The Habit Healers

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA
  • 4.7 (236)
  • Alternative Health
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to The Habit Healers Podcast—where transformation starts with a single habit. Hosted by Dr. Laurie Marbas, this podcast is for anyone ready to break free from chronic health struggles, rewire their habits, and create lasting healing. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and real-world tools, we dive deep into the micro shifts that lead to massive health transformations. You’ll learn how to heal beyond prescriptions—how to nourish your body, reprogram your mind, and build the habits that make vibrant health effortless. Whether you’re looking to reverse disease, boost energy, or finally make health a way of life, this podcast will show you how. Because true healing isn’t about willpower—it’s about design. And you’re always just one healing habit away. drlauriemarbas.substack.com

  1. 8h ago

    What Are Your Nighttime Bathroom Trips Actually Telling You?

    If you keep waking up at night to pee, you’ve probably blamed the water you drank before bed, your age, or your bladder. In this episode, I explain why frequent urination at night, known as nocturia, is often a metabolic health signal tied to insulin resistance and blood sugar, not just a bladder problem. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and on this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast I walk you through the research connecting insulin resistance to nighttime urination, the two way cycle between nocturia and poor sleep quality, and a fascinating study where a sleep treatment alone reduced nighttime bathroom trips. Then I give you my complete four week Nocturia Reset: fluid timing, sleep consolidation, daily movement, and the early research on glycine for overactive bladder symptoms and better sleep. If you’re over 45 and getting up two or more times a night, this one is for you. What you’ll learn: * Why insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome are linked to frequent urination at night * How nocturia fragments deep sleep and why that raises fall risk and long term health risks * A fluid timing strategy to stop waking up at night to pee, including caffeine and alcohol cutoffs * Why spending less time in bed can actually mean fewer nighttime bathroom trips * The leg elevation habit that addresses an overlooked cause of nighttime urination after 50 * How glycine is used before bed, the dose studied, and what to expect within four weeks Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/what-are-your-nighttime-bathroomCheck out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    What Are Your Nighttime Bathroom Trips Actually Telling You?

  2. 1d ago

    How to Get What You Need From a 15-Minute Doctor Visit

    What if the most important moment of your doctor’s appointment is the first sentence you say? Research shows physicians redirect patients after an average of just 23 seconds, and most patients never finish describing their concerns. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I share how to talk to your doctor so the concern that matters most actually gets heard. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and as a lifestyle medicine physician, I know both sides of the exam room. In this episode, I walk through the research on why doctors redirect so quickly, and why it comes from clinical training rather than carelessness. I share the study where one in three patients admitted leaving a concern unvoiced at a primary care visit, most often about sexual health or mental health, and the surprising finding that longer appointments do not fix the problem of feeling unheard. Then I give you the tool that does help: the First-Sentence Sheet, a simple seven-step way to prepare for a doctor’s appointment so your highest-stakes concern is the one that directs the visit. What you’ll learn: * Why doctors interrupt or redirect patients within seconds, and what triggers it * The research on unvoiced concerns and feeling dismissed at medical appointments * Why a longer appointment does not solve the problem of being unheard * How to prepare for a doctor’s appointment with the seven-step First-Sentence Sheet * How to describe symptoms with specific details your physician can act on * The one question to write down before every visit Dr. Marbas’s Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/how-to-get-what-you-need-from-a-15Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    How to Get What You Need From a 15-Minute Doctor Visit

  3. 2d ago

    The One Number That Matters More Than Your Protein Intake

    How much protein do you really need after 50? And do protein shakes actually build muscle, or is something else doing the heavy lifting? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I dig into the research on protein, age-related muscle loss, and healthy aging, and what I found might surprise you. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and as a lifestyle medicine physician, protein comes up with my patients almost every day. So I went to the studies. A two-year trial gave healthy women in their seventies a protein shake every morning, and their muscle mass and strength declined at the same rate as the placebo group. Pooled trials of more than 1,600 older adults found the same thing. What actually built muscle in postmenopausal women was resistance training, and adding extra protein on top of training added nothing. I’ll walk you through why protein needs rise with age, what your real daily protein floor is, why strength training is the switch that makes protein count, and the one situation where your needs truly go up: intentional weight loss. What you’ll learn: * How much protein women over 50 and older adults actually need each day * Why protein supplements without strength training did not slow sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle * The simple resistance training protocol that built muscle and strength in postmenopausal women * How to check your daily protein intake with a three-day food log * Why protein timing around your workout does not matter * When a protein powder makes sense, and how much to take Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/the-one-number-that-matters-more Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    The One Number That Matters More Than Your Protein Intake

  4. 3d ago

    One in Three Adults Has Fatty Liver. These Four Steps Reverse It.

    One in three adults is walking around with fatty liver disease, and most have no idea. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I break down how liver fat builds up, why this condition causes no symptoms for years, and the research showing you can reverse fatty liver naturally, sometimes faster than you would believe. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, a lifestyle medicine physician, and today I walk you through what doctors now call MASLD, formerly known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD. You’ll learn where liver fat actually comes from, including the surprising share your liver manufactures on its own from sugar, and why insulin resistance opens the floodgates. We’ll talk about the critical difference between fructose in whole fruit and fructose in juice and soda, and I’ll share a four-phase plan built from clinical research: cutting added sugar, moving your body, shifting to a Mediterranean style plant-forward diet, and gradual weight loss for those who need it. Your liver wants to heal. This episode shows you how to let it. What you’ll learn: * The three sources of liver fat, and why your liver can manufacture fat from sugar around the clock * Why whole fruit protects liver health while juice and sugar-sweetened beverages drive liver fat up * The nine-day study where children’s liver fat dropped nearly in half without eating less * Why the Mediterranean diet outperformed standard low-fat advice for lowering liver fat * The weight loss thresholds linked to reversing steatohepatitis and even liver fibrosis * The blood tests to ask your doctor about, including ALT and your FIB-4 score Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/one-in-three-adults-has-fatty-liver Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    One in Three Adults Has Fatty Liver. These Four Steps Reverse It.

  5. 4d ago

    The Organ That Controls Whether Your Arteries Open or Close Has a Name, a Reason It Fails, and a Way to Rebuild It

    Erectile dysfunction can be an early warning sign of heart disease, often showing up about three years before cardiac symptoms. And in women, real heart disease can hide behind a completely normal heart test. Both signals trace back to one structure: the endothelium, the one-cell-thick lining of every blood vessel in your body. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and I’m walking you through the science of endothelial function and blood vessel health. We’ll start with a discovery that stunned researchers: a protective coating called the glycocalyx that turned out to be a hundred times thicker than decades of standard lab methods had shown. Then we’ll connect it to nitric oxide, the Nobel Prize-winning signal that tells your arteries to relax, and to the everyday choices that determine how well that system works: movement, breaking up sitting time, a plant-predominant diet, sleep, and quitting smoking. What you’ll learn: * Why erectile dysfunction and heart disease are the same vascular problem, and why the smaller artery shows it first * How endothelial function declines stepwise across the menopause transition, independent of traditional risk factors * The small vessel disease found in 41 percent of patients whose angiograms looked normal, and why women are more likely to have it * How sitting impairs leg artery function within an hour, and how a five-minute walk prevents it * Why exercise intensity matters more than duration for endothelial function * What a single high-fat meal does to your arteries for the next four hours Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/the-organ-that-controls-whether-yourCheck out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    The Organ That Controls Whether Your Arteries Open or Close Has a Name, a Reason It Fails, and a Way to Rebuild It

  6. 4d ago

    Where Do You Start When Healthy Eating Feels Overwhelming?

    Back when Chef Martin Oswald was cooking at Pyramid Bistro, diners from every kind of eating background would enjoy a meal and then ask him the same question. “Where do I start?” That question framed our live conversation this week. Healthy eating can sound like thirty instructions shouted at once. Stop the soda. Give up cheese. Fear the carbohydrates. Watch the sugar. Cook everything from scratch. No wonder people freeze before they begin. Martin’s answer was simpler: begin with what you already eat, then change one thing. Start with three days Before you change breakfast or buy a single “superfood,” write down what you are actually eating for three days. Martin suggested choosing days that reveal your real pattern, not three unusually polished days. For many people, the useful information lives on the weekend, when routines loosen and the wine, desserts, snacks, sauces, and late-night bites are easier to forget. Record the meals, drinks, snacks, and extras. Add the context around them too. Were you exhausted? Stressed? Working a night shift? Eating in front of a screen? This is not a moral inventory. It is a map. At the end of the three days, Martin said to find the “weak link”: the single pattern you want to work on first. Not five. One. Maybe it is the soda. Maybe it is the extra glass of wine, the oil-heavy sauce, or the snack that appears every night without much thought. The point is not to declare one food the universal villain. The point is to find the lever that matters in your actual life and work on that first. Thanks for reading The Habit Healers! This post is public so feel free to share it. Keep the meal you love and make it stronger Once you know your starting point, Martin does not ask you to abandon every familiar meal. If pasta is your happy food, keep the pasta and add black lentils, beans, and vegetables. If you love tacos, add extra beans and cabbage. If pizza is the meal your family will happily eat, bring in more tomato sauce, vegetables, and herbs. If white rice is the one thing that keeps a new way of eating enjoyable, mix in lentils or vegetables instead of forcing a total replacement on day one. I summed up his approach during the live this way: What can you add that elevates the meal? You protect the part that makes the dish recognizable while improving what surrounds it. As your palate and skills change, the next swap becomes easier. Let cooking technique do some of the work Martin then moved to a few cooking techniques that quietly change the whole plate. Steam vegetables. Water-sauté onions and other aromatics. Roast instead of fry. Make more soups and stews. Look for sauces that bring flavor without turning a vegetable or grain dish into a much heavier meal. Then explore whole grains you genuinely enjoy. Martin held up barley, bulgur, buckwheat, whole-grain pasta, oats, and several varieties of rice. He was also refreshingly honest that some whole-grain products simply do not taste good to him. You do not earn extra credit for eating a dry, joyless bowl once and never touching it again. During the live, he described coarsely grinding a whole grain, cooking it almost like polenta, and shaping it into savory cakes. You can see that idea in his oven-roasted Green Grain Sliders, served with a bean-and-walnut salad. The goal is to find changes you will want to repeat. Explore greens, beans, lentils, whole grains, fruits, herbs, and vegetables, then keep the versions you want to cook again. Save the finishing touches for last Near the end of our conversation, Martin held up turmeric, flaxseed, herbs, spices, fermented foods, berries, and walnuts, ingredients people often focus on first. His point was not that these foods are unimportant. It was that adding one appealing ingredient is not a substitute for looking at the broader pattern. Start with the habit you identified in your three-day record. Once that feels steadier, use spices, tempeh, miso, berries, seeds, and other additions to bring more flavor, texture, and variety. Healthy eating becomes less overwhelming when it stops being a list of forbidden foods and becomes a sequence you can follow. For this week, try Martin’s starting sequence: * Record three honest days. * Circle one weak link. * Strengthen one meal you already love. * Choose one cooking technique to practice. That is enough for a beginning. Martin’s companion article, How to Start Eating Healthy, includes the three sample menus he referred to during the live. You can find more of Martin’s recipes and culinary ideas at Chef Martin’s Healing Kitchen. And if you would like company as you put one of these steps into practice, join Chef Martin and me inside The Habit Healers Skool community. It is a place to keep learning and take the next small step alongside others. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    Where Do You Start When Healthy Eating Feels Overwhelming?

  7. 5d ago

    What If Every Time You Sat Down, You Got Stronger?

    What if the fastest way to build strength, improve balance, and prevent falls as you age took zero extra minutes out of your day? In this episode, I break down the science of eccentric exercise and a simple 3-second chair habit that trains muscle strength and muscle power every single time you sit down. Most of us use strong and muscular as if they mean the same thing, but your muscles actually produce three separate qualities: muscle mass, strength, and power. And power, the ability to generate force quickly, declines earlier and faster than the others. It’s also the quality that research links most closely to fall risk in older adults. In this episode, I walk you through what the studies actually show, including a fascinating finding that people who fell weren’t weaker than people who didn’t, they were slower. Then I give you a strength training habit you can start today with no gym, no equipment, and no time added to your schedule. What you’ll learn in this episode: * The difference between muscle mass, muscle strength, and muscle power, and why power matters most for healthy aging * The 30-second sit-to-stand test clinicians use to screen fall risk, and the benchmark number to know * How eccentric exercise, the lowering phase of movement, builds strength with just seconds of effort * Why daily frequency beats longer weekly workouts for strength gains * How neural adaptation makes you stronger before your muscles ever grow * A 12-week progression ladder to keep building lower body strength at home Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/what-if-every-time-you-sat-down-you Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    What If Every Time You Sat Down, You Got Stronger?

  8. 6d ago

    Why Do You Still Feel Confused About What to Eat? (The Answer Isn't You.)

    Why do diets fail? If healthy eating feels confusing no matter how much you read, this episode is for you. I’m debunking five of the biggest nutrition myths, from “calories in, calories out” to “everything in moderation,” and showing you what the science actually says. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and on this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I explain why so much nutrition advice is a bad translation of good research. You’ll hear why “eat less, move more” ignores the hunger hormones and metabolic changes that drive weight regain, why a landmark blood sugar study found that no food is universally good or bad, and why the research on “everything in moderation” surprised almost everyone. Then I share five evidence-based principles for metabolic health, built on whole food, plant-forward eating patterns like Mediterranean, DASH, and plant-based diets, so you can finally stop blaming yourself and start working with your biology. What you’ll learn: * Why “calories in, calories out” fails as weight loss advice, and what your hunger hormones are really doing * What blood sugar research reveals about personalized nutrition and glucose responses * Why dietary patterns matter more for metabolic health than cutting carbs or cutting fat * The surprising link between “everything in moderation” and waist circumference * Five healthy eating principles that don’t require willpower or restrictive dieting * A simple worksheet to audit the nutrition beliefs shaping your choices Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/why-do-you-still-feel-confused-aboutCheck out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

    Why Do You Still Feel Confused About What to Eat? (The Answer Isn't You.)
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4.7
out of 5
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About

Welcome to The Habit Healers Podcast—where transformation starts with a single habit. Hosted by Dr. Laurie Marbas, this podcast is for anyone ready to break free from chronic health struggles, rewire their habits, and create lasting healing. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and real-world tools, we dive deep into the micro shifts that lead to massive health transformations. You’ll learn how to heal beyond prescriptions—how to nourish your body, reprogram your mind, and build the habits that make vibrant health effortless. Whether you’re looking to reverse disease, boost energy, or finally make health a way of life, this podcast will show you how. Because true healing isn’t about willpower—it’s about design. And you’re always just one healing habit away. drlauriemarbas.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    256
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA
  • Show Website
    The Habit Healers

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