Implementing Nutrition & Lifestyle Medicine with Medical Doctor, Dr. Laurie Marbas

What are the most important things that this plant-based medical doctor focuses on? When is it necessary to recommend meat, soy? I could not be more elated. I worked under Dr. Laurie Marbas at the Dr. Fuhrman's Health Oasis in Boca Raton, Florida. This job that I got in 2017, I was absolutely jumping out of my pants elated. Like, I get to work at a nutrition for medicine place where I can really Oh my gosh, finally get to see people's diseases being reversed. And yeah, it just— oh yeah, it happens all the time. People getting off of their medications and feeling amazing. Dr. Laurie Marbas does this casually all the time, and I'm so grateful to have gotten to work with her and to call her my friend. Dr. Laurie Marbas is a double board-certified family medicine and lifestyle medicine physician who has been utilizing food as medicine since 2012. She currently holds 50 state medical licenses, plus Washington, D.C., across the United States. She has a small concierge practice and is accepting new patients at drmarbas.com. She is co-founder of the Healing Kitchen with Brittany Jaroudi, where a chef and a doctor come together in the kitchen to provide a recipe of health. She was a former co-founder of Mora Medical and Plant-Based Telehealth. She helped to create and was the first managing editor for the Plantrition Project's International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. She's also the host of the Dr. Laurie Marbas Podcast, whose mission is to provide resources that will empower individuals with the knowledge, mindset, and inspiration to successfully adopt lifestyle interventions and achieve health and well-being. Dr. Laurie Marbas persuaded a large hospital in Colorado to create a lifestyle medicine program centered around a whole foods plant-based approach. The program showed resounding success. At another hospital, she conducted a 1-month study of 26 employees on a whole foods plant-based diet. All employees were fed from the hospital's kitchen, and each individual experienced improved health. She has spoken at the Golden Veg Fest in Colorado, the International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare conference and other venues teaching about the value of the whole foods plant-based diet. Dr. Marbas received her dual degrees, medical doctor and MBA, from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and TTU School of Business. She was awarded the Texas Tech University School of Medicine Gold-Headed Cane Award, a symbol for excellence in the art of medicine and the care of patients. Oh my gosh, this woman is so caring. She deserves all of the awards. She wrote 7 books while in medical school, 6 of which were in a series called Visual Mnemonics. These books use cartoons to help people memorize vast amounts of information, a system that helped her personally when she was a mom attending medical school. As a United States Air Force veteran, she served in the Middle East and South Africa. She's also a wife, mom of 3 grown children, author, speaker, and avid runner. So excited for this conversation. Here's Dr. Laurie Marbas. So exciting. My heart is so full to get to connect with you again, Dr. Laurie Marbas. Wow. Okay, so diving into the realm of honestly saving the planet, I'd love to just start off with How did you become the practitioner that you are today? I know early on in your career, you definitely were not at all plant-based. If you could please tell us a little bit about your story.

Yeah, well, you know, you were part of that journey as I was growing too. I mean, we've known each other, what, 7 or 8 years now? And so— Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, really, it started with just a curiosity and being mindful of watching my patients and seeing something that was unusual, right? So about 12 years ago, and I wouldn't say that we ate a standard American diet. We certainly weren't vegan or wholly plant-based by any means, but we ate a lot of plants, a lot of beans. So we were eating on the healthier spectrum of a regular omnivorous diet, I would say, in the family. So I'll lay that foundation. And we were active. I never had a weight issue. nothing more than health issues was more than my thyroid, which I'd had since I had my second kiddo. So laid that there. But I was in Colorado in a little town called Rifle, of all places, named after a gun. And I had a patient come see me and this— I was doing regular family medicine. I had just gotten out of the military. We moved to Colorado because we were really looking to, you know, smaller town, raising 3 kids, enjoyed the outdoors. And so that just kind of fit the bill. And the community we lived in, whereas, you know, these are ranchers, farmers, hard workers, blue collars, typically, um, a lot of immigrant populations. So these aren't, you know, I'm not talking Aspen, Colorado. I'm talking Luzerife, Colorado. So anyway, um, I was in Rifle, Colorado. I had a patient come see me one day, and she said, you know, Dr. Marbas, meat and dairy upset my stomach. I said, well, stop eating meat and dairy, and we'll come back in, you know, 30 days, see how you're doing. I just made note of it. So when you see a patient, you're making notes, as I'm sure many people have noticed that a lot of doctors aren't making eye contact anymore. They're so dictating the notes because they're so back to back with patients. So that was one thing is that I'm furious note-taker because if it didn't written down, it won't be in my memory stores for later. And we made an appointment for follow-up. And I think that was really important is to making sure that we always do follow-up. And that's where you'll see people ask, how can I start? You know, if a doctor asks like, how can I in this practice like have short follow-ups? Because that's really important. Anyway, so she came back in 30 days and the interesting thing was she brought her daughter with her who was 16 at the time. And she mentioned that, you know, here's my daughter. I need you to tell— you know, she basically told her, I was like, tell Dr. Marbas what you did. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm a family medicine physician. I see kids. I see elderly. What am I going to be talking? Because a lot of times parents will defer a difficult conversation to a physician, which is fine. And but I was thinking in my head, 16, lots of things going on here. And She made her miss school to come to this appointment. And she goes, yeah, Dr. Marbas, I was wanting to support my mom. So we ate plants, basically what was left. She goes, we didn't eat meat or dairy. There's no place in Rifle, Colorado to go eat. Even like, I would be worried about a junk food vegan diet because this was in 2012. And there was no— So what they had was a Walmart and another grocery store, right? And so they bought food. they made it at home. So that's number one. I think they removed these ultra-processed foods, which is really important. But then they also cleared out the animal products. So there was a two— two-punch hit, I think. And so when she came back in 30 days with her daughter, she's like, and when I did that, I felt so good. I stopped 2 ADD medications on my own. And what was amazing about that was how someone who could be on these medications, a young a person, right? Not fully an adult, but not a child. These, you know, this young teenager was, had the self-awareness to understand that she felt just fine off of medications. And I think that's so important that we give people the self-autonomy to make those decisions, whether they want to benefit or potentially benefit from medications or as a dietary change or it's not, no medications. That is really important piece of, I think, the discussion that every physician should be having is where does this patient really want to go. It's a personal decision. And I think what's interesting about this was I was so intrigued by what happened. I was like, so what were you eating? She goes, oh, everything but animal products. And ended up being, you know, we had a nice conversation about what they were doing. And I was like, so this is a plant-based diet and ADD. So I went as soon as that appointment was over, Googled plant-based diet, ADD. First book that came up was Dr. Colin Campbell's book, The China Study. I ordered it. And read it like 2 days. And it was really, for me, such an aha moment. It feels like, you know, you have blinders on and they come off. And, you know, I feel like my keyhole that I had a very narrow perspective, although I didn't realize I had a narrow perspective on nutrition as a very amazing tool to help someone, one, prevention of chronic disease, but also potential reversal or treatment of chronic disease. Now, is it a panacea? No. But is it a very strong tool? Absolutely. And so that allowed me to understand, wow, I have a lot of work to do because I want to do better for my patients. So the first thing that I did for myself was like, I have to live— I have to model the behavior that I'm going to be able to, you know, look at someone and say with a straight face, I eat a plant-based diet, you should too, this is why, right? And really put it into context how it can help that individual. And so I went home, um, one day after I had another patient I wanted to experiment on before I made this full transition. As I was reading more and more, within 2 weeks I had a lupus patient also improve on the plant-based diet. Within 2 weeks she had inflammatory markers decrease, she lost 50 pounds, she ends up losing, you know, stopping 7 to 12 medications like 5 months later. Just an incredible response within a very short 2-week period. And I went home overnight. We cleared everything out of the house was plant-based. I had 3 teenagers at the time, 13, 15, and 18. And my husband, you know, they're like, well, mom's— mom brings in the food, mom cooks the food. Well, that's what we're gonna get. You know, outside the home they could eat what they want, but it was really important to me that at home this is all I had, right? And so that would also encourage me to expand my cooking and taste and understanding that I need to do and live the lifestyle that I'm advocating to my patients. And so that's where it started. And there was a huge learning curve the first year. There wasn't amazing— there wasn't an amazing amount of resources available. And luckily I had some very forgiving patients. As you know, we do learn things. We make mistakes the first time. We might run a few stop signs or, you know, speed up when we should slow down. And really, it was a really great journey. And just came up with some ways to even start that conversation, how to create the time in a very time-constricted space of an appointment, learning, you know, more about the behavior piece. And honestly, that's, that's become much more of an interest to me. Um, I'm not downplaying a whole food plant-based diet by any means. It's obviously my first and foremost recommendation, but really is how do I encourage people to even embrace the beginnings of lifestyle change or lifestyle intervention? And it really gets to the root of it is mindset and what's going going on in the head, behavior change. So I know what works, right? Lifestyle, embracing a— the more plant-centered your diet is, the healthier you're going to be. And well-planned plant-based diet, movement, better sleep, stress management. But how do I start that conversation about behavior change? And that really has been much more of an interest to me, more in the last 3 to 6 years or so, as I start getting down. And that's why I started my podcast, really, is because, like, why were you able to lose weight and keep it off, and this, this one wasn't. You know, it's got to be more than plants. And so that's, that's really my true interest.

Same. Oh, same. Thank you for sharing that story. And everybody, you've got to check out the Dr. Laurie Marbas Podcast. You've been doing this for years, and such valuable information and incredible guests you have on there. But it is really fascinating to me, especially this day and age, that Medical doctors, not only are they not taught, and as dietitians, we're not taught about the mindset so much.

It

almost feels like out of my scope sometimes. It's like, okay, I'm not a therapist here. I'm not. But the reality is, is that people know that broccoli is healthy and ice cream isn't exactly the healthiest thing. Meanwhile, we have these health challenges today, so it must not necessarily just be a— Yeah. A knowledge gap.

Right. Well, and we've seen this in public health campaigns, right? Don't do drugs or this and that or whatever. But the environment will prompt us to eat and consume foods. And then we put it along an understanding our biology is made for us to seek high-calorie, more-calorie foods for survival. That's our natural biological instinct. So when then we have food scientists who are really taking a wrench to what would be foods and then making them into what I call Frankenfoods, and we consume them and we're just ding, ding, ding, dinging the little slot machine in our head to go after more and more of it because they're hitting all the triggers. That's a real problem, right? So we have the food system, we have our environment, we have stress, we have our biology. So there is a lot going on here and it's multifactorial. For anyone who says, oh, Just eat plants and that'll solve all your problems. That's— I think that's wrong. I think we need to really sit back and think about, okay, how can I improve the health of someone? And the starting point may be a plant-based diet, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's just adding more fruit to your diet or veggie one time a day, or maybe it's just movement, just getting them to start thinking about how they can encompass more healthy behaviors. will start the ball rolling. And so that's a really important factor. That's what I love about lifestyle medicine. There's so many levers here that might be more ready for change. You know that when we look at readiness for change, that's just also one piece of how we can evaluate someone. If we look at, oh, I'm not ready to change my diet, well, are you ready to change for movement? How about improving your sleep? How about some stress reduction? You know, there is so Many factors to a human. We're so complex. If you've ever had a— have you ever had a human relationship? We all understand humans are messy. Well, inside us, there's a lot of things that we still don't know how things work. We can just do our best. But we do understand moving more, eating more plants, getting more restful sleep, you know, having that community, really, really focusing in on stress and the mindset and how we speak to ourselves. and how we love ourselves first and foremost really is the important thing here to discuss.

100%. And it's feeling like a lot of relief, a lot of absolute peace hearing you speak to this in such a holistic, patient way. I think that when I hear vegan dietitian, vegan practitioner, plant-based practitioner, all of a sudden I have these expectations of it's like, OK, This means that no animal products are allowed. Like, it's very, um, black and white. And I'm like really, really mirroring everything that I've been trying to teach around, wait a second, we need to, we need to really have a, a more gentle approach with how we relate to food and how we relate to these behavior changes and have it be actually feeling good and not something that's like all or nothing. Yeah.

Right, right. No, I think it's a very important point that you're really kind of dancing around, is that we are all human, right? And so we're influenced by our audience. So as we are— do you want to call us influencers or whatever, healthcare workers, whatever, with more of a public—

Real life influencers.

Right, real life influencers. What's interesting about that is, you know, for example, and I'm not berating anybody's dogma, but I am trying to live outside of dogma. I'm trying to live around facts and understanding that humans are complicated. That's my, that's my new understanding, the uncertainty and embracing uncertainty. The more I understand that the one thing I can always count on is change, nothing else really matters, because as long as I have that understanding, I won't hopefully get stuck in a rut of a certain type of dogma. So, for example, Again, no disrespect, but there are some very hardened SOS-free is the only way, no oils ever is ever good, no nuts, no this, no that. And I'm like, and then they literally, those who embrace, let's say, a whole food plant-based diet but incorporate nuts or some oils, they're shunned, right? And so they're kicked outside the tribe because you don't stick to our dogma. Well, that's a really difficult thing to do. And then when you expect For example, someone like a physician or a dietitian who is working with a very wide variety of humans, as we can go look, walk through the streets of any large city and say no humans are alike. Everyone has different beliefs, thoughts, needs, abilities. All of that changes. So how could we make such an ardent, you know, decision and then a judgment based on someone making recommendations? The science says olive oil can be healthy or is healthy. Great. Do I recommend olive oil to my patients? Not necessarily, because the majority of my patients need to lose weight. This is a very calorie-dense food. But if I have a healthy young person or even older person who's maybe one, they like olive oil and they want to incorporate their diet, that's fine. Or if they want to, because, you know, have a tablespoon of olive oil to sauté their veggies. Okay, that is fine too. I had a patient one time, and I learned this early on when— goodness, I was still in rifle. And she's like, okay, Dr. Marbas, I hear you. I want to eat these plants. I want to do this plant-based diet. But does that mean I have to give up my dark chocolate that I eat once a night? Because if I have to do that, I can't do this. I was like, you can have your dark chocolate. She goes, really? I was like, of course. You know, so we've all become this it's an all or nothing because we want certainty. But see, that's where the problem lies, is that we want certainty and to know that it always works. The science is ever evolving. Humans are ever changing. Like what I was at the beginning of this conversation, my body's already changed. What I will be at the end of this discussion, my body's changed. Your body's changed. Everybody's changed. I think back, I'm Laurie Marbas. I have been— well, I wasn't Laurie Marbas when I was born, but I was the Laurie, right? So I was Laurie when I was a newborn. I was Laurie when I was in preschool. I was Laurie in junior high. I was Laurie in high school. I was Laurie at 20, 30, 40, 50, whatever. But if I look back, if I look at my newborn Laurie and say that's the same person, well, the same person, but my physical has changed, my mental has changed, my, my spirit is there, right? It's ever learning and growing. But that's really the important thing here is that everyone's a little different. They're on a different journey. And to judge someone based on where they are in their journey compared to you makes this life really difficult. So that's a really important lesson that I've learned, that I've embraced in my life. And boy, makes you a lot easier to be happy, more joyful, more peaceful.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting how much people crave this, this certainty, this like, this is good, this is bad. We want this clarity. We want this. And it really does create a recipe for self-hate. You know, you're saying we're, we're judging other people, these, these different tribes of thoughts of belief systems around what's right and what's wrong, all of a sudden not only are we ostracizing others, but then we're at war with ourselves. If we find ourselves at a Christmas party and we eat something with oil in it, what happens then?

Yeah.

And you're speaking so much and brilliantly to our environment, to so much, um, culturally. Like, there's so much outside, and I love how put to the amount of money and research to make these products addictive and release all of this incredible dopamine and oxytocin just from having a food item in our mouth. It's like, you know, we're— we get this rush of comfort and joy from products. Not to mention a patient I actually had earlier today. So exciting. Cancer scans looking good. To celebrate, went to McDonald's and had an ice cream cone. Yes. Exactly. So it's like, wait a second. Let's take a step back here. And discovering that— and I have friends like this growing up where they would come to my house and binge on all of our Oreos because at her house, it was so bad. Like, cookies were bad. These things were considered wrong, bad. Weight and body image was very— made a person worthy depending on what they looked like. So of course, my friend who came to my house would eat all the cookies. I'm like, what are you doing? Chill out. It's the same thing with this patient, putting these different foods on a pedestal, making them so off limits. It's really fascinating to look at people's history and how they were raised and what beliefs were really ingrained to be able to actually continue with healthy behavior change.

Yeah, so I really look— it's the story, right? So what is your story? What is your relationship with food? What is our relationship with anything, right? So at the end of the day, it's like, you know, we have to look at each person in context again. So you could have person A who are— let's say we have 3 people and they all love, let's say, Oreos, which we were talking about. Now Oreos fit the vegan category, so we're not dealing with the animal products, right? So if we take out the animal ethics and the environmental impact, let's just look at Oreos in general. So person A, you know, I love Oreos. I might have one once a year. No big deal. Doesn't do anything much more for me. I don't have weight issues. I'm otherwise healthy and content person. They have probably a healthy relationship with Oreos. Now they might have other food issues or alcohol, but we're talking about Oreos. Now person 2 might be a little bit more— Hmm. You know, if I eat Oreos, I might eat half the box, and then I might— then a week later it's still there. I want to eat the rest of it, you know, but they still are like, okay, I'm done. I've indulged more than I should, but I understand I need to stop. They can— they're still in tune with their body, but they were struggling to stop as much as maybe person A. Then person C. Now that sends this person down a deep spiral, right? So they may need to have more rigid guidelines and rules in their life because the Oreo is the opening of Pandora's box, and they are going to eat not only the Oreos but the ice cream and anything else that comes into sight. It's going to hit that little dopamine lever for them for that highly palatable, ultra-processed food. So we have to look at this as a spectrum, right? So when we look at, let's say, the cancer patient, maybe that brought them joy because they, and they had such wonderful memories of ice cream and whatever it is when they were little, and it just, you know, brought them joy. It doesn't mean it's gonna be responsible for them to get more cancer or something. But now, if it set off a landslide of unhealthy behaviors on and on and on, that's a different story altogether. So again, exactly, we can have some of these foods. And I'm not saying you should, but I'm saying you can. Like, I will indulge. It's always vegan. I'm not going to ever— I don't indulge in any animal products. I have turned into like an ethical plant-based eater. So it's very easy for me, even in the sense of looking at plants not only for health, but for the animals and the environment. So it's a done deal for me. People go like, if you were on an island and you could only eat a pig, I was like, well, I'd eat what the pig's eating. It's very simple.

It's a good answer.

Yeah. So but at the end of the day, I will have— if we go to a new vegan restaurant, we're traveling, and my husband wants to split, know, a cheesecake, vegan cheesecake with me? Of course, let's do it. Let's enjoy it. What a part of wonderful memory, right? So again, this is— there's no judgment here. So we are human at the end of the day. We want to live our life with purpose, you know, love without limits. And that includes yourself. And give yourself a place of— give yourself some space to live life. And, you know, it's really funny. I run a glucose mastermind group. And so what I do is I prescribe a CGM. And we really look at the data point of glucose. But what's really important that I try to convey to everyone who comes in, they're so freaked out when they first start because they've all heard— maybe they're getting some of these CGMs from other companies and they don't take the time to build the context and the education around it. So this is why I do these in small groups, and we have a really awesome time. And what's interesting, they become— when they first come in, they're so hyperfocused on a number that they'll actually not eat to get the number lower. And or they go crazy with exercise. It's like, listen, every story, every number has a story. How did that number at 12 PM on Tuesday, November 13th, 2020, whatever, get there? Because tomorrow at 12 PM, you're going to have a different number and a different story. It's the sleep, it's the stress, it's what you ate, it's how much you were exercising, it's your current body weight, it's your hormones, your menopause, your age, whatever that number. Has a story, and is not eating going to be the right answer? Maybe so. Maybe you ate too much closer to breakfast. Maybe you had been eating all morning, right? Maybe you had ultra-processed foods. Maybe that is the answer, or maybe it's because you need better sleep at night. Maybe it's because you need some menopausal hormone therapy because your estrogen is going all crazy and you're not sleeping. You're stressed out. You're eating things. All sorts of things could be going on. So when people sit back and look at the big picture, look at the big picture, everything in context the best you can, the more you educate, open your perspective, that is going to lead to a much easier life to make better choices based on your values and your decisions. If you reflect on what's important for you, not your guru, not your neighbor, not even your spouse, really comes back to what's important for you as a person, because at the end of the day, You have to live with ourselves. And when we do that, we are just a better human to be around.

Yeah. Wow. You touched on a lot. And I feel like we're going to need to do a part 2 because I'm fascinated. I'm fascinated with women's hormones and menopause and just like the amount of just growth, thank goodness, in women's health and women's research. And I'd love to talk about that. But it's really fascinating what you're talking to when it comes to one specific behavior, we can't tell as practitioners whether that behavior was done out of absolute hate, fear, anxiety, or if it was feeling like, oh, I'm really excited to take care of myself. We can't tell if that ice cream cone was like, oh, this is so fantastic. I'm having my one ice cream cone, or if it's something that's even deeper. So that's something that I invite people listening to really think about is that Run that you're going on. This is just a classic thing I always teach about is the run that you're going on. Are you going on this run because you have to, because you should, because you're really trying to check that off the box? Or are you like really committed to being a loving, healthy person and you're like really stoked about this run? We can't tell as practitioners, right?

No, exactly. And I think that's a really lovely sentiment, especially around movement and exercise. So for example, so I'm 53. Right. And so I want to always think that I'm going to be able to do what I did when I was 23. Actually, I could do more now than I did at 23, just because, you know, you get stronger, you focus and anything. But, you know, I just— I trained for 4 or 5 months for a half marathon. I ran it with Emily, my daughter, in Boston in November. And then honestly, when I got back, I was like, you know, I love running, don't get me wrong, but do I want to go run 9 and 10 miles for training again for another half marathon? Well, I don't think so. But you know what I have been enjoying is these really long walks. I still want to move weights, heavy weights, and understand that at this month, this particular year, I— that's the kind of movement that I'm finding more enjoyment. And I want to sit back and think about why was I doing that running? Was it because for my own benefit to prove that I could do something? Yeah, I felt really good afterwards. Or is it because, man, I need to tell people to move their bodies, so I need to make it extreme and I have to be the best of it? You know, we have these conversations in our head too. We don't have all the answers, right? And so it's okay if the person that you really admire and is, you know, giving you guidance makes a decision and you don't agree with it. That's okay. Just take what you want and move on to something else. Or if they change their decision and like, you know, new evidence has shown that this is that, that is a person to be monitoring because Someone who can say, this is what I said before, and I believe because I was making what I thought was the best decision and recommendations based on the current evidence. And now you take in new evidence. Well, you probably need to look at that person like, wow, they have enough fortitude and self-reflection and being humble to say, I've changed my mind based on the evidence, right? Yeah. So I think it's so very, very important. Now, for me, I will never not recommend a plant-based diet. That is one thing, or movement or better sleep. But now that there are some things around a plant-based diet, which I'm sure you educate your audience on all the time, there are certain things you need to be paying attention to. And some people need more than others. Like, for example, some people like, well, I only take 2,500 micrograms of B12 once a week because that's what Dr. Greger says. I'm like, that is great that you, one, you're educated that you need to take B12, but let's look at your blood test before we determine if that's the actual amount that you actually need. Maybe you need more because the majority of my patients need 500 to 1,000 micrograms every day to get their homocysteine back down, their methionine back down, and get a level above 500 but less than 1,200 or so on the blood test, and they're non-symptomatic. So those are some really important parameters. It's just more, you know, again, they're looking for that one answer. As long as I do that, that's a step in the right direction, and it might be enough. It might be the end of the story for you, but Maybe in 10 years you're older and maybe you don't absorb as much B12. Maybe you then need to check it again to make sure. So anyway, you can see where I'm getting is that we just have to embrace uncertainty. And once you're okay with sitting in kind of the uncertainty model and opening your horizons, you're going to be a much happier person.

So brilliant. Okay. I, I feel like I would love to talk with you forever. I have 2 questions for you. Okay. And then we'll start to close out. But first of all, if there happens to be any particular population or disease process that you wouldn't necessarily recommend a plant-based diet or anything that you've seen.

Yeah, yeah. So this— let's get back again to the context. So where, when we eat food, what is, what do we, what do we explain? It's our gut, right? So if I have someone who's really in the middle of a fire, like we've got a— was it a 3-alarm, 5-alarm fire, whatever it is? If we have inflammatory bowel disease or we have some really serious issues and someone cannot digest certain types of food, that is not the time to be saying, oh, go eat those raw roughage and go eating your pound of greens or doing this or doing that or eating— let's add all this fiber that your gut is sick and never been before.

Right.

No, no, no, no. This is where we really talk about, okay, how can we safely introduce, start introducing small amounts of whole plant foods in a form that's not going to set off, you know, the 3 alarm to go to a 4 alarm. But using medications— because I'll have patients come in like, I want to stop all medications right now. I'm like, no. So there are, but I— it's still— I, in the context of, you know, looking at digestion and some other things, I'm trying to think of some other No, nothing outside of, you know, the gut issues. I think, at least off the top of my head, I think that's a really important parameter. Mm-hmm. But also understanding that there's gonna be certain types of foods. For example, if I have an uncontrolled diabetic, I absolutely want them eating a whole food plant-based diet, but maybe they've had gastric bypass, right? Or they've had problems, such high blood sugars, and now they have gastroparesis, right? So I'm gonna be talking about different types of foods. We're gonna be talking about different preparations, mechanically altering these foods just like you would a baby. I'm not gonna, you know, go feed a newborn a regular adult meal. These are gonna be different conversations based on the context where that person's sitting in their clinical scenario right now, right now today. And so those are the cases. But instead, I, you know, some people advocate, okay, just eat all plants if you're a type 2 diabetic. Well, I think it depends if you're under fairly good control with your medications. Yeah, we can probably embrace all that and adjust accordingly. But I would pull back on higher glycemic index foods, at least in the interim, until you become more insulin sensitive. And I speak a lot about insulin resistance. It's not the be-all come-all, but I think it's— it helps people kind of navigate towards like a discussion about insulin resistance. And then there's all the factors that improve insulin resistance, also improve the multifactorial diseases that insulin resistance is a part of the story. And that's a, that's a really important thing. But that's a great question. Who would you not recommend it to? It's like, it depends.

Yeah. And it's so beautiful to hear that from a practitioner. Just people listening, some people are just like this way, as we were talking about before, you've gotta be able to do this with plants only. And that's not the case. You know, people kind of get mad at me for being so nuanced and it's like, no. Yeah, sometimes I will recommend animal products, especially for IBD and these types of things. If you might be able to briefly speak to the great soy debate.

Oh yeah. Oh goodness gracious. Soy is fine, y'all. So go eat your soy unless you have a soy allergy. Now, I'm not saying processed soy. I mean the whole soy, or at least, you know, I guess tofu and tempeh would be considered processed, but it's still a great source of one, phytoestrogens. It's a great source if it's calcium-enriched, fortified Great. It's protein, it's healthy fats, it helps with cholesterol, decreases breast cancer survivability, it's good for your bone health. It's, uh, I mean, yeah, I tout soy. Soy is a wonderful thing. The studies are quite remarkable. And so those who are making the, the argument against soy hasn't read the research. Ask them why. Can— and not just some, you know, blog article or some journals, like Because you can make a blog or an article read anything. It could really take a study that said one complete opposite, and they could write it in a way that makes people think. They don't ever go back to the original research and look at it. Now, do I say that I have time and do that all the time? No. But I still think we should all be under scrutiny, especially when we're making very absolute recommendations.

Totally.

And not looking at the context of the person. And are we speaking in generalities? That's a little easier, you know. So do I say advocate for a plant-based diet for promoting health? Absolutely. But I'm— my stance is eat more plants. The more plants you're eating, the best. And if you can go to a whole food plant-based diet, that's fantastic. Try to cut out the ultra-processed foods as much as possible. And but if someone wants to consume, and again, Remember, I'm, I'm strictly whole food plant-based. I have— I do have ethical concerns about plants and animals, but if someone's like, I can do that but I need to eat fish, that's fantastic. We're moving in the right direction. Let you do it, right? Yeah, yeah. The hate, the hate, the hate has just got to stop, especially within the whole plant-based world. Why do you— why do we— the friction is— it makes no sense to me. And I'm like, Good grief, people. Let's— we're not in kindergarten. We're not in high school anymore. We're here making decisions and discussions about individuals. Just like you wouldn't want me to tell you who to vote for, who to believe in, you— why do you think it's okay to tell others or tell people who are making recommendations, who are educated and understand someone's illness? Why are you doing that judgment to them? Makes zero sense. And, um, yeah, and people who— it's we get lost in our own little silos and we don't think things. We're— we don't set time to sit and think critically. And at the end of the day, if you take time to absorb what's going on and think about it thoroughly, think about, you know, go down the— you know, they always say you can learn a lot by walking in someone's shoes, right? Walk a mile in someone's shoes. You can do that in a little thought experiment. It's just like your own decision, right? So if you have a decision and you're like, 3 different ways to go, Sit and think about, okay, this is where it would go. Think about the emotions, the potential events. Back up, play it again in your mind. Okay, this is option 2. Here's option 3. Do it with different perspectives. Like, okay, this happened, but before I make a decision and judgment, maybe I need to sit and think about who's all involved. My husband and I have a discussion. My kid and I have a discussion. Why were they so ardent and stuck on that? Well, maybe I need to think about why are they coming at it from— what does that mean to them? And their life, you know, and then helps open my heart and my mind to understand I need to embrace something a little bit better, and I grow as a person. And so it's everything in life like that. So it just, oh, just makes life so much more peaceful. If it took me 50 years to, to learn this, so I hope someone else can figure this out sooner, because trust me, it, it's, it's much easier just to, to do this, and then instead of banging your head against the wall.

Yeah.

It doesn't get any softer.

That's a beautiful message, a reminder to listen, to listen and really connect rather than feel like your agenda is the only agenda. That's just, gosh, a universally very important message. And I guess I just briefly, as you were speaking about soy, it's so nice to hear from someone else, from a practitioner. I'm not the only one who thinks that soy is fantastic. But also with a thyroid, um, background.

Yeah, yeah. So I've been hypothyroid for 27 years. Um, it occurred after the birth of Jonathan, my second child out of 3. And what was interesting, he was born, um, with— so they do some metabolic testing on kiddos. Um, you know, they test them for different things that are really important to address early on, and it will avoid certain things. And one of them is hypothyroidism. So his test actually popped back positive when I had him, and 2 weeks later he was okay. But what ended up interesting was within 3 months I get diagnosed with hypothyroidism. So my, my working theory is that my antibodies that attacked my own thyroid, which is really common during pregnancy, also attacked his poor little thyroid. And so what was interesting about that, you know, over the course of the First 15 years, um, I had escalating doses of thyroid medication. 12 years ago when I went on a whole food plant-based diet, or 11 and a half, it'll be 12 early next year, um, I didn't— unbeknownst to me, my thyroid improved and I needed lower, uh, amounts. And, um, what was interesting though, over the course of the last 12 years, it really depends also. So my activity level, and I went through kind of menopause, perimenopause, menopause, this last, you know, 6 months or so, my dosage needs have gone up a little bit. So that's another important factor. The diet hasn't changed. Activity levels, you know, was a little bit more intense. But that's another thing to understand that, you know, it's one factor, meaning everything is typically multifactorial. We don't live, you know, to people like, I'm going to take hyper amounts of vitamin C and that's going to cure everything.

Right.

No, there's many, many things. So, but with soy and thyroid, I was eating soy all the time, and the only problem that you have with any of these type of foods that you're worried about with the soy in and of itself is an iodine deficiency. So if you're in a state of iodine deficiency, that can be a bigger issue if you're consuming soy and other things that could potentially decrease— excuse me, Or how benefit— Yeah, 100% they are. So just being careful and mindful. And I think iodine is another great discussion, right? So we have someone who's SOS-free, salt, oil, sugar-free, which is fine. Just make sure you're getting a regular good source of iodine. And if you don't do all the sea vegetable things, because honestly, I'm not a big fan of the taste. I never liked fish. It's just not for me. But I do have— I don't have high blood pressure. I use a little bit of iodized salt, and I'm still under probably 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day. And that's okay too, right? So, or you can do an iodine supplement, 150 micrograms daily if you're a regular walking around human. A little different dosage if you're pregnant, smaller doses if you're a littler human. And, you know, I mean, child. Right. So it really is It really is an important— another discussion. And that's why on my website, um, I'm really starting to dive into once a month— part of our Healing Kitchen membership is we do this deep dive workshop every single month. And oh my goodness, I'm learning a ton. But the first one I did, because I had so many people ask questions, is what plant-based labs should I be looking at and what do they mean in the context of eating a whole food plant-based diet? And I was like, this is a brilliant question. So I did a workshop on it. I did an ebook. It's available. You can see it on there if you just want to buy that. There's also— last month I did one on osteoporosis. This is a subject that I feel is neglected in our world, right? We don't talk about it because vegans, plant-based folks tend to be of lower weight, and we are at higher risk just on the base of body mass alone. What else can we do? Went through a whole thing on that. Another one today, I'm doing a workshop on insulin resistance. Oh my goodness, this thing was a monster to condense, but it's a starting point to understand how can we look at different metabolic factors in our life and how that can improve our health when it comes to chronic disease. Um, but yeah, so again, those are things like next month I'll do weight loss, I'll do menopause, I'll probably do the thyroid one. Um, yeah.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah.

I really need to shout everything that you're doing from as many rooftops as possible. Like, this is absolutely incredible. I just— it's so inspiring, right? Coming from a traditional medical background, you're like, no, something new needs to be created here. Could you touch on that a little bit and explain a little bit more all that you offer and how people can—

Sure. No, thanks for letting me share. Number one, I am licensed in all 50 states and DC. And that came about because we really wanted to provide an opportunity for people to be able to speak to someone who was coming from a plant-based perspective or a holistic lifestyle medicine perspective, but still understood the value of medications and necessary and talk to the person as an individual. So we started a whole plant-based telehealth, and we launched in 2020. We sold it last summer. And started working on another one, trying to utilize insurance. That was very difficult. So we shut down that company this summer, and then it allowed me the freedom to just do what I felt was really important. So this is what I come up with. And, um, so I partnered with a young woman, Brittany Girutti, who lost 70 pounds on a whole food plant-based diet. And it's really important to understand she's only 4'11, so that's a significant amount of weight for someone who's You just want to hug. My daughter's 5'2, so I like to— like, they're just so very huggable anyway. But anyway, she's amazing. She's very— got a great personality. And when you look at her recipes that she creates, she starts sharing them. So she's like wonderful following. So we've known each other for a while. So we've partnered and we created what's called the Healing Kitchen. And it started out— it just started this last summer. We have an amazing number of members. It's been great just meeting weekly. So we meet every single Wednesday live. She provides 2 recipes, she cooks, we ask questions, and then I answer medical questions at the last. And then we have an expert workshop every month. So we've had Dr. Clapper. Next month is Brenda Davis. We've had Dr. Kahn. I think we're going to try to get Rick Besselsen. We should probably bring you in, have you also come do an expert workshop. Yeah. And we do that once a month. And then I do my deep dive workshop. So that's all available. So for our Healing Kitchen members, we wanted to provide a low-cost membership to, you know, facilitate these conversations, really answer questions, listen to what they're needing, and try to provide that in a safe space, in a group setting. And then I have my— I'm going to be launching another kind of intermediate where I won't provide a CGM, but I'm going to do a Uh, probably a 3-month, uh, one-monthly discussion on insulin resistance and overcoming insulin resistance, especially in the context of like, let's say someone who's really struggling to lose weight. I don't try to focus in on the scale, but it's a great opportunity to get someone interested on the conversation and then open it up to understand there's so much more to weight loss than just what's on the scale and calorie. Now you just— you need to be in calorie deficit. Yes. Is a plant-based diet a great way to do that? Yes. Can you gain weight on a plant-based diet? Yes. So there's some education there, but there's so much more going on, right? We talked about that here. We talked about the food story and all those things. So we have, um, that coming. And then I have my Glucose Mastermind. So this is where I provide a CGM. We meet 3 hours a month in a small group setting. We look at your, your data. And what that is, the CGM is a continuous glucose monitor, and you wear it 24/7. And, um, We you learn an in-depth, very in-depth anything from what is causing glucose spikes to how do you manage them? We understand about insulin resistance. We talk about like the personal you know body fat threshold. What does that mean? What does this mean for your lipid you know dyslipidemia risk for other things diabetes of course and then All those factors take into play. And we have some really interesting stuff that you can learn on the patterns and what's going on. And anyway, so that conversation, that's for 3 months as well. So I can see patients, I can do these other things. I really enjoy the teaching piece. That's probably where I try to do most of my time is in these group settings and teaching and answering and helping people take the information and applying it in a manner that's appropriate for them. Is what I've really found is really enjoyable.

That's so amazing. I love how you just offered so much. You do so much. What's the best point of contact? What's the best way that people can reach out and potentially get help from you?

Yeah, so things go to drmarmbas.com. That's D-R-M as in Mary, A-R-B as in boy, A-S dot com. And It's all listed there. And if you have any questions, just feel free to message us. My son Jonathan works for me, so it's either myself or he will be answering. Yep.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, everybody go check out Dr. Marbas and, yeah, listen to her podcast. This was a beautiful conversation. Thank you for your time. And oh my goodness, in finishing up, I really like to ask my guests, how do you feed your power when it comes to your personal empowerment and being the absolute incredible practitioner that you are?

Ah, um, I think it's really interesting. I think that's gonna— has changed over time. But for me at this point, um, beyond, you know, of course fueling your body with plants, moving your body as much as possible, it's really feeding a curiosity of how I can improve my mindset, and then how I can relate those learnings or lessons to my audience. Because at the end of the day, I want to have an impact while my time here on Earth is, is, um, you know, between 2 endpoints in time. But, um, I really want to make the largest impact. And the way for me to do that is, you know, open and embrace and learn from a variety of people from a variety of places, different perspectives on different things. They don't have to necessarily be just plant-based. And how can I apply that in my circle of influence?

Thank you so much. I'm excited to share this. Wow.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Be sure to send Dr. Marbas a DM on Instagram @DrLaurieMarbas. Check out everything she's about. I can't even— so much incredible resources that she provides for free online. So please Go hit her up, tell her what you got from this conversation, and I hope you have such an incredible day. Much love to you. Bye.