Podcast 548: The Impact of Ozempic on Muscle and Metabolism

SCOTT: What if losing 50 pounds actually left you with a slower metabolism than when you started? In other words, you're going to be blowing up if you haven't changed your lifestyle after you lost that weight. We're going to be delving into that, Ozempic, and GLP-1, whatever that is, right after this.

Welcome everybody. This is the Life Enthusiast Health Shots podcast. Restoring vitality to you and the planet. I'm your co-host Scott Paton. Joining us as usual, health engineer Martin Pytela. Hey Martin, how are you doing today?

MARTIN: Flashy. Doing good.

SCOTT: Good. Good. I'm doing good too. I'm really happy to be alive. We're recording, we're live on August 12th, 2026. I happen to be in the country of Colombia, in the city of Medellín, and we had a 7.4 earthquake about 300 miles south of us, which resulted in over 250 deaths, and 2700 people are missing, which by missing they mean they're under rubble somewhere. And so the death toll will no doubt increase, which is one of the things that we need to, I guess, be reminded of every once in a while, we're alive, we're breathing, we're healthy, we don't have a building on top of ourselves. Life is good for us.

MARTIN: Yeah. Life can be cut short very easily.

SCOTT: In seconds. And I'm in my apartment here, and it was shaking, and it felt like a big construction truck was on the road rumbling by, except that it was over a minute, which wasn’t the truck, and I'll tell you it freaked everybody out. Yeah. Hi George, welcome. When the body feels threatened, it jettisons that muscle mass. Yes.

MARTIN: That's an interesting point, George. Exactly. You know what happens? Your adrenals react, kick out cortisol, and cortisol says, "I need a lot of available energy." And that's glucose. And so if you have just eaten a donut, Cortisol is okay. But if you have not, then it says: “Just dump everything.” And it starts melting muscle in order to have available glucose. And then, as the danger was only imagined. You didn't actually jump up and run or bounce or kick or whatever. You just sat there holding the steering wheel in your hand. The next thing that happens is high glucose triggers insulin, and insulin triggers conversion of available energy right back into belly fat. So you are right. You're melting your muscle and trading it for belly fat. 

SCOTT: Do we ever do anything the right way? Well, you answer that question, we specialize in helping people escape the industrial food and drug trap by understanding your unique genetic blueprint, your metabolic type. And with that, you can turn chronic degenerative problems into restoration and pain-free living. And that is our message of hope. That is the good news. The gospel of Martin. We're going to be writing a new chapter in the Bible.

MARTIN: Oh boy. God. Just what we needed. Listening to some dude.

SCOTT: No pressure, Martin. No pressure.

MARTIN: Well, I could probably do the collective writings or the aphorisms; “You're digging your grave with your fork.”

SCOTT: That's right. That's right. Okay. So, let's talk a little bit about Ozempic. Why, first of all, why is it popular? I guess because people think it works.

MARTIN: It's a shortcut. Scott, the pharmaceutical industry has been selling you the easy button or the silver bullet, or this one thing you need to do and your problem is gone. That's the seduction of marketing, and it's the seduction of the medical industry, the pharmaceutical medical industry. Yeah.

SCOTT: And I would take it, I would add greed to that statement, and I would also take it as most of the medications that we have are based on, let's say, a molecule that is found in a plant, if I could,

MARTIN: Or in an animal. 

SCOTT: So they take that one molecule, and they turn it into a medicine. Whereas the plant has millions and zillions of molecules, and who knows what all those other ones do that might be beneficial- the synergy, right?

MARTIN: Yeah. That's the pharmaceutical mindset. It's called reductionism. And what they say is, what is the one thing that makes this thing go?

SCOTT: Yeah.

MARTIN: And in an automobile, for example, in the combustion engine, what is the one thing that makes it go? Okay, maybe it's the spark, and we start focusing on the spark plugs and the timing of the spark, and we will ignore the fuel.

SCOTT: Or you ignore the tires.

MARTIN: Oh yeah, like that.

SCOTT: Right. Right.

MARTIN: Mhm.

SCOTT: Okay. So people say I have Ozempic, and there's studies that show that your appetite is reduced; if you don't eat as much, you lose weight. You get weight loss. You get better blood sugar control. But there's a whole bunch of concerns that come along with this as well.

MARTIN: Well, it's a GLP-1 peptide. Okay, peptides are regulators. And this GLP-1 glucagon like peptide-1, is a thing that essentially tells your body that it's full and that it has plenty of energy and don't eat. And the one thing it does, it slows down the emptying of your stomach. 

SCOTT: So your tummy works slower.

MARTIN: Not tummy. Stomach.

SCOTT: Stomach. All right. I got to get the words right. The right words. Okay.

MARTIN: Well, really, anyway, so the main point is this. You eat something, and you feel full, and you feel full and full and full, and so you eat breakfast, and you're done for the day because you stay full. The problem is that it can actually give you paralysis of your stomach.

SCOTT: So, I'll get it right one of these days. It's only been 25 years.

MARTIN: But anyway. So, there you are with your paralyzed stomach, not able to digest anything.

SCOTT: And when you get off the medication, it's still paralyzed, right?

MARTIN: Oh, yeah.

SCOTT: Doesn't change. Okay, Martin, I want to bring up our infographic here that we made for everybody. Okay.

SCOTT: The Ozempic trap versus natural GLP activation. So what we have Ozempic, you said was a GLP-1 peptide, but it's not the same as the GLP-1 natural.

MARTIN: Well, it is the same. It's just that you get so much of it, and it's unnatural. It's like the normal dose that you can stimulate yourself by eating the right stuff will be something like 0.1 mg. And here you just whack yourself with 1.8 or 2.0. So 20 times the dose of what your body would produce. 

SCOTT: So it's like if you like tequila in Mexico and you had one teeny little shot, not necessarily a big problem, but if you drink five bottles, you have a big problem. And Ozempic is like drinking five bottles.

MARTIN: Yeah. This is the difference between Here's the scaling, right? One shot of tequila is good. 20 ounces of it is,

SCOTT: Not good.

MARTIN: Well, what shall we call it? Alcohol poisoning.

SCOTT: Poisoning. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, muscle weight loss. Sorry. 40% of weight loss is muscle. So, that's if you lose 50 pounds, 20 pounds of muscle gone, 30 pounds of fat, that's not good.

MARTIN: Well, so when you start getting on this drug, it will melt you away, right? And it's doing it the wrong way. So, yeah, you're,

SCOTT: Wrong way. Right.

MARTIN: If you are not exercising at the same time as taking this drug, you're going to experience a massive amount of muscle loss.

SCOTT: And the chances are, if you're overweight to begin with, you're probably not into exercising that much. And because it's, if you're 100 pounds overweight, then your knees are sore, your hips are sore, your back's sore, or you're sitting around all day and it's a lot easier to get a bunch of Doritos and watch Netflix than it is to go for an hour-long walk.

MARTIN: Yeah. All that.

SCOTT: All that. So, I think this is, I have a story to tell. Can I tell a story?

MARTIN: Tell a story.

SCOTT: I am in Colombia, as I said, and I have a belt, and normally the fourth notch from the thinnest spot is where I am at. And the last couple months, three months, I've been in Mexico and here, and I've been walking, and it's been warm. And doing a little bit of exercise, and I'm on my third notch. And to my shock and amazement, today when I notched up my belt, I said, I wonder if I can because it wasn't tight. It wasn't a third-notch tight, which I'm used to. It's a third notch. Oh, it's a third notch. So I went to the second notch, and it was like, wow, it's snug, but it wasn't like, I'm not strangling my tummy or anything.

MARTIN: Right.

SCOTT: So, I've noticed between walking, between the Life Enthusiast products that I'm taking, a little bit of Zeolite for detoxing, and then I'm walking. My goal is to, it's not a lot, it's two miles a day, and I'm doing that. And I went up, there's a rock not far from here, and it has 740 steps up to the top. And there's no elevator down. So if you go up, you have to come 740 steps down. And I was amazed because I've been worried about my knees and everything else. Went up, no problem. I had a few rest stops, took a look at the view, and smelled the roses, and it was really wonderful. So I really think that if you and I know that I've got 10, 20, 30 pounds more to go, but I think if you put yourself in a routine of exercise that causes you to sweat a little bit and of course I feel here I'm eating way better than I eat in Canada. In Canada, I'm surrounded by too many A&Ws, which I love: the teen burgers, onion rings, and root beer, and there's none here. So if I don't see it, I don't mind. Right. And then there's donuts and sweets and all the rest of it, and it's minus 30 degrees. I'm not nearly as active. So I think that if you just give yourself the right lifestyle, your body will help you move in the right direction, and you want the nutrition that you can get from Life Enthusiasts.

SCOTT: Okay. So this is the lifetime patient model, right?

MARTIN: Yep.

SCOTT: Put someone on Ozempic, lose a bunch of their muscle; now they become a lot weaker, now they break down easier, and you're getting $1,000 a month recurring revenue rather than curing root cause obesity.

MARTIN: Well, interestingly, Trump has scored against the drug companies, and he says: “You will have to sell a drug at the most favored nation price.” So if you sell it for 100 bucks anywhere on the planet, in the United States it's going to be 100 bucks. So the price of Ozempic has come down a lot, and it still does the same thing. It still causes you to ‘Get out of jail free card’ for free, right? So you can still eat against your endocrine dominance type. You can still be pretending that your food addiction is fine. You just don't get the consequences.

SCOTT: Right.

MARTIN: But there are unintended consequences, and they are in the middle of the white thing. The fat only rebounds. When you stop using this, you will be gaining fat, not muscle.

SCOTT: Yeah. Because your lifestyle is not one of exercise. People that take Ozempic don't go to the gym for two hours a day while they're taking it or after they take it, right? 

MARTIN: That's the main trouble, right? It's the easy button. I'll take Ozempic. I'll lose all the fat. I'll be skinny and whatever. Have you seen the photographs online of people with the Ozempic face?

SCOTT: No.

MARTIN: Yeah. Try a search online one day and search Ozempic face. You'll see, because what happens is you're losing fat everywhere, and of course normally you have fat in your face.

SCOTT: Right.

MARTIN: And all of a sudden you start looking sallow. With aging, you have two consequences, sagging and sinking. Sagging is the slackness of the connective tissue. Sinking is the loss of hydration and fat. 

SCOTT: Away you go.

MARTIN: There you go. Sagging.

SCOTT: So, let's take a look at the natural protocol. Activating your L cells. So, I don't know. What is an L cell?

MARTIN: L?

SCOTT: Yeah. The black part.

MARTIN: I don't know. I didn't put that thing up.

SCOTT: All right. So, we have protein, fiber, protein, and fiber.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SCOTT: And alternating bites of protein and fiber can reduce blood sugar spikes by 29 to 40%.

MARTIN: L cell. I don't know what L cells are. Interesting. What the heck? Well, I tell you what happens is you can stimulate the GLP naturally depending on your endocrine dominance. If you are the adrenal type, you can actually get it by eating all kinds of carby foods without a penalty. But if you're the thyroid type, you walk past the bakery door, and you gain half a pound just like that.

SCOTT: Yep. I smell at the bakery, and I go, "Oh, yeah." And then I got to let my belt out.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SCOTT: So, there are eight GLP-1 buttons.

MARTIN: All right.

SCOTT: So, you can activate these sensors using sauerkraut, garlic, onions, omega-3s, high-quality animal proteins.

MARTIN: Right. So, you're talking about essential fatty acids, especially omega-3s, microbial supplementation, with fermented foods, and sulfur-rich supplementation. You can go with MSM, but you can also go with onion, garlic, and whatever else is the sulfurous food. Probably all the cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, sui choy, all that.

SCOTT: Right. And we talk about this often, but weight training is so important. You want to build muscles because your muscles burn the fat, right?

MARTIN: Yeah. And they store the energy, and your resting metabolic rate goes up with muscle. Fat has no circulation. Muscle has constant circulation.

SCOTT: Yeah. So, preserving muscle should be a high priority. And I'll tell you, when you're young and you have lots of muscle, work really hard on preserving that muscle because when you get older and you try to build that muscle back, it's a long sorry process. I have a friend who was in his 20’s. He was one of the Chippendales. So, you know he was buff, right?

MARTIN: Yeah.

SCOTT: And so now he's in his 30s and he's giving me a hard time because I have a bit of a pot. And he's saying, "Yeah, man. I just go to the gym and well, I exercise and it just drops off like crazy." Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, wait till you're my age. Five years later, he says, "Yeah, man. I put on a little weight. I've been sloppy. I'm going to go to the gym." A month and a half later, he's whining to me because he can't get rid of the fat and he's not building his muscle as much. I say, "Yeah, like I've been telling you that for 5 years." You didn't believe me. So, take our advice, everybody. If you're working out, do everything you can to keep working out. And if you're not working out, start, because I'll tell you, it's so important to keep that muscle.

MARTIN: Yep. Absolutely. Resting metabolic rate and your ability to store energy. When you lose your muscle, you actually lose the reserve. For example, you want to go for a walk, a hike, something serious. Let's just say that you need 400 or 500 calories on that walk. Well, you're not eating. You need it stored. Well, your muscles can store maybe 1,500 calories at most. Your liver will store maybe 150 calories. Period. That's it. And then you have to eat again. 

SCOTT: I was going to say, what about your fat? You won't be burning fat?

MARTIN: You will be burning fat after you convince it. But here's what happens. First, you burn circulating glucose. Then you burn circulating fat. Then you start releasing glucose from your muscles directly. And only then you start activating the visceral fat or the belly fat to release it from the storage.

SCOTT: From the storage. Yeah.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SCOTT: So, it's tough. All right. So, one of the things you want to be eating is quality protein and you want to have, pair that with fiber as we have in the infographic here.

MARTIN: Yeah. I want to tell you protein is crazily overrated.

SCOTT: Okay.

MARTIN: We only need something like 90 to 100 grams of protein a day, which is about the size of the palm of my hand. It's a half of a chicken breast or a four or 5 ounce piece of steak. You do not need to eat the 12 oz steak. Most of us, anyway. What you do need is actually to eat fat. Like your type, my type, we both are the same. The thyroid dominant, we activate our bodies correctly when we push fat. That's how we stay slim.

SCOTT: Right. So, coconut oil, using olive oil on our salads.

MARTIN: Yes. And stewed meats with all the fat left in.

SCOTT: Yeah. George says that's true. 100 grams per day is sufficient. 

MARTIN: That's why vegetarians can get by because there's enough protein in vegetables to make it up.

SCOTT: Right. So, let's talk a little bit about the fiber part of this. What would be a good fiber? I remember when oat bran was all the rage 40 years ago.

MARTIN: Well, all the vegetables are fibrous. All the beans are fibrous. The most famous ones, of course, are the oligosaccharides, inulin. So, agave inulin or chicory inulin or dahlia inulin. Those are the fibers that your microbes just love. You give it to your gut, it thrives on that.

SCOTT: Okay.

MARTIN: But all the fibrous things, root vegetables are great. Surprisingly, potatoes don't have much fiber. It's just straight starch.

SCOTT: Right. So, John went out, and he got an image for us to share.

MARTIN: All right, go ahead.

SCOTT: Going back for a second. This is the Ozempic face.

MARTIN: Guess which side is the post-Ozempic?

SCOTT: I would have to say the right side looks like it would be post.

MARTIN: Yeah. You have lost your subcutaneous fatty padding, and now all of the underlying structures are showing.

SCOTT: Yeah.

MARTIN: You're showing more muscle, and you are just as if you've aged.

SCOTT: You look definitely a lot older on the right, don't you?

MARTIN: Yep.

SCOTT: There you go. So, don't take Ozempic if you don't want the Ozempic face, but Martin, I feel like I need something. I need a pill or whatever Ozempic is, it helps me do something, and surely there must be some natural thing.

MARTIN: Well, you make your own Scott by eating the right thing, so put yourself on a diet that's got a decent amount of protein, a high amount of fat and a low amount of starch and spike it with some sauerkraut, just like you said, Strata-Flora, for example. Is that a thing, right? As you started listing this thing, I said, "Well, that's just Strata-Flora. Go get that, get that.

SCOTT: And here it is. Surprise, surprise.

MARTIN: I remember a woman calling me up and said, "Martin, I started on Strata-Flora, changed nothing in my diet, and I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks."

SCOTT: Awesome. All right. So, let's talk a little bit about Strata-Flora.

MARTIN: Well, it's a stack, right? So, you have the probiotics, which are the microbes. You have the prebiotics, which is all the fibers and whatever. You have a whole bunch of herbs that are helpful in calming down things that need calming down, and a bunch of stimulants that are needed to boost things up. For example, milk thistle, right? That's one of the supplements that are supremely useful to help your liver and also to help your metabolism. It's in there. As is Turkish rhubarb, as is slippery elm, all the famous things that are supporting nutrition. Yeah, it's a fairly longish list. Yeah. What else do you want to say about it? Keep a bottle in your freezer and use it whenever you need. And then if you are overweight, then use it quite a bit.

SCOTT: Right. The only other thing I was going to say was when you take a look at the list of ingredients, I would challenge anybody to find very many other products that have this amount of things in it.

MARTIN: Right. So we put a very broad list of 77 different species of the microbes. What's really interesting about the microbes is that they proliferate and multiply very quickly in the right environment. So this is like a broad spectrum of seeds. Think of an alpine meadow. It has a whole bunch of different plants. Red ones, white ones, tall ones, short ones, green ones, whatever. Right?

SCOTT: Right.

MARTIN: So if you could collect all of those seeds and throw them on some dirt, you will grow an alpine meadow. Well, here's the same idea. We have all these different species. You just throw them in and let the terrain support them. They'll grow.

SCOTT: Right. Whereas most people have a desert or meadow full of weeds.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah, that's the thing that you may be missing the right ones.

SCOTT: So, let's talk a little bit about Holy Tea.

MARTIN: Okay. So, that's the part of a two-team Ozempic replacement. You can do it by taking Berberine and Holy Tea. Holy tea is a milk thistle supplement. Well, it's a holy thistle. That's how it got its name. Holy thistle. There are four different types of thistle in this. And you make this by just brewing the tea and drinking it.

And you combine it with Berberine. Berberine regulates your glucose metabolism.

SCOTT: We'll get to Berberine in a second, let’s just focus on the natural colon and liver detox because if your colon, sorry, if your colon is working properly and your liver is working properly, that makes a huge difference in how your whole digestive system works.

MARTIN: Yep. This supports the metabolism. This is your nature's version of Ozempic.

SCOTT: Okay. And you brought up Berberine. So let's bring that one up. Talk a bit about it. 

MARTIN: So the Holy Tea, that's an alcohol extraction. This one, pardon me, the Holy Tea is a water extraction. This is an alcohol extraction. So that means you need an organic solvent to get stuff out of roots. And there's a bunch of roots that we soak in alcohol and extract those organic compounds out of them. All these alkaloids. And there you go. You will have better glucose management when you have this on board.

SCOTT: Oh, thanks. George says, "I'll be purchasing this Berberine this afternoon."

MARTIN: Good on you, George.

SCOTT: I really like it. I have it every about two months, and I really find it's,

MARTIN: It helps you control your blood glucose levels, right? So less spiked, less cravings, less crashes. 

SCOTT: Yeah. Yeah. I have far fewer two-in-the-afternoon siestas.

MARTIN: Yeah. Right on.

SCOTT: All links for everything will be in the comments and in the description just to remind everybody. So is Berberine like the all-natural Ozempic or is it,

MARTIN: Well, it’s like, it delivers the effects of, right? We're talking about the GLP-1, the signaling molecule. It's a peptide, and with the help of this, you will stimulate the release of those signaling molecules that will regulate your glucose management.

SCOTT: Awesome. All right.

MARTIN: Yeah.

SCOTT: Okay. So, let me get rid of that. And,

MARTIN: Yeah, those are really useful nutritionals. Of course, then the last thing is to eat for your endocrine dominance. If you are the type that is tempted by starchy foods, and especially if you find yourself with slender limbs, like small diameter around your ankles and/or wrists, you're very likely the thyroid type. And to reconfirm it, if you're gaining weight on your belly, becoming apple-shaped, then you're definitely the thyroid type. And your antidote is three meals a day and less starch, more fat.

SCOTT: Right. And if you're the other type?

MARTIN: If you're the adrenal type, you're probably built like a weightlifter with a deep chest and massive support, massive limbs, all of that. Your temptation foods would likely be savory rather than starchy or sweet. And your weight-gain food is fat. So this is the paradox. Everybody's promoting the ketogenic diet, keto, keto, whatever, right? Well, it's awesome for the thyroid types. It's a sure trip to weight gain for the adrenal types. 

SCOTT: So, in other words, you have to pay attention to your body, and you have to pay attention to the food that you eat and to the exercise that you get. And I say this often, get a journal and write down this is what I had for breakfast, lunch, dinner. This is how many miles I walked, or this is how I was, an hour in the weight room, or I did 90 minutes of hot yoga, like whatever it is, so that you can see. It's really frustrating for me because I'll say to myself every once in a while, okay, do you have a lot of pain right now Scott? No, I have almost no inflammation. Awesome. And then three days later, oh my god every part, every joint is just screaming in agony. Like, what did I do? Because for three weeks I was so good, and I did something, and I don't know what I did because I didn't write it down. So, you need to write down these things so you can look back and you can say, "Oh, wow." Like. And we there's no excuse. On every phone is a calendar. Just make an entry.

MARTIN: Yeah. And these triggers vary, right? Like some people, for example, have a trigger with salicylates, which could be tree nuts or dried fruit or something from that group. Some people are oxalate-problematic; that's spinach, and that's well, spinach is like 10 times worse than anything else. So, I'll put a list of one. Or you could be one of the people who has problems with nightshades. And myself, I'm a nightshade trouble. I can have potatoes once a week safely, twice a week, and three times a week I hurt.

SCOTT: Right. So, yeah. Awesome.

MARTIN: For me, an eggplant is a fire on the face. It's instant.

SCOTT: You can’t have that Greek food then, right?

MARTIN: Well, I can have some.

SCOTT: Have some,

MARTIN: But not eggplant.

SCOTT: Well, you say eggplant and I think of, I forget the name of the dish that's a Greek dish with eggplant in it. I love it. It's moussaka or something like that.

MARTIN: No, no, not moussaka.

SCOTT: Not moussaka. Souvlaki.

MARTIN: No, that's meat on a stick. 

SCOTT: Oh well.

MARTIN: Well, maybe it's Moussaka. Maybe. I don't know. I don't remember.

SCOTT: If you know, educate us for a change, everybody put it in the comments what it is, and we'll really appreciate that. All right, Martin, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share this with us. Appreciate you. George says, "This episode went far too quickly. Another great episode." Thank you, George. Appreciate you and having you here. As we appreciate everybody that tunes in, please make sure you like and subscribe. Hit the bell every Wednesday, 11:30 in the morning Pacific time, 2:30 in the afternoon on the East Coast. We are live. We love getting your comments. Love hearing what you've got to say. Appreciate you a lot. This has been the Life Enthusiast Health Shots podcast, restoring vitality to you and the planet. And we'll see you next week, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Bye-bye.

MARTIN: Moussaka.