The Dark Side of GLP-1s No One Is Talking About
The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife HealthShow Notes
Karen Martel grew up with a front row seat to diet culture most of us only felt secondhand. Her mom didn't just live it, she ran a weight loss center. Butter was called Vaseline. Popcorn was the enemy. And by her teenage years, Karen was deep in an eating disorder that would shape her relationship with food for decades. In this conversation, Karen gets honest about that history, and about something she still checks herself on today. Because here's the twist. We told ourselves we moved past the thin obsession. Body positivity was supposed to be the turning point. But somewhere in the last two years, that shift started reversing, and Karen has a theory about why. This episode goes places most conversations about GLP-1s and peptides don't go. What happens when a tool built to help women stop obsessing over food becomes another way to chase an old, dangerous ideal. Where the line sits between healing and harm. And why the doctors prescribing these medications may be the biggest blind spot in the entire conversation. If you have ever felt caught between wanting to feel good in your body and worrying that wanting it too much says something bad about you, this one is going to land differently. In This Episode, We Cover: How growing up around constant food restriction shapes the way we think about our bodies for life, even decades later The uncomfortable overlap between old school diet culture and today's biohacking and peptide obsession What it actually looks like when GLP-1 use crosses from health tool into disordered territory Why so many women are afraid to admit they still count calories or obsess over their weight The real conversation around microdosing, maintenance doses, and why more is not always better What doctors are missing when they prescribe peptides without any follow up program The connection between hormones, HRT timing, and whether you even need a peptide in the first place Why shame is the wrong response to someone using these tools, and what to offer instead The long term risks nobody is putting front and center, from bone loss to malnourishment Who This Episode Is For This episode is for the woman who has spent years managing a complicated relationship with food and her body, whether she calls it that or not. It is for anyone curious about GLP-1s and peptides who wants the real picture, not just the highlight reel from social media. And it is for the woman in midlife watching her body change in ways diet and exercise alone will not fix, who wants to understand her options without judgment.
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Welcome to Quick Hits — where we bring you the most impactful moments from past episodes in under 15 minutes. Today's clip comes from one of our most replayed conversations. If you want the full episode, check the link in the description below. Listen to the full episode here. We talk constantly about eating more protein in midlife. But here is the question we do not ask nearly enough: Is your body actually getting what it needs from that protein? Because there is a big difference between eating protein, digesting protein, getting enough of the right amino acids, and actually giving your body what it needs to maintain muscle as you age. And this becomes especially important in perimenopause and menopause, when preserving muscle already starts getting harder. In this clip you will hear from the episode, with Angelo Keely, co-founder and CEO of Kion, where we get into something I realized I did not understand nearly as well as I thought I did: essential amino acids. We break down what amino acids actually are, why some proteins are considered "complete" while others are not, why collagen does not count the way many women think it does, and why protein quality may matter just as much as the number of grams you are tracking. Then we get into the part I think is especially important for midlife women: what happens when you are dieting, using a GLP-1, struggling to eat enough protein, or simply noticing that maintaining muscle is getting harder than it used to be. There are some very surprising pieces of research in this conversation that completely changed the way I think about protein supplementation. In This Episode, We Talk About: What amino acids actually are and why your body needs them
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