Digestive health is getting a lot of attention, and for good reason. Whether someone is using a GLP-1 medication or working on weight health without one, many of the challenges people experience trace back to the same underlying question: Can the body actually break down and use what’s coming in?
For years, dietary advice has focused almost exclusively on what we eat. But digestion reminds us that food’s nutrient content and quality isn’t the whole story. If the body can’t process what we’re eating, even the “best” choices can fall flat.
In my new book, Your Best Shot: The Personalized System for Optimal Weight Health — GLP-1 Shot or Not, you get a playbook for optimizing your weight health.
Spoiler alert: it gives you an assessment and specific guidance to address any digestive challenge, because you can’t be weight healthy with any of those.
I like to say, you are not what you eat: you are what you digest and absorb. And this plays out especially when trying to optimize weight health.
Why Is Digestive Health Foundational to Weight Health?
Digestion is where everything starts, especially weight health. Before food can influence energy, metabolism, hormones, or body composition, it has to be broken down into forms the body can recognize and use.
It’s also where your weight-health hormones reside. These - GLP-1,PYY,GIP,CCK - help regulate hunger, satiety and blood sugar, but also type, location and amount of fat, muscle, bone, as well as impacting hydration, inflammation and blood flow.
These hormones and their activity require a lot of resources.
BINGO. Your digestion needs to be optimal for these hormones to get what they need to function properly.
So you could be eating enough protein but it’s not getting to them, broken down into amino acids, or to your muscles, hair and skin.
You could be getting in fibers to promote satiety, heart and weight health, but your digestion isn’t moving them along so it sends signals with bloating, reflux and constipation.
How Does Digestive Health Matter When Using GLP-1 Medications?
GLP-1 medications are powerful, helpful tools, but they work by altering digestion. They slow gastric emptying and shift appetite signals, which affects food tolerance, digestive pace and outcomes.
There’s a common assumption that if appetite is reduced, digestion will “take care of itself.” In practice, the opposite is often true.
When food sits longer in the digestive tract or hunger cues change, incomplete breakdown can lead to bloating, discomfort, or new sensitivities to foods that once felt fine. Supporting digestion alongside GLP-1 use helps reduce that friction and allows the medication to work in a more supportive, sustainable way.
GLP-1s don’t replace digestion. They change the context in which digestion happens.
What Do Digestive Enzymes Actually Do?
Digestive enzymes do one essential job: they help break food down into usable, absorbable components. In my book, I refer to them as personal assistants for digestion. They help make sure the job of breaking down food occurs completely. When we don’t take enough time to chew thoroughly, when stress or age or inflammation and other factors reduce the ones our body deploys, adding digestive enzymes can make up for insufficient amounts to get these jobs done.
Proteins become amino acids. Carbohydrates become simple sugars. Fats become fatty acids.
Without adequate enzymatic activity, food doesn’t become fuel or building blocks. It becomes work. Undigested food can ferment, irritate the gut, and trigger symptoms people often label as “intolerance.”
Another common myth is that digestive enzymes are a workaround or a crutch. In reality, they support a normal physiological process. Enzymes don’t change the food. They help the body do what it’s designed to do.
Why Eliminating Foods Isn’t a Better Weight Health Strategy
Elimination can be a tool, used properly, but it’s rarely the goal or the long-term answer.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that if a food causes symptoms, the solution is to remove it entirely. But eliminating whole food groups often reduces nutrient diversity, flexibility, and enjoyment without addressing the root issue.
In many cases, the problem isn’t that a food is inherently problematic. It’s that the body can’t break it down effectively right now.
The long-term goal isn’t to eat fewer foods. It’s helping the body tolerate more foods with fewer symptoms.
A Simple Example: Lactase Enzymes and Lactose
Lactase enzymes offer a familiar example. Many people don’t eliminate dairy forever. Instead, they use lactase to help digest lactose.
That’s not cheating. That’s supporting the body with a tool to optimize digestion.
We don’t question this approach with lactose, yet we often treat other digestive challenges as personal failures or reasons for permanent restriction. The same logic applies more broadly. Targeted enzyme support can reduce symptoms while allowing people to keep foods they enjoy and benefit from their nutritional value.
That’s personalization, not restriction.
What About FODMAPs?
FODMAPs, fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols, aren’t “bad” foods. Yet FODMAPs are frequently framed as foods to fear or avoid indefinitely.
These short-chain carbohydrates include sugars such as fructose and lactose. They also contain fiber from nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. Nutrients that the body needs for weight health.
However, they can be poorly absorbed in the small intestine, leading to digestive discomfort. Symptoms associated with FODMAPs often reflect incomplete digestion or fermentation, not toxicity.
I use FODZYME as a tool to provide enzyme support for patients who need help breaking down specific carbohydrates more effectively, reducing symptoms without requiring long-term avoidance of favorite and valuable foods. For a lot of people, this opens the door to more dietary flexibility rather than less.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s function.
Who May Benefit from Digestive Enzyme Support?
Digestive enzyme support may help people who experience bloating, gas, or discomfort after meals, even when they’re eating “all the right things.”
It can also support people using GLP-1 medications who notice digestive changes, or those who have eliminated many foods and want to reintroduce them thoughtfully.
Another important reframe: needing support doesn’t mean your body is broken. It’s a sign; your body is asking for help.
Enzymes aren’t a replacement for foundational nutrition or lifestyle support. But they’re one tool that can be used within a larger system.
How Enzymes Fit into a Personalized Weight-Health Plan
Digestive enzymes work best alongside consistent meal timing, balanced macronutrients, adequate hydration, and support for sleep and stress.
Weight health is an ecosystem. When digestion improves, energy, cravings, confidence, and consistency often improve as well.
The goal isn’t eating perfectly. It’s helping your body use what you eat, comfortably and consistently.
The Takeaway
Digestive symptoms are signals, not failures. Whether you use a GLP-1 medication or not, supporting digestion can increase flexibility, improve tolerance, and make weight-health efforts more sustainable.
Sometimes the most meaningful change isn't removing more foods. It's helping your body run better with foods you already enjoy.
What foods, timing and other supplements optimize weight health? Get the playbook Your Best Shot: The Personalized System for Optimal Weight Health — GLP-1 Shot or Not available where books are sold.