The Habit Healers

Why do some people catch every cold that goes around while others never seem to get sick? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m sharing research that changed how I think about your immune system and the common cold, and it has nothing to do with vitamin C.

When healthy volunteers were given a cold virus on purpose, the people with more kinds of relationships got sick far less often. Not more friends, more kinds of connection: family, neighbors, coworkers, a club, a faith community. The virus still got in. Their bodies just handled it better. I’ll walk you through how this study worked, why the total number of people in your life didn’t seem to matter, and what a banana crop wiped out by a soil fungus has to do with your social health.

We’ll also talk about what hugs did and didn’t do for cold protection, why life changes like retirement or an empty nest can quietly shrink your social circle, and the simplest way to start rebuilding it before cold and flu season hits.

What you’ll learn:

* Why social connection may matter as much as sleep for avoiding the common cold

* The difference between having many people and many kinds of relationships

* How hugs and feeling supported related to infection when stress was high

* Why loneliness and social isolation can creep in even when your calendar is full

* A two-minute self-check to score your own social diversity

* One phone call you can make tonight to support your immune system naturally

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/does-your-social-life-accidentally

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

At one point, I asked Chef Martin Oswald whether restaurant kitchens had robots doing all the prep. Not yet, he told me. A little later, as tray after tray of cooked vegetables appeared on his counter, I decided he must at least own a magic oven.

If batch cooking has ever sounded like three days of the same finished meal, this session asked a better question. Could the repetitive work happen once without deciding every dinner in advance?

The speed did not come from cooking three finished dinners at once. It came from doing one kind of work once, then letting the ingredients take different directions later.

Martin had spent about 50 minutes preparing food for three people for the next three days. He did not line up 40 identical containers. He roasted vegetables in groups, cooked red rice, made a vegetable stock, and kept beans, tofu, hummus, and sauces ready to change the character of each meal.

That is batch cooking I can imagine using.

Cook by behavior

Martin began with the vegetables that take the longest. Carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and celeriac went together because they were firm and would roast at a similar pace. He cut them to roughly the same thickness, which helped them finish together.

Broccoli, Napa cabbage, zucchini, and tender squash needed a different plan. Some cook quickly because they are softer or contain more water. Martin showed how the cut can move an ingredient from one tray to another. A thick piece of squash could roast beside the roots. A thin slice could finish with the broccoli.

For this demonstration, he used a 400°F oven. The firmer tray went in first, and he prepared the quicker-cooking tray while it roasted. He estimated roughly 12 to 20 minutes for the batches, depending on the vegetables, their thickness, and the oven. The clock was a guide. The vegetables still had to be checked.

Even the scraps had somewhere to go. Mushroom stems and carrot peelings joined onion, garlic, bay leaf, and tomato in a vegetable stock. The work that usually feels like cleanup became the beginning of another meal.

Keep the meal unfinished

The familiar problem with meal prep is not only the chopping. It is opening the refrigerator on day three and seeing the same dinner staring back at you.

Martin avoids that by storing useful parts instead of deciding every meal in advance. He groups cooked ingredients by seasoning, then chooses what a meal will become when it is time to eat.

The first plate used hummus as a base for a mix of roasted broccoli, squash, onion, tofu, carrot, eggplant, potato, and cauliflower. The next moved in a Mediterranean direction with kidney beans, fennel, eggplant, tofu, tahini, and ajvar, the smoky pepper and eggplant sauce Martin mentioned during the live.

The same preparation became a bean stew when he warmed kidney beans, squash, roasted onion, garlic, and vegetable stock with a different spice blend. Then red rice, broccoli, Napa cabbage, tofu, apple, lime, soy sauce, and sriracha became a stir-fry.

The vegetables had not changed. The supporting ingredients and flavor direction had.

That is why sauce matters so much in this method. Martin made a quick tahini sauce with garlic, lemon, cumin, and sriracha. He also used ajvar and a few other strong flavor builders. A spoonful of sauce was not an afterthought. It was the turn that sent the same tray toward a different dinner.

Try the restaurant sequence

You do not need Martin’s magic oven or a restaurant-sized refrigerator. Start with this smaller version.

* Choose two vegetable groups. Put firm roots in one and quicker-cooking vegetables in the other. Cut the pieces within each group to a similar thickness.

* Start the firm vegetables first. Prepare the quicker group while the first tray roasts.

* Add one flexible base such as beans, tofu, hummus, or a cooked grain, plus one sauce you already enjoy.

* Keep the components separate enough to change direction. Build a bowl today, a quick stew tomorrow, and a stir-fry the next day.

* Cool the cooked food in shallow containers and refrigerate it within two hours. The USDA advises using most cooked leftovers within three to four days and reheating them to 165°F.

The practical choice is surprisingly small. Do not ask yourself to predict every meal for the week. Ask which prep job you would be relieved not to repeat tomorrow.

Martin’s answer was the chopping and roasting. Once that work was finished, dinner stopped being a project and became a choice among ingredients that were already waiting.

References:

* Chef Martin Oswald’s Rustic, Smoky Ajvar

* Chef Martin’s Cook Smarter, Not Harder, the companion article he mentioned during the session, and Chef Martin’s Healing Kitchen for his recipe collection

If you want help turning practical ideas like this into habits you can keep, join Chef Martin and me in The Habit Healers community on Skool.

Does intermittent fasting actually work, or does 16:8 fasting just help you eat less? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m walking you through what the research on time-restricted eating really shows about weight loss, autophagy, and metabolic health.

If you’ve been keeping an eating window and wondering whether those fasting hours are doing something special in your body, this one is for you. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and we’ll start with what happens after dinner: the metabolic switch from your last meal to stored fat, the cellular recycling process called autophagy, and how your circadian rhythm changes the way you handle food at different hours. Then we’ll look at what happened when researchers matched calories and changed only the timing, and why a story from cardiology in the 1980s is a useful warning about trusting a number just because you can count it. My goal isn’t to talk you out of fasting. It’s to help you judge it by what you can actually see.

What you’ll learn:

* Why time-restricted eating often works by quietly cutting calories

* What calorie-matched intermittent fasting trials found for weight loss and body fat

* What human research shows about autophagy, and what it doesn’t

* How an early eating window improved insulin sensitivity in one small, tightly controlled study

* Why tracking your strength matters if you’re fasting for weight loss

* Who should talk to their doctor first, including anyone taking insulin or sulfonylureas

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/does-fasting-work-because-you-ate

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Does a light box for seasonal affective disorder really work, or did yours just never get a fair trial? In this episode, I walk through the research on light therapy for winter depression and the simple mistakes that keep it from working.

On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I take you back to the early experiments showing that bright light, not ordinary room light, changes how the body responds. Then we look at a clever trial that put a 10,000 lux light box head to head with a common antidepressant, and the results surprised a lot of people. A recent depression treatment guideline now lists bright light as a first choice for depression that comes back every winter.

Here’s the part most people miss: the dose depends on how far you sit. Many light boxes only reach 10,000 lux a few inches from your face, and many ads show people sitting much too far away. I’ll walk you through how to choose a light box, when to use it, how long to sit, and how to tell whether it’s working, so you can treat seasonal depression with real evidence behind you.

What you’ll learn:

* How bright light therapy compared with an antidepressant for seasonal affective disorder

* Why distance from your light box changes the dose

* How to choose a 10,000 lux light box with white light and a UV filter

* Why morning light therapy works better than evening sessions

* Why it can take four weeks to judge whether light therapy is working

* Who should talk to a doctor before using a light box for depression

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/can-a-bright-lamp-in-the-morning

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Is testosterone for women after menopause worth trying? If an online clinic has promised you that a testosterone cream will fix your low libido, energy, and weight, this episode looks at what the research actually shows.

On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m walking you through more than thirty years of studies on testosterone therapy for women. We start with a surprising experiment involving blindfolded violinists, because it explains why you can’t judge a hormone fairly when you know you’re taking it. Then we look at what happened in placebo-controlled trials, what really happens to your testosterone at menopause, and why a blood test can’t tell you whether you need it.

Here’s what I want you to know: testosterone has one proven use after menopause, and it isn’t energy, brain fog, mood, or weight loss. If low sex drive in menopause is what’s bothering you, I’ll share where testosterone fits, why estrogen usually comes first, and how to set up a fair trial with your doctor so you know whether it’s working.

What you’ll learn:

* Why testosterone in women doesn’t crash at natural menopause

* What placebo-controlled trials found about testosterone for low libido after menopause

* Why a testosterone blood test can’t diagnose low sexual desire

* How an estrogen patch or gel differs from an estrogen pill in its effect on your own testosterone

* Why no testosterone product has FDA approval for women, and what the FDA is still asking about safety

* How to dose, monitor, and set a stop date for a fair testosterone trial

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/do-women-need-testosterone-after

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Can you reverse type 2 diabetes? And why do some thin people develop insulin resistance and high blood sugar while others at a much higher weight have perfect labs? I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and in this episode I walk you through the personal fat threshold, the idea that changed how I think about type 2 diabetes remission.

For fifty years we were told diabetes was about how much fat you carry. The research from Professor Roy Taylor at Newcastle University points somewhere else: where your body stores it. I use a simple picture, a bathtub, to explain why each of us has a different limit for safe fat storage, and what happens when it overflows into the liver and pancreas. That overflow drives fatty liver, insulin resistance, and rising blood sugar, even at a normal BMI.

Here’s the hopeful part. The insulin-producing beta cells in your pancreas may not be gone. They may be resting, and the science suggests they can wake back up. I also share a few small daily habits that help lower blood sugar naturally, without overhauling your life.

In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, you’ll learn:

* What the personal fat threshold is, and why BMI misses your real type 2 diabetes risk

* How fat in the liver and pancreas drives insulin resistance, known as the Twin Cycle

* Why beta cells can recover, and what that means for type 2 diabetes remission

* How much weight loss the research links to remission: about 22 to 33 pounds for most people

* How quickly liver fat and fasting blood sugar can respond

* Four micro-habits for better blood sugar control: a pre-meal pantry staple, a seated calf movement, meal order, and evening light

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/why-can-a-150-pound-man-get-diabetes

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Relative risk vs absolute risk: it’s the one distinction that changes how you read every health headline. In this episode, I’m walking you through how to read a medical study, so a big percentage in the news never misleads you again.

Welcome to The Habit Healers Podcast. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and this is week two of Mini Medical School, where we’re learning to understand medical research together. Today we’re in the Results section, the part of a paper most people skip, and the part that tells you the most.

I’ll show you why a drug that “cuts risk in half” may only change your personal risk by one percentage point, and where to find the raw numbers that headlines leave out. We’ll talk about what a p-value really measures, why statistically significant does not always mean clinically significant, and how to read a confidence interval so you can tell a precise result from a shaky one. Then I’ll give you the most useful tool of all, the number needed to treat, or NNT, which tells you how many people have to take a treatment for one person to benefit.

You don’t need a math background for any of this. You just need to know which numbers to look for.

What you’ll learn:

* The difference between relative risk and absolute risk, and how to calculate absolute risk reduction yourself

* Where to find the real numbers in a medical study (skip the summary, go to the tables)

* What a p-value of 0.05 means, and what it doesn’t

* Statistical significance vs clinical significance: is the effect real, and does it matter?

* How to read a 95% confidence interval and spot the “line of no effect”

* How to use the number needed to treat (NNT) to weigh a treatment’s benefit against its side effects and cost

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/why-you-should-never-trust-a-percentage

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Menopause joint pain can change how exercise feels almost overnight. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I sit down with sports scientist and personal trainer Patricia Siegel to talk about strength training and exercise during menopause, and what to do when your body starts responding differently.

I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and this one is personal. I ran a personal best at the Boston Half Marathon with my daughter. Shortly afterward, around the time of my last period, I developed horrible joint pain. Activities I had done for years suddenly came with real discomfort. Being told to simply keep exercising didn’t help, because I already wanted to move. What I needed was to know how.

Patricia is a former competitive runner who coaches midlife women in strength and endurance. We talk about building a menopause workout plan around the week you actually have, what to do when you slept poorly or feel exhausted, and how to keep getting stronger without guessing. You don’t have to get this perfect. You just have to start.

What you’ll learn:

- The two questions Patricia asks to build a realistic weekly exercise routine for midlife women

- A simple three-day starting point: two strength training sessions plus one walk with short stretches of jogging, swimming, or cycling

- How to adjust a workout on low-energy days without cramming the missed session into a crowded week

- Why recording your weights and repetitions helps you build strength during menopause

- How to set fitness goals beyond the scale, like climbing stairs or getting out of a chair

- One tiny habit to begin with: a lunch break walkDr. Marbas Substack: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/aboutMeet Patricia and keep learning

Patricia Siegel is the author of The Menopause Strength and Endurance Training Blueprint, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in Spring 2028, and a STRONG Fitness Magazine columnist. She is a sports scientist and a personal trainer at the Santa Barbara Athletic Club, based in Arroyo Grande, California, who coaches midlife women in person in Santa Barbara and virtually on strength and endurance. She runs The Menopause Training Blueprint on Substack and is a contributor for Sixty and Me.

You can read and subscribe to The Menopause Training Blueprint and learn about her coaching at PatriciaSiegel.com.

I ran a personal best at the Boston Half Marathon with my daughter. Shortly afterward, around the time of my last period, I developed horrible joint pain. Activities I had done for years suddenly came with significant discomfort.

I shared that experience with Patricia Siegel because advice to simply keep exercising can leave out something important. You may already want to move. You may have been moving for decades. What you need help with is figuring out how to continue when your body responds differently.

Patricia is a sports scientist, personal trainer, and former competitive runner who coaches midlife women in strength and endurance. In our conversation, we talked about what to do when the workout you think you should be doing does not fit the week you are actually having.

Start with the week you have

When I asked Patricia how to help someone who feels overwhelmed, she started with two questions. How many days can you set aside? How much time do you have on those days?

Those answers give her somewhere to begin. In the example we discussed, a woman with three available days might start with two strength sessions and one session of walking with short stretches of jogging. Someone who dislikes running could choose swimming or cycling instead.

That was a starting example she would adapt to the person. Strength work and aerobic activity both belong in a weekly routine, but you do not have to begin with the full schedule of an experienced athlete.

And enjoyment deserves a place in the decision. Patricia and I discovered that neither of us has much affection for the treadmill. I would much rather be outside. If the activity you picked makes you dread starting, it is worth considering another way to move.

Leave room to adjust

Making a schedule is only the beginning. You still have to decide what to do when you slept poorly, feel exhausted, or cannot manage the workout you planned.

Patricia described days when she tells a client to rest or replaces a planned strength session with a walk. She asks how the woman feels the next day and adjusts from there. There is no instruction to squeeze the missed workout into an already crowded week.

This has been a difficult lesson for Patricia herself. As a competitive athlete, she was accustomed to pushing through. She spoke candidly about how hard it can be to loosen that expectation when you are used to measuring commitment by how much you can endure.

That is why her next question is how the client feels after the adjustment. The answer helps her decide how to resume training. She can keep working toward a demanding goal while changing what she asks of someone on a difficult day.

Keep a record of what you can do

Adjusting a workout today can sit alongside a longer-term goal of getting stronger. Patricia has clients record the weights they use and pays attention to how many repetitions they can manage with good form. That gives them something specific to compare over time.

It also helps them choose the next challenge. When an exercise becomes easier, they can discuss whether to add weight or repetitions instead of guessing from memory.

We talked about looking beyond the scale, too. Getting out of a chair, climbing stairs, or reaching an overhead shelf gives strength a purpose you can recognize in your day. Those are useful goals to name when you are deciding why you want to train.

Before your next week begins, write down the days and time you can give to movement, one activity you enjoy, and one everyday task you would like to make easier. After a workout, jot down what you did and how it felt. Now you have something to build on and something to adjust.

At the end of our conversation, I asked Patricia for one tiny habit. She suggested a walk during a lunch break, perhaps with a colleague. You can begin with a place for movement in your day, then build your training around the time, capacity, and goals you have.

Meet Patricia and keep learning

Patricia Siegel is the author of The Menopause Strength and Endurance Training Blueprint, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in Spring 2028, and a STRONG Fitness Magazine columnist. She is a sports scientist and a personal trainer at the Santa Barbara Athletic Club, based in Arroyo Grande, California, who coaches midlife women in person in Santa Barbara and virtually on strength and endurance. She runs The Menopause Training Blueprint on Substack and is a contributor for Sixty and Me.

You can read and subscribe to The Menopause Training Blueprint and learn about her coaching at PatriciaSiegel.com.

Chef Martin Oswald placed each halved plum skin-side down across a crumbly walnut crust. That one small move kept the juice inside the fruit as it baked, but it also explained the larger idea behind our latest cooking session.

He was not trying to make a familiar dessert better by simply taking things away. He kept asking what each ingredient needed to do. The walnuts had to bring richness and texture. The oats had to help the crust hold together. The plums had to supply tartness, sweetness, color, and moisture. Even the skins had a job.

By the time Martin finished, one seasonal fruit had become three very different dishes. We had a tart, an Austrian plum compote, and a crisp salad. The plums were baked, cooked down, and served fresh, yet each version still felt connected to the others.

Begin with texture

Martin started the tart crust with walnuts, but he stopped grinding while they were still crumbly. Take them too far and you have walnut butter. Stop at the right moment and those little pieces help create the delicate bite you expect from streusel.

He mixed the walnuts with oat flour, applesauce, cashew butter, date syrup, and warm spices. The mixture was not meant to look like a smooth dough. It stayed loose and flaky, then was pressed into the bottom of the pan before baking.

That was the first useful lesson. When you change a familiar recipe, you still have to account for the jobs the original ingredients performed. Butter would normally add richness and help create texture. Martin used walnuts and a small amount of cashew butter for richness, while oats and applesauce helped the crust come together. He was not chasing an imitation. He was rebuilding the crust’s richness and delicate texture with different ingredients.

Then came the plums. He chose firm fruit rather than the softest, juiciest pieces, halved and pitted them, and arranged them closely over the crust. A little cinnamon went over the top. The skins stayed on, so the fruit held its shape and its deep purple color remained part of the dessert.

Let time change the fruit

The second dish began with the same plums but produced an entirely different result. Martin made Zwetschkenröster, an Austrian plum compote that cooks until the fruit becomes dark, glossy, and intensely flavored.

He used only a small amount of water to get the cooking started, then let the plums release their own juice. Ground cinnamon, ground clove, and finely grated lemon zest stayed in the pot instead of being removed at the end. As the fruit softened, some pieces collapsed while others remained visible.

This was not just another dessert topping. Martin showed how the compote could move between meals. It could be spooned over oatmeal or toast, served beside a dessert, or used where you might otherwise reach for a chutney. Once it was in the refrigerator, it became a building block for other dishes.

Keep one version crisp

The third dish brought the plums back to their fresh state. Martin combined them with Belgian endive, peppery greens, purple cauliflower, red onion, and nuts. The result had sweetness from the plums, bitterness from the greens, acidity in the dressing, and crunch from the vegetables and nuts.

The clever connection was the dressing. Martin turned some of the cooked plum mixture into a dressing with vinegar, lemon, herbs, and a modest amount of olive oil. The compote gave the dressing body and tied the raw salad to the two cooked dishes that came before it.

With the tart, firm plum halves held their shape as they gave the dessert moisture. In the compote, heat concentrated the plum flavor and softened some pieces while leaving others intact. In the salad, the plums stayed raw, and the compote in the dressing tied that dish back to the cooked versions. Each cooking method revealed something different about the same fruit.

Try the three-question habit

The next time you bring home a seasonal fruit or vegetable, pause before deciding it has only one destination. Ask what could stay fresh, what could be baked, and what could be cooked down into something you can use again.

Keep an edible skin when it suits the dish. Taste the fruit before adding sweetness. Pay attention to whether an ingredient is there for flavor, moisture, richness, structure, or crunch. Those questions can turn a single purchase into several meals without making any of them feel repetitive.

Recipe link and additional resources

You can find the complete measurements, corrected cooking times, and all three recipes in Martin’s post Zwetschken Three Ways, A Seasonal Poly Boost.

If you want more practical cooking ideas like these, join Chef Martin and me in The Habit Healers community on Skool.