Step Beyond the Scale: How NewBeauty is Leading the GLP-1 Conversation — Mike Glaicar

0:00The views expressed in this podcast are for informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. This episode of The Dr. Randy Show is proudly sponsored by New Beauty, the ultimate authority in beauty and aesthetics. Whether you're looking for the latest innovations, expert insights, or trusted recommendations, New Beauty is your go-to source. Visit newbeauty.com to stay ahead of the trends and discover what's next in beauty. Now, let's get into the episode. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Dr. Randy Show. I'm your host, Dr. Randy Boyette. Over the past year, we've watched one development change the trajectory of this industry. There are moments in an industry when a single shift can change everything. And prescription weight loss medications are one of those moments. They are not just influencing numbers on a scale. They are reshaping conversations around metabolic health, facial aging, body composition, longevity,

1:02and even how aesthetic practices operate. And yet, the public dialogue has been fragmented, driven by headlines and social media clips instead of structured education. That is where new beauty made a decisive move. They introduced step beyond the scale. It is a dedicated platform designed to bring clarity, credibility, and context to the weight loss medication journey. Joining me today is newbeauty CEO, Mike Glacar. Welcome back to The Show, Mike. I'm excited for this conversation. Well, first of all, thanks for having me back on the show. And a lot has changed since the last time we spoke. Before we get into the platform itself, how are you viewing the weight loss medication conversation as it was unfolding? Well, it's GLP1. That's been something that's been evolving for several years, right? But I really think last year, 2025, it ramped up quickly, right? What we started to see in our data was so many consumers were on GLP1s, close to a third of our readership, but the challenges that they started mentioning to us were challenges

2:04they didn't foresee going on medication. So many of them got on the medication from a primary care physician or telemedicine. And they talked about liver health and kidney health, but they didn't talk about the aesthetic changes that these consumers would start to see. And so by the time we interviewed these consumers, they were saying, I have volume loss. I have hair loss. Skin laxity, what do I do? And that's where I think the aesthetic industry in general really got involved with GLP1s. And why you've seen such an increase over the past year. It's been an enormous change in the world in our industry. I log into social media and everybody looks different, right? So it's quite a different world now. So as we dive a little further into the platform, what gap in the weight loss medication conversation did new beauty see that led to creating step beyond the scale? But all started with the data with beauty engine. We started hearing from consumers on some of the challenges they were having. And then when we went online to look at what resources were out there, you had this interesting cap, right? You had reddit forums where you didn't know what you were going to get.

3:07You had some people say, this is the best thing in the world. And you had some people who were put in fear content out there. And then you had the manufacturer's websites that we go, uses that bound to websites. And those were very restrictive in what they could say. And most of it was kind of just prescribing information and important safety information. And then you had social media where there was just a lot of content that was untrue. And so we saw a gap in the market where we said, and new beauty, we've always taken a lot of pride in creating content that has backing from the best experts in the world, right? The best dermatologist, plastic surgeons. And we said, there's nothing out there that's 100% focused on GLP ones that's getting information straight from the experts and putting it all together, one curated spot. And that's where we decided to jump in with Steppe on the scale and build that platform for our consumers. And why was this the right moment for a new beauty tender this space? We've been doing research on this for many years and we started to see 10% of our readers are on GLP ones and 15% and 20% and now all of a sudden we get to a point where a third of our readerships on GLP, why?

4:09And then we started getting the feedback from them 40% of our experienced skin hair loss or hair fading, right? We have consumers with volume loss and skin laxity and at that point when you have a third of your readership who's taking this type of medication, we knew that we had to be the resource. Fortunately we have the know how we have the relationships on the provider side and we have a huge amount of consumer reach. So we decided a third of our readers are on these medications and we have a significant number of other consumers who are considering it. It's the time to jump in. Do you think the initiative was driven more by consumer demand, physician feedback or editorial insight? A combination of all of that. On the physician side, a lot of our partners were saying by the time we're seeing these patients, not that it's already too late because there's a lot of things that they can do, but they had already patients had lost 40 pounds, 50 pounds coming to the office. They're experiencing major volume loss and skin laxity. And so the provider said to us, there's just no resource for consumers when they're getting on these medications to know what to expect.

5:09And as a provider, they're saying we would much rather have these patients know what to expect going in so that we can treat them holistically throughout the process. So that's the provider driven piece and then consumers again with the data consumers saying I didn't expect to see these changes. I wish I would have known and I wish I had resources for that. So then of course, brain and that data. And then lastly from an editorial standpoint, our editors were hearing this left and right in the field and we had so much information. So the answer to your question is physicians wanted a resource for their patients. Patients wanted a resource for themselves or editorial team had the expertise and wanted to get the information. Now we put it all together. And when you chose the name step beyond the scale, which is genius, I think, what brought our idea where you're trying to capture at that point? Well, a lot of the conversation and you look at trial data for some of these medications is all about weight loss, right? It was how many percentage of body mass was someone losing, right? That's just a small piece of it, right? We have consumers who would lose 40 pounds and you would think they're going to feel

6:09great. Their lives are changed. But many of them said I've lost 40 pounds. I'm down to the weight I want, but my hair is falling out or I'm seeing the skin wax, your skin texture issues, I look older. So step beyond the scale where that concept came from is like the scale is one number. But we need to go beyond that for all these additional changes and make sure that we address those that a consumer can lose 40 pounds, but feel great about themselves and feel great about the way they looked because for us, and we saw this in the data, it was really sad to see a consumer who had made these lifestyle changes lost all this weight, but they still weren't happy because of some of the other changes. And conversely, we knew patients that had lost 40 pounds and had really taken care of their aesthetic as they lost weight. They continued to work out, they had a muscle mass, they maintained, and they felt phenomenal. So it's like, how do we get more of those patients and less of the patients who are unhappy? So this is a standalone education platform. And what made you build it on its own instead of just housing it within the traditional

7:12new beauty content? There were a few reasons we did that. First of all, new beauty is a phenomenal platform. We have 20,000 articles on newbie.com, right? So when someone comes to our site, they're going to see all different information on hair and skin and cosmetic procedures. But if they're just interested in GLP1, we wanted to have that standalone site that was for that specifically. We also knew that there were patients that were interested in taking GLP1s who weren't quite in the aesthetic realm. So maybe they wouldn't have thought to go to new beauty as their first resource, but they would go to a dedicated site like Steppe on the Scale as that resource. And the way we built that platform was really trying to provide expert content, video, articles in all different journeys of someone's GLP1 decision making process. So for example, if someone's just considering taking GLP1s, but they want to know what to expect and they want to know what their options are, that would be journey one. We have an amazing amount of content in journey one. And we actually have a quiz where consumers can go on Steppe on the Scale, take a quiz,

8:13and it will map them into the journey that's best fit for them. Journey two would be someone who just started taking GLP1s and they're going through some lifestyle changes. They want to know how to manage that. Three is someone who's lost more than 20 pounds and they're starting to see some of these aesthetic changes. And what does that mean? It means they need to know about bio-stimulators and fillers and neurotoxins and in office skincare and how to build that all together. And then journey four is someone who's hit their goal weight, but that's not the end of the journey, right? What does that mean now? How do they maintain it with lifestyle choices, diet, exercise, things like that? So we built it as a standalone site so we would have a functionality for a consumer no matter where they are, the GLP1 journey to find value in the content. How did you ensure that all of the information is medically credible and responsible? I'm sure that was a task. Well, that was the number one task for us and always has been at New Beauty. We are so fortunate in 21 years of doing this, the relationships that we build. We have an incredible board, Dr. Robert Singer and Mark Jewel, they head up our medical advisory board. So everything that we do is vetted through our board and our brain trust.

9:14But we also were able to tap into dozens of experts across the country to create content for us, right? And these were experts that had dealt with thousands of GLP1 patients specifically first hand in. And so they knew exactly what was going on in real world experience. So tapping into those experts at New Beauty, we have amazing editors and content creators, but ultimately, it's the experts, the dermatologist, the plastic surgeon, the other providers that give us the meat of these articles, and then we just bring it to life from there. Okay, so Mike, why do you think that New Beauty is uniquely positioned to lead this conversation? The conversation around GLP1s is medical on the one side, right? And then obviously, New Beauty has the aesthetic piece. I think that we over the past 21 years have built up a ton of credibility. Talking about really complex medical treatments and procedures, right? And the science behind them. And so it gives us the credibility to talk about things like GLP1s and weight loss medications, while also bringing forward the aesthetic piece, which is really the angle that we're

10:17coming from and the aesthetic considerations. So I think New Beauty was a really uniquely positioned here. And what I liked about it was we had a lot of consumers who, for example, Ron GLP1s, but had never had treatments and procedures before. And now all of a sudden, they were coming into the industry for the first time. So that was great for us because we saw an influx of new users who weren't consuming new beauty content before. Now they had lost weight. They were feeling great about themselves. And they were thinking about aesthetic treatments and procedures. And now coming back into the new beauty fold. It was a really cool way to expand our reach as well. It sounds like you've really captured even New Beauty's long-term mission to step beyond the scale, align with that. Yeah. For us, it's always to educate consumers to make the best choices for them. And what's always been our stance is we don't really care what consumers do, right? They can decide what to do, but we do care if they're educated. We educate consumers on everything from what skincare to use, all the way to plastic surgery and everything in between. And GLP ones certainly fall in between that, right?

11:17And so a more educated consumer can make better choices for themselves and their families. And what does here to be that conduit for the education? And certainly right now with GLP ones, there's so much information out there right now. So let's get the expert opinions. Let's create that content and let's have one credible source where consumers can get that information. And that's what we do. You mentioned earlier the journeys, right? And the platform is organized around journeys. Why structure it that way? Tell me a little bit more about that. Where we are looking to get to at New Beauty, and I think this is the future of media, is trying to get to a one-to-one relationship with our readers. Media in the past has always been you write an article, you send it out there, you get thousands or millions of people to read it. But for us, we want to get as customized to our reader as we possibly can. So it doesn't make sense for us to send an article to a consumer who's already on GLP ones that says, considering taking GLP ones, here's the things you need to know, right? We purposely built this platform so that we can have someone take the quiz, map them

12:21to content that is specific to them, that creates more of that one-to-one relationship. And then they can go through that content knowing that everything they read is going to be specific to their situation, and they're not going to be reading or wasting time on content that isn't relevant to them and where they're at. And someone lands on the platform for the first time. What do you want them to understand immediately? First and foremost, that there is content for them regardless of where they're at in their journey, right? So we love the fact that we have the quiz feature, it's very interactive, and so that's where we want consumers to start, take the quiz, and they will map up the journey for you. But also, I think what's important, and we want them to realize right away, is that this is an unbiased credible source of information, because ultimately we're seeing a lot of people share this with friends and family, and GLP ones are becoming less and less taboo. People are actually talking about this and how you have friends, groups of friends who are sharing information and advice back and forth. So we're seeing a lot of sharing of this content to other people, and we want consumers

13:21as soon as they land on Steppe on the scale to know, finally I've found a one-stop shop resource for all of the content around weight loss, and let me share this to other people who can help with as well. You mentioned the quiz, right? And is the quiz meant to be kind of education almost, or is it really a personalization tool for how you deepen engagement? Certainly, a personalization tool, yeah, very much. So getting them the content that they want and need, and then when they sign up for newsletters from us, it allows us to customize information specific to them going forward. And again, I think that's the future of media, even on the advertising side, I think, as consumers, I don't mind receiving an ad if it's really relevant to mean it's something I'm interested in, where ads get a little bit disruptive is when it's an ad that's not relevant to you. So I think the future of our business is let's make sure whether it's content ads or anything in between. If we're going to send something to someone, let's make it as relevant to them as possible. And at New Beauty, how do you define success for this platform? Really reach. I think reach is the big thing in engagement, but what we love hearing, and this has been

14:24the biggest KPI, it's a software KPI, but hearing from physicians that they're sharing this with their patients, they're putting it in their patient newsletters, right? Or patients are coming in and saying, hey, I'm thinking about taking GLP ones and the provider just saying, oh, make sure to go to step beyond the scale, you'll find all the information that you need on there. So when providers start using us as that patient education resource and tool, and we see our traffic ramp up significantly because of that, I think that's a true measure of success. So let's pivot for a minute to the impact and responsibility of these weight loss medications, right? There's so much information out there, and like you said earlier, so much misinformation. So what misconceptions about the weight loss medications, did you feel were most urgent to correct? Well, there were a couple of different things, both positive and some of the concerns around skin, laxity and volume loss, right? First and foremost, I think you just had people on both sides of the spectrum of some people saying this is the best product ever, ever wants to be on this. We should have GLP ones in the water.

15:25And then you had people on the other side that said, like, don't ever take this. It's not safe with no backing of science behind their claims. So for us, we wanted to make sure that we went to the experts. We went through the data and we were an unbiased source in the middle. And again, not promoting GLP ones, promoting people not taking GLP ones, just being the resource and making sure that people felt comfortable making their own decisions. Now some of the data that we saw that was interesting was a lot of transformation in lifestyle changes. So individuals who were taking GLP ones who hadn't worked out on the past, they start losing weight. They start getting momentum. Now they're working out for the first time. They've changed their diet, of course, which is the MOA of GLP ones in the first place. They're drinking more water. So all of these things seem to be really positive lifestyle changes for the right consumer. And so we saw that as a positive and then on the flip side, like I had mentioned earlier, we did see a lot of patients saying about 22% of GLP-1 patients said that they were entering into aesthetics for the first time because they felt good about themselves. They had lost weight and now they were actually concerned about their appearance.

16:27And we thought that in our industry was a positive having more people thinking about skin health and hair health and other aspects of their health in a sense. So after they're in the platform, they're going in the journeys and they've spent some meaningful time on stepping on the scale. What do you hope shifts for them emotionally while they're there and what do you hope they leave with changing emotionally? The hope always for us is that consumers understand there are options, almost always for any concern or challenge that they're going through, right? So for a consumer who's lost a lot of weight and is really down about the volume loss or is that change is knowing, oh, wait, there are options, right? And I can go see these plastic surgeons or dermatologists and there's injectable options, there's topical options, there's energy-based device options, there's all these amazing options to help me get back to where I want to be. And then in general, just making sure that consumers feel really confident. The next step for us is always read the content and then talk to a provider that's always

17:28the next step for us. So there's a court recommend board certified physicians to make sure these patients are going to see them next. But the hope for most of our platforms is that a consumer comes, they read content, they feel really good about that, and then they can go into these selected provider for the next steps. All we hope to do is gain more education, right? Because at the end of the day, it is a little confusing, the messaging that's going out all over social media. So this is so important. When we talk about those conversations, which ones do you think are still missing? Like what's next for stepping on the scale as far as which conversations we're still going to hit on with new beauty and you still want to address? Where I think there's a gap and this is less of the content maybe that we produce, but I still think there's more opportunity for aesthetic providers to really proactively talk to their patients about GLP ones. Again, asking a patient if they're on GLP ones isn't offensive, it's not taboo, right? There are so many people on GLP ones that's almost assumed at this point that you have

18:29patients that are. They're talking them proactively and starting that conversation and it could be done so very easily where a provider says, are you on GLP ones or are you considering them? The reason I ask is we have a lot of patients who consider GLP ones, they go get on the medication. They don't come back for six months and then they have all these aesthetic changes. So if you are considered in GLP ones, just know we have an entire line of options that we can treat you holistically throughout the process. So not only do you lose weight, but you look fantastic along the way. That's a very positive way to talk to patients and we hope that happens more and more often. For us, a huge shift this year, huge shift was oral, we go be being approved, right? It was the first branded oral GLP one that was approved and with that, a huge influx of patients and we're seeing the numbers now it's exploding and we had 70% of our readers who were taking injectable GLP ones that they would switch to an oral because they felt it was easier. They didn't like the self injectable at times. And now we're seeing a huge influx of new patients and also a tremendous amount of providers

19:30in our space, dermatologists and plastic surgeons and medspos that are actually offering GLP ones within the practice. And our data actually indicates that patients want that. I think the future of aesthetics in wellness is merging in health where these one-stop shops where a consumer can come in, they get their aesthetic treatments and procedures, they also talk about skin health, they also talk about wellness and hormone health and GLP ones. That's really the future of our industry and we're seeing physicians jump on board with that every single day and they're doing a really good job treating their patients. That's great and anything we'll be adding to step beyond the scale or is there anything you're still building and working on, what can we expect? Without sharing too much, it's such a success step beyond the scale for us both in terms of traffic engagement and physician feedback that we are looking at building the same type of standalone platforms in a number of different areas and we're not able to announce those areas yet, but there are some really important areas that are tangential to it. That's right now where we have a lot of consumer interest and so in the back end we're working

20:33hard to build those out. We can't wait to see it. So thanks so much for this conversation today Mike, this is groundbreaking for our industry because this is our dedicated space to learn more and I'm sure there'll be a lot more people logging in and by the way, where can they find step beyond the scale if they haven't found it already? Yeah, so you can search up step beyond the scale on any search engine GLP1.newbuty.com is the URL and then you'll see on a lot of our soulfuls that we're highlighting that content as well. Great. Well, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the viewers and listeners? I mean, thank you again for having me on. I think this is so important and again, we're way past the age of taboo GLP on conversation. So it's our hope that providers, consumers, everyone has an open conversation about this. We've learned from everyone's experience and we just improved patient outcomes both in terms of weight loss but also aesthetic outcomes as well. Well, thank you so much for being here on the show today and we hope you'll come back and join us again soon. And to everyone listening, the conversation continues next week on the Dr. Randy Show.

21:38Dr. Randy Boyette holds a PhD and is a recognized leader in the aesthetics and medical industry. She is not a licensed medical doctor. All commentary and product recommendations are based on industry expertise and are provided for informational purposes only.