I Spent 19 Years Telling Women on the Shot “Just Get Enough Protein.” I Was Wrong.
Rachel Bennett, a registered dietitian with 19 years in women’s health, reveals why Wegovy muscle loss hits the women who do everything right, why eating more protein doesn’t stop it, and what the published research says is actually going on.
There is a woman in my group I still think about.
Diane, she was 56 when she joined us, 2 months into the shot.
What struck me wasn’t just how tired she was.
It was that she thought she had brought it on herself.
The scale was going down a little every week.
On paper, everything looked great.
I gave her what every handout says: 100 grams of protein a day, a shake every day, keep up your walks, and she did everything I asked.
The tired didn’t start until month 3.
By the time she said that to me, her insurance had taken her off the shot.
She used to ride her bike to the farmers market every Saturday.
She had given the snack table at church to somebody else.
She had told the ladies at church her back was acting up.
She told me all of this like it was nothing.
Like it was her own fault.
What I had told her every Tuesday wasn’t wrong, exactly, and it also wasn’t enough.
Last year my older sister Carol, 58, started the same shot, and I did everything right this time: a protein card on her fridge, a tracking app, a weights class and collagen in her coffee.
3 months in, almost nothing had changed, and her doctor said what I had said to Diane every single week.
Why do so many women on the shot get weaker while the scale keeps going down?
That night I sat down with the actual research papers, not the handouts, and the answer changed how I talk to women on the shot entirely.
The Shot Muscle Cascade
The real reason you are losing strength while the scale goes down, and why “eat more protein” doesn’t fix it.
Here is what I found in the papers: the shot works on you in 3 pieces, and all 3 come from the same shot.
I call it the Shot Muscle Cascade. It looks fine on paper for months, which is exactly why nobody connects it to the shot.
The smell of food is the 1st piece. The shot doesn’t just kill your appetite, it can turn you against the exact foods that carry the most protein. A published paper said enough protein “may be difficult to achieve due to reduced appetite and/or taste aversions.” It’s not that she won’t eat the chicken and the eggs. The smell of them makes her sick. That’s why Diane told me the smell of cooking meat made her want to die and never eat it again, and why “eat more protein” went nowhere.
The scale is the 2nd piece. The weight that comes off isn’t all fat. In a trial that same paper pointed to, 38% of the weight people lost was lean mass, and that’s muscle. The scale goes down and so does she, and the scale can’t tell the difference. That’s lean muscle loss on a GLP-1, and it’s why Diane’s number dropped every single week while she couldn’t ride her bike anymore.
The day it stops is the 3rd piece. For a lot of women the food noise comes roaring back around week 3 after stopping, not gradually. The same paper said up to 2/3 of the weight lost came back within 1 year after people stopped, even with diet counseling. The weight comes back. The strength never does.
That is 3 pieces, all from the same shot, and “eat more protein” doesn’t fix any of them by itself.
That “I can barely get out of bed” feeling isn’t laziness. It’s a cascade that starts with the shot. She isn’t failing. “Eat more protein” tells her what to eat, and it doesn’t touch the smell that turns her stomach, how little she can actually get down, or the day the shot stops.
“I can barely get out of bed.. so weak , feel like I'm going to get the flu but never do, extremely tired...”
Nicole W.Why Everything You’ve Tried Has Failed
The protein number on a card on the fridge and a tracking app tell her what to eat. They don’t touch the smell that turns her stomach, and they don’t touch how little she can get down. And when her doctor says “make sure you are getting enough protein,” she hears that she isn’t trying hard enough, like she hadn’t thought of that. My sister hit her number maybe 2 days a week.
The daily protein shake asks for a whole meal in a bottle. Carol told me, “If I eat this much I will make myself sick to my stomach! It’s hard!” Her shakes sat in the fridge, because if they taste gross you won’t want to drink them, and hers tasted gross.
Snack packs, Greek yogurt, tinned tuna and peanut butter by the spoonful are all the right idea, because they are protein. But she has to open it, chew it or smell it, and on a bad day she can’t. As 1 woman put it, “Otherwise I just don’t eat.”
Collagen stirred into hot coffee, the walks and the weights class were my own fixes for Carol. Protein in a hot mug, 1 spoon at a time, and 3 months in almost nothing had changed. She walked, she lifted, and her gym’s body scan still showed she had lost a lot of muscle. You can’t lift your way out of protein that never gets in.
The stack from different stores. I bought ice cold pre made shakes for the days food sounded awful, lozenges for the nausea and a huge water bottle to force it all down. Add the collagen and that was 4 different things, her fridge looked like a pharmacy, and none of it was made to work together. After 6 weeks I couldn’t tell you if anything had changed. She was still in bed by 5.
The 6 Ingredients That Go After All 3 Pieces of the Shot Muscle Cascade
Once I could see the cascade, I went back through the papers for what actually touches it on a shot day. They kept pointing to the same 6 ingredients. Each one goes after a different piece: the smell, the scale and the stop.
Grass-Fed Collagen Protein · The Scale
The weight that comes off on the shot isn’t all fat. In a 12 week trial of 77 women, collagen peptides with training added more lean mass and strength than a placebo (Jendricke et al., 2019). It is the protein that has to get in so the muscle doesn’t leave with the fat.
Organic Ginger Root · The Smell
Across 6 trials, ginger reduced nausea compared with a placebo (Viljoen et al., 2014). It is there for the bad days, when the smell of food turns her stomach.
Organic Cocoa · The Smell
Cold chocolate has no cooking smell, no chewing and nothing hot to turn the stomach. In an 8 week trial of 90 older adults, a daily cocoa drink rich in flavanols also improved attention and thinking scores (Mastroiacovo et al., 2015).
Organic Ashwagandha · The Stop
In an 8 week trial of adults under chronic stress, ashwagandha cut food cravings and stress scores compared with a placebo (Choudhary et al., 2017). It is there for the day the shot stops and the food noise comes roaring back.
Organic Lion’s Mane · The Wiped-Out Days
In a 16 week trial of older adults with mild memory trouble, lion’s mane raised thinking test scores compared with a placebo (Mori et al., 2009). It is there for the days she is too wiped out to think straight.
Monk Fruit · The Day You Come Off
Drinks sweetened with monk fruit raised blood sugar far less than drinks sweetened with sugar (Tey et al., 2017). Sweet with 0g sugar, so it is a habit she can keep the day she comes off.
The Shot Muscle Cascade has 3 pieces at once: the smell, the scale and the stop. A shake goes after 1 piece at best and a ginger lozenge goes after another, and that is exactly what my sister’s fridge looked like. You need all 6, together, in a form you will still want the day you come off.
What Women Say After Switching
“I found when I hit about 60g of protein for breakfast at the minimum I feel much less tired.”
Stephanie H.“The fatigue was shocking the first 4 weeks but mine has got better.”
Rebecca C.“I made protein smoothies, which were cold and easy to sip. Cold food was much more palatable than warm or hot.”
Danielle F.What to Expect, Week by Week
The most important thing I tell women before they begin: this is not a medication that suppresses a symptom. It is protein getting in, day after day, in a form you will actually drink. Track it the way I tracked it for my sister. Before you start, write down how many days a week you actually hit your protein, and 1 thing you can’t do right now, like the bike or the stairs or a full day at work. Then check again at week 8.
Nothing I could point to. I had cleared most of the stuff out of Carol’s fridge, and for those 2 weeks all she did was keep drinking a cold glass every day.
By week 3 she told me, almost like it was nothing, that she had finished a whole glass on her shot day without feeling sick.
By week 5 she was hitting her protein most days, and she worked her full hours on a Friday without needing a nap. By week 7 she called me at 9 at night just to talk, from her couch and not her bed.
By week 9 she knocked on my door on a Saturday morning in her sneakers and asked if we were walking.
So, What Are Your Actual Options?
I want to be direct. There are 3 realistic paths from here, and only 1 of them goes after all 3 pieces.
The Formula I Now Recommend
I am not in the habit of recommending products. In 19 years women have brought me every powder and pill and shake there is, and most of it does nothing. My recommendations are based on research, not relationships. But after checking the formulas out there against the papers, there is 1 I now recommend to every woman in my group on the shot.
It is called mushroom chocolate milk, made by Leverage Nutrition. It’s a chocolate drink you mix with cold water or milk, 1 scoop in 8 to 10 oz and stirred for 30 seconds, so there is no cooking smell, no chewing and nothing hot to turn her stomach. It is the only formula I have found that puts all 6 in 1 glass, with 0g sugar, and it is third-party tested. It is free of GMOs, artificial sweeteners, gluten, soy, added sugar, fillers and dairy. It is made with collagen, so it is not vegan or vegetarian. It is backed by a 90 day money back guarantee, so there is nothing to lose by actually finding out.
“It is not you failing the chart. It is what the shot does to a woman who can’t get the protein in. And protein she can actually get down, cold, in a glass small enough to finish, is what the chart was missing.”
At Carol’s next visit her doctor glanced at her chart and said, “Looks like you finally outgrew the side effects.” Outgrew them, he said. Months of shakes she couldn’t drink, and when something finally worked, it got filed under her body adjusting. I didn’t correct him. I knew exactly what had changed.
I told Diane all of this at our next group, and she listened the way she used to before the shot, leaning in with her notebook open. She’s 3 months in now and riding her bike again on Saturdays, just to the corner and back, which for Diane is huge. She told me last week she’s thinking about taking the snack table back at church, maybe every other week to start.
I have no reason to tell you any of this except Diane. She told me she brought this on herself. She didn’t. The chart I handed her was missing the part that matters, and I handed it out for 19 years.
If your doctor has told you to just make sure you are getting enough protein, like you hadn’t thought of that, if you’ve done everything right and the scale went down while your strength went with it, and if you’re terrified of continuing the med for years only to regain the weight, this is what I wish I’d known years before I almost handed my own sister the same chart I handed Diane.
You did not do everything right, for this long, to lose your strength and watch the weight come back. Before you buy anything, remember this: if you have to cook it, chew it, or hold your nose to get it down, put it back. Go get it.
Questions Women on the Shot Ask
Part of the weight you lose on the shot is muscle. In a trial cited in a 2025 joint advisory, 38% of the weight lost was lean mass. The shot cuts appetite and can make meat and eggs smell awful, so the protein never gets eaten, and the muscle goes with the fat.
The shot does not target muscle. It drops your appetite and can turn you against the smell of meat, eggs and hot food, so you eat far less protein than your body needs. When protein does not get in, the weight that comes off is not all fat, and the scale cannot tell the difference.
Get protein in every day, including the bad days. The usual advice is about 100 grams a day, but it fails when the shot makes food repellent. Choose protein you do not have to cook, chew or smell, like a cold, sweet drink you can sip, and keep your walks and lifting going.
Yes, muscle can be rebuilt with protein every day and regular movement. The catch is that lost weight tends to come back as fat after you stop, while muscle does not return on its own. In 1 support group, a woman was riding her bike again 3 months after protein started getting in daily.
Women on the shot say cold food goes down much better than warm or hot food. Skip anything you have to cook, chew or smell. Sip a small, cold, sweet protein drink through the day, even when you are not hungry, and never let your stomach get completely empty. 1 small glass can give you 16g.
You are eating far less, so your protein and calories drop, and muscle loss leaves you weak. Women on the shot say getting protein in at breakfast left them feeling much less tired. Getting protein in is the 1st thing to fix.