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Melyssa Allen

Beyond the Scale: A Deep Dive Into Diet Culture, Ozempic, and a Healthier Way Forward

Ozempic, Die Culture, Functional Medicine, Weight Loss

This week, we're doing a deep dive into our cultural fixation on weight loss, dieting, and medications with Melyssa Allen, a double board-certified lifestyle medicine professional, who cuts through the noise to offer a different perspective on health beyond the scale. This conversation is a crucial look at the dominant narratives around weight, wellness, and the explosion of weight loss drugs like Ozempic. We unpack why our culture is so obsessed with thinness, challenging the deeply ingrained bias that tells us health looks a certain way. Melyssa gets real about the limitations of chasing quick fixes and the scale, explaining why your health isn't measured by a number, but built by your habits and guided by the power of Lifestyle Medicine: the healthier way forward.

About Melyssa Allen

Melyssa Allen is a double board-certified lifestyle medicine professional and a seasoned health and wellness coach with over 15 years of experience. With a background in both Biology and Psychology, she combines scientific insight with a compassionate approach to behavior change. Melyssa is the founder of WHY LLC, a company dedicated to helping individuals adopt sustainable health-promoting habits, improve their relationship with their bodies, and cultivate total well-being. Through her podcast and book, Healthy Living Doesn’t Have to Suck, she advances her mission to inspire a global shift toward positive, lasting lifestyle changes.

In this episode, we chat about:

  • Why Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs aren’t a long-term solution without behavior change
  • How focusing only on weight loss misses the root causes of poor health
  • The problem with using weight and BMI as the only markers of health
  • How lifestyle medicine helps build sustainable habits for long-term wellness
  • Shifting from body shrinking to body respect and self-worth
  • Why mindset work is essential for consistent, meaningful health change

Episode Resources:

  • Visit Melyssa Allen’s Website
  • Follow Melyssa Allen on Instagram
  • Check out Melyssa Allen’s Book, Healthy Living Doesn’t Have to Suck
  • Get 50% off your first 3 months in Melyssa Allen’s Change Makers Collective with code “SOFIA”.
  • Find experts specializing in lifestyle medicine
  • Join live fitness classes to start building positive habits
  • Learn to accept your body and boost confidence with personal coaching
  • Sign up for Tai Chi, Qigong, Meditation, Mindfulness, and Yoga live classes with Prime (get free trial)

Where to find us:

Other resources:

  • Submit to be a guest (apply now)
  • FREE: Get 2 weeks of wellness classes free on Sofia Prime (access)
  • FREE: Join Sofia Health free and get access to shop and book thousands of provider’s services, classes, and products (website)
  • Find more resources on the Sofia Unfiltered Blog (read more)

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed the content, we would love it if you could take just 2 minutes to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Your review will help us reach and inspire even more people together.

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