Bamboo Nutrition is a group practice of registered dietitians and therapists, located in Columbia, MO and Rochester, MN. Bamboo Nutrition is a non-weight-focused practice, which means we don’t believe weight loss solves the problem or is the answer to every chronic disease. We help individuals live healthier lives where they feel confident in their food decisions and feeding their families, and we work alongside our clients to improve disordered eating behaviors and negative body image.
The goal with medications such as Saxenda, Mounjaro, Ozempic, Zepbound, Wegovy, Rybelsus, Trulicity, and others, is not to use it as a band-aid, or take it long term.
It is to help provide you the opportunity for your body to slow down and adjust metabolically, while you do the hard work in improving your nutrition and activity.
If your doctor hasn’t had the conversation with you that, this medication is meant to be temporary and not something you completely depend on for long term health, then you should ask your doctor what their intention is in prescribing you this medication and what their recommendations are for you to do in the meantime.
These medications are all from a similar class of pharmaceuticals meant to slow the rate that your body metabolizes food. This group of medications, called GLP-1 agonists, help regulate our hunger and satiety (fullness) as well as production of other hormones such as insulin.
With an altered metabolism, how do I make sustainable changes?
This is a great question given that the altered metabolic effects will be temporary and after you complete the recommended term of the medication, within about 3 months your body will return to its typical metabolic state, pre-medication. Therefore, we need to learn healthy eating behaviors, nutrition education, and improve movement to complement our nutrition, in order to use the time on one of these medications wisely and benefit from long-term healthy changes.
Tips on where to start, nutritionally, while taking a GLP-1 Medication…
Meet with an Intuitive Eating Counselor/Dietitian
Work on honoring Hunger & Fullness
This is very hard to do while taking these medications, because your body’s hunger signals are surpressed. Therefore you’ll feel full, a lot more often then you’ll feel hungry. One way to improve our hunger and fullness cues is to get yourself on a schedule. Eat close to the same times every day (3 meals, and 2-3 snacks) and eat until satisfied, or full. Sample Schedule Below:
7am Breakfast
10am Snack
12:30pm Lunch
3pm Snack
6pm Dinner
9pm Optional Snack
Improve how you plan for meals
This may include spending some time every week to planning out meals. See our sample grocery lists and meal plans here.
Getting into the habit of thinking through the meals and snacks you have available to yourself every week will provide you more nutritional freedom to make healthy choices and not resort to last minute mindless eating or over eating due to extreme hunger.
Make movement a normal part of your routine
Movement is very helpful for the body when it comes to digesting food. Movement doesn’t mean going to a gym, weight lifting, or running. Movement can be incorporating chores that cause you to move around for 30min a day such as vacuuming, cleaning windows, dusting, gardening, etc. Movement can include taking walks in the morning, dancing, or something more calming such as stretching, PT exercise, or yoga.
Perhaps nutrition and movement don’t feel like the main areas you are struggling in.
Could it be that you have struggled with body image all your life and despite making great food decisions, you cannot accept the body you are in?
Could it be that you know a lot about nutrition and don’t see what a dietitian could add to your repertoire or knowledge?
These are not uncommon challenges or thoughts to have. All these questions can be their own barriers to you receiving support. The dietitians at Bamboo Nutrition are not food police or food shamers and they go a heck of a lot deeper than teaching you a food pyramid. When working with a dietitian at Bamboo Nutrition, you’ll discuss body image, thoughts around food, food rules that may have built up over years of dieting, individual food concerns that impact your GI, allergies/intolerances, and hormones. Our dietitians can also serve as accountability providers that ensure you make a meal plan and a grocery list every week; at the same time, providing feedback on ways to make it more satisfying, easy to implement, and add more nutritional value.
We hope this article has helped provide you with more guidance on what you can be working on in the meantime taking medications that may impact your weight and metabolism.
For more questions, or if you’re wondering if we can help you with a specific issue, please reach out to us at contact@bamboonutritionrd.com.