{"id":708944,"date":"2026-06-17T05:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T05:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708944\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T05:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T05:47:09","slug":"people-walk-exercise-less-after-starting-glp-1s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708944\/","title":{"rendered":"People Walk, Exercise Less After Starting GLP-1s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Folks losing weight on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drugs.com\/ozempic.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ozempic<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drugs.com\/zepbound.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zepbound<\/a> tend to start slacking off when it comes to exercise, a new study says.<\/p>\n<p>People\u2019s daily step count and physical activity declined after starting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthday.com\/a-to-z-health\/weight-loss\/glp-1-medications-a-comprehensive-overview\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GLP-1 <\/a>medication, researchers reported Saturday at the Endocrine Society\u2019s annual meeting in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile many assume that weight loss leads naturally to increased physical activity, our study suggests otherwise,\u201d lead researcher <a href=\"https:\/\/providers.hshs.org\/provider\/sajana-maharjan\/4222333\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dr. Sajana Maharjan<\/a> of HSHS St. John\u2019s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>This is problematic because GLP-1 drugs cause people to lose lean muscle mass as well as fat, researchers said. Users must work out to preserve their strength and long-term health.<\/p>\n<p>For the new study, researchers analyzed movement data on more than 750 people who wore a Fitbit activity tracker after they started a GLP-1 drug.<\/p>\n<p>Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which helps control insulin and blood sugar levels, decreases appetite and slows digestion of food.<\/p>\n<p>On average, daily steps decreased from 5,047 to 4,487 steps after people started on a GLP-1 drug, the study found.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, their daily minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise declined from 28 to 22 minutes per day.<\/p>\n<p>The largest declines were seen in men and in people with joint or muscle pain, researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>Men got 986 fewer daily steps after starting a GLP-1 compared to 445 fewer among women, the data showed.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, those with muscle or joint pain had 679 fewer steps, while those without such pain had a decline of 22 fewer steps per day.<\/p>\n<p>The team found no evidence at all that people were more motivated to engage in physical activity after they lost weight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe findings in our study reinforce that exercise cannot be optional for people taking these medications,\u201d Maharjan said. \u201cPeople need targeted interventions that encourage physical activity alongside medication for obesity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Folks losing weight on Ozempic or Zepbound tend to start slacking off when it comes to exercise, a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,3436,97,249,158354,15760,93050],"class_list":["post-708944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-glp-1","tag-health","tag-ozempic","tag-step-count","tag-walking","tag-zepbound"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}