484-Intuitive Eating and GLP-1: 15 Clinical Considerations

I believe that we cannot turn away clients if they're coming to us for support.

Now, when I say this, I always caveat to you as a practitioner, having gone through the process of deciding of your personal and professional value and your ethical boundaries when it comes to practice.

So if you are in a position where you're like, I can't, it goes against my value.

It goes against my ethic.

I cannot work with someone that's on GLP-1.

Great.

Have a referral list that you have people that you've trusted over the years that you can refer your client to.

You can also think about how can I support them without supporting them with intentional weight loss? Because as we've learned in the Beyond GLP-1 series is that there is a lot of medical reason why people are currently being prescribed GLP-1 without an intention of weight loss.

So we've heard a lot of, obviously, on label, which is type 2 diabetes, like there is.

I have a client that's, funny enough, that was on GLP-1 for years and And I've been working with her not knowing she was on GLP-1 until about three years ago when it became a thing.

And then she's like, oh, I just realized I'm on a GLP-1, been on it for five years.

But it's just it's like taking metformin for her.

Like she's doing body image work.

She's doing intuitive eating.

She's such a low dose.

And I think that's the other thing to understand is.

is that the dosing of the GLP-1 has a great impact to the capacity of your client to go through the journey of intuitive eating.

So my client, for an example, has not lost weight because that wasn't the intent.

Like it was for her was like taking metformin.

So, and we've seen more and more research being done into connecting different health condition with the use of GLP-1.

I just, I'm thinking about another podcast episode I recorded with Julie Duffy Dillon on PMOS and PCOS, right? The new name.

where she has a lot of patients that are on GLP-1 for a regulation of insulin, just like my patient on type 2 diabetes that don't necessarily lose weight, right? That is not the clinical intent for it.

So this is where understanding your client, going a thorough intake, understanding their goal and taking GLP-1 is critically important.

But I believe that Wherever you lay on the ethical continuum, you either have a point of reference or you're working with the person on whatever parts your ethics and your value are lending you.

The other thing we need to be really, that's really critical in this era of GLP-1 is assessment of patients and clients.