Exercising on Foundayo: Performance, Energy and Recovery
Foundayo (orforglipron) is a once-daily tablet licensed in the UK for weight management as an adjunct to a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity. In the forums where people compare notes on it, that last phrase turns into something practical: can the usual class, lifting session or walk still happen, and what does it feel like when it does?
What follows draws on public forum threads. They are personal accounts, not evidence of how often anything happens or why, and most come from US forums.
The picture that emerges is of workouts that fall apart in the first weeks, others that carry on untouched, and a good deal in between, along with questions about timing, meals, aching joints and muscle.
When the Usual Workout Stops Being Usual
For people who already train regularly, the gym can be the place where a change is noticed first.
"I’m on the 0.8 dosage and the fatigue is actually crazy. I’m struggling in the gym and I hate I can barely do the workouts I’m used to doing. […]"
– Spirited_Rooster4811
A similar heaviness appears in a post from three weeks into the starter strength, where it arrived in the second week and had nearly gone by the third.
"Started 0.8 three weeks ago. No weight loss as yet but on the plus side no gastro issues either. What shocked me though was total bone crushing fatigue in week 2. I’m a regular gym goer and very active person and my limbs felt like bricks. I struggled to move I was that tired. It’s now all but gone which is great but leaves me scared about moving up a dose […]"
– jiljen
Group classes offer a fixed yardstick, since the weights and the exercises stay the same from one week to the next. That is what makes this next account so specific.
"It will be 3 weeks on Monday for me and my side effects have been light nausea been cold and tired. The tired part is ok at night because I sleep like a rock but in the daytime it sucks, there are this 2 strength classes I really enjoy at my gym and find myself struggling on the same weight and exercises that I had no problem with before I started on the pill. Hoping it will get better 🤔."
– ft1125
Not every account stops at the struggle in the session, though. Several describe the tiredness arriving before the workout has even begun.
Too Tired to Start
Before performance comes the simpler question of whether a session happens at all, and for one person on the second day of the starter strength it was less about fitness than about a to-do list.
"Both yesterday and today I've been really low energy and eventually totally crashed and napped for an hour. Between that and the challenges I'm having hitting my protein goal I'm worrying for my muscles. FWIW, my hope is that weight loss will make it easier for me to take care of things on the five acres we just moved to. There are rocks to be moved, fences to be built, a patio to pour, a gazebo to put up, and more. So not exercising isn't just not exercising, it's not doing the things I need to do."
– SirRatcha
Replies to that post leaned on the calendar, with reassurance built from someone else's own timeline.
"I was exhausted for the first three weeks then it subsided. […]"
– krispdx
Getting out of the door is a hurdle in its own right, and one reply in a thread about flattened motivation describes both the difficulty and what happened once it was cleared.
"exercise can reduces tiredness but I spend hours to get myself up to go to the gym, but once I finished my planned workout it's all normal and energetic again."
– stardustlumos
Workouts That Carry On as Normal
Alongside those accounts sit others in which training carried on without incident, and in a few it felt easier.
"[…] I haven’t had many side effects at all- especially not one that would hinder my ability to work out. I’m only two weeks in but I’ve been working out 4-5 times a week with zero issue. Oddly more energy and feeling better than before I started."
– Admarie25
The picture is rarely tidy within a single person. One post lists heartburn, indigestion and a vanished appetite, then sets a single line about workouts beside them.
"[…] The heartburn and indigestion is pretty severe, so it does impact what I am eating during the day (my appetite is nonexistent). I do have more energy to finish workouts. […]"
– amazemenot
For many, the next question is less about stamina than about the clock: when in the day to take the tablet.
Planning the Tablet Around the Class
Because the first doses are an unknown, scheduling becomes a small piece of strategy. Before starting, one person laid out a morning and wondered where the tablet fitted into it.
"[…] I have a cardio pilates class scheduled for 10:30AM, after a light breakfast around 8ish and would hate to start feeling symptoms during class. Would you wait until after the class or its too soon to start feeling symptoms?"
– UnfairCriticism7658
The reply that came back was brief, and from someone whose morning looked much the same.
"I take mine with breakfast (7am) and work out class at 8.30. Zero problems"
– Harriet_Vegas
Others treat timing as an experiment that runs for weeks. After moving over from an injection, one person kept shifting the tablet around and ended up with a preference for the afternoon, and with a question they could not answer.
"I was on Zepbound for about 9 months until I switched to Foundayo for maintenance (due to insurance). I feel like I have had less strength and energy overall on BOTH. I thought it was just in my head. I also eat properly, lift weights, exercise, get sleep. My legs often feel rubbery. […] I've been experimenting with the timing. I think taking Foundayo in late afternoon works best for me. But I wonder what is causing this for us?"
– Grh777
Timing is only one of the ways in which exercise and appetite meet.
Eating Around the Workout
Several people describe a changed relationship between exercise and hunger. In the first days it can run the other way round, with food treated as a requirement of the session.
"Today is day 3ish for me and I noticed that I’m not that hungry but I do feel weak occasionally which forces me to eat because then I won’t have enough strength to go to the gym. […]"
– Kekandlols
The famished feeling that used to follow a hard session is something one experienced lifter describes as missing, which turns lunch into a negotiation conducted in two halves.
"I have been lifting weights ( former competitive lifter)and I do it right before lunch bc for some Reason that is the meal I just want to skip . I work out to keep my muscle mass or build some , but also I am hoping it makes me hungry . But to be honest, I’m still not that hungry afterwards. Typically I am famished . Before Foundayo, After a workout session I’d be so hangry! Now I am lucky it can eat half of my lunch. So I usually do eat half but then wait 30 -45 min and eat the rest."
– tababnaba76
At a higher strength, the same absence is described as physical rather than a matter of interest.
"So I noticed in my last two weeks of 2.5 my ability to eat came back but this first week of 5.5 and wow I can't eat a full meal. Like physically can't even after a hard workout!"
– slapping_rabbits
What the body does once the session is over is the other half of the conversation.
Rest, Sleep and Aches
Recovery tends to appear in these accounts as an aside rather than a subject: a nap, a bad night, a knee that stops complaining.
"Greetings all! Today is my fourth day on 2.5 MG Foundayo. The exhaustion has been pretty bad. I have been taking 1-2 hour naps and have been too tired to exercise."
– Number_Ten10
Sleep goes the other way for some. One regular class-goer reported no tiredness at all, and a different problem instead.
"Day 11 here. Little to no noticeable fatigue; opposite problem. awful insomnia and bad dreams. i take 5 group fitness classes per week. can't tell if they got harder this week or it's the pill."
– loveshoes1
Then there are the joints, which a few people mention in the same breath as getting about or exercising again.
"[…] As for exercising I didn’t push myself at first but after a few weeks all my joint pain went away. I don’t if it was from change of diet, weightloss or the meds but my knees and ankles used to ache after a few hours at work. Now I zip around all day!!! […]"
– turtlegray23
Whether any of this has to do with the tablet is a question this person leaves open, and the uncertainty about what is the medicine and what is simply a change in routine follows nearly every account of muscle too.
The Muscle Question
Muscle is the worry that turns up in several threads, and it is often voiced before a first dose has been taken. One person who trains with resistance three or four times a week put the concern plainly.
"[…] I generally go to the gym currently three or four times a week and mostly do resistance training. The only thing I’m worried about is loose skin and rapid deterioration of muscle. […]"
– FrontApplication30
Three months in, the reassurance on offer from one person who trains with weights is only partial, and the person giving it says as much.
"[…] I don’t feel that I’ve lost muscle. I can still do the same weights while training, for instance. But I’m not sure how else to tell."
– TwoWas
Body composition is where that partial reassurance gets tested. An exercise instructor who had set a goal of keeping the same body fat percentage reported a result at odds with it, along with a way of living with it.
"[…] My goal when I started Foundayo beginning of April was to keep the same percent body fat. Im actually an exercise instructor - I exercise a ton (cardio only one day, the rest body weight). I've eaten plenty of protein. My percentage body fat has actually gone up slightly 😬 I tell myself it's OK, I had extra muscle to begin with 🫣"
– inh-exh
The bluntest account of regret comes from someone offering it, in a reply, as a warning to another poster.
"[…] or you mayvlose substantial muscle with a lot of weight loss and then you will be thin but weak. That’s what happened to me and I regret it every day. […]"
– AITMmom
For people with different bodies and different limits, the question is less how hard to train than what training means at all.
Exercise on Different Terms
Behind the gym-and-class accounts are people whose exercise looks different from the start. One person with long-standing knee injuries described the compromise they had settled on, and the hope attached to it.
"[…] I have knee issues from multiple sports injuries and subsequent surgeries that limit my ability to do any impact exercise, so focusing on walking the dog and standard exercises. Hoping foundayo will help get to a weight that relieves the joints and allows me to get more active"
– donle215
For someone living with an energy-limiting condition, the starting point is different again, and replies in that thread counted effort in minutes rather than sessions.
"[…] Exercise looks much different for me than it does for 99% of the population. […]"
– KaristinaLaFae
What Does Medino's Pharmacist Think?
"What stands out is how many different things people mean by exercising. For one person it is a boxing class or a barbell; for another it is a walk around the block. The accounts differ as much in what people were doing beforehand as in how they feel now, which is worth keeping in mind when reading any single post."
– Alessandro Grenci, Pharmacist at Medino
Many Kinds of Effort
Read together, the threads do not describe a single effect of Foundayo on exercise. They describe a set of separate negotiations: a class that suddenly felt heavier, a morning rearranged around a tablet, a meal eaten in two halves, a knee that stopped aching, a number on a scale that said less than the mirror.
What the accounts share is attention. Each person is watching their own body closely and comparing the result with what a stranger online has written.
