Alongside a GLP-1
Nobody explains the lifting and eating part.
Your prescriber is right that strength work and protein matter. Knowing that and doing it inside an actual week are different problems. The second one is mine.
Book the free conversation Twenty five minutes, no card. I am not a prescriber and I work alongside whoever wrote yours
The evidence
Some of what comes off is muscle.
Across the trials, roughly a quarter to a third of the weight lost on these medications is lean tissue rather than fat. The researchers are careful about that and so am I. It is a similar share to other ways of losing weight, it is not unique to the drugs, and measured physical performance is generally maintained.
The finding worth your attention is the other one. In the same review, fewer than half the people taking these medications were reaching even the minimum recommended protein intake. Appetite suppression is the point of the drug. It is also what makes eating enough genuinely hard, and there is no prescription for that part.
Rossi and colleagues, Muscle loss and GLP-1R agonists use, Acta Diabetologica, 2025. Across the trials reviewed, roughly 25 to 30 percent of the weight lost was lean tissue, and 43 percent of participants reached the minimum recommended intake of 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram a day.
Three things
Three things, and none of them need a gym.
Same as everything else I write. What to try, how you will know, and permission to drop it.
Protein at the meal you still want
Work with the appetite you have left, not the one you used to have. Put the protein at the start of whichever meal you are most likely to actually finish, which for most people is earlier in the day. One palm of it, first, before anything else on the plate.
You will know inside a week whether it holds
Two sessions, heavier than feels sensible
Resistance work is the thing the research keeps pointing at. Two full body sessions a week. Six to ten hard repetitions rather than twenty easy ones. If you could have done fifteen, it was too light. Bands and bodyweight count while you build up to more.
Judge this at four weeks, not four days
A plan for the week after a dose goes up
This is the week people quietly stop, and then do not start again. Expect it to be rough and decide now what the smallest version looks like. Keep the two sessions and make them shorter. Drop to your floor rather than to nothing.
Coming back inside a week is the whole thing
Questions
Everything else, open the ones that are yours.
What will you not do?
I am a health coach, not a clinician, and on this in particular the line matters more than the credentials do.
- Medication, in any directionI do not prescribe, adjust, pause or advise on it, and I will not offer an opinion on your dose. That is between you and whoever wrote it.
- Protein targets, if somebody else set themIf your prescriber or a dietitian has given you targets, we work to those. I do not set them and I do not overrule them.
- Eating that has stopped being about appetiteThat is a registered dietitian or a therapist rather than a coach, and I will say so rather than keep you.
- Any claim that coaching preserves your muscleResistance training and adequate protein are what the research recommends. What I do is make those two things happen inside your week.
The whole boundary is on the scope of practice page.
What does it cost?
$299 every four weeks, which is the same price anybody pays. Billing is every four weeks, so thirteen payments in a calendar year rather than twelve, and nothing is charged until after a free conversation. You can stop after any one of those four week cycles with a single message, and there is no notice period.
- A wellness vision conversation, before a single exerciseSixty minutes, at the outset
- Live coaching calls, twenty five minutesFour in cycle one, then two in every cycle after
- A recorded review of your week, from meMost weeks
- Programming rewritten as the dose and the appetite changeNo charge, ever
- Messages answered by me, not a teamInside a working day
I prescribe these. Can I send people here?
Yes, and there is no fee to you, no referral arrangement of any kind, and nothing comes back to you about your patient unless they ask me to send it.
Wellcoaches Certified Health Coach, Lifestyle Medicine Coach Certificate from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Pain Free Performance Specialist, and Functional Breathing Instructor with Oxygen Advantage, in progress. I am preparing for the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching exam and do not hold it. Insured through Hiscox at $1,000,000 per occurrence.
I am glad to send a certificate, a scope of practice summary, or a sample of what a patient receives.
Where to start
Three of the six ways in cost nothing.
If you are not ready for a conversation, take the six emails instead. One a week on sleep, breathing and recovery, each one small enough to do in the week you get it, and it stops after six.
Send me the first one Six emails, then it stops
Every way in, and what each one costs
Start
The work is the same work, pointed at what you are actually dealing with.
There is no medication surcharge and no separate program. One price, and a free conversation before any of it.
Book the free conversation Or write to me · ian@elevatewellbeing.coach
Elevate Wellbeing is a trading name of Elevate Health & Fitness LLC, Portland, Oregon · Insured through Hiscox, $1,000,000 per occurrence