Revolutionizing Health Through Plant-Based Nutrition with Dr. Melissa Mondala - S3E16

Dr. Melissa Mondala, a devoted advocate for plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine, is the star of our latest episode! She unveils her personal journey of overcoming health hurdles such as IBS and GERD through the transformative power of plant-based eating and lifestyle medicine. Listen in as she unpacks her six-year-long journey as a physician, healing patients by tackling the root cause of their symptoms and transitioning them to a healthier lifestyle.

Our conversation takes a deep dive into the intricate relationship between food and hormone health. Dr. Mondela highlights how endocrine disruptors, including sugary and salty foods, glyphosate, and heavy metals, can affect our hormonal health. You'll uncover the significance of plant-based eating and lifestyle changes like intermittent fasting and regular walking, particularly for managing hormone health at different stages of life. Learn from her valuable tips on stress reduction and consumption of anti-inflammatory foods for managing conditions like painful periods and hot flashes in perimenopausal and menopausal women.

As we wrap up this enlightening chat, we touch on the impact stress has on health and well-being. Discover how Dr. Mondala aids her high-stress patients in finding healthier coping mechanisms and collaborates with couples to facilitate collective healing. Plus, you'll gain her contact details and valuable advice on finding a balanced lifestyle, along with the right resources and experts for support. Don't miss out on this illuminating conversation with Dr. Melissa Mandala, packed with actionable tips and profound insights on how to revolutionize your health and life through plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine.


Connect with Dr Melissa - https://drlifestyle.org
Dr. Melissa's Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DrMelissasKitchen

For more fun guest- Check out Coach Mikki & Friends YouTube channel

We look forward to seeing you succeed! - www.KeepOnSharing.com - Code - KOS

Transcript

Coach Mikki : 0:17

Hey, I'm Coach Mikki and I'm so glad that you've joined us and if this is your first time joining us, come on in and make yourself comfortable. And for those of you that join us on a regular basis, we are so glad that you do and we are grateful for everything that you do and support all of our guests, and especially with your comments, your questions and your suggestions. And it's reaching out to our guests and seeing what they're all about and actually connecting with them. And today I am thrilled and excited to have on this guest, because this is a really neat thing and something fun that we can all benefit from. And I was so excited when I read her information and she reached out to me and I said I would love to have you as a guest on my podcast.

Coach Mikki : 0:57

Today's podcast is Dr Melissa Mandala and she loves plant-based cooking and being a doctor. She has helped thousands of people just like you to create life-changing results in their health and their well-being. She will help you unlock your behaviors and your thoughts by one simple step, educating and empowering you to value your health on a plant-based nutrition. Her approach is combined with six years as a physician specializing in a family lifestyle and integrating psychiatry and the latest cutting edge of medical research to help reach out and hear healthy goes. I could go on and on and on what she does, because she is a plethora of information. She is going to reach you from your soul, from your health and you as a person, so I'm just going to have you join right in. Thank you so much, dr Melissa. How are you?

Dr. Melissa: 1:46

It's so good to be here, happy to connect. Happy Friday. I love being part of this community. I'm so thrilled to just share and educate and get to the root cause of why things happen in our health and really empower people to make that lifestyle mindset shift.

Coach Mikki : 2:07

I love the fact that you have taken two very important elements of our well-being and you've connected and collaborated them together. But I've got to ask you so what is your story? So tell us about yourself and how you got interested in this field.

Dr. Melissa: 2:21

Yeah, no, thank you. I would say I was a patient just like anyone out there. We're all humans, we all have symptoms and I had IBS growing up and I didn't know what it was called. I was actually an active cheerleader in junior high, but I was someone with IBS and GERD and horrible acne and I didn't realize that these symptoms not only had a diagnosis but they also had a root cause. So I was just that type of person who maybe looked healthy on the outside but inside I was really not feeling the best. I was suffering in the fact that I remember just getting so bloated, crawling on the floor. I had bouts of unexpected diarrhea after eating certain foods and I didn't know why and how. And I remember just going to football games and basketball games wondering, you know, am I going to make it through? But I know I have the energy, I have the willpower, but something inside is really tearing me up and I didn't realize then that it was just my unhealthy lifestyle. I didn't realize that I was not, you know, I was one of those cheerleaders who would compete with everyone and say how much I, let me eat as much as I can. But I was eating the standard American diet and really in medicine, in the health, in the research shows the standard American diet of high, high fat, high fat, high salt and a lot of dairy is really the one of the root causes for a lot of chronic disease, especially acne, especially digestive issues, and so I knew that something was off, but I didn't realize that until my symptoms just became worse and worse.

Dr. Melissa: 3:59

So I loved psychology, so I studied that in my undergrad years and then I went into family medicine and I loved taking care of families. But I also knew that medicine was a revolving door where people would get diagnoses but they're not necessarily getting better or they want to reach a dead end and say this is what you have, but that's it. And I was trying to solve myself and my patients at the same time and wonder you know, there has to be something better than this, this quality of life where people just take a medication and expect something to happen but still have symptoms that are uncontrollable. And so I found lifestyle medicine through not only going to conferences and watching, I would say, documentaries such as Forks over Knives or Game Changers, but looking at the research and seeing that it's about nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management and looking at these behaviors and how I needed to address that. So I really went in this curiosity of self-discovery of my low moments, saying why am I still in medicine if I can't even heal myself? And why am I trying to help others when there's still a bunch of side effects and you take medications but people still don't feel the quality of life they want?

Dr. Melissa: 5:25

So when I found life-saving medicine, I saw people and my life changed. So I got rid of my acne went away, I got the clear skin when I ate more plant-based eating, my IBS just calmed down and I didn't have to take all these other medications. And then I had more clarity. I was struggling with my mood. I didn't know. Was I depress or anxious? Did I have ADHD? What was going on in my mind? But really it was just so much brain fog and so much inflammation in my brain and my gut that I couldn't have that clarity. So when I went plant-based, literally it's like the curtain lifted and I was able to just be more productive, have higher energy and really perform as even better as a doctor. And then my patients saw it and I just tried it with them and literally, patient by patient, I saw results. And when I saw the results in them, knowing that yes, it's in science, but I can see on the day-to-day, there was just no turning back from there.

Coach Mikki : 6:23

Wow. Well, first of all, I love the fact that you have your own story to bring you to where you are right now and that you could see that's what was working , as traditionally it was not working for you. And one of the things that I've always had just kind of an interest in is I could never understand why you would take something to mask a problem. It's like putting a bandaid on a broken leg. It's like don't give me a bandaid, give me the reason why and help me to fix it.

Coach Mikki : 6:50

And I love the fact that you did your own research. You weren't satisfied with what was happening in your body. Based on it, what was given to you, and to go out there and reach beyond that and find the answers and the results and then be able to move it forward with other people, I mean that really says a lot about you as not only as a physician, but also as a person. First of all, I'm sorry that you had to go through that, because there's nothing worse than feeling ill and trying to live your life. I, you know just that's just very difficult. But I am very excited for the fact that you found an answer and a way to be able to resolve your own issues and then move forward and then help other people. That is amazing.

Coach Mikki : 7:33

And now I know you have said that food and is medicine, you know, and it helps with a lot of different things, such as your hormone health, your immune health, depression and anxiety. Can you give me, just give us, a little bit of a insight on how that can transpire, cause I know you've got this great cooking channel. You've got, I mean, you have a cooking with Dr Melissa and I love it because you teach people how to eat healthy through your YouTube channel and we're going to connect all those links and within the podcast, but give us a little insight on how you discovered which foods to use for what and then what to how to go forward with it.

Dr. Melissa: 8:11

Yeah, and to just continue on what you just said, you know we're all people who struggle and you know it was also not just my story but my husband's story. And you know some people even wonder like how is that even possible to make a lifestyle shift when you're, you're busy, you're you're, you have so many distractions in life? You, you have to take care of other people and I actually just practiced it with my husband first. I'm like how can I help him? He actually had gout, pseudo gout and I'm equalizing spondylitis, and these are three on immune diseases that are just, unfortunately, happened way too early in his life, as a teenager and he was on the Atkins diet and he was a he's the football player who just wanted to bulk up on heavy protein and he didn't realize that was pro inflammatory. So one Thanksgiving I just literally said you know what I'm, I'm gonna change the way I'm cooking. Um, I'm, I have some new items to Introduce and also I'm gonna do a little cleanup in the pantry, in the fridge. And he, he was just laughing at me. He's like what is going on with you? You're you're. You know, this is not what I signed up for. You know you're trying to win my heart. Are you? Are you crazy? Because, like Then you like they. He thought I was just um a radical in the way I thought about healthy lifestyle like he, and so he. And it always starts like that because we're so attached to food we have, like I was a food addict. In a way it's like, oh, I love my food. I all I talk about is food. And to have him say, wow, you're usually you're using food as medicine, what does that even mean? This food is usually Pleasurable and you know, and it's comfort food, right, and I love that side and I still use that.

Dr. Melissa: 9:54

But the medical, health healing side is to see that, um, the rich fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, all of these colors have Things that reduce inflammation. They have polyphenols and phytochemicals which are just fancy terms to say that's what supplements, vitamins, are made of. They're made from plants and they they work as medicine and they Get rid of inflammation. They reduce the rates of diabetes, of obesity, anxiety, autoimmune disease you can literally name all the chronic diseases and look at the research and say, wow, there's, there's um vitamin c in there. There's also magnesium, which helps for sleep and muscle aches. There's um things that work on the, the pathways to reduce tumors. And it's just guess it's radical, because no one really talks about food like that, but I it's.

Dr. Melissa: 10:47

It's amazing to see that what you put on your plate has an opportunity to heal the body.

Dr. Melissa: 10:54

It doesn't necessarily have to be something that's mindless with things that can cause aches and pains, but something that can share this experience to say you know what my, my little tiny cells Want?

Dr. Melissa: 11:08

This because it can feed my, my energy, it can balance my hormones. And my husband, when he went Um, he lost, um, his unhealthy weight. He's actually weighs his high school weight and he was, like literally most of his life, overweight, um and, and he literally feels like he can Run, he and like he did marathons before, but now he's pain-free and that's the beauty of it, you don't have to push yourself In and not have the feel for it. So that's what food is, medicine is you actually get a, build, a healthy reserve, a healthy energy and and meet your any type of daily goal or Spiritual, emotional, physical goal. It's, it's all in tune. And so he is. You know, his inflammatory markers went Down and negative after just three months and it literally doesn't have to take too long to see the benefits of food is medicine, and and that's what I love in what I do with my patients- that's really awesome.

Coach Mikki : 12:11

Well, I love the fact that you took the information that you had and you even helped your spouse, and you know I there's and everybody's heard this. I know they have and forgive me, I don't know who actually said it first, but you are what you eat and it really makes sense. It does, because what we put in our body is what you're feeding every cell and every organism and everything that needs to work you know at its full capacity. So if you're not feeding what needs to be fed you know to keep you healthy, it really does make sense. I know for myself. I've had a change my eating and about probably 10 years ago I stopped eating all gluten and I was like yeah, and I was like I know there's something going on and I myself I'm very holistic.

Coach Mikki : 12:55

I'd much rather take the holistic road prior to going out and trying to take this medication For this one, and then you get the side effects from that one and you get this one now Do I say that? Everybody can feel that I think you have to look at yourself individually and decide what works for you. But my most Important thing, or the most information that I can share with everyone, that is listening, educate yourself and be your own medical advocate. You know, get the information, know what's going on, ask the questions. Oh my gosh, I cannot tell you how important that is.

Coach Mikki : 13:27

I have watched so many people in my life not ask the questions and it's right, you know, draw me crazy because I'm like just ask and Some of these things that could have been asked could have been resolved or kept them from going to the point where they got, and the fact that you have got something that is so easy and makes so much sense and you have the steps to go. Okay, so you're dealing with this. Let's, let's step back and look at what are you going through and what can we do to eliminate something that might be happening within your body by Just process of elimination and then adding in the most appropriate things. And it's their food. It's their food, it's nothing.

Dr. Melissa: 14:09

Yes.

Coach Mikki : 14:13

So I so I've got to ask you've got. So I know you've got the cooking and I know that you work with a lot of different people, but I do want to ask you because I know a lot, especially for a lot of women. One of our biggest concern, I know it was hormone health, and I really want to touch on this because, if I can have someone take away something Today, I think this would be really important. So we know that hormones really control a lot of things, but, especially as women, we deal with it more on a Regular basis, based on how they fluctuate. So what can you tell us in regards to food and hormone health?

Dr. Melissa: 14:48

Yeah, exactly. No, thank you so much that the hormone system, and in women, is complicated to say the least. Right, we, we have our cycles at last 28 days, but we have our ovulation for those who are men menstruating or thinking about, you know, even fertility. About one in eight women suffer from Fertility issues and one in four in the health care industry to suffer from fertility. And so it really fertility.

Dr. Melissa: 15:15

Women's Health actually starts very, very young. So I work even with teenagers who have symptoms of PCOS, because unfortunately, pcos, indometriosis, are in painful periods in and even depression in periods. They actually are becoming more prevalent in younger ages. So I'll start there and kind of work my way down. The lifespan is Not only are they having high amounts of sugary, salty foods and stressful lives and toxins from either gluten, because of the glyphosate, or water that have heavy metals. Research shows that all of these are pro and family Tory and they they Basically interrupt the endocrine system, so they're called endocrine disruptors and there's so many things that really make the Hormones angry because they a lot of women are either missing periods, have long periods, and then the older they get, it gets so disrupted. And yes, I, you know I'm a I love hormones like, even if it's certain ones, if it's bio-ethetical hormones and the menopausal, post-menopausal or it's in, you know, there's a role for it in Someone who is in their teenage, 20, 30, 30-year-olds, like someone in the reproductive age. But I would say the hormones are not the first answer and I take about an hour with my patients because there is so much to dissect, there is so much in that goes around when it comes to hormone health, where there's triggers from stress, there's triggers from food, there's triggers from even when it comes to being around certain situations. And most of those foods I would say are going to and I say it over and over again is gonna be unfortunately heavy animal products and dairy, and it's hard to see it because we were constantly eating it and we don't feel it.

Dr. Melissa: 17:09

But when you just go like even take like intermittent fasting or water cleanse, or if you just increased by 50% of plant-based eating, people's hormones become more regular. That's what the research shows, that's what I see in my studies and you'll see that from each period of their life, they're able to overcome these high, prevalent, I would say, dysfunctions in their hormone health. And so when we think about all these conditions, even people who are menopausal or perimenopausal. The more active they are, the more. If they're walking a little bit more, they're less likely to have pain during these painful periods or they're less likely to have hot flashes.

Dr. Melissa: 17:56

There are literally studies like that and, if you wanna know these types of foods that are really anti-inflammatory, before periods are usually gonna be your turmeric and your ginger. It's really great to decrease the spasms. And then when someone is in the perimenopausal, it's really helpful to have yams, and these are basically the plant derivative of estrogen, and it's okay to have soy. It's actually promoting that. Well, people need a little bit more estrogen when they're in menopause. So there's so much function when it comes to food as medicine eating more plant-based so it decreases the pain, the dysregulation that happens in the women's health or in the female cycle. So I love these types of questions.

Dr. Melissa: 18:49

So thank you, mickey, for getting into that because we're all women here and we have our mood swings.

Coach Mikki : 18:58

Well, and you're right. You're absolutely right. I think for menopause, or taking care of yourself and being able to get a grip on it prior to that instead of going on an HRT, is really important. I know for myself. I did not take it and your doctors are so quick to go here, take this. I'm like, no, no, I'll muddle through it, I'll figure out another way. I'm not gonna take the HRT. It's not with too many side effects, but that was my choice. Does that work for everybody? I'm not gonna make a blanket comment on that, but I think taking care of yourself and starting with food is so important, or having another alternative, and I love the fact that you have the tools and the way to be able to do that, you know.

Coach Mikki : 19:42

I wanna ask you a quick question, as you brought up stress, and one of the worst things I know that I've heard of is cortisol is dealing with cortisol. Now is that something that you can actually help, cause I know you're incorporating your mental wellbeing along with, you know, food, and that seems to be the most prevalent thing that is happening within our world and our lifestyles every single day, and I'm sure all of everyone that's listening can identify with that of dealing with stress. So what would you say to someone that is saying I am dealing with a lot of stress, and can you give us a little insight, based on cortisol, on how that actually affects our body?

Dr. Melissa: 20:22

Absolutely so, our journals. Basically we do produce cortisol and usually it spikes in the morning, am, and that just allows us to wake up, to become alert, to function through the day. But sometimes for those who are on high stress throughout the day because either their work or even their perspective, or they feel like they're they're chasing and they're hunting and they're they're unable to take a breath and their their vagus nerve is actually quiet when the vagus nerve is the parasympathetic and we need that thing in the Yang. But what happens with AM cortisol? It's on overdrive, it's stimulating everything and so that means that it literally shuts down some of the healing properties in the body. So if someone wants to rest and recover, if someone is trying to get over sickness like even like the COVID or the cold or post COVID or something that has to do with have some patients who are even have diabetes, hypertension, all these things, these other comorbidities, when you add stress to the case, the, the actually equation it doubles and triples the amount of disease. So the numbers when there's studies out, you know, as soon as someone gets stressed or even just emotional or excited, it actually increases the blood pressure, the blood sugar, and then weight is actually increased because you're holding on to that energy source and you're you're unable to relax and and release that.

Dr. Melissa: 21:53

And so what ends up happening is I have a bunch of patients who come, one patient who's very successful at running, she owns her own business and she's a mom. But she didn't realize that she it wasn't just a weight issue. She had some intermediosis she had. She was having a go about all these, all these things that are what we see as a typical patient. But it was not just a typical patient. It was someone who didn't have the connection to say you know what? I need to slow down. I need to listen to my body. What is my body saying? If it's in pain or if it's if I'm feeling sluggish, I need to rest, I need to get more sleep, maybe I need to exercise and walk off the stress, or some people are overdoing it. She was exercising for two hours a day doing tennis and you know that's fun. But all her whole work, from the moment she woke up to the moment she slept, she had her alarms going off in her head, so that was really becoming a barrier.

Dr. Melissa: 23:00

But the moment I supported her through a healthy lifestyle. She just started losing the weight and her husband who was so interested in this. He was someone who was a very successful he was in real estate person and he had ADHD and he had alcohol use that was abundant and he didn't know how to actually listen to his body that he didn't realize that he was using alcohol and eating as almost like a protection and a cover because he didn't know how to focus and sort through things. But the moment where I gave him an opportunity like let's just eat healthier and one meal at a time, let's start walking, it was an outlet for him. He was able to put one foot in front of the other and say, you know what? I think I don't need this alcohol use. And literally he was drinking three, five, 10, sometimes every day just to help him sleep, just to help him to get by.

Dr. Melissa: 23:58

So with the moment he stopped the alcohol, turned more plant based, started exercising, he lost the weight, he became more focused and then the beauty of it he started to be more honest with his wife. The relationship started to blossom and when there were blind spots they were able to work things out. And then, even better, they have two sons and they're both really intelligent, but then they loved video games so much and they were picking up negative habits from their parents. One was drinking more alcohol, the other one was just mindlessly eating and they just did things naturally without any nudge was. They just wanted to kind of adapt a healthier lifestyle because their parents were modeling it and they just started naturally losing weight. And then finally the son who was had horrible insomnia, started to sleep better and he realized it was the alcohol that was disrupting his sleep.

Dr. Melissa: 24:51

So I know a lot of people don't like to talk about alcohol and toxins and other things, but it truly is pro inflammatory, it turns to a sugar and also it increases the rates of curd and anxiety and high blood pressure and cancer. So it's just bringing awareness and just being human about it. You know, and I think that's where I love getting into people's lives and hearts and figuring out what do you know? What do they really want in life and what is their why? What keeps them going?

Coach Mikki : 25:22

Well, it does. It connects. I mean it really does. Everything connects together. Whatever, wherever you, whatever your mind flows, whatever focus goes, that's where everything flows. So I mean, if you are focusing on your well-being and everything, I guess that you're putting in your mouth and eating. It's kind of a compliment to each other. So I understand that. I love the fact that you take both of those elements and you combine them together and I can see that you're extremely passionate about what you do.

Coach Mikki : 25:53

And it's not that you just have people come in and they tell you what symptoms they have, but you look at their whole lifestyle and you take into other things into consideration. That really is the whole picture and really that's what we need to see. You can't just decide what the answer is by saying, okay, this is what's going on in my body, okay, but nobody ever asks the question well, why? You know? What are you eating? What are you doing? What's your lifestyle? Like? You know, everybody is so quick to go okay, quick, you know. Well, okay, you've got this symptom, this is what you take, you know, move on next. And you have taken this to an absolute another level where you really do care about who you're working with and what their lifestyle is like, and I really am very grateful that you have had an opportunity to take the time and come on and be on this podcast, because we have run out of time, dr Melissa, but you know what my time goes like that I know.

Coach Mikki : 26:53

I know I've got to have you back because there are so many more things that I want to ask you and I want you to share. And, especially with the holidays coming up, I know the insight and information that you have can absolutely help people get through the most stressful time of the year. You know, no matter what they're dealing with and, again, we wrap the whole holidays around food. So having that, I guess any time of the year is we're going to wrap it around food. Whether it's a birthday, an anniversary, I think every celebration is wrapped around food. It's a matter of choosing which foods to have. I am so grateful for you. I know that there's going to be so many people that are going to want to reach out to you and, as, as everyone knows, all of Dr Melissa's information is going to be embedded in the podcast and for a way for you to reach out to her. But prior to that, why don't you give a shout out to how people can reach you, dr Melissa?

Dr. Melissa: 27:45

Yeah, so I'm basically Dr Melissa's kitchen on YouTube, instagram, facebook. I'm on take that talk sometimes and I just love sharing all these educational takeaways. So if you're all any, if you have any questions, you know I'm also an open book. I like to just give guidance and direction. I'm at DrLifestyleorg where you can see me in my clinic. I take patients virtually all over and I'm in Newport Beach and you can find me there, and my husband's an integrated rheumatologist. You can find him at DrLifestyleorg or at my own immune MD as well.

Coach Mikki : 28:21

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. You have, like I said, been a plethora of information and a breath of fresh air. I love the fact you do everything, especially as a physician, and I really appreciate you and everything that you're doing, so thank you so much for being with us today.

Dr. Melissa: 28:39

It's a pleasure. Thanks, Mickey.