From Waistline to Gumline: The Anti-Inflammatory Power of Dr. Marcelle's 'Drop 20 Now' Program

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Sanda Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way. Welcome everyone to today's episode on the Holistic Dentistry Show. I'm your host, Dr. Sanda Moldovanova, and with me is my dear friend, Dr. Marcelle Pick. She's an OB-GYN and functional medicine trained practitioner. And I'm excited because today we're going to talk about obesity and how we can lose weight safely and in a healthy manner. Because, you know, obesity is also related to mouth inflammation. We know obesity is related to gum disease. So I always encourage my patients as a nutritionist in the dental office to shed their pounds and have a healthy lifestyle. So, Dr. Marcelle, welcome to our show.

Thank you so much. I'm really, really excited to be here. The mouth is so connected to everything.

So true. So I'm excited to talk to you about this because you've been so passionate about functional medicine. And our audience is well familiar with functional medicine, but one of the shows that we haven't done yet is about weight loss. And, you know, there's just so many things out there. And you and I had many conversations about weight loss in general. And I've actually done the program that you created called Drop 20 Now. And a lot of people right now are on Ozempic, and this is— which has so many side effects. But before we get to that, I really want to talk about you. Like, how did you get into the functional medicine space?

So I have a very interesting story. I grew up in the outback in Australia, so I spent much of my early years— we didn't have any cars, we had no paved streets, we didn't have any lights in the town that I grew up in, and there were two stores. So I— but I spent a lot of my time in Aboriginal caves that nobody knew were there. So I got introduced to a very interesting world at a young age. And when I, you know, from a young age, I knew I wanted to do something in women's health. And then I moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where Edgar Cayce was. So I get exposed to a very different way of healing and then went on knowing that I wanted to practice a medicine that helped people get better, not just treating them with medications. So what was the root cause of the issue? So I actually still teach for the Institute of Functional Medicine, the hormone module, which the module have to do to get certified. And it keeps me abreast of the newest literature and the newest science so that I can talk about herbs and I can talk about supplements, I can talk about homeopathy to get to the root cause of the problem instead of just treating it with a drug.

Yeah, absolutely. That's amazing. And I love that about you because you know so many things, not just about functional medicine, but you mentioned herbs and homeopathics because usually a lot of functional medicine doctors, do not know about that. So how did you learn about herbs and homeopathics?

You know, I think I've always been curious. And we started the practice called Women to Women in 1985. I can't believe it was that long ago. And at that time, many of us were interested and intrigued because we had our own experience using different supplementations, also using macrobiotics and changing the diet. We had a nutritionist in the practice back in the day and looked at how food is the most powerful drug we have. And we already knew that ourselves. And from there, there was more and more literature coming out with probiotics and why they were so important. And it was funny because many people in my community thought that we were the quacks on the hill. They called us that, actually, when we went to grand rounds. And we look now at the literature and we see that we were right from the very beginning, that probiotics are very important, that gut mouth health. Hal Huggins, many years ago, I did some of his workshops learning about the mouth and mercury and how important it was to get that out. So I've been on this journey for a long time and was probably one of the pioneers, along with Dr. Chris Northrup, in helping people understand that health is really at their fingertips. What can they do to change the trajectory of their lives? And they have an enormous impact with the food they eat, the thoughts they think, the supplements they take, and the environment that they live in.

Yeah, you know, it's so nice that you got to know Hal Huggins. I've always wanted to get to know him, but unfortunately, we can't anymore unless through his teachings. But even now today, you know, there's so many physicians that don't look in the mouth. They don't address the mouth. And it's an important part, especially of a healthy lifestyle and diet, especially if somebody doesn't have teeth. How are you going to chew the vegetables? How are we going to do that? So it's super important.

Oh my God. And, you know, my journey is to teach as many people as I can in the workshops as well, because we in functional medicine, we always talk about the mouth. I mean, we really, really do spend some time saying, you know, you need to see a biological dentist. That really understands all the pieces to the equation, from the gums to the cavitations to everything else.

Great. And we say as biological dentists, you must see functional medicine because the mouth is related to the body.

Yeah, big time.

Yeah, exactly. So especially for overweight, we carry more inflammation and then we see it in the mouth. Like, as a periodontist, I look at the gums and somebody's overweight, They usually have gum inflammation or possible even more cavities related. Right. So why do all the weight loss programs really fail? Because, you know what, you diet and then they gain it back.

You know, it's so sad because so many people go on a diet, they lose the weight, and then they go right back to the lifestyle that they had before, not understanding that we're all unique. Your food plan that works for you and mine are going to be completely different. Keto is not for everyone. Low fat is now and that if we look genetically at myself, that's what really works the best for me. Now, that doesn't mean processed foods and all the things that come with that territory, but it's understanding our individual differences. And here's the bad news. You're going to die when you hear this. 95% of the diet programs out there fail. And then comes Ozempic when everybody's losing lots of weight. But we also know that two-thirds of them are going to gain the weight back, plus 10 extra pounds if they stop.

They stop Ozempic. Wow.

They stop Ozempic. And, you know, it's becoming more and more apparent that the side effects are unfortunate. And what's the good news? The good news is that people are paying attention. They want to lose the weight. They want to get it off. But it's not, you know, Ozempic is not meant for people that need 15 or 20 pounds to lose. It's meant for people that have 100 pounds to lose. And unfortunately, the world has gotten crazy about it now and wants to have that fast, quick, you know, Ozempic face. Here's something so interesting now. We're seeing that the plastic surgeons that are doing surgery on people that have lost a lot of weight, the integrity of the skin itself is different. So it's not just that there's extra skin, there's less stem cells and less collagen in the actual tissue. So we're going to see probably in a couple of years some real side effects that are coming out that we didn't know about. So if you want alternatives, there are alternatives, but it may not be the route that you take What I love is that people are paying attention. They want to lose the weight because you're right. Back in the day when I started my practice, I— my whole practice was eating disorders. And at the time, I didn't care what they weighed because I didn't have the data to support the fact that it showed, you know, fat cells are inflammatory. We now know many years forward that fat cells actually work like a hormone. And will work like an endocrine organ. It's like, oh my God, who knew? And increase cytokines, which are the inflammatory markers.

We thought fat was useless. It was just like storage.

Right, right. No, it's much more than that. So knowing that you've got 35 pounds more to lose, that actually is going to increase your hormone, you know, distribution as well. And a lot of toxins are also stored in fat. So that's the other problem. And then we've got that inflammatory cascade that goes along with it. So I'm not concerned about someone's scale weight. I'm concerned about how much body fat they have versus how much muscle they have.

And, you know, there's also these— I have some patients say, I tried losing weight, but I just cannot lose the weight. Do you find that that's true?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So especially if you have adrenal issues. You know, kind of let's go down that path a little bit because I think a lot of people really understand it. So I might put people on an adrenal program first and then do my weight loss program because 99% of my people lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks, period. I mean, they just do. But if they have adrenal issues, because adrenals are our flight-fight organs, you know, we have a fight, we see something on TV and we can feel our heart race. We get stopped by a cop. Our heart's racing, got dry mouth, we've got all the things. But then the police officer goes away and perhaps you did not get a ticket. Then we think about it, we worry about it, like, oh my gosh, am I— and what happens is cortisol continues to be produced. Animals in the wild, if they get chased by a tiger, they get chased, they don't get killed, they go back to the same field in which the tiger attacked them. We as humans don't do that. So what happens then in the body is the body goes, oh, I'm going to hold on to every calorie just in case there's a famine kind of experience. So it's the fight-flight response that's ongoing, and the body is very good at being able to say, I'm going to reserve every calorie because I don't know if I'll be able to do it again. The other thing is people that have dieted and dieted and dieted, their body goes, you're starving me. You're not giving me the nutrients I need. They will also have a hard time losing weight. So it is a reality. And also, calories in, calories out is a very outdated model. 100 calories of sugar and 100 calories of broccoli are metabolized very differently. So people think, you know, well, you know, I can have a doughnut or I can have this, I can have that. It's very, very different what happens metabolically in the system. So yes, people can follow all the rules, exercise too much, and not lose weight and not lose weight. Yeah.

I mean, that's not a good formula. You're starving your body and then you're trying to overexercise. And of course, you will put your body into a stress situation, chronic stress, and you will hold on to the weight.

And that also increases inflammation, which is the bad news. But the thing that's so interesting about adrenals is I wrote my second book on adrenals, and it's really about what happens physiologically to you if you have too much stress. Gum changes, thyroid changes, gut changes, hormonal changes, more autoimmune issues. So it's not just, well, just decrease your stress. You know what happened yesterday? Don't worry about it. It doesn't work that way. So it's—

I know it well.

Oh my God.

So do I.

Are you kidding? Of course. Yeah.

It's the world we live in. But yeah, it's so true to find that time. Like, even when I did your program, the Drop 20 Now, I always You know, try to find time to at least be in nature, meditate, relax. It's so, so important just for the overall well-being.

Absolutely.

But, okay, so there are those who cannot lose weight, but even those that do lose weight on certain diets, they gain it right back. So why doesn't the weight stay off?

So there's a couple of reasons. One is they may have some food sensitivities that they didn't know they had. For example, a lot of people have a problem with dairy. And until we take lots of foods away and add dairy back, we don't know if that's a problem for them. Or they do a genetic profile, which is what I include in my program. Then I can see, are they gluten sensitive, gluten intolerant, are they dairy intolerant? And then I can also find out, are they low fat, low carb, Mediterranean, or balanced? And that's the key piece. The interesting thing is when I've done the genetic profile, Very few people are balanced, which is kind of the Weight Watchers model. And we're seeing that— I see more people that are low fat and low carbs. It's kind of interesting if I look at all the numbers that I've seen. And when you know that, then you start being able to add foods back because there's no oils in the program initially. And then you start to see for yourself as it changes your set point because you're not having all these things come at you. And for people that are emotional eaters, They learn about that because you have to understand that for yourself. If food is a way that you comfort yourself, you know, it's going to be really important that you find another avenue. And I'll give you an example, a very interesting story. And that was a woman who was in my program who lost 20 pounds, gained it 6 times. And she finally said, you know, what is going on? And we talk a lot about this in the coaching calls that I have. And she had this flashback when she was at a friend's house. And there was a wrapper for American cheese on the counter. And when she was 7, her parents got divorced and she made for her father, who was very upset, nachos with American cheese. And the food that she always binged on after she lost all the weight was nachos. So that was a light bulb moment for her of like, who would ever thought, you know? And she's now keeping that weight off, which is really what the intention is, to understand if there are triggers, what might those triggers be? Because we all have those things. We all have those things.

So emotional, you know, emotions play such a big role in healing, just in general, in our way of being and in our sickness and development of certain symptoms in the body. And I'm glad you mentioned here. Is it that simple, though, for people that know they're emotional eaters? Is it that simple to recognize, or it's not? Okay.

You know, one of the chapters I have in one of my books is, "Your issues are in your tissues," and You know, it does. We don't have to go into really deep therapy, but we do have to understand the connections. And there is something called the ACE score, and that's Adverse Childhood Events score. And unfortunately, I was talking to a psychologist the other day and she didn't know what it was. And I was thinking, oh my God, how is this possible? So the Adverse Childhood Events score was started by Dr. Felitti, and he was at Kaiser Permanente, and he met up with someone from the CDC. Together they did a large study looking at 16,000 men and women, not just women, to see if they had adverse events as children. Did it impact their thinking and their behavior and their health later? And the answer was, oh my God, yeah. The higher your ACE score, the higher the chances of heart disease, addiction, obesity, And so that there's a direct connection between what I call our stories. And we all have them. We all have them. But it's how we play them out, how we learn about ourselves, how we go inside to understand. I need to do this differently. Why are so many women so bad at self-care? A lot of it is because they oftentimes have perfectionism that they had to grow up and do everything perfectly. It's not possible. Take care of everybody else but themselves. It's kind of classic. So it's really learning for yourself those exact pieces, which is So what did happen for me as a kid? How am I playing some of that out now? And how do I learn to do it in a different way? How do I change some of the behaviors that I have? So important. And very few of the weight-loss programs out there are addressing that, and it has to be addressed because it's part of the puzzle. Not for everyone, but for some people.

Yeah, absolutely. And what is— you're the author of a few books, but what are the book you just mentioned that we can find this in?

Is It Me or My Adrenals? So the first book was about diet, which is called The Core Balance Diet: The Reason Some People Don't Lose Weight. And the second is Is It Me or My Adrenals? And the third is Is It Me or My Hormones? Because so many people are like, I can't figure it out. I'm so— I can't. And oftentimes it's hormonal dysregulation that can come from the choices of food that we eat, but also the stress that we have in our lives. And face it, we're bombarded with our cell phones, with the news, with the wars, with our families, with our jobs. It was like, ah.

Yeah, for sure. I know when I'm stressed, I definitely like to eat salty foods, so I usually go for something salty. I try not to eat chips, of course, but if they're there, I'll eat them.

So it's true. And what's so interesting is sometimes we have to understand our brain neurotransmitters because that's a piece of the puzzle. When I made the homeopathic drop that I have, I put neurotransmitters in there. So people, when they have the drops, they're not hungry, they don't have cravings, and the noise of food goes away. So that craving goes away, which is fortunate. So people have respite time then to look at some of the other pieces that may be going into— I'm not taking enough time to prepare. I use food for comfort. I, you know, didn't know how to eat. I didn't realize that I could have much less inflammation when I changed my diet. So it gives people a chance to kind of take a deep breath.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So my husband and I both decided to do your program because I wanted to lose a few pounds. He wanted to lose a few pounds. So we did the program and, you know, I really liked the guide that you have, the food guide. And I honestly, there was so much food that we could eat. I was really surprised, like You know, we were full, we weren't starving at all, but yet we started to lose weight. And even my husband, he lost close to 20 pounds and he was great about it. Is the program meant for everyone or are there some people that shouldn't do it?

Great question. Basically, it's meant for everyone. However, if somebody has something like diabetes or something like that, really juvenile onset I'm really talking about, they might want to check with their doctor first. But generally what happens is their doc says, "Please." So the only thing that I would alert people to is people's blood pressure comes down quickly, their blood sugars come down quickly, insulin levels come down. So they would really need to let their doc know because those are things that they might be surprised by and they might be on too much medication as they make the dietary changes.

Mm-hmm. Makes total sense because we really decrease the amount of sugar. There's no sugar, basically, except maybe from the vegetables, some, but— You know, I really felt the difference in my body. I think when we decrease sugar that much, definitely the decrease in inflammation is huge.

Totally. Yeah.

And that's why I want to encourage people to do a program like yours because of the decrease in inflammation, especially for those that have aches and pains, you know, they're overweight and, you know, 20 pounds in 6 weeks was pretty amazing.

Yeah, it is. And it's so exciting. You know, the other part to this is that women are sick of counting points and calories. Doing all the things they're supposed to do and losing 1 to 2 pounds a week, maybe. And the reason I put it together this way is we need to see some success. And when we start seeing success, we're more motivated. And then you get more and more excited that your clothes are fitting. And in just 6 weeks, you've transformed, you know, 1 to 2 dress sizes. And it's like, "Oh my God, this is so exciting!" And then we get into, "Now what do you do on the other side so that we can really help you keep the weight off for good?" Yeah.

And so let's talk about food cravings, because I think that's what people are mostly afraid of. Oh my God, I'm going to go hungry. I can't do this. I cannot be hungry. So how homeopathic works exactly. Some people have never done homeopathics. They don't even know what it is. So maybe we should start there. What are homeopathics?

Absolutely. So it's very, very interesting. So I'm getting ready to go national with this product. So I had to develop a homeopathic pharmacopeia. So I had to go through every single ingredient to show what we see now in the literature that it does. And homeopathy has been around for hundreds of years in Germany. You can get it in all of the pharmacies in Germany, and all the pharmacists are very aware of how to use homeopathics. If we looked at the concentration of the homeopathic and we had it to a lab, there would be hardly anything in it. So we call homeopathics more of an energetic form of, we can call it healing, or it's not really a medication, although the FDA calls homeopathics medicines. So, yeah, so we can actually make claims because they're considered drugs, which is kind of funny because they're not at all. Because then, on the other hand, there's nothing in them. So it's kind of an interesting quandary. But when we use homeopathics, the concentration, for example, of— let's do something— one of the concentrations of something in it is 200 times less than when it started. And that's the concentration. So you make it up, then you take a drop, and you then dilute it again 200 times. So what's in the final product is very, very little. However, the body responds to it in such a subtle way that we really have not experienced to date, um, side effects. Everybody's different, everybody's unique. You know, maybe that will happen, but I haven't had that happen to date yet. And that's why I chose a homeopathic without hormones in it, without any ingredients that are problematic. And the big things that I can say are it does decrease inflammation, it It does help anxiety and moods, and it also helps with cravings and also hunger. So those are the things I'm allowed to say because we've got the pharmacopeia now to be able to show the literature that shows that. So that's very exciting because we now can kind of come out and say we do have an option for people that make a choice, that want to lose weight, that don't have to use the medical drugs that are out there because there are people that certainly have very serious side effects from them.

Absolutely. And like Ozempic, which is big right now, some of the side effects I would like to mention here, it actually happened to one of my friend's father. You know, he took Ozempic older and he ended up with kidney failure. So that, that is a huge problem. It's something that's not reversible. So we're not just talking about besides the skin that you mentioned, the loss of collagen, there's actually serious problems that can arise from medications like Ozempic.

Yeah, that's the unfortunate part. And, you know, I had somebody that came in to see me that then went on the program, and she took a loan out to get on the Ozempic, was vomiting every day for 12 weeks, did lose 40 pounds, and in 3 weeks she gained 15 back because she wasn't eating. She was eating a meal every 2 days or so. And, you know, that's not for everybody. And there are people that would say to me, Marcelle, it's the best thing that's happened to me. And I would say probably the diabetic category. And I know Oprah has said is the best thing because the noise of food went away for her. So it's just another option that we have for people. And unfortunately, with Ozempic, their chances of blindness are increased fourfold. So it's not something to be taken lightly. And if that's a choice you make, then I'll support that for sure. But there are some other alternatives. The good news is you're looking at options to get the weight off, and that's the most important part, is to get the body fat down. Yeah.

And that— you brought up a good point about the cost of that. People take out loans because it's expensive. It's thousands of dollars versus you're talking about a program that's natural that you cannot have side effects from, that it's not even close to that amount of money.

Yeah. And, you know, the name of the game for all of us is that we want to be as healthy as we can be for as long as we can be. And as you have pointed out so beautifully, We have to look at the mouth, but we also have to look at body fat composition and the food that we're eating, the thoughts that we think, the activity that we have. And kind of that compilation is what is going to allow us to be— you know, I was talking to somebody who's 83 today and she looked like she's 56, 60. In my dance world, as I dance, there's 90-year-olds that dance and I'm thinking, whoa, look at how much energy they had. And that's the goal for all of us, and not to have chronic illness.

Yeah. So when we talk about the Drop20 Now program, basically, do you eat 3 meals a day? Do you eat 2 meals a day? What's your recommendation?

Great question. So when they do the Drop20, they have to do the drops with it, otherwise the plan won't work. And many people like intermittent fasting because it's kind of the thing now. So you can certainly do that. But if you don't, you'd be doing egg whites with vegetables. So it's a very, very healthy plan, but there's no fats in the plan, only when you're on the weight loss. Then lunch would be protein, and we have a variety of proteins you can have, from fish to chicken to turkey to bison to venison, and then to shrimp. I mean, many things. And then you have, again, vegetables, unlimited quantities. And if you're hungry mid-afternoon, you want to have another bowl of Brussels sprouts. I know that sounds a little crazy, but some people crave them. And then there's 2 fruits. And then dinner would be protein again with vegetables. And we have recipes, of course, with it so that they can— and if they want to have one of the fruits after dinner, they can certainly do that. And there are some people— I know this sounds crazy— in which I'll say, "You're losing too fast." You know, I had somebody a few weeks ago who was down 14 pounds in 14 days, and I was yelling at her saying, "You know, you didn't call me." You know, she felt great, so she didn't call me. But, you know, I increased her food intake pretty dramatically. So it does happen for some people.

Why do you say losing weight too fast? Why is that important? Good enough.

Well, you know, the reality is we want her to keep the weight off. If we're going down too quickly, I don't want her, number one, to have too many skin changes and so on. But I have a couple of people who've lost 50 pounds in the 12 weeks. They felt amazing. I had one person in particular I'm still working with who's kept it all off, didn't gain an ounce back, and she's ready to do another. I think she's got 25 more pounds to lose. And she would say to me all the time, I feel amazing. Don't, don't, don't get mad at me. And I'm like, okay, if you're eating, you show me what you're eating. And it's going well for her. That isn't the usual. And that's not something I'd like to see on a regular basis. But there are occasionally people that, that it comes up. The food that they're eating is resonating so beautifully for them because they're eating organic food. They're eating it fresh. They're making it themselves, as we all should be, unfortunately, doing it. And a lot of people aren't.

Mm-hmm. Now, is there a time during the process of the weight loss program that somebody might stop the weight loss? Let's say it becomes stagnant. And what do you do? Do you have a solution for that?

Sure. If somebody stops, what happens oftentimes is they're not going to lose consistently every day, and their body kind of plateaus, readjusts. But what's interesting is even when they're not losing weight, their clothes are getting smaller. And they'll say to me, I can't believe it. You know, I couldn't fit in that last week and I haven't lost as much as I thought I was going to. But ultimately, 99% of my people, if they're following the plan and doing the drops as I recommend, lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks. If I look anecdotally kind of over the time frame, and then if they do it longer because they have more weight to lose, they obviously are going to lose more weight as well. The key pieces are going to be stress. If you have too much stress, the body's going to go, not going to happen. So I'll have people do an adrenal program I created, do that first, and then do the weight loss after that. When the body's kind of come to, okay, you're not going to starve me, you are going to feed me, you are going to give me lots of good quality avocado and oils and things like that. Now we can start more of the weight loss plan.

That makes sense. Now, when we lose weight, we also detoxify because, as you mentioned, we store toxins in the fat. So what happens to those toxins?

So what's interesting is that I put some detoxifiers in the drops, and the reason that that's so important is that oftentimes when you're losing weight like that, you build up toxicity. So I've got some things in there that are homeopathic again to facilitate detoxification. And the thing that's so interesting is people will say to me all the time, my joints don't hurt, and they did before. I have arthritis. I had somebody on the phone, um, Monday night on my call with them because I do coaching calls. She He said, I can't believe it. I'm not ever going to go off these drops. I said, well, you don't have to be on them the rest of your life. He says, yes, I do, because it's decreased my arthritic pain so much. I couldn't grip before, and now I'm gripping again, which is amazing. And I've heard it many times from the combination of these homeopathics. So it's great. It's wonderful.

That's great. So if somebody wants to stay on them forever, is there going to be a side effect of this?

No. If they needed to lose more weight, it would be harder using that program again with the drops. But no, I have some people that order them all the time. For the joint discomfort and they stay on them for that reason, or even once or twice a day because they're feeling like it helps with their hunger and their cravings. So they just stay on them once or twice a day. No problem.

I actually ended up doing that myself. Like, once in a while I'll just take the drops. I see them on the counter. I go, I'll take some drops.

Yeah, I want cravings tonight.

Yeah, intuitively I feel like I should take some drops today.

No, it's true. They really do work in that way. It's amazing.

Yeah. Yeah, very good. So what other words of advice do you give to people that want to lose weight? They've never done a program.

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be ready to say, you know, I love myself enough that I'm going to do this for me. I'm 100% committed and I'm going to do and learn what's right for my biochemistry. I'm going to find out perhaps what food plan I need to be on if I'm going to lose weight to keep it off. So it's really finding something that resonates. And I can honestly tell you that the program that's most successful long, long-term is when they have coaching and they really understand if they are, you know, an emotional eater, how to change that. If they have hormonal issues, what can we talk about? And the group support is unbelievable. I have one of my— she's— I call her an ambassador that's been with me for quite a while. She's lost 110 pounds and she's got 7 months in now that she's maintained within a pound. And she's so excited because what she says is, I finally get it. I understand now food has no control over me. And she goes to parties, and that's not that she's being perfect. And if she wants a dessert, she has it. But she also pulls back and says, this is my place of comfort. I like eating this way now, which is a very different way than she did before.

Yeah. So after somebody's done with the weight loss program, this brings me to the next question. Like, how does somebody get off the plan? So we're doing just vegetables and protein, no fats. How do we get off of it to not gain the weight back?

Absolutely. So we introduce oils first and we see how the body responds to that. By then you have a genetic profile, so you know if you're low-fat, low-carb, Mediterranean, or balanced. And then we may add dairy back. We may not. Depends on, you know, and perhaps you might try sheep or goat if you're dairy intolerant. And then we add the grains. That's where people have the most trouble because, you know, my food of choice would be bread. I couldn't care less about sugar. So that's the dance for me. And I don't do well with gluten. So it's kind of finding something that I can have that's without gluten. And then it's finding out that balance for yourself. And you might use a scale or your clothes to kind of understand where is that happening for me? And some people go and have desserts and wine and they'll gain 5 pounds. They didn't gain 5 pounds. The body didn't like their response. So then they might pull back for a couple of days and get back into that that sinking place. If they go back to eating like they did before and are overeating, they're going to gain the weight back. So my dream is for them that they're in the program long enough that we can really help them see the connections between when they grab food. Is it with boredom? Is it when they're, you know, an emotional thing happened to them? Is it like this woman with the nachos? You know, where, where is that place for them and what do they need to do about So the good news is we can have dessert after the plan. Yeah, but here's the thing. I'm not a big fan of sugar. I think it's really dangerous. 25% of the population has the same response to sugar that animals have. When we've done studies on animals, they actually go for the sugar before cocaine and heroin. It is that addictive for some people. So it turns on the same neuroreceptors that cocaine and heroin do. So if you are one of those people, it behooves I encourage you to make keto desserts as opposed to sugar desserts because so many times they will eat them and eat them. However, I have somebody in the program now who that was true for, and she made— she wanted to see— she's in maintenance. She wanted to see if she made chocolate chip cookies, you know, for herself. And she did healthy chocolate chip cookies. She ate the whole batch.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, she felt so badly. But what she said is, I learned that, you know, that's my thing. But she got right back in to know, "This is how I want to live because I feel so much better." That's the difference. And what she would have done before is just eat them, eat them, eat them, eat them, and just another year would have gone by in which she was unhappy with her body fat, you know, being 50 pounds overweight. So she really started to see for herself, "I love myself. I don't want to do this to me." and change that pretty quickly in 24 hours.

Yeah, that's amazing. And especially, I love that you said coaching. And, you know, on your website, actually, I love your videos, and you're really coaching people through it. And, um, it sounds like you have a community.

Yeah, and a Facebook group. And, but isn't that what it's all about for us women? We're taking care of everybody else, and then we forget ourselves. And then this is an opportunity for people to be able to get together and know people in the community which are all on the same path, trying to do the best they can together. That's really what it's all about.

Absolutely. Now, you mentioned women, and I mentioned earlier, I did this with my husband. Is it okay for men to join? Absolutely.

The thing that's different for men is they lose faster than women. You know, I've had men in the program for 12 weeks who have lost 65 pounds, and I've got them on 9 ounces of protein twice a day. And, you know, one of the guys that was in the program, he did lose 65 pounds. He said to me at the door, because he was on a radio station with me, he said, oh my God, I never thought I would stop eating French fries, but salads are my new French fries. I can never say thank you enough. It was very sweet. Lost a lot of weight. He was thinking about going and having bariatric surgery, so he didn't do it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's incredible. Now, regarding protein, we talk about animal protein mostly, and I know there's probably some vegetarians that are listening to it. Can we substitute all the protein with, let's say, eggs or egg whites?

Eggs or egg whites, and oftentimes I'll have them use cottage cheese just because I need that protein. I'm not a big fan of dairy. But that's one of the ways to do it. Sometimes soy, but they definitely lose slower. There's no question about it. They definitely lose slower. But we have success and we have one person who's my nurse who's been with me for 25 years. She coaches them very, very well in terms of how to do the program if they're vegetarians. Yeah.

What about protein powders? Are those allowed? I know there's a variety on the market.

Yeah, I generally don't like to see that. I like to see people eat real food. you know, chicken, fish, you know, protein sources and really help build muscle in that way. If they just beg me, I will have the vegetarians use protein powders because I need them to kind of get that number up as much as possible. But generally I'm not a big fan of it. Now, if we wanted to use some like Skinny Greens or something like that in between, that's fantastic to get the greens up there as well. Mid, you know, midday with a fruit, mid-afternoon with a fruit, that's really helpful as well. But again, I try not to do sugar in it. Of any form in those products as well.

Yeah. What I found definitely on the program and on your drops is that I wasn't really craving food and I didn't even need the fruit at all. I rarely ate a fruit on the program and I felt great. I had a lot of energy.

Yeah, it is something people say is, oh my God, if I take it at night, I can't get to sleep. So the goal is don't take it at night. Take it before dinner.

Yeah, very good. Well, I am so happy that we got a chance to spend some time together on this episode and really talk about the importance of losing weight in a healthy way, right? Not in an unhealthy way, and really through a holistic program that is full of, like, whole foods, full of nutrition, and lots of food, something that you're not going to starve. And Dr. Pick was here to tell us all about Drop 20 Now. And for those of you who are interested to find out more information, we're going to put the link in the show notes and you can go to Dr. Pick's website and learn more. But this is such an easy program. I've done it and I highly recommend it. For those of you that were on the fence, you don't know which diet to try, this is definitely one that is not going to cause you to, to have issues. Well, Dr. Pick, thank you so much for joining us. And stay healthy, everyone, and see you on our next episode. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram @DrSandaMoldovan. This is Dr. Sanda Moldovan, and remember, Remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.