Stamie Giallourakis was on her deathbed in early 2021 when she made herself a promise. At the time, she was over 200 pounds and hospitalized with severe COVID-19.
“I swore that if I survived — and I’m not being dramatic — I would try to once and for all be as healthy as I could be,” Giallourakis, now 60, told The Post.
She followed through. After her hospital discharge, Giallourakis overhauled her diet and exercise habits and, within a year, was prescribed a GLP-1. She’s since lost over 100 pounds. “I’ll look in the mirror and I can’t quite believe it’s me,” she said.
But the work is ongoing. Giallourakis is now on a maintenance dose of a GLP-1 and continuously tweaks her routine — more yoga here, more protein there — to keep the weight off. “I am doing all the things to maximize” the medicine’s impact, she said.
So when she came across Hilton Head Health’s new program for GLP-1 users, she wanted to give it a try.
A South Carolina-based executive in nonprofit and university development, Giallourakis had been to the wellness retreat twice before — once to heal after her mom’s death and once as a respite from work stress.
The new track, which rolled out in March 2026, promised to help “strengthen metabolism, rebuild healthy habits and rediscover confidence in your body — so your results feel as good as they look.”
“It’s a little bit of everything: It’s nutrition, it’s your body’s strength, it’s yoga, meditation, it’s walking on the beach. It’s a community of experts supporting you,” Giallourakis said. “I like that approach, and I was like, ‘What can I learn?’”
So for what’s advertised as about $6,000 for a weeklong stay — plus $700 for the specialized programming — she registered to join the April 2026 cohort. She was the only one.
Have shot, will travel
Over the past two years, the number of Americans on GLP-1s — or the class of diabetes and weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro — has nearly quadrupled. In 2022, an estimated 3% of adults were giving themselves the jab; this year it’s 11%, a Gallup survey found.
At the same time, more travelers are booking vacations to glow up, not bottom out. Some reports project the fast-growing wellness tourism industry to become a $1.4 trillion market by 2029.
GLP-1s, with their ability to squelch the desire for poolside piña coladas and fries, are helping to fuel the trend.
“In the past, the idea of going on a vacation or a cruise [involved] gaining the 10 pounds and splurging,” said Amanda Gossett, Hilton Head Health’s director of marketing. “People that are on these medications really have no interest in doing that.”
Instead, the all-inclusive resort and spa believes, they’re interested in pickleball courts, life coaching and fine-dining menus featuring as little as 1,200 calories a day. It’s not the only one.
Skyterra in North Carolina offers a GLP-1 support program for people considering, continuing or weaning off the meds (cost: $3,850 to $4,900 per week for the standard program). Unite Fitness Retreat in Utah advertises a “medical weight loss” arm of its curriculum for an extra $1,500 on top of the signature, weeklong, $4,650 program. Pritikin Longevity Center in Florida announced a two-week package for people on weight loss drugs last year, with their standard rates starting at $5,900 per week.
While the latter property launched 50 years ago largely to help people get off drugs to prevent heart disease, it’s now catering to a population that wants to get (or stay) on drugs to slim down.
“Over the years, as we have new medications, new patient goals for their health, we’ve adapted,” said Maria Teresa Anton, MD, an endocrinologist and educator at Pritikin.
That means programming that pampers visitors with protein-packed provisions, muscle-building exercise plans, and psychological and social support because, as Hilton Head Health says, GLP-1s “change biology, not behavior.”
The resorts often offer cooking classes, before-and-after body composition scans and group discussions on life after food noise. Some guests deliver their first shots under the supervision of a clinician like Anton; others practice lifestyle strategies that may allow them to titrate off.
There’s journaling, sunrise yoga and, like any hip health destination, almost certainly Pilates and a cold plunge.
“By combining this intense, personalized nutrition, muscle preservation and movement, mindset and behavioral support — and all supported by looking at your blood work and your InBody scan — it really does set them up for success so when they go home, they can continue this journey in a very positive, healthy way,” Gossett said.
Medical care — or marketing ploy?
From a skeptic’s lens, GLP-1 retreats are capitalistic overkill: If the drugs, as they’re known to do, make weight loss easier by making food less appealing, why would someone want expensive oversight to essentially achieve the same aim?
“I certainly know a lot of people personally, professionally, who are kind of like, ‘Well, I don’t really need to work out anymore. The GLP-1s are doing that for me. I don’t need to eat healthier because this just helps me not eat as much,’’’ said Sera Lavelle, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in New York City who specializes in habit change.
She worries that some destinations targeting GLP-1 users may be taking advantage of a vulnerable population — or just taking advantage of GLP-1s’ popularity as a marketing tactic.
After all, there’s likely significant overlap between the people already abusing the meds to lose five or 10 pounds and those well-off enough to shell out thousands to optimize their looks in a luxe locale.
“I don’t think anyone needs it — it’s a luxury,” said Amanda Kahn, MD, a board-certified internist and longevity specialist in Manhattan.
On the more charitable hand, GLP-1 getaways understand what many Americans do not: That most people can’t just procure a prescription and watch the pounds melt away. They need to implement health-promoting habits, too — especially if they want to preserve muscle mass, limit side effects and prevent weight regain in the case they ever want or need to be medication-free again.
“Those are the aspects that I think would be very positive: They’re trying to get the word out there that it’s not just the GLP-1s alone; that you should look at this as part of your whole health,” Lavelle said.
Indeed, experts and resort reps agree, what happens after the visit matters more than what smoothies guests slurp or weights they lift on-site. That’s why some venues outfit guests with workbooks and the option to extend their stay virtually, and why healthcare providers urge travelers to keep their local doctors in the loop.
“It’s easy to use the retreat as a starting point,” Kahn said, “but then the real work happens when you get home and you’re creating routines with your local health team to make them sustainable.”
It’s personal
When Giallourakis arrived at Hilton Head Health in April, she was disappointed to be the lone attendee there for the GLP-1 agenda.
“I was hoping to be around not just the professionals at Hilton Head, but others that are on the same journey and learn from them because I don’t have that community” at home, she said.
Whether the sparse roster reflected a lack of demand or a lack of awareness remains to be seen. But Giallourakis was still glad she went.
She connected with other GLP-1 users who had joined one of the property’s other tracks — think “Life balance” or the “Blue Zones Experience” — and enjoyed trying new activities like the Pilates reformer, a drumming-inspired workout and yoga on the beach.
She also received individualized attention from nutrition experts who advised her to front-load her daily protein and drink more water, and from fitness pros who defaulted from group to personal training. “That wouldn’t have happened if there was a group there,” she said.
Once home, Giallourakis continued gratitude journaling and joined a yoga studio. She could see herself returning to Hilton Head Health for a tune-up every few years.
Anything to prevent revisiting her pre-2021 way of life: one that involved an inability to wrap a hotel towel around her waist, enjoy food without emotional turmoil or pose for a group picture without slinking toward the back.
Now, the lingering stigma she faces is the misperception that GLP-1s are the easy way out. She hopes boosting the visibility of places like Hilton Head Health can help demonstrate that they’re not.
The resort is “really looking at the whole person — not just one part of things — and I like that a lot because that’s what it’s taken,” Giallourakis said. “It’s taken all components to make this work.”
