My discovery of true health began in about 2011 when I realized that I was just 1-year shy of the age my mother was when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I wondered how I could prevent the same diagnosis in myself. At the same time, a friend of mine who was taking a nutrition course asked if she could do a 3-day study on my eating habits. As an almost life-long Vegetarian, I thought my friend would come back to me with glowing comments on my diet as I ate better than so many of the people I knew. It came as a shock when her comment on reviewing my 3-day food diary was (in significantly more graphic words), “you eat horribly.” She suggested I give up my junk food and cheese addiction to improve my health and even offered to cook for me for a month.

Over the next month, I changed my diet and read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. I began to do my own research on how diet and health were connected. By the end of the month, I had dropped over 10 pounds without changing my daily activity, my cholesterol plummeted from what, as a physician, I had been taught was normal, my energy level skyrocketed, and my exercise tolerance had improved drastically.

I was amazed that the information I learned through The China Study, along with movies like Forks Over Knives, and other books like Eat For Health by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, had not been taught in medical school and wasn’t standard of care. I was angry that I had spent most of my life struggling with weight and often failed at dieting, yet here I was eating way more than I had in the past, loving the food, and losing weight to the point of having to eat more to keep weight on. That had never been the case in my life before. Unlike my patients who were reaching menopause at the same time I was and who were struggling, I was feeling younger, thinner, and healthier than I had in my 20’s. And all of this was without any medication.

This realization and lifestyle paradox prompted me to start questioning my medical practice. I started going to medical seminars for whole food plant-based medical providers, taking nutrition courses (which we were never taught in medical school) and eventually got board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine. When I had the time to share this new knowledge with my patients in my traditional Family Medicine Practice, the results were astounding. Like me, they would get better from their chronic diseases, get off medications, and feel younger and healthier on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, my busy walk-in practice didn’t allow me to spend the time I wanted with my patients nor did it allow me to practice what I was preaching in terms lifestyle modification to be the healthiest I could be. This is why I decided to drastically change my life so I could “walk the talk.” This is why I worked with my incredible partner to start DOKS Lifestyle Medicine.

I no longer worry about getting breast cancer like my mom did, colon cancer that her mother had, Alzheimers disease like my paternal grandmother, or any of the other health issues prevalent in my family. My arthritic knees do not hurt me the way they used to even though I am even more active than before, I feel and look younger and healthier than I have in decades – AND I AM HAPPY! What a wonderful thing to have your health and feel great.