Beth Motley MD, FACLM

10/24/2025

What’s your go to meal when you don’t feel like cooking?

I have a few…

🥣 🍌 Microwave oatmeal with sliced bananas

🌮 Tacos with corn tortillas, salsa, a can of beans, and some greens

🥯 🥑 Whole wheat bagel with hummus + tomato, or avocado

10/23/2025

This Halloween, treat kids to fun without the sugar rush! 🎃

Glow bracelets, bubbles, mini Play-Doh, or even fruit leathers make great swaps for candy, and show that healthy choices can still be fun! 🍏

I loved those little poppers as a kid but I’m thinking in today’s world you’d probably have to have the parents sign a release to hand them out. 💥

What will you be giving out this year? 👻

10/22/2025

Fill in the blank: The biggest myth about plant-based eating is _____. 🌱

There are so many misconceptions out there from “it’s too expensive” to “you won’t get enough protein.” Let’s set the record straight.

What’s the one myth you hear most often?

10/21/2025

🥩🧈🍦 You might be tempted to believe headlines that say “saturated fat is back.”

People love to hear good news about their bad habits, after all.

But the science says otherwise.

Cochrane Review (2020):
People who cut back on saturated fat had 17% fewer heart problems, especially when they replaced it with healthy fats from plants, nuts, or oils.

American Heart Association (2017):
Swapping butter and cheese for unsaturated fats, like those in avocados, olive oil, and nuts, reduced heart disease by 20–30%, similar to the benefit of taking a statin.

Mozaffarian et al. (2010):
When 5% of calories from saturated fat were replaced with plant-based fats, heart attacks dropped by about 10%.

Jakobsen et al. (2009):
Replacing saturated fat with healthy fats lowered heart disease risk, but replacing it with white bread or sugar made things worse.

European Atherosclerosis Society (2020):
LDL (“bad” cholesterol) directly causes artery buildup and heart disease, and saturated fat raises LDL.

So while some claim butter and bacon are healthy again, decades of data say:
👉 Eat fewer foods high in saturated fat.
👉 Choose unsaturated fats instead.
👉 Protect your heart with plants.

No thanks RFK. I’ll stick with science. 🧠🌿

10/21/2025

Well, it’s that time again. 🎂

I’ve got another birthday coming up, end of next week. 👵🏻

So this is my annual leverage to request donations for our Food is Medicine Greenville Little Free Library!

Books, cookbooks, magazine… Whatever items you have on the health benefits of plant-based eating, we will take! Great opportunity to thin out your shelves! These will go right back into our community. 📚

And don’t think that because you live out of town that you get off easy! I would also happily accept any items sent by Media Mail (it’s the cheap way to send books!).

Thank you so much and don’t forget to come visit the library anytime!

Located in the waiting room of my office.
Greenville Family Medicine
15 Park Creek Dr.
Greenville SC 29605.

Thank you!!! 🥳

10/20/2025

I read this piece in The Atlantic about how “avoiding ultra-processed foods is completely is impossible.”

And sure, perfection isn’t the goal. But surrender shouldn’t be either.

I’m a family medicine doctor. A mom of five. My husband and I are both working professionals. We juggle carpool, grocery runs, and bedtime chaos like everyone else.

And still, we cook. Our go-to’s are not fancy meals, not influencer food, just real food.

We chop veggies while the little ones nap, use the Instant Pot, keep fruit and nuts out where little hands grab them first. When life gets particularly busy, frozen veggies, canned beans, and microwaved sweet potatoes make their debut.

Because the easy path, the “oh well, everyone eats this way now” path, leads exactly where we see our country headed: tired, sick, and dependent on convenience.

No one’s saying your kid shouldn’t have cake at a birthday party or pizza at a sleepover. That’s life.
But if our home base is built on real, whole foods like fruits, veggies, beans, and whole grains, they grow up with a sense of what “normal” actually is.

The goal isn’t 100%. The goal is awareness and consistency, teaching kids that health doesn’t come from a package, and that real food can be simple, joyful, and worth it.

We can make time. And we can’t afford not to.

- Dr. Beth

theatlantic

10/15/2025

And this is why you are always better off sticking with whole foods!

I once had a patient using so much of a supplement that he ended up with lead poisoning and had to be referred to toxicology.

Your safest source of protein is whole foods! Whole grains, beans, and veggies are your best choices! Plus they come packaged with so much more good stuff like fiber, vitamins, and minerals

10/15/2025

Kids lunches today.

Chickpea nuggets 🫘

Cucumbers 🥒

Guacamole 🥑

Blueberries 🫐

Cookie balls 🍪

😋

I’ll post the link to my favorite cookbook shortly. It’s basically where 2/3 of my recipes come from! 🧑‍🍳

10/14/2025

Take a peek into the Pear Down community!

At last week’s virtual event, we took a deep dive into a common question that I hear all the time in the office…

Now that I have adopted a plant-based diet, do I have to keep taking my statin? 🌱 💊

We discussed:

🩺 Current guideline recommendations for statin use
🌱 How nutrition and lifestyle, impact cholesterol levels and heart disease risk
🧑‍⚕️ How to partner with your clinician to make an informed decision about statins

Want to learn more?

Join hundreds of others who are adopting positive lifestyle changes to overcome chronic disease and reduce reliance on medications.

👉 www.Skool.com/pear-down

Statins are one of the most studied medications in preventive cardiology. In this video, Dr. Beth Motley, MD, FACLM, explains what the evidence shows about w...

10/11/2025

Catching up on my inbox while the girls are napping. 👧🏼👶🏽

A timely message to receive!

I saw that he was on the road to success, so at our last appointment, I asked if I could eventually post about his case.

He said that I was welcome to share, but that I had to make sure to say that he is a “stubborn, hardheaded country boy”.

This “boy” is in his 70s… it’s never too late to change your diet!

If he can do it, you can too!

10/11/2025

This may not seem like a big deal for you all 😆but it’s definitely a big deal among Lifestyle Medicine physicians!

Now there is a formal billing code for “Type 2 Diabetes Remission”, which recognizes that diabetes CAN be reversed.

I remember in my training getting into a debate about whether the “diabetes type 2” billing code was still appropriate to use in a patient who had long overcome this with a plant based diet. I was inclined to remove it since I felt it was no longer applicable. My debater argued that the patient would best be labeled as “diabetes type 2”, with the added note that it was “diet controlled”.

Glad to see this “fringe” idea of diabetes reversal entering the spotlight.

Ready to achieve remission? Start here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PXtgBAEKJ_8&pp=ygULYmV0aCBtb3RsZXnSBwkJ_AkBhyohjO8%3D

10/10/2025

Smoothie bowls for breakfast! 🥣

Woke up earlier than expected today so I had time to make something fancy!

Smoothie base -
Frozen fruit 🫐🍓🥭
Chia seeds
Flaxseed
An orange 🍊
1/2 of a leftover avocado 🥑

Toppings -
Banana slices 🍌
Raspberries
Hempseed
Slivered almonds

The kids made a mess, but it was delicious!
👧🏼👦🏽👦🏼👧🏼👶🏽