Your Health Your Way
James Ross M.D. shares insights on health, business, and life
Your Health Your Way
How a 30-Day Reset Turned a Skeptical Physician into a Functional Medicine Advocate
We trace a family’s pivot from soda-fueled routines to clean eating, and how a physician moved from skepticism to a functional medicine approach after seeing results. We share the elimination framework, real patient outcomes, and the role of community in making change stick.
• why a 30‑day clean eating reset clarified symptoms and habits
• the difference between food allergies and sensitivities
• what to eliminate first and simple swaps that work
• how gentle detox supports liver and kidney pathways
• results that changed a physician’s practice philosophy
• raising label‑literate kids and building sustainable meals
• using elimination as both diagnostic and therapeutic
• bridging traditional care with functional medicine across ages
Thanks for joining us today
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Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Allow me to introduce my better half, Missy Ross. Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's my pleasure. Today I want to talk with you, Missy, about things more related to how maybe clean eating has led to more of a functional medicine lifestyle for me as a physician, but also as a family. And I'd love to just start back and let's say tell us a little bit about maybe your journey. I know things really sort of came to a head for you in around 2006 when you started to make some life changes on your health journey. But if you could give us some context, maybe kind of share a little bit about your wellness journey as as far back as you want to go.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Well, we'll have to go far back just to be able to um kind of get the full picture of what was happening. Um I will say though, in 2006, I was at a time where I just was um a very busy mom. I would just had our fifth baby, and I was homeschooling and uh taking care of all the kids, but I was also just at a point in my life where I just didn't feel my best. I was tired and of course, with lots of little people in my house, but um more so just didn't feel well, felt bloated and just um not healthy, not sleeping well, of course, but also just had brain fog and all the things that I think um you just chalk up to, oh, I have all these kids and I'm postpartum and uh this is normal. This is my new normal, at least for now. And so I just kind of thought that this it was normal. But if we rewind back to when I was a kid, um grew up in a great home. I actually um grew up with my mom and single parent family, and she was amazing. Um, and I think too, when we stopped to look at just our patterns and familial patterns, um, she just was doing the things that she had learned and grown in. Um, and as far as health and wellness go, she she would cook and she would do um some great dinners, but she was notorious. And I love you, mom. If you watch this, you're amazing. Um she was notorious for giving me a Coke and a Pop Tart every morning uh for breakfast.
SPEAKER_01:Coke and a Pop Tart.
SPEAKER_00:Coke and a Pop Tart. And she's like, you need that little pet.
SPEAKER_01:And um, did you toast them or did you just eat them like right out of the?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I ate them right running out the door. But um, yeah, that was kind of the norm for me, or whatever I could grab. But it was definitely not your protein-packed, healthy breakfast. Um, but it was what I had learned to do. So uh fast forward just in my adult life, college and even early marriage, we just it was very common for us to drink a lot of Cokes and drink, have a lot of sugar and just um, you know, eat the best we could, but not worry about um all the things that were in it. And so um back to 2006, I felt like I just was experiencing just the normal stuff, like this is normal for me. And I was introduced um to this 30 days to healthy living, uh, health and wellness kind of thing. And I thought, what is this? Is this really um something for me? And I had tried a lot of other things. I had tried some different diets and different things, and it, you know, it worked for a little bit, but the moment you stopped, um, I usually gained weight back. And I learned more about that as I went on my health and wellness journey. But I thought, okay, I'm gonna give this a try. I had a friend who was um in Arban and she's like, you need to try this 30 days to healthy living, it's gonna change your life. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I've heard that before. But I was desperate to do something. And so I did the healthy uh 30 days to healthy living and use their products, and it was a game changer in so many ways and set me on a course for um a better way of eating, something more sustainable, something that allowed me to see the foods that were sabotaging me and make healthy choices and keep um and keep continuing to do that. It was sustainable, which is the first time that that had ever been the case.
SPEAKER_01:I want to dive a little more, you know, deeper into kind of maybe a little more of the specifics of that, you know, plan, that that clean eating plan, that 30-day plan. But uh, I remember you sharing this with me when you were learning about it. And uh what was my initial response?
SPEAKER_00:Well, um, being a physician, uh, we had lots of different um supplements and different programs and things that you had seen, of course, at the up until that point. And it was actually um comical. You're like, this is if I can be so frank, I'm just gonna say, um, you know, this is just a bunch of snake oil, like this is not gonna work. Why are we spending all this money on it? And I'm like, well, because like my friends since it works, and I've seen these people change our lives. So I'm I'm gonna give it a try. Yeah. And so you were a little I was skeptical.
SPEAKER_01:You were skeptical for sure. That's probably a nice way to say it.
SPEAKER_00:However, you were telling people to be healthy, yeah, and drinking the whole six Cokes a day and pot of coffee, and you know, I'm like hypocrisy. Um, so I mean, I I thought, well, if I can make some changes and at least some learn some new things, then maybe it could affect everything.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of like do as I say, not as I do, I guess, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And obviously, very traditional in my mindset, my training, uh, very what we call evidence-based, you know, not really wanting to probably look at the data that was emerging at the time about about what this is the science behind this. And I know you started actually digging deeper into the science and learning more about that, and you got me to start looking at that as well during that time frame. Um, but you know, I thought, oh, I know best, I know better. And I thought, well, I'll just humor you and let you do your thing. And if it makes you happy, go for it. It's not gonna hurt you, I don't think. You know, but I I really thought, like, oh boy, here we go. Um I didn't understand it. And again, I think a lot of times it's a it's important to realize that I think we look at life through our lenses, our biases. We all have biases, we all have our our backgrounds, our our family of origin stuff that you mentioned, how we look at life, how we you know decide how we make decisions. And of course I'm looking through some lenses that were that were maybe on this side of the fence. And not really maybe being willing to budge or or look at things differently, look at life differently. And uh but it was it was good. You kept sharing with me, and and you knew I was drinking at least six Cokes, at least six Cokes a day, a pot of coffee a day, and starting to show in my midsection, I'm sure. You know, I was I was gaining weight and I wasn't really exercising a whole lot. I was in the in the busy season of being a young attending, delivering lots of babies, crazy lifestyle, busy busy, you know, and kids and um but you still wanted to see, you wanted me to you started getting results, you started seeing things, you started feeling better, you started experiencing some benefits, and we'll dick get more into that too. I want to dive deeper into that. But you were persistent in sharing that. Um you know, you were sharing that with me, and and and I thought, you know, what the heck? You know, I wasn't healthy as as healthy as I should be. And uh I started taking your advice, taking your medicine, so to speak. Let uh let food be thy medicine, right? Kind of a deal. Learning more about clean eating, learning learning more about um detoxification and elimination diets and maybe the more of the why and learning more about the science behind it. And but but most importantly, um, you know, there's clearly some results that I had started seeing. Um how I started feeling feeling better and you know, experienced um more energy, um, experiencing better sleep. Uh of course the the bonus of of losing weight, right? When you cut out all that sugar, all those calories, empty calories I was consuming. Uh I think I lost what, like 20 pounds or something like that. It was crazy. It was awesome. Well, yeah. And that then I started to, you know, exercise and maybe ran a marathon not too much uh later. I competed and ran a full marathon and just really got on it. Of course, we've kind of yo-yodas since yo yo, you know, since here and there over the years. Yeah. But I'm grateful that we're at a place now where we've been so much more consistent and and really live in this lifestyle. But I would love to hear you explain to our audience in detail, you know, as much detail as you want about you know why clean eating, what is clean eating? Why do we want to eat clean? Um, how do we do something like this? Tell me the ins and outs and as much detail of of what that means and and what your understanding is. And so our audience can learn a little bit of of maybe how this might might benefit them as well. So please, please share with our audience about clean eating, what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00:Well, at least for me during this journey, I had um a community of people, which was um really, really amazing. And it because at first, when the whole plan was explained to me, I thought there's no way that I can do this and actually stay on it. Uh, it was a plan that I had was completely foreign to me in terms of like really looking at labels and seeing what was in our products and what was in the grocery stores and what um we were actually consuming. And so um having the recipes, having um the guidelines were pivotal for me and a coach that was like, this is what we do. Um and after walking through that, this whole process, I'm like, oh, I can, I can help people. I can, this is something that I can share and um help others with whatever uh just different symptoms that they were feeling. Uh but the basic plan is it is an elimination diet in the sense that we're getting rid of some really um kind of heavy hitters in our diet that we don't even really focus on. Uh we're getting rid of, you know, uh gluten, dairy, whey, soy, uh, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, um, just all of those things. And I remember when that list just came out, I was like, well, what else is there to eat? Like, what am I gonna eat? Is is there, are there different things? How what does this look like? Um, but what I quickly learned is that, you know, you can't obviously substitute anything for sugar in the sense that what we what I was used to eating, but there were a lot of substitutions that I could make. Like I can get off dairy and I can substitute it with almond milk or coconut milk or something that was a non-dairy um milk. I could still eat spaghetti and do those, um, still make that for my children and um kind of noodles with brown spaghetti. Yeah, like I would use brown rice noodles and I would either make my own spaghetti sauce or I would make sure that the sugar content was under a certain amount of grams. And so um we still do salads. We were just making our own salad dressings and not, you know, using all the processed ones. And so it became an um more of a just kind of exciting kind of time where I'm like, oh, I can still eat like chips and salsa. I can still eat some of these things, but I just learned how to exchange that. Um, the things that were not serving me into foods that actually were. And um, the way it was kind of explained to me, because I think you hear that detox or you hear elimination diet and you hear all these, you know, key words and you start to think like, this is really like this is bad, or I'm gonna need to be near a bathroom, you know, or something's gonna happen, or you know, like a colon cleanse or something.
SPEAKER_01:And it's not we're not talking about that when we say that necessarily.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And so it's not like that at all. Um, but it is a gentle, at least the program I went through was a gentle detoxification of your liver and kidneys. And so the goal was to just flush out all those things that have kind of been sitting in those eliminating organs and um flush it out by just stopping to consume all those things that I mentioned before and then pouring in the right foods, whole foods and things that will actually serve your body. And so they kind of explained it to me, um, which is actually fascinating, um, kind of just like a slow draining bathtub. Like your body is like, well, if you have a slow draining bathtub at home and you leave the water kind of just trickling just a little bit, um, eventually it's going to raise to the top, spill over, and wreak havoc all over your home. And so that's kind of what's going on with our with our kidneys and our eliminating organs. They're they're bogged down with everything that we're consuming, whether it's the food that's full of just different, you know, different processed foods, things like that, or the air that we breathe has toxins and um things we put on our skin, which I think we don't even really notice um or don't think about that. That's, you know, your skin's your largest organ. So whatever you put on it, it's going to get absorbed. So you're bringing in all of these things. So your eliminating organs have to be able to flush those out on a daily basis. And so if your liver's bogged down, it's kind of like that slow journey bathtub that just um starts to fill. It can't flush, it can't detoxify, it can't get rid of things, and it starts to build up and spill over and wreak havoc all over your body by way of symptoms that we think are normal, like headaches and um, you know, mood swings and bloatedness, IBS, uh some, you know, all the dark spots on our skin, from even like, you know, migraines. There's so many different things. And we kind of just chalk it up to this is normal, or I'm just kind of experiencing these weird things, or I'm just getting older. And um, it wasn't until I did the 30 day that actually just I fleshed everything out and I it totally changed my life in so many different ways, but I felt different. I was able to concentrate. I didn't have the brain fog, even with all my little people, and I didn't have um, I wasn't bloated, I didn't have headaches, I wasn't drinking coffee for the first time, like ever. Um, and so yeah, those were just a few things. And I lost weight. So I lost the fifth, I lost 15 pounds the first month. And that was actually when you noticed it. And you were like, okay, what is this? Maybe I should take a look. And you actually joined me like this is what happened. You joined me the last like eight days of that my 30, that first 30 day. Like, maybe I'll try this. So you tried it and lost like 11 pounds, like that, of course. And I was like, don't ever do this with me.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. I remember you were happy and I was happy as that.
SPEAKER_00:Like, it's not fair that men have to get to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Men have a little easier job sometimes at getting that weight off right away.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But um, then we continued on, and that's probably another conversation, but it was it was a sustainable, um, it was a sustainable way of life that actually enabled us to get healthier in so many ways.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you you know, it really is just you know, proofs in the pudding. You can't argue with results, you know. And uh seeing that you were doing it in a very natural, healthy way with just by moving your s your food sources around, you know, that really opened my mind. And of course, seeing the results, I'm like, yeah, I think I want to I wanna try this, you know. And it but you encouraged me too. It wasn't like you were like, You need to join me. You need to enjoy me. And you weren't you weren't ugly about it or mean about it or but but uh I don't know, you you won me over. And uh so I started to then look at things more holistically, not just for myself, but I really started to think about wow, if this is helping me, you know, I'm I I used to, you know, I'm I'm prescribing medicines to medicines to help people, and that's appropriate. We need to do that still when when people need that. I have you know, crazy high blood pressure or out of control diabetes. You want to get it under control. But I thought, hmm, maybe I can maybe we can do something to help people. Well, this is something that is sustainable and something that can serve them for their their lifetime, you know, and maybe we don't have to be so dependent on medications for everything. So I started digging into the literature and the research out there about you know, functional medicine, integrative medicine, holistic medicine, more, more of that sort of thing. And I actually then uh did some more studies through uh A4M, which is the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, as well as some studies through the Institute for Uh Functional Medicine, took a lot of courses and certifications and uh fellowship trained actually. And so um did that fellowship in at A4M and um tremendous. You know, I started seeing well, I can start implementing other it got me to to think outside the box, right? And it's what got me then to to start thinking about um what I can do to help help more people. Um I used to get very excited about oh, I I cured or fixed diabetes or high blood pressure with this pill or that pill, and that used to excite me. And then I I changed that the script, you know, I'm like, well, I'm more excited now when I can get people off of blood pressure medicine or get people off of diabetes medicine or cholesterol medicine as an example. So it really, really was um tremendous. And I'd love for you to share some more stories about that in just a second about maybe some patients. But I'd love to hear too, even more personally, how do you think that you know, clean eating, how did it help our our children? And I want to maybe we'll visit on a we got another time to talk. We're gonna talk as much as we want to, but you know, maybe just a 30,000-foot view, overview of of maybe how you think how maybe clean eating helped our our children in general.
SPEAKER_00:In general. Um, well, it's actually um given them quite the different childhood and um start just to healthy living than you and I definitely had. Uh they now are more aware of what's what's in their foods, what to look for, how to read ingredients. Uh we don't we don't really um keep a I mean we we don't eat perfectly by any means, but we don't keep the normal processed foods in the house. And so um they and they they realize that they enjoy actually, we have some, actually several of our kids that love to cook. And now, even um, as we have adult children, they we're not always compliant as kids, but um, they are making those choices now for themselves, now that they have those choices to do they have the ability to choose what they want to eat when they want to eat it. They're choosing a healthier lifestyle and they're reading labels and they're eating more cleaner foods than than ever.
SPEAKER_01:Give them an education, you know, on how to how to adopt a lifestyle of wellness. And everything starts with nutrition, right? It's the foundation of everything in in health and wellness, to be honest. So I think that's really been a tremendous uh leg up that they had. There were several years that we didn't eat that way, right? We had a lot of cokes and and pop tarts and cereals and all kinds of putties, all the donuts and all kinds of yummy stuff. And and again, we're not against any of that stuff now. It's just we don't consume those like we used to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So usually if I do buy that, they're like, are we having a party? Like, who's coming over? Like, why'd you buy all this stuff? So it's not it's not the norm, but um, yeah, they just make different choices now.
SPEAKER_01:Can you think of some specific um examples that maybe some um some of our patients, you know, obviously like maybe some scenarios where you've, you know, maybe with patients and maybe how you shared specifically with patients, how you've been able to help them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, it's actually very much the same way that um I explained it just a minute ago, how it was introduced to me. You know, I just kind of listen first, you know, what are some things that they're I think that's the biggest thing is being able to kind of just sit and have a discussion about what it is that they're experiencing and, you know, what what is affecting them, what they're looking, what their goals are and what they're looking to accomplish by doing um something like this or doing a 30-day or any kind of um diet change. And uh it's been actually really exciting to see so many different results. Obviously, we can't make claims that it's just this or it's just that. I mean, it's hard work, it's making those choices, it's doing all the things, but they we've seen, in particular, we've had specifically several patients. I can count them on two, three hands, um, that have had different autoimmune issues and different uh and ladies with PCOS, people that have had issues with you know having children or just not hormone issues and imbalance, metabolic issues, diabetes, hypertension, all of those things. And so we've seen countless people, either um like people with diabetes or cholesterol, being able to come off their medicines or at least alter them to where they're not so dependent on them. Uh, ladies that have, you know, been able to balance their hormones through just cleaner eating and um just just see some really miraculous things. Even ladies who didn't think they could have children have had children and some really cool, cool stories. Some amazing stories. And so I think too, it's just being able to walk alongside them and being able to coach them and let them know like, you can definitely do this. It seems like it's hard. It's just like that, taking that first step and knowing that um, you know, it there's there's life on the other side and sustainable.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's made a difference. It's not just a program, but it's you mentioned at the outset, you know, coaching and community. And I think that's something that that it's it's you could do these things on your own. There's plenty of information on the internet. You can read, you can do your own thing. And there's people that are very much self-starters and you know, self-taught. Um, but there's something to be said for having somebody coach you through the process or somebody or a community of people that can come alongside you that are going through it with you. Um, and that serves to help you on lots of levels, you know. I think that's that's the beauty of of where this has come from, you know, and how it's impacted uh our family and how it's impacting other families. And like I said earlier, it's bridging that gap between the traditional approach and the holistic approach and saying it's not either or, but and how can we take the best of medicine and the best of what we know integrately and functional medicine-wise, and how can we marry these things together? Of course, in our practice through a primary care lens, where we're seeing newborns all the way up to, you know, people that are in their final stretch of life, that final season of life. And it's a real privilege to be able to care for people across the spectrum. Um, and seeing cases even with these little newborns, you know, where kids are having reflux and they're having rashes or eczema infants. Yeah. And we get, you know, we talk to moms about, you know, well, what are you eating? You know, what are you ingesting? What are you doing? Or or kids in the toddler years and, you know, developing eczema, asthma, allergies. And a lot of times it comes back to, you know, sometimes elimination. Or we see inflammatory markers that are very high on patients, um, and we don't know why. So we start thinking, like, what's causing the inflammation? And a lot of times it's what we put in our bodies, what we're exposed to and what we put in our bodies. And so when we do these elimination diets, it's not to say, oh, you have an allergy to gluten or you have a, you know, a celiac disease, because we'll work up people for those things, but a lot of times it's negative. And but we find that a lot of these foods like gluten and dairy are a little more pro-inflammatory. So maybe there are sensitivities and not necessarily food allergies. There's a distinction between food sensitivities and food allergies. So people that are manifesting the symptoms that you described earlier, like the vague symptoms of brain fog or headache, or maybe some rashes or GI issues, they may have some food sensitivities. So when we start with what's most common, I always tell my students and other people that that rotate with me and that common things happen commonly. And so when you look at gluten and dairy, those seem to be uh a big you know factor or player in a lot of these issues. So when we eliminate gluten and dairy, just that alone sometimes can be uh both diagnostic and therapeutic, right? I can diagnose a problem because they got better and it's therapeutic because they're better. So a lot of times just by doing that with moms that are breastfeeding and their kids are having issues, we see the kids' issues clear up. Or as the kids are older, or even well, you know, adult patients have issues that clear up when they do the elimination or do this clean eating, it can really help to reset. And I think that's the that's the beauty of of of this particular journey. That clean eating has really, you know, um started. And really, Missy, I think we owe it all to you. I owe it all to you, truly, on so many levels. Um and uh so this would probably a good place to wrap up for today, but I would love to have you back so we can continue part two of some more discussions. I have some some questions I want to ask. But um I just want to end with a maybe a little word of encouragement today. Um, every one of us is at a different point in our health and wellness journey. And but the I just want to share really what I think is a take-home point for today, and that is to consider pursuing just a more holistic path in your healthcare, like in your wellness plan, so that you can experience better health, not only experience better health, but you learn to experience it your way. Thanks for joining us today.