausted from using Ozempic and not being fed enough. The effect from the drug makes you too tired to exercise. Being thin as you like and having so little exercise too is never going to be advisable.
What do you think about celebrities and people in the industry taking payment to promote these drugs - that worries me a lot.
I’ve not seen celebrities endorsing Ozempic yet. They’ve not needed too. It’s everywhere. I feel celebrities have a duty of care to their audiences to be very careful when it comes to diet products. People need to use their influence well in the fitness sphere.
The only time this is going to help people is when somebody is obese, and it’s allowed them to take a healthy control of their life.
Your ethos is simple - diet, nutrition and lifting weights. Has the Ozempic explosion made you rethink your ethos at all?
My ethos has progressed a little bit these days. I used to talk about lifting to be lean but to be honest where I think we all should be with health, fitness and nutrition is not having a huge end goal. Ozempic hasn’t affected my ethos about health and fitness. Health is what people should be focused on. When you lift weights with the idea of getting stronger you will be a happier person.
The benefit of Ozempic and all these drugs should be reserved for people who are overweight, obese and they’ve explored every other avenue with nothing else having worked. I can see how it could reframe certain disordered eating behaviours.
Kate Whale, Founder of The Body Camp – Europe’s Number One all-season holistic fitness retreat.
Body Camp are currently based in Sencelles, Mallorca, and have just launched their eagerly anticipated Body Camp UK weekenders on the outskirts of Frome, Somerset. Interested in a no-fad approach to fitness and nutrition? Then head to one of the two Body Camp sites for a week (or a weekend) of great fun and fitness. Follow them on Instagram HERE.
Kate, are you concerned about the rise of Ozempic and other diet drugs being used in 2024?
It’s an interesting one, really, I’m happy for people who actually need it but I know lots of very very slim people using it wrongly and with this in mind it’s obvious it needs to be managed properly. By real Doctors. For people who genuinely have issues with overeating, appetite and chronic weight issues I think it's a great option for appetite control, but that's all it is.
Why do you think people are giving up on traditional, admittedly slower, routes to health in favour of these injections?
The human condition, they can't be bothered to do the work and want a magic pill...here it is…you will never replace exercise and a good diet for the overall health benefits, starving yourself doesn't make you happy, healthy, strong, toned, sexy, connected, hormonally balanced, and have great energy. The worries that are already being brought up for most specialists are the fact that we will have a wave of very weak frail people into older age who didn’t stay strong enough to sit and stand and have basic functional fitness.
So many people I know are secretly using it when they aren’t obese or in need of the drug - thoughts on this?
Same, I think it will pass, the people I know who really don't need it, but they are in no way feeling great. They're just not hungry and they're tired a lot.
What would make you recommend using this drug or ones like Ozempic for weight loss?
If you are obese for sure, if you are not living a good life because of your weight and can't make yourself do anything else then yes. It's the last resort. It's not teaching you anything, you're not changing your mindset, behaviours, movements, diet, you're literally sticking a needle in your belly and starving it off... potentially forever. That's worrying.
Body Camp’s ethos is a no-fad approach - surely Ozempic can’t begin to reach the natural endorphins found from good exercise and a healthy diet. Thoughts?
Of course it can't, nothing can replace that and it’s what everybody needs, all specialists insist it needs to be done with weight training and a balanced diet or there will be major issues. Will people still take the time to do this? Time will tell.
Kate Rowe-Ham, Founder of Owning Your Menopause
Mum-of-three Kate Rowe-Ham is an author, fitness app Founder and PT instructor who has paved the waved for thousands of women to learn about how to get through their menopause journey with a no-fad approach to diet and fitness. Her debut book was released last year to much fanfare and still remains high in the specialist charts across Amazon months later.
ABOUT KATE: Dedicated to educating menopausal women about nutrition, movement and mindfulness to help them thrive in midlife, Level 3 qualified PT Kate works with an eight-strong team of experts in fitness, nutrition, sleep and wellbeing. Supplying evidence-based information on how to best exercise and nourish the body through menopause, Kate believes in reframing the mind to not view exercise as a punishing route to aesthetic gain - an attitude she held for years during her own battle with physical and mental health.
“Remove the pressure to be a certain size and exercise becomes more achievable and sustainable. Women could spend as much as 40% of their lives postmenopausal so they should enjoy this time by feeling strong, mobile and visible,” explains Kate, who provides daily live workouts on the app and now stays active to strengthen her heart, bones, joints, muscles, brain and mental health.
Via the Owning Your Menopause app, women can also access menopause GPs through webinars and live Q&As, healthy and wholesome meal plans and support from a community of likeminded women.
Are you concerned about the rise of Ozempic and other diet drugs being used in 2024?
Yes, it really concerns me that these drugs are being used without guidance and an understanding of what happens when you stop if you haven’t adjusted your lifestyle alongside. Not only that we must stop the narrative around quick fixes when it comes to our health and wellbeing as there is no such thing.
Why do you think people are giving up on traditional slower routes to health in favour of these injections?
They don’t have time to commit, or they can’t be bothered. We live in a world where we want instant gratification and quick solutions, so it seems an obvious choice to many. It sounds harsh I know, and I am not including people who are obese on this answer because that is an illness that needs serious medical attention and care.
How does Ozempic affect women either entering their perimenopausal years or within full menopause?
I am not medically trained, but if they are relying on drugs rather than making long term lifestyle changes then they will be putting their bone, heart and muscle health at risk. Taking these drugs is not a long-term solution so for many they will have short term success leading to a potential lifetime of ill health.
So many people I know are secretly using it when they aren’t obese or in need of the drug - thoughts?
In my opinion it’s not worth the risks.
How would you in general recommend women struggling with their weight tackle this usually?
I would suggest they implement a sustainable approach to diet and exercise. Focus on long term health goals for life. I would encourage women to see exercise as a way of future proofing their bodies for longevity. Weight loss is always a by-product of an achievable program.
Are there any positives to Ozempic for menopausal women?
None that I would consider unless you have been properly prescribed the drug. In a perfect world if someone was prescribed weight loss medication, they would have to have evidence of how they have been moving their bodies to get the next dose. This way they must put in the work that will keep them healthy and the weight off when they stop.