Lifestyle medicine & the role of diet on our health with Dr. Melissa Mondala

We are joined in this episode by Dr. Melissa Mondala, a physician board certified in both family medicine and lifestyle medicine. Dr. Mondala is the Director of Primary Care of the newly established Institute of Plant-Based Medicine, in Newport Beach, California and alongside this, serves as family and preventive medicine faculty at Loma Linda University, serves in a lifestyle medicine specialty clinic and inpatient lifestyle medicine service. She is an engaging speaker that brings evidence based methods to combat chronic disease and uplifts potential barriers through self-empowerment and self-compassion. Her mantras are “love yourself through your lifestyle”, “I’m Plantbased without judgment”, and “personalized care is the best healthcare.” 

In this episode we cover: 

• What inspired her to pursue medicine  
• How she was introduced to plant-based nutrition 
• The health improvements she experienced personally after changing her diet 
• The five pillars of lifestyle medicine 
• How lifestyle medicine is used in clinical practice 
• Tackling the “low hanging fruits” of lifestyle medicine 
• Which types of patients she helps 
• How she prescribes exercise 
• How much sleep people need and why quality matters 
• Managing stress through mindfulness and perception 
• Strategies to reduce toxin exposure 

You can connect with Dr. Mandala on Instagram: @melissamondala.md and Facebook: @melissamondala.md 

Dr. Mondala and her partner, Dr. Micah Yu have a joint website here: https://www.drlifestyle.org and her personal website is here: https://melissamondalamd.com 

Episode resources: 

• Book an appointment with Melissa through IOPBM: https://iopbm.com/pages/dr-melissa-mondala-personal-page 

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IG: Muzammil: @dr.plantbased, Cass: @plant_fueled. 

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Music credit: Scott Holmes. 

*Please appreciate that this information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the opinion of a physician or qualified healthcare provider!*