Habits and Hustle - Episode 468: Dr. Stacy Sims: Why Ozempic Destroys Muscle + The Truth About Peptides and Cold Plunges

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Is Ozempic the miracle weight loss drug everyone claims, or are we creating a generation of "sarcopenic, chalky skeletons"? In this Fitness Fridya episode, Dr. Stacy Sims and I dive into the truth.  We discuss the peptide craze, exploring why BPC-157 might be the only one worth considering, and why WADA banning it actually proves it works. Plus, Dr. Sims settles the sauna debate once and for all - explaining why infrared saunas are basically expensive cold rooms and why Finnish saunas deliver real results for women's hormones and metabolism. Dr. Stacy Sims is an international exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist who specializes in sex differences in training, nutrition, and environmental conditions. She's the author of "Roar" and "Next Level" and has spent decades researching how women's unique physiology requires different approaches to health and fitness. What we discuss: The Truth About Peptides and BPC-157 Ozempic's Hidden Dangers: Muscle and Bone Loss When Ozempic Makes Sense (And When It Doesn't) Microdosing GLP-1s: Health Hack or Dangerous Trend? Combining Ozempic with Strength Training Training in Your 20s and 30s vs. Later Years Dr. Sims' Daily Routine and Non-Negotiables Most Underrated Health Tip: Trusting Your Intuition Saunas vs. Cold Plunges for Women Why Ice Baths Spike Women's Cortisol The Infrared Sauna Myth Finnish Saunas: The Real Deal for Women's Health Thank you to our sponsor: Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here, code Jennifer20 for 20% off.  David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle. Find more from Dr. Stacy Sims: Website: https://www.drstacysims.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drstacysims  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsor, Momentous. When your goal is healthspan, living better and longer, there are very few non-negotiables. One of them? Quality. And when it comes to

supplements designed for high performers, nobody does it better than Momentus. Momentus goes all in on NSF certification, which means every single batch is tested for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy. And that's why they're trusted by all 32 NFL teams and top collegiate sports dietitians across the country. Here's the thing, they don't sell every supplement under the sun because they believe in nailing the basics with rock-solid consistency and those basics are protein and creatine. Momentous sources creapure, the purest form of creatine monohydrate available, an absolute must for both men and women who want peak physical and cognitive performance.

So if you're serious about leveling up, go to LiveMomentous.com and use code GEN for 20% off. Just act now. Start today. Jen for 20% off. Live momentous.com. What's your take on peptides? Do you believe in them? Some of them for specific healing properties. So if you look at the BPC 157, which is your, right? Yeah, that's right. So if you're looking at that for tissue healing, there's a lot of rodent data out there

and a little bit of human research out there that shows it's beneficial. But when you look at something like WADA and Informed Sports saying it's a banned substance, you know there's something there makes it work. As for the other peptides, they're kind of like floating out there with not a lot of science behind it. Yeah, so that's another one would be a case by case.

It's like, why do you want to use it? What do you think you need it for? What are the other things that we can do to invoke the same change? But for tissue healing, yeah, maybe we'll look at the BPC. Right. That's the most benign one of the ones that we're talking about. I need to ask you about Ozempic, right? Because it would be remiss if I didn't. What is your take on the Ozempic craze?

Yeah, I think I got slammed from another podcast about talking about this, but I'm gonna say it again anyway. So when we look at Ozempic, there's a little bit of a disconnect. It's starting to get a little bit better because there's more education around it. When it first came out,

there was no way that there was enough education to tell people that when you start using it, the very first thing to go is lean mass and bone. So you're going to become a very sarcopenic, chalky, skeleton-type person, and you're going to be on the stuff for life. When we start looking at Ozempic as a tool in the toolbox for losing a significant amount of weight, not our vanity pounds of 10 to 15 pounds, but that significant amount of weight that plagues two thirds of American population.

Yes, it can be a tool. It can help with appetite control to dampen the noise, the food noise that happens so much around the ultra processed food and the cravings and gives you the opportunity to put healthier habits into play, like learning how to lift, what are wise food choices, so you finally can dampen that crazy food noise to put in strategies to help maintain weight loss and to build lean mass. That's how I view Ozympec is having a role in trying to combat some of the obesity epidemic. I have problems when women who come to me and go, how can I micro doses impact? Because I want to lose my 10 to 15 vanity pounds. Like, no, we don't do that.

There are other things and maybe you are learning to live with an extra five pounds on your body, which is probably beneficial as you get older, because we want a little bit more weight as we get older. So we don't have enough reserve if we get sick. So there's nuances within it as well. I feel for people who really need it for diabetic control, because of everyone now using it for weight loss. I'm

interested in the research that's coming out about Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, about Ozimbic and the GLP ones helping with that. So it's early day research. So right now it's a tool in the toolbox and we have to really look at lifestyle to accelerate that tool. You know, it's funny you mentioned the microdosing, right? That was my next part of the question because that's what I noticing a lot of people who like people who are doing that people in the health and wellness longevity space claim that the microdosing is really good for inflammation and all these

other health benefits. And so they're microdosing and these are people who don't need to lose anyway, really, maybe like you said, five pounds here and there. What do you say about that? Like, do you believe the microdosing for the inflammation and all these other longevity reasons? Is there any truth to that at all? for the inflammation and all these other longevity reasons. Is there any truth to that at all? Or is it just people just having misinformation

and just jumping on the bandwagon because they're a little thinner? Yeah, part of it's misinformation. And part of it is people become inherently lazy and don't want to, and I say that and I'll take full ownership of that statement. Because when we look at exercise, regardless of intensity, duration, mode, whatever it is,

it's a super powerful stress that gets put on the body and the body responds in kind. So yes, you're gonna have inflammation after exercise, but the subsequent responses your body upregulates is anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative responses. So the chronic use of exercise improves oxidation and inflammation. It also improves autophagy.

So all the things that people are talking about by using pharmaceuticals for longevity or trying to biohack by using microdoses of this and peptides and stuff, you can use exercise. And it's just understanding what kind and dosage is not the blanket ACSM 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity, which is based on male data, right? So we have to be very nuanced in what we're talking about.

You know, also when it comes to Ozempic, if someone were to compound that with strength training, would that offset the problem of bone density loss and the muscle mass? Would it actually balance itself out? You have to be very dedicated to the strength training and eating protein. Because when we look at protein, protein in a high protein diet induces satiation and increases our natural production of our GLP-1s. So if we are looking at using Ozimpec, as well as strength training in high protein, you're going to get better body composition, better appetite control, better appetite hormone regulation, and it's going to allow you to get off the ozine peck when you get to a certain point

Which is decided by you and your doctor or whatever your lifestyle choices so Okay, and then by the way, I just remembered something else to going back to the other part about training We talked about menopause and peri menopause training What about if you're not at that place? What type of training should someone actually do if they're in their 20s or 30s? That's different than when they're 40s, 50s, 60s. We missed that part. This is the time where you can play.

You can play a little bit. You can try a lot of things. It depends on your hormone profile. If you're using hormonal contraception, what kind is it? Is it oral contraceptive? Is it a marina? Is it oral contraceptive? Is it a marina? Is it a copper IUD? All of those have different responses within the body,

which is going to affect the kind of training and how you feel about training. Naturally cycling, are you finding changes in your bleed pattern? Are you finding changes in the length of your cycle? Well, those are beginning stop gaps and warning signs that you're putting your body under too much stress. But for the most part, you wanna find a goal

and the basic idea of periodization of both cardiovascular and strength is beneficial. If you're someone who wants to go the endurance route, sweet, you can. But put some strength training in there, you don't have to put it your mainstay, but you wanna have a strong resilient body regardless of where you are in your life.

And you can pepper it in your 20s and your 30s with different adventures. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their tri-light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations and places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including

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off. Grab it today. What else happened with your habits and your routine? My habits, yeah. So I am a kind of person that needs to get up before anyone else in the household so I can have 10 to 15 minutes of absolute no noise because that's how I can reset and re-center. Then I'd like to do some training, either go for a swim in the pool or the ocean, couple of days a week. Strength training, definitely three to four times a week.

After training, come home, have food, do the email thing, go through all the meetings, have some quiet time, get some work done. Then my daughter comes home from school. We do some stuff, then I do some more work. Then I take the dog for a walk, make dinner, have dinner, have conversations and maybe read with my daughter. And then I try to be in bed by 9.30, 10 o'clock.

I get up maybe 6.37, but I'm also the most fatigued person at the end of the day and I want to go to bed before everyone else. But I make a priority. I'm like, I need to go to sleep now and I need to sleep. I might do some reading before falling asleep, make sure it's a cool dark room because I don't like to be hot when I'm sleeping. And I get very agitated if my sleep is disrupted because I'm like, I need sleep.

I need sleep. Right, right need sleep. I need sleep. Yeah. Especially when you're active, do you train people still regularly or? No, I don't. I advise people who do train, and every once in a while I'll take someone on, especially if it's a really complex, like sticky moment where people are trying to do all the things and they're stuck.

I wish I had the bandwidth to be able to get out there on boots on the ground to help more people on an individual basis. But there's only one of me at the moment. Right. Exactly. What can I just ask you a couple more questions and I can hopefully see you when you're here. I want you to tell me, can you tell me what you think the most underrated health tip would be and the most overrated health tip or most overrated health myth. Trend out there? Yeah. I think the most underrated is the intuition.

I think people have forgotten what it feels like to sleep well, to eat well, to have energy. Because we've been told by werewolves what we're supposed to be feeling and what we're supposed to be doing, and people have lost that connection to themselves. So that intuition of actually understanding our body and using things like rating of perceived exertion without any of the tools, I think that's one of the most underrated but one of the most effective means of invoking change. When I look on the other end of things, it's all those top end,

the 1% that you should be looking at, like peptides or fasting. Let's just bring it back to basics. How are you eating? What are you eating? When are you eating? How are you sleeping? It's like the big four is the mindfulness, the sleep, the physical activity and the nutrition.

If we focus on those, then we can start to really see change. It's when we start going outside the box and really focusing on all the biohacking and the bro sciences out there, is when we start to lose sight of where we should be and get into the overrated trends that tend to take over everybody's mentality.

What is your take on saunas and cold plunges, cold therapy? Saunas, I love. I started as an environmental exercise physiologist, so I look at how the heat can invoke positive change on the body. It doesn't have to be a large dose. It could be 10 to 15 minutes in a finished sauna three times a week, because we start to see massive cardiovascular improvements, blood pressure improvements included in that metabolic changes.

So we have better blood glucose control, we have better gut health, brain health. So many great things happen with the heat. When we think about cold plunge, for women, it's cool water. It's around 15 degrees Celsius, which is around that 56, 57 degree Fahrenheit mark. Ice is too cold and we don't get the same kind of response that men do when we get into ice. It's too strong of a stress and the body rebounds with too much sympathetic drive, too much constriction, where if it's cool water, we're going to invoke initially a vagal response,

which is that, and then the body's gonna get that more parasympathetic relaxation response that we're looking for for cold plunge. So what happens if we do the cold therapy? I mean, cause I hate it, I know, but, and I won't do it. And I get a lot of, you know, slack for that. But what does it do the body in layman's terms? Like, what does it do to a woman's body when they jump into a cold plunge?

Because if you're a woman, you're jumping. Yeah, so you're jumping into that icy cold water, and you're getting that shock. And that shock is a sympathetic so that you have your flight or fight sensation, which is your sympathetic drive. And you have that deep relaxation, which is your parasympathetic drive. For women, we get that shock and that sympathetic drive, which increases cortisol, increases our blood glucose and our free fatty acids, cuz the body's like, what is this incredible shock?

I've got to get out and run away. For cool water, it's not as intense, so you don't get that sympathetic. You get the initial, huh, and then the body's like, okay, I can deal with this. I'm going to do some vasoconstriction. I'm going to put more blood sugar to the brain so that the brain understands what's going on

and stimulates what we call the vagal nerve. So the vagal nerve is what that parasympathetic nervous system is attached to. So it invokes that calming and you can stay in it, take some deep breaths. But that said, heat does so much more for a woman's body than cold plunge. So if we're looking for increased parasympathetic drive, we're looking for better metabolic control, we're getting better hormonal control, it's all instigated by sauna work, not by cold plunge. So a finished sauna is usually 200 degrees or 210 sometimes, right?

If I have a sauna that's like this infrared that doesn't get hot enough. It takes forever to get to 160 and even that takes four hours. Can I still do it? Because at the time, everyone's like, oh, the infrared is the best sauna for your body. It doesn't warm my body. I'm like cold. I'm shivering in my sauna. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. I mean, but do I, if I wait long enough and it gets to 165 from Lucky, do you still get the same benefits as you would in a finished sauna if it's an infrared sauna? So the thing with the infrared is it really bypasses when the initial thermoregulation control centers.

If you get to a point where it's hot enough and you get that sweat onset and you feel really uncomfortable, then you're hot enough. But you don't have to stay in there for half an hour or more being uncomfortable. You bring it up to your sweat response and then you can get out. And I think that's what people don't like. They're like, oh, I get an infrared and I get warm, but I don't sweat. I'm like, but you need that. You need that uncomfortable heat and uncomfortable sweating to invoke the change. No, I wish I did sweat. It doesn't get hot. And these things don't get that very hot. Have you ever been in one? Like these things are like 50 degrees, much cooler

than the finished saunas. Yeah, my, um, my stepdad has one, but we have a finished sauna. So I use our finished and then I go to my parents' house and I'm like, I'm freezing in your sauna. I know, as I'm saying, it's like a cold plunge. I mean, it's like crazy. It's so not hot, but I don't know. I mean, so you believe that that's kind of all hype, the infrared sauna, because it gets maybe your skin a little bit warm.

Red. Maybe you put on one of those sauna suits they sell in like Kmart or Walmart, and you wear the sauna suit in your sauna. Or just get a new sauna, call it a day, right? Get a new sauna. Yeah, do that. That's the best way to do it. Yeah. I think that's a great idea.