The Livy Method Podcast - GLP-1s with Dr. Sandy Van - Fall 2025

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

In this episode, Gina sits down with Dr. Sandy Van to explore how GLP-1 medications are being used to support obesity care. Together, they unpack how these medications work in the body, why weight regain isn’t a failure, and the critical role lifestyle and mindset play in sustainable weight loss. From preserving muscle mass to managing digestion and appetite, they highlight how medications are just one piece of the puzzle. Gina and Dr. Van also speak to the importance of compassion, self-awareness, and redefining success beyond the scale in today’s evolving approach to obesity treatment.Dr. Sandy Van is a licensed medical doctor in Family Medicine and founder of Haven Weight Management.Where to find Dr. Sandy [e-mail] Weight Management - VirtualMedCan Weight Managementmedcan.comYou can find the full video hosted at:www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy, and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for my 91-day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on ACAST, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music.

We're focusing on sustainable habits, not quick-fixing. Is it an opportunity to get curious? We're here, help people get to their health goals. One piece each of time. We build and build and build. Dr. Sandy Van is joining me this morning. She is back with us. She's been with us a few times, and we appreciate her time,

because this woman is busy, traveling the world. talking about what is the latest in terms of obesity research and medicine. She is the founder and medical director Haven Weight Management, co-founder of three sales that focuses on mental resiliency and weight management. Hello and welcome. Hi. Hi. Thank you for having me. Always such a delight. And I didn't mean to talk about how busy I was because I wasn't happy to be here. I'm actually delighted to be here. I got to get stains probably from just running in, but I'm still happy to be here.

Well, you are, you are a busy woman. Let's talk about that for a second because this conversation of weight management in terms of GLP1s, weight loss medications, has really exploded, you know, the last couple years. But it's, it's been around for a while, yeah? Yeah, these medications, I do tell my patients, they sound like their new medications. but the class, the specific class of GLP1 medications that more recently people know of semaglutide and then it's trade names, Ocempic for diabetes, Wacovi for weight loss. There's variations of that medication that have been around for at least a couple of decades now. And when I started practice in 2016, I was already prescribing the once daily versions of them.

So maybe like it's almost equivalent to the iPhone 1.0 version. You know, like people were really leery of it at first, and it took a lot of coaxing, multiple sessions, but people eventually sometimes would start it and just roll the dice and be really pleasantly surprised with some of the health outcomes. But it wasn't really notorious for obesity, even though it was indicated for obesity at that time. And there wasn't a lot of positive public sentiment about it. But now I'm so glad because people know about it and people ask for it and people welcome. now as a really helpful tool and that's i keep hearing well just wait until you find out you know it's going to have you know you cause you this issues and then we don't know the long term but the reality is it has been studied for a while it just wasn't necessarily used main mainstream what what is

how is the conversation changed in the last year in the last year i think that the conversation has changed in the clinical community it's it's been really positive because we have a number of other medications that are going to be coming down the pipeline that will just give us more options. And they're not only GLP-1s, but we are now GLP-1s, GIP, which is another hormone. We've got possibilities of GLP-1, GIP, Glucagon, and all these other variations. And so the conversation has been one that is steeped in hope in the clinical community. And I think patients are really well read. Individuals who live with higher weight are really well read in what available treatment options are out there. Now it's gearing less towards only focusing on dietary

patterns or dietary changes, but how to complement dietary changes with some of these other treatment options that are going to actually address the underlying appetite changes. Most people know how to lose weight, but many don't understand that it's really hard to actually maintain a weight reduced state in part because your brain reflexively wants to to regain that weight and it mediates that by increasing hunger, increasing craving, slowing metabolism. So those are the things that really pull the rug from under people's progress. It's not really that lack of willpower. As you probably know in your program, a lot of your clients, most of your clients have joined

because they have a lot of willpower and a lot of willingness to change something. Yeah. And that's where Sandy is a fan of the living method, obviously, or she wouldn't be spending time with us today. Can we talk about the lifestyle changes around? because so many people have reached out and some quite angry that I would promote GLP-1s. And I'm not promoting GLP-1s, but why is it important to make lifestyle changes? And is it any easier for someone who is taking a GLP-1?

Like, it might help, but I don't think it's any less work. And maybe I'm wrong about that. No, in fact, a lot of my patients start out by thinking that it's a cheap method, but it's not a cheap because it's the actual intervention. that works really effectively for maintaining weight reduced state. So diets will work for weight loss, but how do you maintain that long term if your body's constantly fighting back to regain it?

And the thing about appetite is that it operates below our level of awareness sometimes. So even if you are tracking and being really conscientious about what you're eating, it's effortless for humans to eat. We're hardwired to seek out calories and to conserve energy. So it really is at odds with the way we're hardwired to be. constantly vigilant about every single piece of calorie intake. And I'm not saying that that's not an effective way to lose weight, but the trial data or studies that have shown people who lose weight on diets often do regain their weight.

And that's not everybody. There are people who successfully lose weight on dietary patterns. And I'm not saying that diets are a bad thing, but I'm just saying that the treatments, these medications, they should be talked about because they are guideline approved. their health Canada approved for obesity for a reason because they actually target the biological changes that occur. And the diet is really, really important now, but the diet is what we see as an outcome of good success from treatment as well. So in my practice, I notice when people are on medication, they start living the way that they aspire to from the get-go. They start doing

it with a bit more ease in the sense that they're not constantly fighting against this pushback with their appetite and they start focusing on eating similar to what you you you um uh counsel your your individuals or your clients with focusing on a diet that's rich in protein fiber healthy fats whole foods meal structure and making sure that that meal structure is is um is adhered to on a day to day as best as you can having flexibility with yourself when things go off track but but at the end of the day, like sometimes people adhere to these dietary patterns really strictly, but still have a hard time losing weight. And that's because there's other things that drive weight gain. I, well, you know, you hear from people, they take the, they take medications that stops working.

I mean, this is where making those lifestyle changes can absolutely help and make a big difference. What, how do you talk about the protein, back to the protein, because there's this big conversation around how when you lose weight, taking weight loss medications, you're losing all this muscle mass. I mean, to what extent is that true? And what do people take... Can I interrupt you for a second? Because I don't want to... Absolutely.

...audience to assume that I agree with the statement that you just said. And it's really subtle, but because I'm an MD, I just want to make sure it's conveyed correctly that when patients describe to me that medications are no longer working, it is not because they are ineffective. The medications will often help with weight. loss and then at some point the weight stabilizes right and so when the weight stabilizes that's when a lot of people perceive the ineffectiveness of treatment it's not causing my appetite suppression anymore if i'm not losing anymore weight despite what i'm doing that is a normal part of the process of

the medication so that's to be expected it's not ineffectiveness or if somebody's seeing weight regain that might be another way to interpret medication inefficacy oftentimes it's not that the is ineffective, it is that there's been a significant change in that person's life. Something has happened. And when I talk about weight regain on medication, I'm often looking for these vulnerability factors. And I think that they kind of coincide with what you've described as your optimization. What do you call it?

Because I've had your clients in my program and they've said it's the optimization checklist. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. So the vulnerability factors are like, like, okay, somebody's regaining weight. Are you, how's your sleep? Did your sleep change? Did your, did the structure of your meals change? Like, did the macronutrient quality or the composition change? Is there a reintroduction of ultra-processed food with a degree of regularity? Did you all of a sudden go on vacation and then get off track with your eating and come back and sort of default to old habits? Are you significantly stressed? Are you suddenly depressed? Are you anxious? Are you consuming more alcohol? Are you exercising more or are you exercising less? Those are you all things that can be modified and affect where somebody lands with their weight trajectory. So it's often easy to blame the medication as being ineffective, but if you look somewhere else,

there's something else going on. Always. I'm so glad that you clarified that. I just had a bit of an aha moment also because sometimes when people are losing weight, your body just needs a minute to adjust to the amount of weight you lost as well. And we talk about how you also want and need plateau. So sometimes your body's just on a plateau because they need some time to adjust. Can't keep losing, losing, losing, losing.

But to your point, yeah, I love that you said that, where it's health, like it could be your sleep is off because maybe you're stressing about something. How do hormones factor in? There's been a lot of talk about women taking JLP ones while going through menopause. With HRT, yeah. There's no indication that HRT or there's been no robust evidence to. to suggest a specific link between the two HRT and GLP ones. But the thing about HRT is that it's not indicated for weight loss, but we can see that body composition changes can change slightly or be preserved.

So I think I'm not well versed in menopause, but I do know that there are changes to waist circumference, for instance. So if you're on HRT versus not being on HRT, you might see changes in waist circumferences that are more favorable because there's less of that central distribution of fat. And also there might be more preservation of your lean muscle mass. So I've seen people who use it together, but I don't have enough evidence to support that using it together is superior to just using a GLP1 alone for weight loss perfectly. Can we talk about that muscle mass loss? Like how much of a concern is that? Because people are really

talking about, oh my goodness, you go on, you take GLP1s, you're going to lose all this muscle mass. I mean, what's the reality behind that? Yeah, the reality is that muscle mass loss is something that occurs with any sort of weight loss intervention, whether it's your own, whether it's keto, whether it's medication. It's just that weight loss with medication is quite effective, right? And you stand to lose a lot of weight, but with that weight, you might lose some muscle mass. And there are, we expect 25 to 30 percent loss of lean muscle mass. It's not ideal, but it's on par with. the average. So for every 10 pounds somebody loses, we might see a three pound loss in

lean muscle mass. But that's with any intervention, remember. It's not specific to GLP ones. It's also with bariatric surgery, we see lean muscle mass loss. So this is why I always counsel people on the lifestyle modifications that are required while on treatment to really spare yourself that lean loss, staying on top of your protein targets, making sure that protein is distributed evenly throughout the day as a rough counseling guide, I'd just say 30 grams at every meal, 10 to 15 grams per snacks, and making sure that you have the right amino acids that actually help with muscle protein synthesis, if that's what you're worried about as well. But also resistance training. You need to have that protein fueling the regeneration or rebuilding of muscle. And that's

an important piece that's hard for many people to get, maybe a little bit easier once they get to a lower weight. But that's an important piece to help you preserve lean muscle mass. And I've actually seen people who focus on protein intake alone and worked out, but do two or three strength training sessions. And they're not even all that long. I think that they could be between 20 to 30 minutes. I had this one patient. And she did it two or three times a week. And what we saw was that she preserved, based on a Dexas scan, when she preserved all of lean muscle mass and only lost fat. So she was actually quite pleased about that. And I was surprised by that, right? So I'm not saying everybody's going to get outcomes like that, but it really is an effective strategy to

protect yourself from lean muscle mass laws. And it's something you should arguably be doing regardless of whether you're on medication or not, especially if you're going to transition through the menopause years. Yeah, no, and I'm glad that you mentioned that because some exercise is better than none. And I think the conversation with that has been around, women have to lift really heavy weights and, you know, everyone's got to walk around looking like and working out like Stacey Sims, where we now know that's not necessarily the case. It's not. Some is better than none. Some is better than none. More is better than some. Of course, if you can get it to be structured and hit those Canadian cardiovascular society guidelines, 150 minutes of aerobic activity throughout the week, 72 sessions. I think it's two, three sessions of strength training. That's great.

But if you can't, find something that you can stick to, whether it's 10 minutes. Like my patient was saying, I can't do more than 20 minutes. So that's all I do. And look at the outcome she got, right? So some is better than none, for sure. Okay. Great. You mentioned bariatric surgeries and whatnot. And, you know, I think this is really important because, as you know, Dr. Sean Wharton, Sandy knows. I love him.

He's my mentor and one of my besties. Yeah. He's incredible. And he talked about how this is such a, I don't want to say safer, might not be the right word, but such a great option, I don't put words in his mouth, but a great option for people used to have to have gastric bypass or surgeries or whatnot, which came with a lot of risks. And is, is this kind of no different of the next gen of that? And I mean that. Oh, oh, is this a continuation of that? No, bariatric surgery remains the most effective treatment intervention for

obesity for those who qualify. The qualification criteria is a BMI over 40 or BMI over 35 plus Obc-related problems like hypertension, diabetes, prediabetes, cholesterol. So it is, we have medications that are rivaling the lower end of the weight loss ranges that bariatric surgery confers. So medications will give you between, on average, I'm just speaking roughly, like 10 to 20% weight loss, depending on the medication you're on. Bariatric surgery is quoted out of weight loss of between 20 to 40%. So you can see how we're edging closer to that.

And it's great. It's a great option. It's just that a lot of these medications aren't really accessible at this time, like October 2025. At this time right now, medications are not totally accessible for everybody. So when patients qualify, do offer it as an intervention that is, for those of you in Ontario, is provincially covered. Well, actually, it's covered across Canada. I don't know if you have American audience, so I can't speak to that. But yeah, so this is what a 20,000 surgery that is. is that is deemed important enough to be covered by the province, right? So it's a cost-effective solution for patients who are willing to undergo the risks for it. And as you said, there are inherent risks with surgery, but there are also significant benefits for those who qualify or some who qualify. So you really do have to have that conversation with your health care provider to see if it's worthwhile to do. Well, this is a good time to state that it is really important to have these conversations with your health care. health care providers. This is just a general overview and for awareness, right? You talked about

BMI. One of our members had a question about BMI. Are people still using it? Are there better ways to sort of mark where you're at health-wise, weight-wise? Yeah, it's just, it's one data point that we use. It's historically been used in epidemiological data and studies. And it's helpful in that sense because you can look at patterns in large groups of large populations of people. But it's a really crude measure, right? Because it really doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat because it's based on your weight and your height. So we use that as one data point and we use it to screen as well. But we also use other anthropometric data like waist circumference.

Waste circumference is a really great one because it also gives you a nice proxy for visceral fat. But now we have other ones like the waist to height ratio, waist to hip ratio, to get more clarity on the distribution of your fat because somebody can have a BMI or 40, but have fat that's distributed more in the subcutaneous regions on the thighs and the buttock and the breasts. And that might not be necessarily the same risk

as somebody who's East Asian or like somebody who looks like me who has a lower BMI but carries all the weight in the center, right? So it's the central fat that you worry more about. Great. So when the medications first came out, everyone talked about OZempic, and then there was a bit of a rage about OZempic taking away medications from people who have diabetes. But now there are more versions of them, right? So it's not just OZambic. So we can just talk about that for a second and just kind of educate us on these different types of medications that are available, just a super high over.

Yeah, it didn't really, that conversation didn't really make as much sense to me. I understood it from a patient perspective, but the thing about diabetes is that 80% or 86% of people who have type 2 diabetes receive access to medication to lower their blood sugars, whereas there's about 60% of the population of Canada who have overweight or obesity, and only 8% of those people were receiving anti-obesity medication. And that's from 2016 data, so it's probably a bit different now, but you see that discrepancy there, right? that obesity is this major respecter to having type 2 diabetes, but yet we don't, we don't validate treatment for it as much as we do type to diabetes. But there are other options available. So there's GLP1, being the semaglutide. There's GLP, GIP, which is Cersetotide, also known as Mount Jaro for type 2 diabetes and Zep bound for obesity treatment. And there's probably going to be more in the coming decade. You say that again? I think that was really validating

to a lot of people right now that yes okay there are people with diabetes but let's let's talk about obesity as a as a disease for a second because I think that was pretty profound what you just said there yeah the thing about diabetes not everybody who has obesity as diabetes obviously and not everybody who has diabetes says yeah not everybody has obesity and diabetes together there are lots of Asian people like me who look normal of normal weight but then have to get to diabetes like my mom. I'm going to call it my mom. She's really thin. And so the thing is that that that's an indication that there's a lot of physiological aspects that run beneath the skin that you just don't see. Right. So with obesity, we know that obesity, it's a condition that

you, everybody sees visibly. And that's the hard part about it is that everybody sees this condition. Everybody sort of has an idea of how to manage the condition because they or somebody they know has gone on some diet and lost weight effectively. And so everybody has an opinion about it. But the reality is that obesity is a complex chronic disease, in part because it's driven by these biological mechanisms that one doesn't choose to have, right? So if you have a genetic predisposition and two parents with obesity, your risk of developing obesity in this current environment is up to 70%.

So contrast that to height. If you have two tall parents, your risk of developing tallness yourself is. 80%. So this is a really heritable trait. Your body shape is a heritable trait. I'm not saying that it's the destiny of somebody who's born to two parents with obesity, but it is something to consider when you start thinking there's something wrong with you because of your weight. It's not, there's nothing wrong with you. Something has happened to you and the environment makes it really hard to actually maintain this weight reduced state. And so all of that body shape, your brain, when it knows that you should be at a higher weight because your parents are at a higher rate,

it's mediating that through calorie intake. It's making you hungrier, appetite hormones are changing. The thing about somebody who has obesity versus somebody who's lean is that somebody with obesity, the key symptom is an increased appetite or dysregulated appetite. Somebody who has a lean body who's born to two lean parents, they can eat something and they can feel totally fine after and not have any sort of desire for anymore. Everybody knows that person, right? And I've seen my mom try to gain weight.

She eats a ton in one day. and the next day she eats nothing and she's like, I really want to eat, but I can't. I'm so full right now because her brain's shutting down her appetite system. But in obesity, that settling point for weight and calorie intake is just higher and higher and higher. So you can see

there's a distinct difference between somebody who has leanness predisposition and somebody who has obesity and that's the most clarifying example of how biology drives a lot of this body shape. Yeah. What do you say to people who are like excited about this conversation right now, but really nervous about

all the side effects that people are talking about? Side effects of medication? Yeah. Well, of course. I would be too, to be honest. I treat it every single day. And I never pretend that there is zero risk. There's no zero risk thing to anything, right?

So you really have to think about whether it's worthwhile for you to be on treatment or not. To be honest, the side effect profile, I think that it's been sensationalized in the media a lot more than it should be. But the side effects are meant to be temporary and temporary. They're meant to be mild to moderate at most. There are some people who have side effects that lead them to discontinue, but that's a pretty small fraction of the people I've seen. And the side effects are meant mainly nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn. That's not a comprehensive list, but those are the most common.

And they can be managed with behavioral modifications. So, for instance, eating a bit slower, taking your, time while you're eating so you're not too full, not lying down after you eat, making sure you're structuring your meals. A lot of people who go on these medications, they don't eat because they don't feel like eating. But then it makes them more nauseous. But if you eat, you're less nauseous. So yeah, there's some side effects, but I rarely ever see people say these side effects are a deal breaker for me. And this is why you have to think about whether, one, you qualify for the treatment because a lot of these medications are now being used by people

who somehow get them without even qualifying based on their BMI. So don't take it if you are of normal weight. Unless you're defending against a much higher weight, that would be a different story. If somebody said, I lost a ton of weight on the Gino Libby program. And my BMI was like a 35 and now I'm like a 27. And yeah, if you wanted to take the treatment then, that kind of makes sense to me because you're really trying to actively defend against that BMI of 35. But if you're you're a BMI of 23 and you have no medical problems, then you shouldn't be on the treatment. So, okay, wait, stop. So if someone was to say lost 100 pounds, okay, and they're having a hard time being able to maintain and sustain the right, we do have a maintenance program.

It's a whole other beast, but besides that, if someone lost 100 pounds, they could then start a GLP1 that would help them maintain their weight. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that would, listen, it's not a, I don't believe that it's. it's a firm clinical indication to say, because I don't think it's just, I just don't think it's been accounted for in the clinical guidelines that somebody at a weight reduced state can start a medication, but it makes physiological sense to consider it as an option if somebody is actively defending, because we know that when somebody's defending, let's say a 20% loss, let's say they lost 20% on your program, they're hungry.

That person is probably really hungry. Some people might not be, but it would be weird. or if they're actively seeing weight regain, that would be a reasonable thing to consider to start a medication to help them at least maintain. That medication isn't going to give them, it might not give them an added 10 to 20% drop, but it might help them maintain their weight

and at least not constantly be fighting against this food preoccupation and hunger that they understandably experience. Wow. Okay. A couple more questions for you. We're hearing about patches, maybe pills, like can we get away from the shot? Some people like the idea, I want to talk to the doctors about terrified of needles. There's what's coming down the pipeline in terms of advances.

I haven't heard about patches yet, but it's probably out there at some point, like getting studied. There's oral. There's oral medications. There's oral semi-glutide for type 2 diabetes that's indicated for that right now. But it's not indicated for obesity. So, yeah, there's going to be oral options available at some point. I don't know exactly when, but there will be. And then there's also non-GLP1 medications.

Not everybody else going to GLP1. There's also an altruxopupropion, also called Contrave. That is an oral option as well. What about the natural GLP ones? Because it's just pseudosciency hokeyness. I would never recommend, I can't recommend anything that isn't Health Canada approved. So supplements, they don't, they're not subjected to the same level of scrutiny

that pharmaceutical products are, right? So a lot of, there's, there's some public sentiment about pharmaceutical products being, like they're just, there's like negative perception of them, but the reality is that it takes almost a decade at least and billions of dollars to study these medications and so many of them get tossed because of safety issues. But the ones who make it are the ones that have shown safety, but this is not the thing that you see with supplements. Supplements don't require the same level of scrutiny and don't get subjected to screening the same way that these pharmaceutical medications do. So I do not tend to recommend, like, off the shelf, like health, health store supplements for any weight loss product.

That doesn't mean that they're any safer either, right? They can also cause their own issues. So people should really be having a conversation. Yeah, that's my point is that I cannot verify their safety. And so I would caution anyone who is considering using that. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything we missed in this conversation today?

I know there's probably a lot that you can talk about. But you know what our members are here. They're trying to do summer. What's the conversation for those who are taking any JLP ones and maybe for someone who's considering? What could I, what have I not brought up yet? Well, I think that the one thing about all of this is that, yes, GLP ones, anti-obescy medications that are Health Canada approved are effective treatments for obesity. But if one, it's not one size fits all.

If one doesn't seem to sit well with you or doesn't seem to be effective when you start it, there's always, there's another option, right? So it's kind of like when you go see a therapist for your mood, you're not always going to have the right match the first time. But it doesn't mean that you should never go to therapy. just means you got to find something else that works for you. For the most part, these medications I find patients tend to respond pretty well to them, not all the time, but a lot of the time. The one thing I would mention that I haven't talked about yet with you is really the psychological aspect of weight. Yes. And really, the medication piece is easy because you just talk to your doctor, you get prescribed it, but I think that if you're always feeling like you have to change

something or manipulate something about yourself, you go through this endless space. spiral of constantly trying to put effort into something and maybe not seeing the changes that you want, in part because your weight and your body shape are governed by things that are beyond your control, like the biology. So I always ask patients to consider, and it's really, it seems weird for me to talk about this up front, but I ask them to consider radically accepting who they are unconditional from what their weight is before they even trial any of these things because if you can come from a place of peace with yourself and have that internal dialogue that nurtures you and is able to counsel you back from a setback, whether it's

overeating or not seeing the way the scale budges or seeing a negative image in your mirror like that, I think is so helpful because it builds this idea of resilience and continuing to move forward. And you're going to be good as is because if you unconditionally love yourself regardless of your weight, it means that you're enough. And my friend, Sandra Ealia, who you've had on the show, who is the author, bestselling author and award winning of never enough, talks about this in her book. And I highly recommend it. I have nothing to sell you guys today. That's the only thing I want to promote is her book because it's life-changing. And I think that it's a really good blueprint for how to start changing the dialogue with yourself and respecting yourself in the way that you deserve. Yeah, well, weight loss is complicated. It's complicated. And society doesn't make it easy. Neither does this conversation around GLP ones because everybody thinks also that, you know, because they're available, I should take it.

That's why I have all these risky patients asking me, hey, can I start taking it? But if they don't qualify, I can't give it to them. I'm not giving it to somebody who doesn't qualify. But I think that for a lot of people, even if they don't meet those criteria, they still think to themselves, I need to still, like the options there. I'm going to try it, right? But it's not for people who are of normal weight. There's nothing wrong with you. The thing that you have to change is maybe the perception of yourself.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I'm wondering if this is a mess with this conversation and I'm having with you on these GLP ones. It's like is, is it, is it the conversation for you is how much the GLP ones factor in? How much is what's going on mentally and how much is where your body has learned to be at versus GLP ones? Like, um, the thing is is that the GLP ones will help you find a bodyweight set.

point that that works for you. But the psychology is important because if you feel distressed about where it settles, and then you might be more prone to weight regain because you'll be like, well, what's the point of doing all this work if it's only going to settle here? And you might not be, you might not be willing to continue with the efforts that helped you get there. You know what? I'm so sorry. I just realized I have a meeting at 935. And it's with somebody I have in Kuwait, so I can't keep them waiting. I'm so sorry. That was my last question, Sandy. That was my last question. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. Honest to goodness. Thank you so much for the conversation today.

I'll let you go. I'm going to stay on. I appreciate your community. I love how warm and inviting you guys all are. So thank you again. Thank you, Sandy. Okay. Good luck on your travels. Okay. My goodness. So I'm just going to go through some of the conversation that we're having and I'm just listing some of the comments that's happening. So one of the things that someone said is so is does this mean that I have to take a JLP1 to be able to maintain and sustain your weight? Absolutely not. That doesn't mean that at all. I found that was really fascinating as an option because no one is talking about that at the end of the day. But you do not have to take a JLP1 in order to maintain and sustain your weight.

But science and research is telling us it takes about two years for someone who's lost their weight to able to stabilize their weight. Now, that is just if they have lost weight through counting and weighing and measuring and all of that. And that's what we have our maintenance program that Dr. Ruth has helped us create based on people who are being able to maintain and sustain their weight versus people who are having a hard time. So with the maintenance program, you are actively helping your body be able to stabilize not just your weight physically, but also your mind as well. And that mind piece is a big, massive part of the conversation. Just like what Sandy Van was talking about. Now, she is not like our regular guest. She is a world renowned expert, leading expert in her field

who talks specifically about weight loss medications and gives you the real deal on it. So I don't want you to take some of the things she said as black or white or like it's, it's much more complicated than that. Some people talking about how just the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, medications and the side effects that it does have medications, all medications that you take have side effects. I don't know if you've ever bothered to read the pamphlet that comes along. You see those ads. We've always seen those ads in magazines, for example, take this medication and then there's two pages of side effects. And you know, you have to remember what's out there in the media and social media is people want you to read their articles. And this is really big

news right now. And so I just want to have a conversation with her about what's reality, give us the real deal versus what we're hearing maybe in social media. So I'm assuming also, too, that people who are taking GLP1 medications are working hand in hand with their health care provider as well, right? So this is just an overview. This is to just get your mind going a little a tad bit of information. It's that we do deal in weight loss and it's a big, big, big, massive conversation. One of the you guys are asking for the name of the book for Sandra Alia. So she's our food addiction expert. She's already come on in their group. You might have missed that conversation. Sandra works with Sandy Van and Sean Wharton because she works

with all of the obesity medicine doctors. You can pick up her book. I'm trying to find it as well. It's called Never Enough. You can pick it up on Amazon. If you're looking for it, looking for it. It's also on my Amazon page as well. And Sandra is going to be back. Sandra is going to be back talking about this. I've been seeing weight loss influencers talk about foods that work like

GLP-1s. Is this like protein and fat that can keep the food noise down? So you have to also understand that although Sandy is very aware of the living method, not everyone is trying to lose their weight through a method like ours that does have psychologists,

learning strategist, Um, you know, we do talk about supplements. Someone was talking about, oh, that's interesting, her take on vitamins. What she was talking about was GLP1 supplements, GLP1 concoctions and supplements that people are selling. She is very much a fan of the basics, magnesium omega, mega three, vitamin D, all of that, of course, right? Because those are really foundational at the end of the day. Um, and when it turns to food, there are your proteins and fats that feed into your satiety hormones. They, they make you feel more satisfied. So Dr. Alinka was talking about this yesterday in our conversation about hormones.

So you have your hunger hormones, your leptid, which signals when you're full and your ghrelin, which tells you when you're hungry. And so eating foods that make you feel more satisfied, like your protein and fat, feed into that. And this is where when people do a traditional diet, they just eat less, exercise more, and they worry about calories and not where those calories are coming from. So this is where you can be really, really hungry, eating quite a bit of food, but your body's not getting the nutrients. People can eat a lot of food doesn't mean that's getting the nutrients that it needs, right? So this is where you can almost eat less calories but feel more satisfied.

I'm sure if you were to measure the calories that you are consuming on the living method, you would probably be in the range of like 1,200 to 1,500 upwards, depending on your body's needs. at the end of the day, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on your fat content, which is why we don't count and weigh and measure our food at the end of the day. I think it's time for me to go. Thanks for joining me.