GLP-1s

Anything But Mid is hosted by Amy Edwards and Whitney Stropp. Neither host is a doctor and nothing here is medical advice. Lightly cleaned for readability.

Whitney: I'm Whitney.

Amy: I'm Amy, and this is midlife, but you're anything but mid.

Whitney: That was off my timeline.

Amy: Perfect.

Whitney: All right. Did you have a mid moment?

Amy: I just didn't sleep good last night. So annoying. It feels like such a getting older type thing, because I'm such a good sleeper. And then, like, I don't know, and and I've been falling asleep reading and then

Whitney: Oh, that is such an old person.

Amy: And then and then I'll wake up to turn my lights out, and then I can't get back to sleep. Super annoying.

Whitney: Oh, that's so annoying.

Amy: That's a I think that's a mid moment.

Whitney: My mid moment is that, you know, I'm taking minoxidil, which is great, cuz it makes my hair grow. But then I have gray hair, and I will color my hair and a week and a half later it has to be colored again.

Amy: Ah.

Whitney: Because the grays are just

Amy: Oh, cuz it's growing so fast.

Whitney: Cuz it's growing so fast, which is good,

Amy: Oh, that's good.

Whitney: but it's a mid moment because I have to take the hair stuff, and then I have gray. And so, and then I'm constantly battling when do I color it? Should I color it?

Amy: I just read that you should use Just For Men, because like,

Whitney: they don't have my hair color in Just For Men.

Amy: They don't?

Whitney: No.

Amy: Surely they have gingers.

Whitney: I'll look.

Amy: Bummer.

Whitney: But why why do you say that, because it

Amy: Apparently, it's cheaper and

Whitney: Oh, everything is cheaper in Yes. Razors, if it's pink, they charge you a premium extra two dollars.

Amy: The pink premium.

Whitney: Stupid.

Amy: Yeah. It's bullshit. It is bullshit.

Whitney: All right.

Amy: Well, I was gonna tell you something else, but I forgot.

Whitney: There's another mid moment. All right, we're gonna get straight into it, because I gotta take a kid to the doctor.

Amy: Yeah, you do.

Whitney: GLP-1s, we have when I think we might do more on our own, it's probably going to come up as we're talking about this, but I just wanted to kind of give an overview of the GLP-1s. I have tried them all. And

Amy: What is them all?

Whitney: Well, there's three main Well, there's two main ones, and then there's a third one.

Amy: Semaglutide and tirzepatide, correct?

Whitney: Tirzepatide, and then the other one is I can never remember how to pronounce it, retatrutide.

Amy: Ratatouille?

Whitney: Retatutride.

Amy: Let me see it.

Whitney: Retatrutide. Reta-tru-tide.

Amy: Okay. Where is it?

Whitney: Right there.

Amy: Oh, retatrutide. Okay.

Whitney: That's what I All right. Great. So anyway,

Amy: Retatrutide.

Whitney: I have never had a real weight issue. I I've pretty much been the same size, and a lot and it's genetically, like, you know, my body just knows how to metabolize, which I've been very grateful for. But when I hit menopause, and you hear about this a lot, you get a belly. You will get, you know, just a belly out of nowhere, and it is due to menopause and hormonal changes. I feel like I woke up one day, and I had 5 lb around my middle. Now would anyone else notice it? Not unless I was wearing, you know, something super tight, which obviously in those moments, I wouldn't. But I could feel it when I would lay down to go to bed on my side, it make it was uncomfortable for me. So a lot of my friends who are way more than me will roll their eyes, you know, oh, 5 lb, whatever. But on my body, it's uncomfortable. So I started looking for

Amy: You're pretty small, too. Like, how tall are you?

Whitney: I'm 5'5". I'm above average.

Amy: Oh, okay. Okay. Thought you were 5'4".

Whitney: But sometimes my personality is petite. Anyway, so my sister had been good friends with a guy in the health industry, and was just like, you know, in the biohacking world and all of that, and she was already using tirzepatide. And this is being

Amy: Tir- tirzepatide.

Whitney: Tirzep- Yeah. What? I like to say tri, but it

Amy: It's tirzepatide.

Whitney: Tirzepatide. You're right. Okay. Anyhoo, so I got some from him, and this is before it got taken over and became Ozempic and Wegovy, right?

Amy: Okay.

Whitney: This is on just you could buy it online, and you mix it up yourself, and you shoot it in, and it's great. So anyway, that was how I started this journey, and it worked. It worked great. And then Big Pharma came in, and they made it more difficult to get on your own. And now everything's questionable. But the new thing that you can get on your own, because it's still in clinical studies trials, is the retatrutide.

Amy: I haven't even heard of that.

Whitney: All right, so I'm gonna go into all of them.

Amy: Okay, great.

Whitney: All right, well, first of all,

Amy: I've taken all of them, too, so I will interject. Not all of them, not the ratatouille, but

Whitney: Oh, have you done the retatrutide?

Amy: the the other two I've taken.

Whitney: All right, well, first of all, GLP-1, it stands for glucagon-like peptide 1. It's a natural hormone produced in your gut whenever you eat, and it does three main things: signals your pancreas to release insulin, which lowers your blood sugar, slows down gastric emptying, so food leaves your stomach more gradually,

Amy: Boy, does it ever.

Whitney: and it communicates with the brain's hunger center to promote satiety, that feeling of being full and satisfied.

Amy: The best part. Reduces food noise, we call it.

Whitney: Yes, food noise. But the natural GLP-1 in your body, it breaks down quickly, within minutes. That's where the research came in. They started thinking, "How can we create something similar Like extend it. that will make it last longer?" Yes, so

Amy: Okay. Okay, cool.

Whitney: so they mimic These GLP-1s mimic an intestinal hormone that signals fullness to the brain, slows digestion, regulates blood sugar, and cuts down on the food noise. So generation one brought us semaglutide, known now by the brand Ozempic. And it started for type 2 diabetes.

Amy: And remember, this is all subject to error. This is our own research. We're not doctors. We're not scientists, so.

Whitney: That's right.

Amy: Yeah, disclaimer. Okay, so

Whitney: Yes, correct. All right. Semaglutide focuses exclusively on the single GLP-1 receptor target. All right? So it's only one it's only targeting one thing, and it roughly in the studies people averaged 15% of their body weight. They lost 15% of their body weight over 68 weeks.

Amy: How much of that was muscle?

Whitney: It does not say.

Amy: Are we not going to talk about that?

Whitney: No, that is a that is an issue. When you and and it's an issue with anything. When you lose weight, your body will start to eat its own muscle to keep you

Amy: I know. Look, it's It's a danger with these, like you got to watch out for that. So, are we going to look with each one, talk about our own experience with it?

Whitney: Yeah, sure. Go ahead.

Amy: Oh, okay, great. Yeah, so I did have a weight issue when I was

Whitney: After baby was born or something?

Amy: Well, that's a whole That's a whole other chapter of my life. That was so long ago. No, after Justin went to rehab and stuff, right? I was like when he was in when he was like in addiction and stuff.

Whitney: That's a whole other thing. Yeah. Yes.

Amy: This is my now husband.

Amy: I was eating to cope, and I would snack and stuff. And so, I gained 50 lb.

Whitney: 5-0?

Amy: Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So, cuz

Whitney: That is crazy, because I didn't ever see that.

Amy: I carry it really well. I don't know, I'm tall. I'm 5'8", and I I can just disperse it, so like I It wasn't that noticeable, and it was pretty gradual.

Whitney: You brought the focus to your boobs, and nobody noticed anything else.

Amy: It's all about the titties. So, yeah, cuz we met in 2018-ish, something like that. And then in

Whitney: Yeah. Yep. Then the pandemic hit.

Amy: the pandemic hit, and that was I was really fit during the pandemic. I took great care of myself. And then I met Justin, and I started to I didn't have my workout routine anymore, because I was with someone.

Whitney: Yeah, you really were. Right.

Amy: And then I just I started eating to cope. And so, within a couple years, by 2022, I gained 2023, I gained 50 lb. So, I went from 135 to about 185 at my max.

Whitney: Okay, wow. Yeah.

Amy: And so, like, I was miserable. None of my clothes fit. I didn't feel good. And so, I tried semaglutide. It made me so sick. Like, I felt nauseous all the time, and I've heard it's something you have to push through, but I felt I felt like I had fucking COVID all the time. I felt so bad.

Whitney: Yeah. Your dose was probably too high.

Amy: I guess so, and I didn't know. And so, I stopped, but because I was so sick, I did lose about 10 lb. So, and I was working on it at that time, too, so I probably got down to around 170. So, I still was like too high.

Whitney: And where did you get it? Did you get it from Ways2Well? So you got it through a doctor.

Amy: I got it from Ways2Well, that's right. It was a compounded pharmacy, my health practitioner with Ways2Well. So, I did that, and then, and then I stopped, because I didn't know what to do. So, I stopped for about a year, and so then we're like to 2024, and I'm maybe high 160s at this point, and I'm like struggling with it. And it was really bothering me. And so, but also, my nervous system hadn't really settled, and I was still had high cortisol from Justin's just, you know, recovery journey. So then he's pretty settled. I knew he was settled, and I said yes to getting married. That was December 2023, and then it all started to kind of work together, and I was like, "Uh, the weight started like my cortisol level went down, my nervous system started to go down, which is so crucial. And so then then my like my practitioner was like, "Do you want to try tirzepatide?" And I was like, "Yes." So midway through 2024, I was like, "Yes, I want to do that, cuz we're going to get married next year. I got to I got to get this I want to fit in my fucking clothes." I still hadn't fit in my clothes.

Whitney: And by the way, you were eating right. I mean, like now you're eating right, and you worked out.

Amy: Yes, but I'd fallen off my We had moved into this house, and I didn't walk like I did.

Whitney: Some of this is just I guess I just want people to know this isn't Yes, it's a quick fix, but it's not that you were not doing the other things as well, like

Amy: I wasn't doing them as well as I had. I wasn't as dedicated, but at the same time, when I'd fallen off before in my life, I didn't have this result. So, it was like a product of age, it was stress, like cortisol, it was all sorts of things.

Whitney: Right. Okay, well, get ready, cuz you're not truly in menopause yet, and then you might have to, you might notice.

Amy: Yeah. No, I'm still doing tirzepatide. I'll take breaks. So, we're not to tirzepatide yet. So I now we're caught up to me and my I'll have my experience there.

Whitney: All right. So, I I've done semaglutide recently because I I now am scared of and I've got I'm looking at the time, so. I am now scared of the black market, or the gray market, or whatever. You don't know what you're getting if you just order it online, and my boyfriend is trying it.

Amy: Mhm. I do it through a compounding pharmacy, yeah.

Whitney: Yeah. My boyfriend is trying it, so I'm taking a little bit of his, because no one will give it to me.

Amy: Semaglutide or

Whitney: Yeah, semaglutide.

Amy: What?

Whitney: Yeah.

Amy: No one will give it to you?

Whitney: No, because I'm thin.

Amy: Oh. Oh, right. Okay.

Whitney: No one will give it to me. I tried to go on Hers, and I was honest, and I'm like, "I want to lose 5 lb. This is what I weigh. This is" And they were like, "Nope."

Amy: Yeah, you need to work with somebody who will give it to you, who understands that people are starting to microdose these things, and there's other health benefits. So, like a really small microdose. I mean, I prefer tirzepatide, because semaglutide made me so sick. But yeah. Okay.

Whitney: I need to do like Ways2Well. Or Savage Bites. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Amy: So let's keep going.

Whitney: All right, so we're going to to tirzepatide, which is generation two. So it's now Mounjaro or Zepbound.

Amy: Yeah. Mounjaro or Zepbound.

Whitney: But tirzepatide is a dual agonist. It targets the GLP-1, but it also engages a second gut hormone called GIP, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide.

Amy: That's a mouthful.

Whitney: Right? And the reason you add they added that to the mix is because the GIP works with the GLP-1, and together they enhance insulin sensitivity,

Amy: Love it.

Whitney: improve lipid metabolism, and help reduce food cravings even more effectively. So, in those trials, tirzepatide yielded average weight loss around 20 to 22%. Now, I did best on tirzepatide.

Amy: Me too.

Whitney: It it just worked well with my body. I didn't really have Look, on semaglutide, you can have some gut issues, meaning you can't get off the toilet.

Amy: I was so fucking sick. I was so sick in every way.

Whitney: Yeah. I had a lot of explosive diarrhea.

Amy: I felt nauseous, I had diarrhea, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Whitney: But other people get constipated. Look, if you think about it, it all depends on your own body. It's trying to slow down your digestive system. So, depending on your body, it might resist and everything comes shooting out, or it may actually slow it down too much. So, just be prepared. You're you know, this isn't a walk in the park.

Amy: Right. Right. No, it's you know, it's not for the faint of heart, for sure.

Whitney: Until you get used to it. Yeah.

Amy: Tirzepatide, so then I started tirzepatide, and things just got so much better. It reduced it it changed what I wanted to eat. Like it took out my snackies. Like it removed it, cuz I'm a snacker. I love it.

Whitney: It does, it does something in the brain that

Amy: It does. And I was just

Whitney: turns off that that that food thought. And actually, I think there are studies now they're looking on it for addiction.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think so.

Whitney: Because it does something and I I didn't do a lot of research on that part of it, but it does something.

Amy: Yeah. So it helped me trim down a ton. I probably got a little too thin, cuz I got down in the low 130s. So I dropped a good 20, 25 lb, and then I was able to work out better, my clothes fit, I just felt better in general. So that would have been the la like into 2025, and then Justin started to get like concerned. He was reading things where maybe you're going to cover this, where it can People can have problems where it makes their stomach stop working. So I think that you've got to be really careful. So he wanted me to back off.

Whitney: Well, look at Sharon Osbourne. She did this, and now she's not doing anything more, but her body can no longer keep on the weight. Like she's never hungry, she Yeah.

Amy: Really? Oh, my god.

Whitney: Have you seen her?

Amy: Well, I've seen Kelly. They both They both are very, very thin. Yes.

Whitney: Well, I mean, now that Oz is Yeah. Yes, but she she has claimed that she doesn't do those shots anymore and that now her body has just can't keep weight on.

Amy: Wow. Woah.

Whitney: So

Amy: So, yeah, so well, for me, now I'm microdosing it, and sometimes I'll take a few weeks off or something like that. And so, I just do it really little, because I know there's other health benefits and it's good for you. So, but sometimes if I take too much, like .2, then it'll or 2.0, whatever it is, however it's measured, I'll like or 20, whatever it's called, I'll I can tell I'm not digesting fast enough.

Whitney: I I agree. I feel the same. It's like I don't want to And microdosing is what I do as well, which for those of you, normally my weight my good weight is 120.

Amy: And I don't like that feeling.

Whitney: It's gross. When I went through menopause, it jumped up to about 125, 128, depending on the day that I would weigh myself. And when I first started using tirzepatide, I got too low, and I went down to 114. And but then my mom was like, "You don't even have a butt anymore," which I love my butt, so I was like, "What am I doing?" And then I went off of it once all Big Pharma came in and you couldn't get it easily anymore. I went off of it for a while. Then

Amy: Mhm. Yeah.

Whitney: I got back on it, because I was like, I need something to help me maintain it, because naturally now

Amy: It's wanting to go up a little bit.

Whitney: it wants to go up to like 128. And I'm working out, and I don't eat a lot. I'm not doing anything crazy. It's just hormonally things are different, and I don't And some people would say to me, "Who cares? I mean, when are you going to stop? Like who cares? It's 8 lb." I don't feel comfortable in my own body. It I It's uncomfortable to sleep with that pooch, you know, for me. So, yeah, if it was distributed all over and I had bigger boobs, you know, and a little more butt, but it was all centered in my belly, and it's not comfortable for me. So that's when my sister was like, "Try this retatrutide." And let me tell you about the retatrutide.

Amy: So when did you start trying this?

Whitney: I tried it last year

Amy: Oh, okay.

Whitney: in the summertime, and I'm going to tell you what happened to me. But let me tell you about Retra True to Guide. Retatrutide.

Amy: Mhm. Okay. We we understand.

Whitney: Yes. All right, it now they in phase three, they have now done this. It's still in the testing phases. You're not really Nobody's prescribing it, but you can get it on the black market. But it has

Amy: What's the black market?

Whitney: Well, I mean, it's not the black market. You go to those peptide websites, and they're selling it. But nothing's regulated.

Amy: Oh, okay. Okay. I've never gone to these peptide websites. It's so funny to hear you. You just go this rogue Wild West, shooting from the hip.

Whitney: So you don't I used to do it Well, I go with where where where my my sister's friend had said, "This is legit, use these people." But once And they've been legit forever. But once the pharmaceutical companies came in, I don't really know all the ins and outs of what happened, but those companies either went out of business or other things popped up that now you don't know what's legit and what's not. Like it's just it's changed. The the scene has changed.

Amy: Mhm. Okay.

Whitney: So now the retatrutide has three agonists in it, all right? And and they've got the GLP-1, managing the insulin, GIP boosting metabolic

Amy: Metabolic.

Whitney: Thank you. response and fat handling, and now glucagon.

Amy: Glucagon, I've heard that.

Whitney: acts on the liver to increase energy expenditure and help burn stored liver fat.

Amy: Okay, interesting.

Whitney: So in the phase three clinical trials, retatrutide showed a body weight reduction averaging 25 to 30%. So it's over 80 weeks.

Amy: Wow. Did it make you sick at all?

Whitney: Here's what happened to me, and I did not put it together right away until I started talking to my sisters, who were actually were using it as well. I got super tired, and I had gone to a friend's wedding last summer, and I had to take a nap in the middle of the day. And that is not me. Like, my anxiety won't allow me even if I'm tired to take a nap. And

Amy: Weird.

Whitney: and the other thing is my skin was crawling. My clothes hurt me.

Amy: Oh, that happened to me with semaglutide.

Whitney: Yes, it's a nerve thing. It's a nerve thing. So so

Amy: Yeah. Mhm. Oh, that's a no for me.

Whitney: I couldn't handle it, and I didn't put it together. I thought I'm coming down with something. At my friend's wedding, I was like, "I'm think I'm getting the flu or something." And then it kind of went away, and then I did another shot, and and it was back. And I And then I asked my sisters, I'm like, "Are you guys having this issue?" One sister had no side effects. My other sister was getting the skin crawling. I couldn't do it. But apparently, that goes away if you can push through it.

Amy: Right, you think you're sick. Mhm. Push through? No, fuck that.

Whitney: I couldn't do it.

Amy: With semaglutide, it wasn't worth it to push through for me. That's how bad Like, I felt like I forgot about my skin. My fucking skin hurt.

Whitney: No. Oh, the skin crawling. It was the strangest feeling. Yeah, your clothes hurt.

Amy: It's miserable.

Whitney: So that's retatrutide. It's not on the market yet. It's not yet FDA approved, but this is this is going to be the next step, because now it's hitting hitting your body in three different ways. Interesting. Okay, so we talked a little bit about the side effects. Here are some interesting side effects that I didn't really My sister jokes about it and says she's blind now. There is a situation where you could truly damage your eye.

Amy: What?

Whitney: Yes. In extremely rare causes, optic nerve issues have been reported requiring immediate medical evaluation of sudden vision or loss. And it's irreparable. Like once it's gone, it's gone. Most people will notice a temporary blurry vision or flare-ups

Amy: Oh my god. Oh, that's horrible. Oh my god.

Whitney: because your body's just getting used to it.

Amy: Weird.

Whitney: But my sister claims she's blind Both my sisters are like, "We're blind as bats now. We can't see a thing."

Amy: Because of this?

Whitney: Yes. So that is something to be aware of and watch out for. The other things that of course this makes sense, when you're slowing down your digestion, that means anything you're digestion digesting slows down, your supplements,

Amy: Oh, shit.

Whitney: your hormones,

Amy: Oh, no.

Whitney: all of those things. Anything you're ingesting,

Amy: Oh, dear. I don't like that.

Whitney: so your medications.

Amy: Oh, no.

Whitney: So you need to consider that. If you take a slow-acting ADHD medication, it's going to be even slower-acting. If you want If you try to take a fast-acting something, everything's slowing down. So you have to take that into consideration. And one of the ways that it's showing up the most is they're calling it the Ozempic baby effect. Your birth control pills are being impacted, and it's boosting fertility because your ovulation is impacted

Amy: What?

Whitney: in some way. Isn't that crazy? So, you just need to be aware of those things.

Amy: That's weight gain you don't want.

Whitney: No. Well, maybe you do. Maybe you do. I don't know.

Amy: Yeah, not if you're on birth control.

Whitney: But that I thought that was so interesting. I I hadn't thought of it like that. If it's slowing down your food digestion, then of course it's also slowing down your medication digestion.

Amy: Definitely a case to take it on an empty stomach, too.

Whitney: Yeah, so you need to talk to your

Amy: Which your stomach gets empty slower, so

Whitney: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Amy: Shit.

Whitney: There's just weird things to think of and talk to your doctor about. Also, your blood pressure medication, like you might not need as much because you're on the GLP-1s. They're they're changing your your, you know, the way your body is reacting to things. So anyway,

Amy: Wow. Wow. So interesting.

Whitney: it's very, very interesting. I am now, like I said, on the semaglutide only because Ryan is trying it out, and he's getting it, and not using it all. If I weren't on that, I I would have to I don't know what I would do, cuz no one will give it to me.

Amy: Weird.

Whitney: But I really like tirzepatide the best. That's my favorite.

Amy: I think they will give it to you. You just got to go through the right channels.

Whitney: I got to go to a Saving Face, a Ways2Well, more of a function health doctor. They know that there's more to it than just

Amy: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Whitney: a, you know, weight loss. And I'm not going to They would be monitoring it, so I'm not going to get down to 100 lb.

Amy: Right. Oh, you'll be fine. And and like people that are microdosing it, too, it's not like I'm taking much, you know.

Whitney: But you do have to be very careful about You have to weight train when you're on it. You have to get your muscles strong and continue to work on them, because your body will naturally just go in there and eat them up.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah, good good. Very good point, and you should just do that anyway, cuz it's so good for you.

Whitney: Yeah. That's right.

Amy: So for me, it was definitely a thing that helped me get more on the right track. Like it helped me

Whitney: It's a mindset, like we always say.

Amy: Big time. It helped me live healthier, and I was like so grateful for that. So, no shame.

Whitney: And by the way, I do what I want. I know my body. Maybe you don't think I need it, because I only gained 5 lb, but it's none of your damn business.

Amy: Yeah, it's not. It's nobody's business. No shame.

Whitney: And don't shame. And don't shame. That I feel like a lot of people are on it, and they keep it quiet,

Amy: No. They do.

Whitney: because people are so judgmental about, "Well, why don't you just work out?" Guess what, bitch? I'm doing both. Stay out of my backyard. Anyway, on that note, thanks for listening.

Amy: Keep doing what you want.

Whitney: That's right.

Amy: See you later.

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