Community Highlights: Meet Dr. Edelita Jamis, a Plant-based Doctor, Founder and CEO of Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness Practice

Today we’d like to introduce you to Edelita Jamis.

Hi Edelita, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
My husband and I are both Internal Medicine physicians, we suffered from chronic diseases at the peak of our careers here in the United States. He had gouty arthritis, asthma, fatty liver, high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and obesity. I had diabetes, gastric bloating, sinus allergy, and was overweight.

During our vacation in the Philippines in 2017, my husband spent five days in bed while taking his anti-inflammatory medications every four hours. Both of us felt frustrated. We made serious changes to our diet and practiced everything we know in medicine, but felt nothing helped. It could be easy for me to blame genetics because my mother had diabetes when she was my age. But I knew that Type 2 diabetes is not hereditary; it is lifestyle-induced. ​

One day, we stumbled upon several documentaries about the reversal of chronic diseases with a whole food plant-based diet. We were intrigued. We never heard about this in medical school or in our medical training. At first, we had many doubts. We knew and understood that chronic diseases are the result of unhealthy lifestyles but we dived deeper into lifestyle medicine and didn’t stop researching. We attended two International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conferences and these were far different from the other medical conferences we have attended. We tried to apply the learnings ourselves and dragged our 8-year-old twin boys into this lifestyle change and it was life-changing indeed.
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Months later, we repeated our blood tests and the results were surprising. My blood sugar went down significantly. My husband’s uric acid level, cholesterol, and liver enzymes normalized and he lost 40 pounds effortlessly. We had so much more energy now than we had before. Our sinus allergies went away and we no longer needed steroid nasal spray and allergy pills. Our health transformation gave us a tremendous amount of hope. I took and passed the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine in 2018 and since then we have infused Lifestyle Medicine to our patients, with emphasis on a whole-food plant-based diet which yielded remarkable results.
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I convinced my mother to do the same and true enough, she is now off insulin after being on it for 25 years. Not only that, she cut down her medications from 12 to 3.

Success stories from my patients drive me to do more and now I found my true purpose as a physician. I want to help as many patients who seek to be free from medications and their ailments because I believe that there is hope in lifestyle and dietary change.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been smooth sailing. At first, we had to cook 2 different sets of foods. A healthy preparation for me and my husband, but my kids did not eat vegetables and whole grains at that time. We had to prepare the unhealthy foods they were used to before, including TV dinners. But we knew we had to include our kids, or else they will suffer from chronic disease later on in life. After one and a half years of constant education and prodding, our twin boys came totally on board with our healthy diet, and are now eating the same food that we eat.

It is also difficult for us to explain to people that we do not eat the usual food served during parties. Sometimes we are careful not to insult party hosts, so we ate ahead before going to the party. But we knew that we have to stick to our principles, to achieve good health after all the chronic diseases we had were reversed. Over time, our friends understood our dietary changes, and it became less awkward to get together with them.

It is also challenging to look for restaurants that serve healthy food when we travel. However, we learned to plan ahead, and look for restaurants that serve healthier options online, before going to a certain place. We also look for hotels that serve healthier options. When we travel internationally, we specify healthy vegan meals as a preference on our flights. At least now we are more mindful of where we need to go to eat, rather than eating unhealthy food unknowingly in the past, which hastened the development of our past chronic diseases.

We’ve been impressed with Lifestyle Medicine and Wellness Practice, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My business focuses on Lifestyle Change as a way of controlling or even reversing chronic disease. I am a physician who is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine. I started this business because I found out that my passion is to help patients get healthier through healthier lifestyle choices. Lifestyle Medicine focuses on Nutrition (through a whole-food plant-based diet), Exercise, Stress Management, Good Social Support, Adequate Sleep, and Avoidance of Risky Substances as a means of achieving better overall health.

I realized a while back that practicing traditional medicine, through diagnosing and treating disease through medication alone, misses the big picture. By focusing on the root cause of the disease, and addressing it, I am able to achieve better overall health for my patients.

Instead of aiming to “control” the disease through medications, my aim is for patients to achieve much better overall health that they need to be weaned off their maintenance medications since they will not need them anymore. This is what sets me apart from traditional providers.

What I am most proud of brand-wise are the amazing results my patients had after making lifestyle changes. My first patient was myself when I reversed my diabetes. My earliest patient was also my mother, who got off insulin after 20+ years after applying the Lifestyle changes advocated by Lifestyle Medicine. My patient’s chronic conditions improved significantly, including heart disease, hypothyroidism, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes, Obesity, Hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes, Asthma, Heartburn, Crohn’s disease, Depression, and allergies, to name a few. I am committed to achieving results for my patients.

I offer coaching services to help patients achieve optimum health and not be controlled by their chronic disease. I offer telemedicine coaching services and have achieved excellent results even without meeting patients in person. I am a licensed Internal Medicine physician in Arizona and Illinois, so I can help patients wean off their medications as they achieve better health in those states. I also have a website, www.theplanedelita.com, where they can get further information about lifestyle medicine. They can contact me through the website. I also have a blog and podcast on the website. I am also currently working on an online course for Type 2 Diabetes for Seniors, and I plan to have more online courses in the future. I also have an e-book about different chronic diseases and how to overcome their effects on health. I have a Facebook group called Arizona Plant Foodies where we meet every month for a plant-based potluck and share stories as well as tasty and healthy foods. I am a regular lecturer at Sun City Grand and anybody can attend my lectures and workshops there too.

As a physician and my background and experience in Lifestyle Medicine, I have the unique ability to help people all over the world with the help of technology. I also cook at home, so I can offer cooking tips to get healthier results.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
They can contact and support me by visiting my website, www.theplanedelita.com. My contact information is there.

They can also listen to my podcast on the website. They can support me by spreading the word, that I want to help as many people as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theplanedelita.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doctoredelita