Roughly 1 in 9 U.S. adults are now on a GLP-1 medication for weight loss, a number that’s nearly quadrupled since 2024. If you’re one of them, or you know someone who is, the results on the scale can look like a win. What doesn’t show up on the scale is what kind of weight is actually coming off.
The part nobody’s talking about
Weight loss isn’t just fat loss. Research following people on these medications has found meaningful lean muscle loss alongside the fat loss, in some cases a notably larger share of lean mass lost compared to older approaches. Muscle isn’t just about how you look. It’s what lets you carry groceries, get up off the floor, and keep your joints and metabolism working the way they’re supposed to as you age.
This isn’t a reason to avoid GLP-1s if that’s the path you and your doctor have chosen. It’s a reason to pay attention to what else needs to be part of the plan.
The fundamental this proves, again
At Primedy Health, this is the same conversation we have regardless of what’s driving someone’s weight change, a new medication, a New Year’s resolution, or just deciding it’s time. Weight loss and strength loss are not the same goal, and losing weight without training for strength just means arriving at a lower number with less capacity to do anything with it.
Resistance training is the one lever that protects muscle while weight comes off, whether that weight loss is diet-driven, medication-assisted, or both. It’s not a nice-to-have alongside the rest of the plan. It’s the part of the plan that determines whether the version of you at the end of this is stronger or just smaller.
What that looks like in practice
It doesn’t require an overhauled routine. It requires consistency on the basics:
- 2-3 resistance training sessions a week, prioritizing compound movements that load multiple muscle groups (squats, hinges, presses, carries)
- Enough protein to actually support the muscle you’re trying to hold onto, not just fill in calories
- Progressive loading, the sessions need to get harder over time, not just happen
This is precisely what a coached environment is built to make automatic. You don’t have to figure out the loading, the progression, or whether you’re actually training hard enough, that’s the coach’s job, every session.
The bottom line
If you’re on a GLP-1, or thinking about it, the question worth asking isn’t just “how much weight am I losing.” It’s “what kind of weight, and what am I doing to protect the part I want to keep.” That’s a training question, not a medication question, and it’s one we can help you build a real answer to.
If you’re local to Mount Airy, you don’t have to guess at the answer either. We have an InBody body composition analyzer on-site that breaks down exactly what’s changing, fat, muscle, water, not just the number on the scale. It’s a quick scan, and it’s the clearest way to see whether a plan is actually protecting the muscle it should be. (More on how useful that kind of tracking really is, and where it falls short, in an upcoming post.)
And you don’t have to build the training side of this alone. Whether you’re local and want to train in person or you’re working with a coach virtually through the Primedy App, coached resistance training built around what your body actually needs is available either way.
As with anything involving prescription medication, talk with your doctor about what’s right for your specific situation. This isn’t medical advice, it’s a conversation about training principles that hold regardless of what’s driving your weight change.
