Fatigue with Wegovy, Ozempic, and Saxenda

hey you cool cats welcome back to the program I know I've been M. I. A for like the last month but I do have some very good excuses and they include coming down with kovid which then developed into a cold which then developed into a sinusitis on top of all of that I quit my nice cushy guaranteed income of a day job and like any good Millennial that doesn't quite know what to do with their life and kind of had a mini freak out and breakdown I definitely procrastinated a little bit and finally as you can see not only while I was sick but also procrastinating I bought a whole pile of crap and decided to redesign my entire office so we got some sound panels in the back to hopefully improve your experience we got some lights I went to the Calgary Stampede here in Calgary Alberta it's a big old celebration and all that kind of crap and I want old psychedelic Scooby over here but we rearranged everything pretty much in my life to start a a new beginning and to bring you the most awesomest content on the internet at least that's what I continue to tell myself nonetheless I am back we are back on track and I am excited for today's episode where we're going to talk about ozampic saxenda wagovi and the fatigue that can sometimes be associated with these weight loss medications but before we jump in and for those of you that might be brand new here my name is DrDan I am a pharmacist turned obesity expert and I need you to hit the Subscribe button down below so that a you don't miss another episode as soon as they come out you will be notified as well you know you're going to help to pump up my self-esteem and make me feel real good about myself and that you know all these changes I did were well worth it so let's jump into it fatigue with the glp-1 receptor agonists such as sexenda will Govi andozampic now this isn't like the hair loss side effect where it seems to be kind of something that's coming out in the post marketing and really wasn't identified in the actual clinical trials that got these drugs to Market themselves fatigue was definitely noted as a more common side effect along with the GI side effects such as nausea vomiting and that sort of thing and in particular this was definitely a side effect that was noted with what Google movie which if you remember is ozampic just add a higher dose of 2.

4 milligrams once per week but before we get too much further let's actually Define what we mean by fatigue as per the Mayo Clinic fatigue is defined as an unrelenting exhaustion that isn't relieved by rest it is a constant state of weariness that reduces your motivation concentration and basically your will to live and it can't have quite an effect on your psychological and emotional well-being now don't worry you're not alone if you also thought that is like my normal day-to-day existence because I I definitely felt that as well but that is ultimately a different topic for a different day today we're going to talk about it in relation to the glp-1 receptor agonists now from a pharmacological perspective there is no mechanism at least no mechanism that were aware of where we can say that the glp-1 receptor agonists bind to X receptor and that ultimately leads to tiredness and fatigue a lot of you might be saying well what about the fact that it reduces blood sugar levels which you are very correct in saying and in fact having blood sugar levels that are too low or something that we call hypoglycemia certainly that can lead to fatigue the only problem with this theory is that the mechanism by which the glp-1 receptor agonists reduce your blood sugar levels ultimately shuts off when your blood sugar levels are within a normal range so these molecules should never drop your blood sugar levels too low ultimately leading to fatigue unless there is some extenuating circumstance such as you're taking other medications you're not eating enough or not eating at all you've developed the flu or some stomach bug and you're vomiting and that sort of thing let me preface this in saying that it is entirely possible that there is some mechanism by which the glp-1 receptor Agonist can cause fatigue maybe there's another mechanism or something in that respect of things and we just haven't discovered it yet however it is very unlikely the much more common reason for these medications to be causing fatigue is actually more because people are not eating enough food when they're taking these medications and yes you definitely heard that right food is fuel we aren't lucky enough to be like plants where we can just sit out in the sun suck up some CO2 and Bam we are good for the day although a few delusional internet influencers will tell you otherwise that's going towards the breatharians and various people like that that is just not the case you cannot indeed just live off of the Sun in fact you will you will develop skin cancer yeah okay we need to eat food that is how our body ultimately fuels itself and moves us and allows us to do the day-to-day things that we ultimately need to do without it our body is going to become fatigued and start to slow down further your body will actually adapt in order to slow down your metabolism to conserve as much energy or fat tissue as possible because it's going to be thinking hey we are going through this famine or there isn't a lot of food around so we need to reduce how much we're actually burning and we do that by reducing how much you burn by just existing but also by getting you to slow down and move less and guess what that is all going to hinder your weight loss efforts and I mean do you ask your car to run without gas like hey Carr I want you to run and drive without me putting any fuel in you trust me I've I've tried to do that now that I've quit my day job and the astronomical prices we're paying for gas it didn't work so why the hell would we just ask our body to ultimately do that I'm sure a number of you are saying but Dan I have all of this fuel in the form of fat on my body hence why I'm on your website and looking to probably manage and lose weight why doesn't my body just run on that fuel and we're good to go unfortunately our bodies need a lot more than just fat as an energy source in order to run there are a multitude of vitamins minerals amino acids and other molecules that we need to take in from our food every single day because our bodies simply can't synthesize it from the fat that we have stored on our bodies and I once again hate to burst your bubble but consuming 800 1200 even 1500 calories in a day you likely are still not getting the ideal amount of nutrients for your body to properly function and keep you moving and keep the proverbial lights of everything on and if you've been following me for a while you will know that these these weight loss medications don't really do anything special in terms of our metabolism and helping us to lose weight the way that they work is that they help to reduce our food seeking behaviors so we're likely going to eat less because we're not going out and seeking food as intensively as we were previously eating and seeking less food ultimately allows us to get into a calorie deficit and with the calorie deficit we can then lose weight now for most people it is very effective at doing this and if we couple this with the whole mentality of chronic dieting and always and spending your entire life wanting to be in a smaller body suddenly your ability or you're wanting to eat as little as possible becomes a hell of a lot easier with these medications on board so you might be losing weight and hell you might even be losing weight very quickly but what is the ultimate cost that is coming with that great we're not eating anything we lost 100 pounds fantastic awesome but hey I'm too tired to do anything now by no means am I saying these drugs are a bad thing we just need to use them in an appropriate fashion to make sure that we're monitoring how much food an individual is taking in to ensure that they're getting an optimal level of nutrition and we're not leading things like malnutrition while also taking into account that hey we're trying to create a calorie deficit so we're trying to find this balance of losing weight in a healthy Manner and in fact in my clinical experience when I work with people and I actually bring their calories up I bring their protein intake up to an actual appropriate level and help them to properly nourish their body not only do they get to continue losing weight they're doing it in a much more sustainable manner we actually correct a lot of these side effects that they are experiencing so they no longer get the side effects they're managing their weight in a much more effective and long-term sustainable way yeah they're not losing weight as quickly but they're properly nourishing their body and they're achieving Health which is ultimately the goal we're going for here what's the point in losing weight if you're going to feel like crap and all your hair is going to fall out now I know a whole bunch of you are going to either jump in the comments here or you're going to send me an email or send me a message or what have you so I'm going to do a really quick overview in order to determine how many calories you should be eating I need to do a whole separate video on this entire topic and stuff like that and provide you some other resources again I've been procrastinating the last month I now have a lot more time that will be coming down the pipeline I assure you but today we'll do a quick overview number one we need to figure out what is your goal body weight so what is the body weight that you want to work towards or a goal body weight might be the weight that you've achieved in the past and you think you can maintain into the long term so let's say your current body weight might be 300 pounds but your goal body weight is ultimately 200 pounds what we then do to determine your calorie intake is we take your goal body weight in pounds not Stones not kilos in pounds and you times it by 12. that will be your calorie intake we then take your gold body weight and we times it by one and that gives us a rough protein intake that we should be aiming for on a daily basis so as a quick example here if your goal body weight is 200 pounds you take 200 you times it by 12 that equals 2400 calories protein intake 200 times by one that gives you 200 grams of protein so a person whose goal body weight is 200 pounds they should be aiming to consume about 2400 calories per day and about 200 grams of protein which is a more optimal amount to not only help sustain muscle mass but to also help with satiety and all the other wonderful things that we're looking for when it comes to managing weight and yes this calorie amount and this protein account are probably way more than what you're actually eating right now but yes you can still lose weight at that amount if you're consistent with it you see so many people they eat at 1200 calories Monday through Friday or for a couple of weeks at a time or what have you and they're very diligent about it but eventually biology and everything starts to kick in and override the medication included and they end up binging and way over consuming blowing any kind of calorie deficit they ultimately created a much more sustainable way to lose and manage your weight is to have a calorie amount that you can actually survive on that your body can actually properly function and get an optimal amount of nutrients so that yeah you're not going to have as much rebound binges you're going to have better workouts and activity sessions all of these wonderful things are going to come from it and you're going to be able to be a lot more consistent with your calories on a more regular basis which will ultimately lead to much more sustainable lifestyle and of course on top of all of this you want to add in some resistance training you want to be getting your mental health worked on you want to do all the things that you're supposed to do because that is an all-encompassing thing that ultimately is going to lead to your healthiest and happiest lifestyle now the above calculations are just an estimation that is all they are but they give you a starting point to ultimately work your way up towards and if you start working on it consistently you can make the modifications and tweaks and changes that are going to be most ideal for your body your body weight and your situation and ultimately move you towards your goals and helping with these medications and best of all manage your fatigue and hey of course if you need some additional help you know where to find me my website is healthyvault.