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If your favorite meals suddenly taste off, certain foods make you queasy, or you've developed heartburn that just won't quit since starting a GLP-1 medication, you're not imagining it. These are some of the most common (and least discussed) side effects people experience on GLP-1s.

Reflux, food aversions, and taste changes can make eating feel complicated and even frustrating. One day you're fine, the next your go-to dinner leaves you nauseated or nothing sounds appealing at all. The good news? These shifts are temporary, manageable, and often a sign your body is adjusting to a new way of processing food.

In this post, we'll unpack why these side effects happen, what to look out for, and practical ways to ease the discomfort so you can feel more in control of your meals again.

Understanding Reflux and Heartburn on GLP-1s

When you're on a GLP-1 medication, your gastric emptying slows down significantly. This means food sits in your stomach longer than it normally would, increasing the chance of acid reflux or heartburn. The muscles at the entrance of your stomach, which normally contract to keep acid down, can relax when triggered by certain foods, making the problem worse.

Common triggers include fatty foods, spicy dishes, tomato-based sauces, garlic, chocolate, caffeine, and alcohol. Overeating (which is easy to do on these medications when you don't yet know your new limits) and eating late at night can also worsen symptoms.

Practical Fixes 

Start by eating smaller meals more slowly and avoid lying down immediately after eating. Elevating the head of your bed with a few pillows can help prevent acid from coming up while you sleep.

Pay attention to which foods trigger your symptoms and consider reducing or eliminating them temporarily. If lifestyle changes aren't enough, talk to your physician about whether you need an antacid or medication like a proton pump inhibitor or H2 blocker.

Don't start these medications on your own, even though many are available over the counter. Some carry long-term risks, affecting electrolytes, increasing infection rates, and other complications and can be incredibly difficult to stop once you start. Always work with your physician to ensure you have an exit plan before beginning any reflux medication.

Navigating Food Aversions

Food aversions on GLP-1s are often tied to shifts in brain-gut signaling. You might suddenly dislike foods you once enjoyed—meat is a big one many patients report, along with fried foods and even sweets. This isn't a failure or something wrong with you; it's your body changing its relationship with food.

The important thing to remember is that these aversions are often fluid. They might last a few days, a few weeks, or longer, but they don't necessarily mean you'll never enjoy that food again.

How to Adapt

First, let’s reframe how you think about this. Food aversions aren't a problem to fix, they're information from your body. Listen to those signals rather than forcing yourself to eat something that doesn't appeal to you.

Try experimenting with new cooking methods, textures, and preparations. If chicken breast suddenly doesn't work for you, try ground turkey. If grilled doesn't appeal, try a different preparation method. It’s important to be flexible, especially in social situations. Maybe you could order a different appetizer if your original choice suddenly doesn't sound good.

One important note: if you find you can't tolerate protein, especially meat, this is often a sign that your dose is too high. That's a conversation to have with your physician about potentially decreasing your dose.

Managing Taste Changes

GLP-1 medications can alter the dopamine reward pathway in your brain, making high-sugar and high-fat foods less appealing than they used to be. Some people also report a metallic taste or dulled sweetness. These changes can be disorienting, but they're also an opportunity to discover new foods and flavors.

What You Can Do

You're going to have to relearn which foods you like and don't like as you're essentially working with a new body. Use herbs, spices, and citrus to boost flavor (citrus in particular tends to be very appealing to people on GLP-1s). What you loved before might not appeal now, and that's okay. You can still try different cuisines and cooking styles to see what works for you.

If you're experiencing a metallic taste specifically, talk to your physician. This can sometimes indicate nutritional deficiencies like low zinc or iron, or could be related to other factors like a recent COVID infection. Don't assume it's just the GLP-1 as there could be other things going on that need attention.

Your Body Is Changing, And That's Okay

Side effects like reflux, food aversions, and taste changes are common on GLP-1 medications, but they're manageable. Most importantly, they're temporary and often a sign that your body is adjusting to a healthier relationship with food.

Keep experimenting and stay curious. You're in a new body when you're on these medications, and that means discovering what works for you now, not what worked before.

Have questions about other GLP-1 side effects?

Submit your questions for Season 3 of the Behind the Curtain premium podcast here, where we'll be doing deep dives into individual side effects and how to manage them. 

And if you're looking for personalized support navigating these changes, the January 30/30 Program is now enrolling. It's a small group coaching experience with weekly calls, expert workshops, and a supportive WhatsApp community to help you implement what you're learning in real time. (Note: I’m no longer offering the April cohort, so if you miss this round, the next opportunity won't be until September 2026.)

TRANSCRIPT:

Disclaimer: The transcript below is provided for your convenience and may contain typos, errors, or grammatical inconsistencies, as it has not been professionally edited or proofread. Please enjoy it as-is and read at your own discretion.

Please note: The content shared in this podcast and blog post is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider for personalized medical guidance.  

 Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm excited today to talk about some of the side effects that I don't think people get warned about when they're going onto a GLP one medication. And again, this episode, it's really not meant to scare you in any way. It's really meant to empower you with how to recognize these things.

Maybe some strategies. Side effects are really common. They're often temporary. They're definitely manageable. I do wanna remind you. As it says in the intro of my podcast here, of course I'm a physician. I'm likely not seeing you in clinic, make sure that you always run everything by your physician.

This is really just informational, but this is stuff that online, I see people talk about this stuff often in a way that's incorrect or doesn't make sense, so I always want this a place where you can come from someone that is a board certified obesity medicine physician, clinically practicing seeing patients all the time.

Working with people on this actively, so it's very different than a theory or. An N of one where it's one person's example. This is really a collective of evidence-based things as well as what I see practically clinically work in the office. So today we're gonna talk about reflux. You can say gerd, heartburn, lots of different words for that.

We're gonna talk about food aversions and taste changes. There's a lot more that we could talk about. There's something called allodynia where you get patches on the skin that are very hypersensitive. And again, there's. It's endless what we could talk about. In fact, next year, I really suspect that the next season, if you would, maybe season three at some point.

In the first six months of next year with the Behind the Scenes podcast, what I really want to do is do an extreme deep dive into every single side effect, or at least majority of them. 'cause there are a lot, I actually wonder if you guys have any questions about side effects that I don't talk about today.

I do have other episodes on things like sulfur burps and stuff like that. But remember these episodes are always just like a quick little taste of things. It's not always the deep dive. I do have little mini courses and other things for that. But for season three, I want on the Behind the Scenes podcast to dig a lot deeper into that.

But I wanna know your questions for that. So you're gonna find in the show notes today a link where you can leave your name, your email, and then what your question would be because. I know what I'm getting asked all day long, what I think is most relevant, but it's always so great for me to hear what you are struggling with and what you want the answer on.

And I find that those are the best podcast seasons because it's just very clinically relevant. You get to hear the way that a physician thinks through things, and it's very different than anything else that you get out there.

If you are wanting to help me out in that way, I would love for you to click on that link and tell me what your questions are. You can always hit reply to the emails that we send. If you're on our email list, we send it out Monday. That lets you know what the episode is and that it's up, things like that.

But when it's in that then I can come back to it. I could even get back to you 'cause we'll have the email in there. So that would be extremely helpful. Alright, so first of all, let's talk about reflux. So with all of these, I wanna talk about how does it actually show up for you?

What is happening and then what are some practical fixes? We'll do that with all of these. Number one, why does reflux happen on a GLP one? The reason that it's happening is because your gastric emptying is slowed down. So stuff is physically sitting in the stomach longer.

There's a higher chance that things are gonna, reflux means they're gonna come. Up. When we think about heartburn, it's sometimes that some of that acid is coming up further than it normally would. Number one, it might not ever have left the stomach, but now much more is sitting in the stomach. It's not moving along.

And so things can really come up easier. It can also be worsened by things like overeating. And remember, overeating is easy on these medications because it's something that you. Quite often can stumble into because you don't realize, oh, my limits are smaller than they used to be. This was really always the first few months on the meds, I say, Hey, we've gotta slow down.

We really have to relearn your body on these meds. But overeating can do it late night, eating can do it, and then really, there are so many foods that trigger this. I think about fatty foods being a really big culprit on these medications, spicy foods, anything with a tomato base to it. Garlic, chocolate.

Alcohol. What this is actually doing is we don't have an on off valve when food is coming into the stomach. We have muscles that are contracting, meaning getting tight or relaxing, so they relax when food is coming in, and then it should contract means it should get tight, the entrance into the stomach.

It should get tight to not have acid come up. But when you eat these type of foods, some of us are very sensitive to this. I know, and I didn't have this actually before, before I was on a GLP one, but if I have too many tomato-based things. The heartburn is insane. I never had to, cut back on garlic or cut back on things like that.

And definitely as I've gotten older and with medication, things like that, I've had to adjust it. Know that it's a big, long list. That's part of what I wanna put into that next season that, I always have a PDF that goes with things. I really want you to understand, Hey, look through this list and see if anything is contributing.

This is a big thing that I. Get go into with my patients to really lock it down. But what are some practical fixes if you're noticing this? Oh, the other one I didn't mention. Caffeine. Really big culprit. What are some practical fixes? Eating smaller meals slower can really help. Avoiding laying down after meals can be a big trick.

And also, for example, like elevating the head of the bed. We always talk about this in medicine where. If you have reflux, we're not gonna have you lay flat. The chance of regurgitation, meaning things coming higher, it's really increased. We're gonna say, Hey, use a few pillows. Elevate yourself a little bit so that stuff stays down.

And then a final thing that you can do here, again, this is not a comprehensive list, this is, but a beginning would be to talk to your physician and see, do you need an antacid? Do you need something like a proton pump inhibitor or something called an H two blocker. The difference would be the proton pump inhibitors are things like.

Omeprazole, Prilosec, things like that. The H two blocker would be something like Ranitidine, Zantac, just to give you a reference on that. Definitely you talk to your physician. A lot of these medications you can get over the counter, right? So you're like, whatever, Matea, I'm just gonna go ahead and buy it.

Do not do that. Talk to your physician. The reason being, some of these are really not great for us long term. They can affect electrolytes, they can affect different infections that you get, rates of pneumonia. C Diff, which is an infection. That you could pick up like in a hospital, there are so many different things that can happen.

You really wanna make sure that your physician knows what you're doing because once you get on some of these things, it's incredibly hard to get off of them. My thing is always we don't enter these medications without having an exit plan. And so one of the things that I do, I will do everything in the land to motivate a patient to modify.

Nutrition, drinking patterns, eating patterns, all of that. I will work really hard on that before I bring in a medication. There's definitely a time and a place, but you don't wanna bring that in unless it's absolutely necessary. Alright, the next one that I wanna talk about is food aversions and hands up if this has happened to you.

So how does it show up initially? You start to suddenly dislike foods that you really enjoyed. Ones that I've heard very commonly from patients meat, this is a really big one. Now I have thoughts on meat and I'm gonna come back to that in a second. But meat can be one fried food. Suddenly, it just really doesn't agree with you. Proverbially online, you'll hear. You'll hear the young kids say it gives them the ick, right, or sweets even. And you must be like, I, I loved that. Why do I not like that anymore? It's often tied to our brain gut signaling that shifts with GLP ones. And so when this shows up, really how can we navigate it?

First of all, we need to reframe this food. Aversions are not a failure. Okay. It's not like, oh my gosh, now I'm not gonna be able to eat these foods. It's really a sign that your body is changing its relationship with food. Now what I often see with food aversions is that it is momentary. It might be one day, two days, one week, two week, three week, but it's often shifting.

One thing that I think is really helpful here is to experiment with new cooking methods. Maybe before you were always having chicken breast, okay, can we try a ground Turkey? Maybe you try it grilled instead of fried. Maybe you, change the texture, the consistency, what you're having with it.

This can be really awkward because I know that something that people tell me all the time is that they suddenly will go to a restaurant and everyone else is fine around them, and they're like, I just don't want this. I'm not feeling it. Listen to yourself. This could be a whole nother episode that we talk about how to navigate that, but.

It is socially awkward, but just be flexible. Maybe if that meal doesn't agree with you, could you order a different appetizer and enjoy it? Things like that. Oftentimes it's really helpful if you're with a group that gets it and understands this. People are so happy with this 'cause they know things are gonna change, and I don't wanna have to explain it to the group, but one thing I really wanna tell you about food aversions again, I often see that it's fluid and it changes with time.

So don't think, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna be able to have meat again. Maybe for the next 1, 2, 3 weeks. You don't love it. But again, it doesn't mean that it's not gonna come back into favor with you. The one thing that I find with meat though, this just in particular out of all of these meat, is usually that your dose is too high.

So I find that you can't tolerate the protein, things like that. And this is assuming that, you to like meat. I mean, I'm a vegetarian different, but if you liked it. So one thing that I would say is that would really be a talking point for your physician is is the dose too high? So quite often I'll decrease the dose and then that person is just fine.

It's a dosing thing. Again, just something to think about. Alright, the last one, taste changes. Now why does the taste profile change? Many aspects here, but one thing that I think is really at play is that. GLP ones can really alter the dopamine reward pathway. These high sugar foods or high fat foods, they might just be less appealing than normal.

Some people will also report that there's maybe like a little bit of a metallic taste or dulled sweetness. These are not fun things to be honest when they're happening. Something that we can really do here when taste has changed is, number one, realize you're gonna have to relearn which foods you like and don't like.

It's a whole other you. I speak about my own experience 'cause I spend the most time with myself. I think about the foods that I like and enjoy and eat now so different than years ago, and that has been the thing that is just so incredibly helpful because there's not this. Disease process that's running all the preferences.

It's actually very health-based. What I'm loving. Some of the things you could do is you could use different herbs and spices. You could use citrus to boost flavor. This is a really big one. A lot of people on a GLP one will love citrus. These are the kind of things, by the way, have any of you guys seen how there's all these food companies that now want.

To do the testing with people that are on GLP ones. They wanna bring them in, they want the focus group. They're doing it in very covert ways, but I'm seeing it happening all over the place. I'm gonna GU and freaking continue that. Citrus is gonna be one of the main things that's gonna come outta those focus groups.

If anyone in the industry right now is listening, it's citrus is gonna be one of the things. There are. Ways around what's happening with these foods, and you need to figure out what flavoring profiles now are more appealing to me. The other thing is try different cuisines and cooking styles. I used to love every now and again some Indian food, uh, Tika masala, like all of this kind of stuff.

Uh, oh my gosh. I don't wanna say all the names and butcher them, but I loved the chickpea with the sort of spicy curry sauce, all of it. And nowadays not so much. And so again, like now and then, but it's not as much. I don't crave that or want that. So now it's different preferences.

Mediterranean, which I always loved, but now much more than normal. Different types of fruit. Just be open to what you liked before. You might not like now. Now the another thing that metallic taste that is a tricky one that I wanna say. Number one, you, you really want to talk to a physician because there can be different nutritional deficiencies.

Things like zinc or iron or maybe you had COVID. That is one of the most distressing things with COVID. Not only the taste differences, but also if you are on something like paxlovid to try to mitigate how long it lasts for you. Make sure that you talk to your physician about that.

There are just too many other things that can be going on that I don't wanna say. Oh, it's just a GLP one. Remember, there can be. Correlation, but it's not necessarily causation. We always wanna be careful that we're not missing something else. Alright? But I just wanna leave you with this, that side effects, they're really common.

99.999% of them are gonna be manageable. They're gonna often improve with time. You need to work with your team. To get to the bottom of these things. There's also lots of great books out there. Hopefully my podcast is a great place for you. The deep dives that we do on behind the curtain, those seasons hopefully are really helpful.

That's one of the reasons that I did it. 'cause I was like, I wanna take 30 minutes to talk about reflux and not two minutes. Right? So those are all things, hopefully that can really help you. I want to just leave you with this. Keep experimenting and stay curious. You're in a new body when you're on these medications.

I really wanna invite you to experiment with what you're doing and that's really gonna help alright, last reminder here. 'cause again, we're getting closer to the date when we're gonna close down enrollment for the January 30 30. If you were thinking about doing it, we have a few spots left in there. We're capping the number because it's really a small group experience just to.

If you're newer listening here and you don't know what happens in 30, 30. 30, 30 is a small group coaching program. What we do in there, we have weekly videos that you can watch in a curriculum. There is a WhatsApp group where we're talking all the time. We're sharing different wins. We're sharing different mindset things, different recipes.

Something that we did differently. Actually, in this past round, there was so much engagement in the groups of people talking and sharing, and it's incredible. But I wanted to make sure that things were not getting lost. So we actually have two different WhatsApp groups now.

Everyone's in both of them, but one of them is more geared towards recipes and product recommendations, right? If you're like, oh, I love this different whey product, or this protein oatmeal things like that. Or if you're doing meal prep, more of that information goes there. And then the other one is more education from me.

Mindset wins, encouragement. So that was a really nice change where everyone was like, oh, this was a really good change. Just knowing every single round I change things. We have multiple calls per week. We have a Sunday planning reset call where we get together and we're like, all right, what does the week look like?

What worked or didn't work about last week? What do we wanna do this week? What's your goal? We make it really specific. I really coach you through it how we can actually do things that are realistic. Remember, the goal of joining 30 30 is that it's a sprint. It's a time when you do new recipes, you try new things.

You might be, getting my help on learning the theory behind some of these things that you can implement it in your life. It's a time when you're really implementing a lot of new things. And then the other aspect that's there is that, so we have that Sunday planning reset call.

We have a Thursday evening that's really. Coaching, digging deep into why are things working, why are they not? Every call is different. One thing I wanna tell you about 30, 30 is that we have a lot of people that have done previous rounds that either do a consecutive round or will come back because every single round is different.

It doesn't matter what the weekly videos are actually. Every single call I'm thinking about, okay, what's going on with the group I'm learning Cool, new, different stuff. And so I just bring that into the group. So we don't have this like formulaic, like every single time it's the same. I just did this nutrition course and it was so disappointing

you could tell that every single this lady runs. Course every four weeks, and you could tell it was just old hat. Every single week she's doing the same thing. She was so bored, she was so uninterested. It was this dry copy that felt like 1990. You could tell this is the old handout and here's what I do every single time.

I was so disappointed because there was no life in it. You could tell that there was just no passion behind it. It was she's good at marketing stuff online, but when you were in there, zero energy behind it. I could go on and on, but again. I was very disappointed by it.

And so I really hope that we do things differently in 30 30, and that's a lot of the feedback that I've got that people feel like they finally found their community. Majority of people are on a medication. You do not need to disclose that, but it is very normalized. Everyone's at a different place in their journey.

We talk about artificial sweeteners, we talk about, different protein intake. We talk about do you actually need to up the protein or not? You're gonna learn, because everyone is at such a different place in their journey, it is so helpful for you. I really can't stress that enough. If it's something that you're wanting to do, I am a hundred percent positive that we will not be doing enrollment anymore.

Probably as of the end of November or into December, because remember, we need to send you the printed book that takes at least two weeks. So we, anyways, don't enroll after December because we wouldn't be able to get it to you in time. There's that aspect. Alright, last thing that I didn't talk about.

So we have those two calls that I lead, and then there's also many bonus calls that we do, at least five or six. Throughout the course of that, this is where I bring in different experts. For this next round, I have a physician a coaching expert in how to help, for example, with things like attention deficit, like how can we get things done in a more efficient manner, even if you don't have a DHD.

This is really a executive function for things is a massive thing to get hold on nowadays with social media making us have this short form content and we're just constantly on and distracted and context switching. These are skills where you're gonna take the things that she teaches and you're gonna really run with them.

I have Ally Navitzky coming back. She's gonna be answering some different stuff on strength training and nutrition, stuff like that. It's always amazing. I mean, the breadth of stuff that we talk about with Ally. We've talked about sauna, we've talked about red light. It's just such a great time where we just finger on the pulse of what's happening at the moment.

We get to get her input on that. I have Amy Adams coming back. She's a. L-M-F-T-A licensed marriage and family therapist. She's phenomenal. She comes in every round. She does a lot around internal family systems and body kindness. We have to look at our body in a different way. We can't just say,

i'm gonna love myself when the weight goes down. That's not how this works. So she's really gonna help you to understand really the why behind it. Therapist just think differently. And so we need all of that perspective. The other person that I have coming in, she's a pediatrician who does a lot in the way of educating.

Not only how we can be nicer to ourselves, but also how we can help our kids with their relationship with food or how we can help them to have a better body image. These are really complex topics. She has written multiple books. She has really excellent in this area, a lot of the goal of getting in 30 30 is that you have these personalized workshops that are coming from these experts so that you can learn different things.

You can round out your experience and you can end up in a place where not only are you achieving the health goals, but that you feel better in life in general. If that's interesting to you, again, make sure that you sign up now, because I'm gonna guarantee coming up here, we will not have registration open anymore if it's already closed by the time that this airs.

'cause you know, I always. Make it a few weeks ahead of time, these episodes. Then when you click on the link, you will not be able to sign up for January, 2026. And just to tell you, the next one we're gonna do is gonna be September of 2026, we're getting rid of the April round. The reason being, I just have now.

In-person retreats and other things running and I, I can't do everything at once. Just know when you're in my programs you get 110% of me. So if you're not doing the January round, the next one would be September of 2026. Alright, I hope that you all have an amazing rest of the week and I'll talk to you soon.