I have been working with clients on GLP-1 therapies for five years now, since before they became a headline. In that time I have watched these medications change lives, and I have watched them quietly go wrong for people who deserved better.

Here is what five years has taught me: the medication is almost never the problem. The method is.

The same drug, at the same dose, can strip one person down to a weaker, under-fueled version of themselves and rebuild another into the strongest, healthiest athlete they have been in a decade. The difference comes down to five mistakes, and I see the same ones over and over.

Here is the first one, free, because everyone needs to hear it.

Mistake #1: Letting the dose run on autopilot.

The standard playbook is start low, then step the dose up on a fixed schedule until you hit the maximum. That escalation has quietly become the default for everyone, and too often it runs on autopilot: no follow-up, no weigh-ins, no body composition measurement...