You may be eating healthy, but that does not mean that you are eating what is right for you. Everyone is different and the nutrition advice you take and implement into your life needs to be designed specifically for you. Molly and Molly Rose Health helps clients heal on a cellular level by using nature, food, herbs, and supplements and designing an individualized program unique to each of her clients. As she explains, “everything tells a story. The body speaks in a very loud way. You just have to learn how to understand the language that it’s communicating in. And that is what I do.”
In this Deep Dive, you will learn …
Who are you and how did you get into this (0:18)
- Molly Rose Hoffman is a functional nutritionist
- Uses food and herbs as medicine to help her clients heal
- Avid yogi who felt her body didn’t feel as it should despite a very healthy life and diet
- Diagnosed with hypothyroidism and prediabetes
- Went to top doctors and none could explain it or help her heal, they could only attempt to mask their symptoms
How she helps her clients (2:24)
- Looks to help her clients heal their body, not just eliminate foods from their diet
- Figures out why their bodies can’t break down certain foods through looking at their entire digestive system and determining which of the organs are not functioning ideally
- Example of someone who has a sluggish liver that is not producing enough bile and can’t break down fats, so that person would feel very bloated after eating avocados
- Her clients come with a range of issues like bloating, gas, fatigue, lack of libido, migraines, inability to lose weight
- Asks her clients a series of questions to determine which organ or gland is giving them trouble
- Figures out why these issues are occurring in the first place
- Assesses how much of your food your body is actually absorbing by going through the entire digestive system
What a patient can expect and examples (8:50)
- Reaching their health goals and even feeling like they are 30 when they are 50
- A patient came in yesterday and asked for 10 more sessions after she got into the kind of shape she wanted to after 5 sessions after being shown what was really happening in her body and why she was having trouble losing the weight
- The body is like an onion and she peels back a layer every week to determine what is causing problems like inflammation
- The body speaks in a very loud way and she understands how it is communicating
- Realistic goal setting so people can still live their lives
- Shows her clients how to heal themselves using food, herbs, and supplements
- An example of a woman who was working out too much and has since adjusted and is down 35 pounds
- An example of a guy who went to the top gastroenterologists in NYC and none were able to help, but she was able to fix his issues in just two weeks because of her holistic approach to the body
Molly’s wellness plan (22:54)
- Mineral water, matcha, green smoothie for breakfast
- Greens for lunch
- Three meals per day, minimal snacking, a lot of water, a lot of nutrients
Full Transcript
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Molly: 00:19 I’m Molly Rose Hoffman.
Saad: 00:21 All right. What do you do?
Molly: 00:22 I am a functional nutritionist, so I use food and herbs as medicine to help my clients heal.
Saad: 00:33 That’s interesting. How did you get into it?
Molly: 00:35 I first started getting into health and wellness through my yoga practice, so I became an avid yogi and after spending years and years practicing yoga, I realized that my body didn’t look or feel the way that I thought that it should. Considering how much time I was spending exercising and sweating and practicing and eating all greens, vegetables, I still felt very inflamed. And no matter what I did, no matter how much I dieted, I still felt like I couldn’t get that perfect yoga body that I was striving to achieve and was working really hard to have.
Molly: 01:19 And a few years after that I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and prediabetes, which I found disturbing and interesting at the same time because I don’t even look at sugar. I don’t eat sugar or didn’t at the time at all. So it didn’t make any sense that I was developing these diseases that are pretty serious.
Molly: 01:42 And after going to all the greatest doctors I could find in the tri-state area, nobody could tell me why this was happening. Everybody just wanted to mask my symptoms and give me a medication and tell me that it was my genes or because my dad has X, Y, and Z, or my mom has X, Y, and Z. And I decided that I was going to take matters in my own hands and go back to school and learn about how the body actually works. And not only how it works, but how it can heal itself. And I help my clients heal, not just mask symptoms.
Saad: 02:20 What do you mean, help them heal and not just mask the symptoms?
Molly: 02:24 So, if a client comes to me and they tell me that they get chronic migraines or they’re always bloated, I don’t just eliminate foods that might be causing that. So somebody might say, “Okay, stop eating cruciferous vegetables because you’re always bloated,” or “Stop eating grains because you’re always bloated.” Yes, that might be a good idea, but there’s a reason why your body can’t handle those types of foods.
Molly: 02:53 So, I actually go back even further and I help them figure out why they can’t digest certain foods, not just, “Hey, avoid them.” Because those are healthy foods. But how can I heal the body so that it can feel optimal all the time, no matter what you eat.
Saad: 03:11 If you heal my body and all of a sudden I can eat cruciferous vegetables and I’m not going to get bloated, how does that even happen?
Molly: 03:17 So a lot of times people will develop food intolerances to really healthy foods, which is unfortunate because their digestion isn’t in a place where they’re able to absorb the nutrients from that food. So it ends up just sitting in their body and their body starts to develop antibodies to undigested food. And it’s common that people will almost develop an allergic reaction to things like quinoa, whole grains, cruciferous vegetables. Even though those are healthy foods. A lot of people now can’t eat them.
Molly: 03:56 So what I do is I go in and I figure out why can’t you break these down? And I look at the big players in the digestive system like the liver, like the gallbladder, like the small intestine, like the colon. And I figure out which one of these organs is not working optimally? Which one is not functioning at its highest level to adjust how the system is working?
Molly: 04:27 So, if if you have a sluggish liver and you’re not producing enough bile or the bile can’t get through, you’re going to have a really hard time breaking down fats. So that person would eat an avocado and then feel really bloated or feel really nauseous and it’s because they’re not breaking down their fats because their liver is being lazy.
Molly: 04:47 A lot of the times my clients will come to me and some of their organs are not working optimally because either they’ve been on medications that have caused their liver and their gallbladder to produce stones. So their bile gets backed up into the organs and it’s not able to get through to emulsify fat in the digestive process.
Molly: 05:10 So the symptoms that a lot of my clients come to me with initially are bloating, gas, fatigue, lack of libido, migraines, inability to lose weight, no matter how much you diet or exercise, stubborn weight, so people come and they’re very thin but they still have inflammation in parts of their body and they don’t understand why it’s there.
Molly: 05:38 So I ask my clients a series of questions when they initially come to me to figure out which organ or gland is struggling and how can I turn that around, using food and herbs. So a lot of the times my clients come to me and they tell me that they’re drinking a lot of water, they’re eating their green vegetables, they’re eating salads, they’re working out.
Molly: 06:05 And at the end of the day, they still feel like their jeans don’t fit. They can’t lose weight, they’re bloated, they have gas and they’re exhausted. So they’re doing all of the right things and it’s not working. So I figure out what is the missing link. And it is usually the fact that one of their organs or glands is being a little bit lazy and I turn it around using food and herbs. So I work my way through the body and I clean out and assist the big organs.
Molly: 06:44 So I hear a lot of the times from my clients that they feel like the root cause of their symptoms is a digestive disorder. Maybe it’s Candida, maybe it’s SIBO, some kind of food intolerance. I hear that a lot. And I figure out why that is happening. So instead of just saying, “Okay, here’s a great diet to fix your symptoms,” or “Here’s a great list of supplements to fix these symptoms,” I actually go and figure out why you got them in the first place.
Molly: 07:21 And I basically work my way up through the body. So I generally start in the colon and I figure out what’s sitting in there and why. And then I work my way up into the small intestine and I figured out how much of your food are you actually absorbing? How many nutrients are you able to pull into your body? So if you eat a big salad, are you absorbing all those nutrients or are they just going through you?
Molly: 07:45 And then I work my way up into your liver which is like the key to the kingdom. And I detoxify the liver, using food and herbs so that you can get back your energy, your digestion, your libido, and lose stubborn weight that won’t come off.
Saad: 08:07 So, tell me like what are some of the things … Tell me about how long it usually takes for you to go through this process, if it’s personalized for every single person, what does it look like? A little bit more detail.
Molly: 08:19 So, I use science to heal the body with nature. So if somebody comes to me and they’re very, very sick, it might take between five and 10 sessions to get to a place where they want to be. If somebody comes to me and they’re feeling really great and they just want to lose five pounds that’s being stubborn or they’re just looking to tweak their nutrition, five sessions is probably pretty good.
Molly: 08:50 And for me, I always want to take my clients as far I can get them. So I always say more is better because the sky’s the limit. You know, age is just a number, so you can be 50 and after a certain amount of sessions with me, you can feel like you’re 30. 100% you can feel like you’re 30 when you’re 50. So it’s really up to my client and how far they want to go.
Saad: 09:19 I like how you’re selling.
Molly: 09:22 That’s so true. I mean, I had a woman yesterday, she bought a five pack and then we finished yesterday and she was like, “I want to buy 10.” I was like, “Okay.”
Saad: 09:31 What did you do for her?
Molly: 09:34 She came to me. I got her down to the weight that she wants to be in five sessions, that was easy. And then I peeled back a few layers in her body and showed her what was really there and showed her the reason why she was having so much trouble losing the weight. And I think knowledge is power. So once you know what’s in your body, toxicity, bacteria, viruses, do you want to just leave them there or do you want to get them out? I mean, I think once you know what’s there, you’re motivated to eliminate them.
Molly: 10:14 The body is like an onion. And every week that I meet with my clients, I peel back another layer and every week, when I peel back another layer, the body will show me what’s there and what’s lurking and what is causing inflammation. So sometimes I have clients who will start working with me and they tell me, “Oh, you know, I’m coughing things up,” or “I’m blowing my nose a lot more than I usually am” or “My asthma went away. I used to have chronic asthma, it just disappeared.” I’m no longer constipated. And here’s what’s coming out now when I go to the bathroom,” or “These are the foods that I crave.”
Molly: 10:57 And in my mind, as the practitioner, when somebody craves a certain food, I know why. So if you’re craving sugar excessively, somebody might tell you, “Oh it’s because you have candida or you have high blood sugar.” And those could be true. And I know that it could also be something else.
Molly: 11:21 Or a lot of the times my clients will come to me and tell me that they’re bloated. And I always ask them, where are you bloated? And they say, “My stomach.” And I say, “Yes, but where in your stomach? Show me exactly where it is. Because telling me that you’re bloated in your stomach can mean your lower stomach, your upper stomach, to the left of your belly button, to the right of your belly button.” Everything tells a story. The body speaks in a very loud way. You just have to learn how to understand the language that it’s communicating in. And that is what I do.
Molly: 12:00 Everyone’s really different, there’s no set plan. So I think my clients always say, “You know, what’s the plan? What are we going to do?” And I decide in that moment, in the session with them to make sure it’s something that they’re a, comfortable with, b, excited about, c, realistic. It’s not realistic to take someone who is eating pizza and French fries and cheeseburgers every day to eating like steamed kale. I want everyone to feel like they can still live their life and have fun because otherwise life is not worth living and get healthy and happy at the same time because that’s possible, too. It’s not about just eating kale and salad.
Molly: 12:47 People think that when they see someone else getting healthy, they ask them, “Oh, what did you do to get healthy? What are you eating? You look so good.” And they will happily share what they’re doing and then that person will try it and it usually won’t work. It’s like when you see whatever beautiful celebrity is on the cover of Shape Magazine and on the inside it says, “This is what they’re eating to get a six pack.” And you try that, it likely will not work for you.
Molly: 13:15 And what I always like to tell my clients is, “Don’t lose hope. Don’t get disheartened by that. The reason why it’s not working for you is because you are not that person. No, you are your own person and we need to figure out the perfect recipe of food, herbs, supplements, detoxification for your body so that you can feel your best.” No one person is the same. Everyone’s DNA is different. So your diet is going to be very different than your best friend’s diet, even though you’re best friends.
Saad: 13:51 Okay, so tell me about the person that you usually treat. What are the kind of things they’re doing? And then give me two specific examples, one of a woman, one of a man.
Molly: 14:04 So my typical client is usually coming to me because they are doing all the right things, right? They’re waking up early before they go to work. They’re going to the gym, they’re going to bootcamp, they’re going to a spin class, they’re going to hot yoga, they’re eating salads for lunch and smoothies for breakfast and protein and vegetables for dinner.
Molly: 14:26 And they’re not feeling the way that they think that they should. And they’re certainly not looking the way that they definitely should, considering how healthy they’re living their lives. And first of all, I always want to tell my clients, “Hey, don’t lose hope. It’s not working for you because you’re not catering to your specific body yet.” And I show them what’s possible. I show them how to heal themselves. I give my clients the power to heal themselves using food, herbs and supplements.
Molly: 15:03 So, I have a couple of clients, no, I have a lot of clients. I have this one client who came to me and she was doing hot yoga in the morning and crossfit at night. And at the end of the day she was exhausted. She was gaining weight, she was living off of mostly vegetables, water, some protein, living a fairly healthy lifestyle. And through our sessions together and our work together, and after my evaluation of her blood work, I showed her what systems in her body were not functioning optimally.
Molly: 15:44 So for her it was her endocrine system. It was her hormones that weren’t functioning optimally because her digestive system was also completely out of whack. And her liver was on vacation. So for her, instead of addressing the endocrine system directly, I addressed her digestive system and then started to detoxify her organs so that everything else fell into place.
Molly: 16:13 A few months in, she’s down 35 pounds. She’s working out a quarter of the amount that she was before so she’s way less tired. She’s saving money, she’s loving life.
Molly: 16:28 I don’t just see women, I have a lot of male clients as well and I have this one male client who recently came to me. He works in finance, he’s 27 years old. He’s like a young, very fit, healthy guy and he was having extreme digestive distress. Meaning every time he was having bowel movements, he was passing a lot of blood and he went to three or four of the top gastroenterologists in New York City. He had three colonoscopies in six months and no one found anything. Everyone told him he was perfectly healthy, that the blood he was passing, maybe it was hemorrhoids, but it was pretty normal. Nothing to really worry about.
Molly: 17:16 And he came to me and I looked at his blood work and I saw that his liver was really, really struggling. And I asked him, “Which one of your doctors pointed this out to you?” And he said “None of them.” And the numbers on his blood work weren’t’ just slightly out of range. They were triple what would have been the highest number in range.
Molly: 17:43 So it was like a major red flag that everybody seemed to miss, gloss over or didn’t think mattered because it wasn’t in his digestive track. It was a completely separate organ. And I look at the body very holistically. So if you’re experiencing pain and distress in one organ and your blood work shows that another organ is screaming for help, I go to that organ first because everything is connected.
Molly: 18:14 So for this guy, it was his liver and I very gently started to help him detoxify and upbuild his liver. And after two weeks of working together, he had zero blood in the stool. And for three years he had it every single day.
Molly: 18:40 A lot of my clients ask me about acne and how to get rid of it and they’ve tried everything from eliminating sugar to going Paleo, Keto, vegan, drinking water, spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on products, face peels, laser, everything. And there’s acne or redness or pores that seem to be getting bigger. Hormonal acne, toxicity acne, and they’re really at a loss because when something is on your face, it can be really disheartening because they’re doing everything right.
Molly: 19:25 Maybe they have a six pack, they’re looking really good, but their face is covered in acne. And our skin is the biggest organ in our body. So a lot of the times, if the body is not detoxifying properly or optimally, the body’s really smart and it likes to protect itself from toxicity. So instead of jamming your organs with more toxicity, it pushes it out through the skin, unfortunately. And the face is usually the first exit point.
Molly: 19:59 So I help my clients heal their acne through detoxification. And it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever go out and have drinks with your friends or have French fries with whoever. It’s a system and it’s custom for that client and it works.
Saad: 20:23 How does it make you feel when you …
Molly: 20:28 I always feel really happy and excited when a client comes to me and they tell me how much better they’re feeling, how much more confidence they have, how they’ve never looked better, and how they almost can’t believe it. It makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like this is why I’m here is to help other people be happy with themselves in their life and live their truth because it’s really hard to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing on this earth if you don’t feel like yourself.
Molly: 21:04 I don’t diagnose my clients. I don’t write prescriptions. I help my clients heal on a cellular level using nature, using food, herbs, and sometimes supplements when it’s needed. So I think that people get accustomed to not feeling their best and they’ve felt subpar for so long that they don’t even know what it means to feel their best.
Molly: 21:31 And I show people how to feel like themselves again. And how to get their life back, how to get their health back, how to get that sparkle back, that zest for life. And it doesn’t have to be hard and it’s really not. They just have to start.
Molly: 21:50 So I have a lot of clients who also suffer from anxiety or depression and they think it’s just, “Hey, this is how I’m wired, this is my genetic makeup and this is how I’m stuck and I just have to be this anxious, sad person.” And that’s not true because at your core, that’s not who you are. And that’s why it feels wrong because it’s not who you are.
Molly: 22:17 And you can absolutely heal mental health using food and herbs. And 85% of your serotonin is made in your gut. So if your digestive health is not functioning the way that it should be, it will affect your mood. It will affect your anxiety. Maybe you’ll get depression, but you can always turn it around. That’s the thing about the body is that it can heal from everything.
Saad: 22:49 What do you do yourself, personally?
Molly: 22:54 Oh my God, I do everything. I wake up in the morning and I always drink water. Water with minerals in it because that’s how you really hydrate the body is with minerals. And I’ll always have matcha. Matcha is really alkalizing in the body and it’s loaded with chlorophyll. So it’s waking me up and detoxifying my body at the same time. So I’m always about killing two birds with one stone.
Molly: 23:21 And for breakfast I will usually make some kind of green smoothie with greens and spirulina and maybe some banana because you have to make things taste delicious. Otherwise, what is the point? Healthy food does not have to taste disgusting. It’s designed to taste good. So it should.
Molly: 23:43 And for lunch I load up on a ton of greens, avocado and I try not to snack that much because every time you snack you’re turning on the digestive system and your body’s working really hard to break down food. So you want to give your body a little vacation in between each meal. So I shoot for three meals a day, minimal snacking, a lot of water, a lot of nutrients.
Molly: 24:12 So I like my food to look like it’s alive and vibrant because that’s how I want to feel. So a lot of my clients ask me, “Well, what should I eat when I’m out to dinner with my friends? And I always tell them to eat things that look like the plant that is sitting behind me right now. I always tell them to eat things that look like they’re going to heal you.