Fit + Fueled Life Podcast

In this episode, I’m back with Curtis Gillespie Sayers, and we dig into why GLP-1s don’t always work the way people hope, especially for women in their late 30s, 40s, and beyond. Curtis shares insights from years of working with clients in functional nutrition and explains how things like metabolic adaptation, hormone shifts, gut issues, chronic stress, and not-so-great nutrition can all get in the way of these medications doing their job. Plus, he offers insights and solutions to help your GLP-1 work better.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why GLP-1 medications work for some people and not for others
- The surprising reason many people hit a weight loss plateau on GLP-1s
- What damaged GLP receptors have to do with stubborn weight loss
- Why being in a chronic calorie deficit can actually make fat loss harder
- The metabolic cascade that happens when cortisol rises and thyroid function drops
- The overlooked role of digestion, stomach acid, and bile when using GLP medications
- Why some people experience hair loss, gallbladder issues, or pancreatitis on GLPs
- The real reason some people get more food noise and hunger while taking GLPs
- Why microdosing GLPs may create better metabolic stability than large weekly doses
- The surprising reason losing fat can increase your body’s toxic burden
- What actually determines whether you can come off a GLP without regaining weight
- The peptides Curtis prefers for metabolism support and fat loss (and the popular one he strongly dislikes)
- The real story behind “plant peptides,” oral GLP drops, and supplements all over social media

Peptide School starts March 26th! https://www.carrotsncake.com/peptideschool
Semaglutide: https://elliemd.com/microdose?bp=tinahaupert
Tirzepatide: https://elliemd.com/microdose?bp=tinahaupert
Retatrutide: https://ignitepeptides.com/product/retatrutide-10mg/ref/[email protected]/
5 Amino 1MG: https://go.biolongevitylabs.com/SH5p
SS-31: https://www.realpeptides.co/products/ss-31-elamipretide/ref/220/ NTFactor: https://rstyle.me/+8Ew__ObarZQHyPfm0EDA4g

Connect with Tina Haupert:
https://carrotsncake.com/
Facebook: Carrots 'N' Cake https://www.facebook.com/carrotsncake
Instagram: @carrotsncake https://www.instagram.com/carrotsncake
YouTube: Tina Haupert https://www.youtube.com/user/carrotsncake

About Tina Haupert:

Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). Tina and her team use functional testing, peptides, and a personalized approach to nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

Connect with Curtis Gillespie Sayers:
https://lifestylempowerment.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1lifeestyleempowerment/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@curtisfunctionalhealthcoach
Instagram: https://instagram.com/that.coach.curtis

About Curtis Gillespie Sayers:

From a young age I was in and out of the hospital suffering from health complications for as long as I can remember, breathing difficulties being the most apparent but as I grew older more serious issues began to come to light. I was diagnosed with an extremely severe case of sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a pre-diabetic status. At this time, I was also struggling with substance abuse, which would obviously contribute to my health complications, but most were from birth. After receiving the news from running tests, the doctors had informed me that I was lucky to be alive.

My psychological health was greatly impacted by my physiological health, evoking feelings of anger, and negativity which caused me to constantly argue with people around me. This affected several of my relationships and was creating a miserable life.

This lead me to seek out the help of a bodybuilding coach (not knowing a damn thing about health at the time). The main focus was “getting shredded,” not understanding how much internal health affects one’s physique.

In this episode, Tina walks through her personal experience using the growth hormone-stimulating peptides tesamorelin and ipamorelin, which are often promoted for improving body composition, muscle growth, and stubborn belly fat in midlife. But instead of a success story, this conversation is about nuance: what happened when her body didn’t respond the way she expected, how factors like nervous system stress, blood sugar, and autoimmune history can influence outcomes, and why peptides are never a replacement for solid health foundations.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why some women buy peptides online and get zero results
- How I learned that peptides are not one-size-fits-all and why context is everything
- How to use TESA + ipamorelin strategically as part of a full-body plan, not just chasing the next shiny thing
- What happens when you start too aggressively
- The real reason peptides don’t work as pills and why injections matter.
- How I managed water retention, blood sugar, and cortisol while using peptides safely
- Why cycling peptides and timing them correctly can make a huge difference in results

Join Peptide School [FREE]: https://www.carrotsncake.com/peptideschool
Tesamorelin/Ipamorelin: https://elliemd.com/product/tesa_ipa?bp=tinahaupert
Sermorelin: https://elliemd.com/product/sermorelin?bp=tinahaupert
Peptides for Women Course: https://carrots-n-cake.mykajabi.com/offers/3Q7wttmr/checkout?coupon_code=PEP

Connect with Tina Haupert:
https://carrotsncake.com/
Facebook: Carrots 'N' Cake https://www.facebook.com/carrotsncake
Instagram: @carrotsncake https://www.instagram.com/carrotsncake
YouTube: Tina Haupert https://www.youtube.com/user/carrotsncake

About Tina Haupert:

Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). Tina and her team use functional testing, peptides, and a personalized approach to nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

In this episode, Tina sits down with functional nutrition coach Lois Hughey to dig into what’s really going on behind the scenes when it comes to fat loss in midlife — things like metabolic slowdown, chronic under-eating, estrogen imbalances, gut issues, and sluggish liver detox. They chat about why standard blood tests often miss the full picture, how functional tests like GI-MAP and DUTCH can give you deeper insights, and why sometimes fat loss needs to take a backseat to actual healing.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why eating as little as possible trains your body to resist fat loss
- What metabolic adaptation actually is and how it develops over time
- The functional testing patterns she sees again and again in women who are stuck
- How estrogen dominance shows up on stool testing and why it matters, especially before adding HRT
- Why gut dysfunction often drives hormonal symptoms
- Why you can’t shortcut healing or do things out of order
- What realistic timelines for healing and body recomposition really look like

Join Peptide School [FREE]: https://www.carrotsncake.com/peptideschool

Connect with Tina Haupert:
https://carrotsncake.com/
Facebook: Carrots 'N' Cake https://www.facebook.com/carrotsncake
Instagram: @carrotsncake https://www.instagram.com/carrotsncake
YouTube: Tina Haupert https://www.youtube.com/user/carrotsncake

About Tina Haupert:

Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). Tina and her team use functional testing, peptides, and a personalized approach to nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

Connect with Lois Hughey:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lois.frerichshughey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loishughey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lois.hughey.coaching/

About Lois Hughey:

Lois Hughey is the founder of Empowered Life Nutrition, a coaching company that helps women over 45 achieve real, lasting fat loss through functional testing, personalized nutrition, and strength-focused fitness. After spending decades trapped in diet culture and overtraining, including running half marathons while eating less than 1,000 calories a day, Lois learned the hard way that discipline alone doesn’t fix a downregulated metabolism.

Today, she and her team use advanced testing to uncover the why behind slow progress, fatigue, bloating, sleep issues, and stubborn weight gain. Her signature programs combine data-driven insights with simple, sustainable nutrition and movement strategies that help women feel in control of their bodies again.

Lois has coached hundreds of women to rebuild their metabolism, gain confidence, and lose 15–40 pounds without extreme diets or endless cardio. Her work centers on one core belief: when a woman understands her body, she stops fighting it, and that’s when everything changes.

She lives in southern Virginia with her husband and two dogs, and when she’s not coaching or creating content, you’ll find her hiking, lifting weights, or binge-watching Netflix.

In this episode, Tina chats with homeopath Vanessa Baldwin about looking at hormone health in a totally different way. Vanessa opens up about her own journey, including chronic bladder issues, autoimmune struggles, weight ups and downs, burnout, and a major health crash and how homeopathy played a role in her healing. They break down what homeopathy really is (and isn’t), how it’s different from conventional medicine, why your mental and emotional patterns matter just as much as physical symptoms, and how this approach can help women dealing with perimenopause, autoimmune conditions, or stubborn hormone issues.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Vanessa’s journey: undereating, overexercising, and multiple autoimmune diagnoses
- Discovering homeopathy as a path to healing
- What is homeopathy and how does it work?
- Who should consider working with a homeopath
- How homeopathy can support women in perimenopause and menopause
- Common hormonal states and patterns homeopathy addresses
- How family history and lineage can influence your hormonal health
- The emotional and energetic dimensions of homeopathic healing
- The process of working with a homeopath: what to expect
- How to find the right homeopath for you

Connect with Tina Haupert:
https://carrotsncake.com/
Facebook: Carrots 'N' Cake https://www.facebook.com/carrotsncake
Instagram: @carrotsncake https://www.instagram.com/carrotsncake
YouTube: Tina Haupert https://www.youtube.com/user/carrotsncake

About Tina Haupert:

Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). Tina and her team use functional testing, peptides, and a personalized approach to nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

Connect with Vanessa Baldwin:
https://brightlightwellnesscoach.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bright_light_wellness/vanessabaldwin/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BrightLightWellness/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100173486329061
X: https://www.tiktok.com/@bright_light_wellness

About Vanessa Baldwin:

Vanessa Baldwin is a certified Homeopath & Certified Circadian & Quantum Clinician. Her work comes from both lived experience and deep clinical curiosity. She is a former special education teacher, and a woman who has personally navigated complex chronic illness. After witnessing the limitations of conventional care & functional care, she committed to understanding the body through a holistic, root-cause lens — one that honors mitochondrial health, biology, emotions, environment, and nervous system function. Her own healing journey shaped the way she works today — with patience, curiosity, and deep compassion for sensitive systems. She brings together biology, energy, rhythm, and nervous system safety to create care that feels supportive, not overwhelming.

She supports individuals and families who are frustrated with the medical and functional medicine systems and are seeking a more gentle, energetic, and holistic path to healing. Her work focuses on rebuilding the vital force, strengthening the immune system, and restoring balance through individualized, whole-person care. Gentle, vitalistic healing that strengthens you from the inside out.

In this episode, Tina sits down with Dane Johnson, founder of Crohn’s Colitis Lifestyle, to break down the real differences between IBD and IBS and why confusing the two can keep people stuck. They dive into the emotional weight of chronic digestive symptoms, the fear around food, and what it truly means to “heal your gut.” From popular diets like SCD and AIP to digestive enzymes, peptides, and biohacking tools, they explore what actually helps. More importantly, they zoom out to the often-overlooked foundations: anatomy, digestion, nervous system regulation, mindset, and long-term sustainability. This conversation challenges the idea that food alone is the answer and offers a grounded, empowering perspective for anyone navigating Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, or chronic gut inflammation.

Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why food alone isn’t the full solution for Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis
- The lifestyle factors that silently trigger inflammation and most patients ignore
- Why your happiness and mindset are not “woo” and how they affect your symptoms
- How to create your own IBD food philosophy instead of following strict diets forever
- His take on supplements, peptides, exosomes, and who actually needs them.
- Why most people waste money before fixing foundational habits
- His go-to “Digestion-Friendly Salad” and why it works for sensitive guts
- One mistake almost everyone with IBD makes when trying to heal their digestion

Connect with Tina Haupert:
https://carrotsncake.com/
Facebook: Carrots 'N' Cake https://www.facebook.com/carrotsncake
Instagram: @carrotsncake https://www.instagram.com/carrotsncake
YouTube: Tina Haupert https://www.youtube.com/user/carrotsncake

About Tina Haupert:

Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). Tina and her team use functional testing, peptides, and a personalized approach to nutrition to help women find balance within their diets while achieving their body composition goals.

Connect with Dane Johnson:
https://crohnscolitislifestyle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crohnscolitis_lifestyle/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf3Yhapgc2Qb16_MP7f-DuQ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrohnsColitisLifestyle
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danejohnson24

About Dane Johnson:

Dane is the founder of CrohnsColitisLifestyle inspired by his life-threatening battle with Crohn’s/Colitis, which he reversed using natural practice. As a Board Certified Nutritionist and one of the most successful Crohn’s/Colitis coaches in the world, he has helped thousands around the world find their unique answer to IBD while building a community of supporters, doctors and healers!