Five Keys to Achieving Longevity

In this episode we are talking about all things longevity. Dr. Tom Rifai, a visionary in health and tech longevity lifestyle medicine joins us to undertand the five keys to longevity.

Together we are tackling the startling facts about life expectancy, the importance of a healthy environment and mindset, and how genetics play a smaller role in our overall health than we might think.

You can learn more abour Dr. Rifai and his Flex5 program at:

https://myflex5.com/

Tune in to learn practical tips and insights on how to live not just longer, but healthier lives. This convo is packed with actionable advice you dont want to miss it!

00:00 Introduction to the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast

00:30 The Importance of Longevity

03:15 Introducing Dr. Tom Rifai

04:27 Dr. Tom Rifai's Personal Journey

06:13 Challenges in Modern Lifestyle Medicine

12:02 The Role of Environment in Health

21:30 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindset

22:11 Eating Disorders and Stigma

23:44 Holiday Eating and Portion Control

25:56 Flex Five Lifestyle Components

27:51 The Importance of Accountability

33:42 Challenges and Realistic Expectations

37:25 Final Thoughts and Resources

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My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

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Transcript

 Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast,  a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement.  I'm your host Ayesha Tahir. 

 Hello, and welcome to nine to five wellness podcast and LinkedIn live show.  Today, we are going to be talking about a topic that I'm very passionate about, and that is five keys to achieving longevity. The reason I am so excited and interested in this topic is that as a wellness consultant, when I am presenting workshops at corporations or even community workshops, I often get this comment, I want to live beyond 100 years.

What can I do? So a lot of people are like, we don't know. What to do. Some people are even asking me, Okay, so what is longevity? Like, what is the concept? How to get there? So I was really excited when I found a perfect guest for our show. But before I go into who our guest is, which I'm really excited about, too, I want to talk about longevity a little bit.

 Life expectancy, as we think of longevity so far, it has increased considerably if you look at it since 1900s, especially in the United States. The average lifespan in the 1900s was just 47 years.  So, you know, think about it, like, it's  a little over 100 years and we have made great strides as far as the life expectancy of an adult today.

So today, people who are born in 2022, they can expect to live 77 years.  So that's like a huge number, like 30 years. We have added 30 years of life to an adult's life. So advancements in modern medicine along with improved living standards have extended our lives. But you might be surprised to learn the next fact that I'm going to share with you, which is that according to the World Health Organization, once reaching the age of 65, the average American typically experiences only one more year of life free from major health problems. 

So they're not necessarily the, the number of years that we have added, they're not necessarily healthy years. So. I believe that it doesn't have to be a norm. The key to prolonging our healthy years is  really in our hands, and I want to talk about that today. But before we go into any of this further, I do have a disclaimer  for this episode that the, the contents of this episode are for educational purposes only.

They are not a diagnosis for any disease, and Or for any health claim. So I have an honorable guest joining us today, Dr. Tom Raffaei. He is gonna help us understand longevity and how we can best achieve it.  Dr. Tom is the founding president and CEO of Reality Meets Science Incorporation and is a visionary, Health and Tech Longevity Lifestyle Medicine leader.

Dr. Raffaele has served as medical and wellness director for Fortune 500 Magna International, the number one mobility technology and auto supplier in North America, being the personal health coach of the CEO and many of his At direct executive reports. Dr. Rafai is a trailblazer in the fields of metabolic health, longevity, and behavior modification, translating these into digital platforms to support lifestyle transformation.

Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Rafai. 

Thank you so much, Ayesha. What a wonderful introduction. It's truly an honor to be here, especially to discuss this topic that we're both so passionate about.  

Thank you. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule and joining us.  I want to start with you. I'd love to learn about your journey to leading a health revolution and longevity coaching.

Tell me. 

Well, let me see if I can keep this short. I will say this right from the get go to not bury the headline. You know, um, Aisha, you may have read about this on LinkedIn, but I have binge eating disorder myself and I almost lost my life to it. And I lost my youngest brother, Basil. God rest his soul to binge eating disorder.

And I would I would make the case that it was actually fat shaming that was at the root of that. Uh, but throughout my, my, my training, uh, to which was not initially geared towards medicine, it was geared towards psychology because my mother and father, but particularly my mother, I would say, I would, uh, they're both physicians.

My dad passed.  Uh, my mother would say it. All doctors are crazy. Don't become a doctor. We're in America now. Go to Hollywood. Be a movie star. Go to play baseball. You're really good at that. Be a baseball player. So when I did finally decide I wanted to become a physician, I, I realized that, um, my father's diabetes and mother's health issues are really largely lifestyle driven.

So they taught me in a sense in a reverse, a lot of great morals and ethics, but when it came to lifestyle coming to America, it was all about McDonald's and all of this stuff. And I started to find out, Oh man, this needs to be better balanced. So my training was at a great medical school in Detroit, Wayne State.

I had a strong nutrition component, very unusual. My residency training was at William Beaumont, where I had a strong clinical nutrition and preventive medicine program, an internal medicine plus lifestyle and nutrition fellowship built into one. And then we really went right into lifestyle, uh, as medicine, lifestyle medicine, right from, uh, right from residency training, working with dieticians and psychologists and exercise physiologists and physical therapists, demonstration kitchens, grocery shopping, tours, et cetera, et cetera.

Uh, it's not, it was really amazing. The only issue I found at the end of the day is it's hard to scale brick and mortar programs. And when we have a hundred million people with metabolic syndrome in the United States, 130, million with combined pre diabetes and type two diabetes and hypertension at around 120 million level, etcetera.

Obviously all wrapped around this metabolic syndrome. We have to have things that scale and things that are really built by experts. So that's what we're doing to answer that. And that's what really drives me now. I love the one on one like a hand built car. I'm from Detroit, so you're going to get these auto analogies.

Obviously, you mentioned the background with magna, but we need to be able to  get to scalability. We have to have these type of programs available at the same quality or close on a digital platform. Yeah, 

absolutely. I love your story. Thank you so much for sharing everything. So from baseball player to lifestyle medicine physician, I understand like how you are so passionate about it because of your brother and,  the eating disorder that you suffered too, which I can relate with.

I had an eating disorder too. , anorexia though,  on the other end of the spectrum.  It affects a lot of people and,  I agree like, you know, fat shaming or body shaming is definitely a big, big, big part of it. The good thing, I think the good news at this moment, as you said, we are aware of the problem.

We know how prevalent the metabolic dysfunction, how prevalent obesity is at this time and in the wellness world and in the medical field, you know, longevity is gaining a lot of attention. I know that  and people want to live longer. But better lives. And that's how I define longevity. Like, not only adding years to your life, but also functional years to your life.

How would you define longevity?  

That's a great, great point. I'm very proud of you, by the way, for what you just stated. It's not easy to discuss our personal challenges, but that's what makes us human and obviously what makes you a great leader in this discussion as well. So thank you for that. Uh, yes, as you said, and in various paraphrase, but similar to what my colleague and wonderful friend, David Katz, a past president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, likes to say adding not only years to life, but life to years, right?

We're now we're, because of technology, we've been so And it's justifiably so from antibiotics to medications and surgeries. Look how these then now they've run their course and we're living 10 to 15 years in sickness, which is a real issue. We're not necessarily living better. We're living only longer at this point.

And actually COVID took us down a little bit, right? So our life expectancy dropped.  I would define for me, I mean, longevity is strictly numerical in terms of how long you live, but I agree with you. There needs to be a meeting of health span and lifespan and compressing that. One of the stories I like because stories really helped drive a bigger picture.

There was a fitness guru in the United States for many years. I mean, Jack LaLanne, Jack LaLanne just recently won a couple of years ago. posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and his and his wife was there. Now she's lived longer than he has. She's over 97 now.

Thankfully, Jack got her to quit smoking way early before they got married. But Jack's father, father died of a massive heart attack in his fifties. Jack wasn't bestowed with great genetics. In fact, getting to over 100, you probably have to win the genetic lottery. So maybe first thing is, let's say getting too healthy into our early and mid nineties is probably a more practical, realistic goal until unless they come up with some crisper genetic technology to switch a magic switch, which I'm not.

I'm a healthy skeptic about. We have a lot of under our control, but Jack ended up living to be almost 97 and exercising till the day before he died. I mean, if you want to talk about, uh, uh, really reconciling health span and lifespan, um, he was admittedly very committed. I mean, this guy was, you know, he had. 

I think one of his quotes was, if it tastes good, spit it out. I'm not quite ready to go there, Jack. I'm sorry. I love you. You know, God rest your soul. But I do think we can have some indulgence in life because there's really quality versus quantity, but we are way out of balance. We are, we have, we have taken indulgences like calorie rich, refined and highly processed foods, for instance, to a level where they've become normalized.

Yeah, because we have developed a, a food system in which we have about 220 million acres in the United States dedicated to just commodity crops, whether it be corn or soybeans or rice, wheat, et cetera, much of it for making, uh, uh, industrialized animals, fatter, right. Uh, and  stuck in confined animal feeding operations and then some for high fructose corn syrup.

And there's a little for ethanol fuel, but then there's corn chips, corn flakes, rice, crispies, whatever. And now we're. selling all this stuff in every checkout aisle from not only grocery stores, but to Home Depot and businesses that it can't even survive without them. Movie theaters, gas stations, you know, they don't break into the black without selling this food.

And we become hooked as the title of the book from Michael Moss, uh, who also wrote salt, sugar, fat. 

Yeah, 

a great writer discusses so 220 million acres dedicated to those type of crops, most of which are, you know, commodity crops that are subsidized and we have laws to help support them. Yet we have only about 4 million acres dedicated to specialty crops.

That's where fruits and vegetables will be found. And we need more like 12 million just to get every American two cups of fruits and vegetables per day. So we really have to take a national lifestyle change, maybe a worldwide lifestyle change. Because if we don't change the food availability, everyone goes for broccoli and fruit tomorrow, prices will go up to 20 a pound.

So, but individually, yes, we have a lot of control, uh, as a population. We also have to work together from Government policy to home environments home, by the way, environment is where it starts. You can, we can rag about the food environment outside of our house all we want, but we do have control of our homes.

So when I was married, I had, I came, I fessed up to my wife. I said, listen, I can, I can have any. food in my life, but in my face is a different story. I can't live with piles of brownies and pizza around me. I just know I can explain to you metabolically what's going to happen with the pancreatic stress and inflammation post brandy.

Not going to matter. I'm going to eat the brownies and the pizza of it's sitting there in front of me. I don't want, don't tell me I can't eat them ever. That's not, that's just going to give me obsession over pizza and brownies, but outside enjoy no guilt, but don't bring the wolf into the house and then pretend it's a dog and then blame the wolf when the wolf bites you.

It's a beautiful animal. It's meant to be outside though. It's the way that it's built. So that's, that's kind of the approach we've found in terms of, um, in terms of balance. And if you do get the, I believe for most people there's, we can debate it, but a plant predominant, if not plant pure, flexitarian, non extremist approach, ethnic agnostic, it doesn't matter whether you're, it's Mediterranean or Latino or Indo Pakistani or whatever the case may be.

We can find. The nutrition principles that are, are longevity nutrition principles transcend an ethnicity. There isn't really some region of the earth that has a monopoly on it. And then we get some physical activity in those two are easier said than done, especially since the other end of the equation is of how we've, Extracted the requirement for physical activities survive is, you know, from farmers and goat herders and sheep shepherds like Sardinia, right?

The blue  to, you know, where they the first McDonald's on the island. They lit on fire to protest against, uh, to, uh,  no, no, I don't want to beat up on anyone brand. Excuse me. There's many. There's many ways we could go about discussing. Uh, corporate food.  But, um, and, and I will also say this, I mean, I occasionally will go to McDonald's myself, but there would be 95% less of them if they had to rely on the frequency of a visitor and family like mine.

Uh, they would be,  you know, maybe one in every state. Uh, not.  However many there are.  Um, so those are really the challenges that, that, that we have, uh, in terms of trying to achieve it more population wise. Individually, of course, you'll have the Jack Le Lanes, you'll have the Ansel Keys and speaking to give some credit to the man who coined like the Mediterranean diet, who lived to be a hundred years old.

Uh.  Your, your, uh, your population health discussion is a different one. And we have to give people the kind of support that would be able to take their willingness and readiness to change. And it will probably be a minority of people that are willing to do that. And there are more and more, we're seeing that food outlets that are being more friendly to healthier eating, because we will be best off eating more at home, but we'll also always eat out some, I mean, not maybe you necessarily or any particular individual person, but. 

As a population, restaurant eating is not going away. It's just not. So how to help people through that, how to grocery shop better and so forth at a pace that the on the ground, what's happening and what we're growing can shift so that it's more cost friendly and maybe some laws that can change so that fruits and vegetables aren't so expensive where you've got a 6 pint of blueberries here.

And then a 5 value mail at McDonald's just in a hundred yards away in the same parking lot,  it's going to be hard. Does that make sense? 

It does. I'm going to add a little bit to it, and I'm going to like just underscore what you just said that the incentives that we are giving to people  to lead a healthier and longer life  to have access to longevity. It's not balanced. That's 

absolutely. That's why when you go to blue zones, their environment and Dan Buechner and the team have found this. It's the environment. And we'd see this in social determinants of health and where your zip code determines, you know, significant fraction of your health and well being.

Our environment is a driver of our behavior. And, you know, you know, the movie, did you ever see the movie cast away with Tom Hanks? 

Oh, of course. Yes. 

So, so here, I mean,  I'm using this as, again, a common coming to the story, but it's based on a true story. At least the parts of it, this part of it is, is legit, right?

You're stuck on this Island, this isolated Island. Your environment is now forcing you to eat vegetation, berries, and whatever fish you could catch and you make your own fire. Remember fire, fire, fire. Now he was metabolically healthy, but not necessarily so well. I mean, he had a counselor called Wilson, right?

Didn't he? Yeah. Right, Wilson. I'm not recommending go to an island and, but that's a, and when he came back to that welcome home party that was at FedEx, and then he saw this huge plate, this huge display of food is the irony. I was working so hard just to get this one fish. And here's all this, this big, big fish.

And there's all this food is everywhere.  Our environment drives us. Now, again, though, I don't want people to say, well, our environment. sucks. I can't do anything about it. No, your home environment is your ground zero. You can start there and then you can mitigate risk by having a food bag with you where our principles are very simple in the flex five there.

It's like a mixed martial artistry of health and longevity. Nothing, you know, mixed martial artist. Maybe that doesn't, Um, I should say I'm no, it's good. It's good. I get 

it. Yeah, 

you can't just have a diet or just physical activity or just like you got to kind of put all these skills together and then you can have the formula for health and well being in the in the modern world.

But it does require a lot of just each individual skill is simple, but they add up. 

Absolutely. So I wanted to underscore this fact that we are currently spending over 3 trillion per year on health care. This is healthcare only.  And not even the hospital costs and anything. This is  beyond that. Just, you know, the expenses.

But life expectancy in the US  actually shrank last year. As you just mentioned, COVID had an impact. Now the metabolic dysfunction and the chronic diseases are having an impact on our expectancy  as we speak. And I believe you should be spending that money on promoting longevity.  We should be spending that money on preventing health conditions so that we don't end up there, right?

So there is a lot in our control. And this is the system. We are talking about the system, but let's talk about how you just said the genetics part, the, the example of, Jack LaLanne. And I did meet his wife at one of the idea conferences, actually. So his dad had a heart attack at 50.

His genetics were working against him, but how did he overcome it  with his lifestyle choices, right, with his lifestyle choices, which you mentioned a few, and we're going to go into those right away after this. So,  I was reading this research study, I can't remember which  institute did it on the top of my head, but genetics only contributes 20%.

to your whole health and metabolic profile. And when I'm presenting workshops, all the time, people come up to me and say, Oh, it's the genetics. It's my age. It's my genetics. Uh, no, 80 percent of it is in your hands. You can overcome your genetics if you might have to work a little bit harder than somebody else, you know, there are always going to be outliers for whom it comes easy, but you have a lot of control and just the way you mentioned, like, I think one of the five keys to longevity, the most important key is your environment, your home environment, where you work,  your office cubicle, it's in your control.

Yes. Uh, as, as we've often said, uh, genetics only loads the gun, lifestyle controls the trigger. Uh, and on population wide basis, 80 20. Now you might have an individual who has BRCA, right? Or some, but on average, right? And I have one. I, in fact, I would say there's probably good public service time. time point.

20 percent of the human population has a genetically elevated type of lipid or LDL molecule called lipoprotein, little a and African Americans. It's even higher. And we've only screened about 1 percent of the United States. I have a very high lipoprotein, little a level. Um, and it is, and it puts me at risk for higher cardiovascular disease by 56.

I'll be 57 next year. Most would have a positive coronary calcium score. I have a zero coronary calcium score. I've had peripheral artery tests in my neck. No question, if I wasn't doing what I'm doing, I would have plaques everywhere. Uh, but because I, I can't control that part of it, but I can control everything else.

My blood pressure, the other LDL particles that don't have that extra toxic protein on the side, insulin sensitivity, Obviously all driven by my home environment, my, my, uh, my physical activity choices. I personally consider movement a medicine. I can't, I don't exercise for fun as much as I do. It's an antidepressant for me.

I spent a couple of years on antidepressants if I wasn't, um, Exercising regularly. I think within a week you would hear from my wife, probably even my mom, uh, who would say, huh, you know, I, I love you, but I don't like you very much. I mean, it is and movement even beyond after this, of course, I'll go take a walk.

It's okay. I'm not saying don't ever sit. That's I don't want to get people freaked out about a, uh, occasional, whatever it's an indulgence or just taking an elevator once in a while because your feet hurt, of course, but in general, natural movement plus exercise, it's all very important. Environment really drives that part too.

But our psychology, if you allow yourself to think fait accompli or it's it's set fate, there's nothing I can do about it. Well, your mindset is not going to be in the space that it is. It's also not going to be objective. So I'm going to do some little cognitive behavioral therapy. What Aisha said is completely correct on population 80 20.

Yes, I don't, you know, we of course respect those of you know, you have genetic disorders that are absolutely maybe higher. There are some that might have lower though, who believe that it's genetic and it's only 10%, 5%. And we've seen the finished twin studies and you saw this, the PBS on weight of a nation where the two twins, one was in the diabetes prevention program.

One was not. And it's like, okay, their genetics are the same. And clearly one is doing, uh, you know, much differently, but to get that kind of support out there as a different story, you still have to have a mindset. Now there has to be a set of mindset. Mindfulness and even, you know, mental health issues that we, I think we do terribly at in the United States.

I think it's way too, um, uh, there's way, way too much stigmata. I think our talking about our eating disorders is a step towards the right direction of being more open and honest about it. There's a lot more of it out there. I think men, I think binge eating disorder in men is far higher from what I've seen.

Even if it doesn't meet the technical definition of binge eating disorder, there, you know, we might have a, you might argue a national binge eating disorder. I mean, every year we have a hot dog eating contest in Chicago or something. They give people money to eat 170 hot dogs. And I don't know, I guess that's fun.

I, if you think that's. Interesting. Uh, so I agree, though. I agree with the 

the hypothetical statistic. I see more male clients with binge eating disorder than female clients. So I agree. The number might not be out there. We Might not have studied enough,  of the population, but it's true. 

Oh, I appreciate you saying that. I said, no, I don't feel so alone. And, um, I, and I would say that if, if we really wanted to study it well, and maybe we added, um, uh, a, a level levels, it doesn't have to be a singular one line threshold of, you know, this many times per week and so on, et cetera. We'd find there's a lot of disordered eating, but, and then we'd have to still go back and say, wow, it's this environment.

This environment is really pushing this type of making it so easy. Is it us that's disordered or is it the environment is disordered? And so therefore, as you said, and we obviously completely support you in the flex five. Your home environment is key, and it doesn't mean that Christmas here we're about to go into the holidays, of course, for a Christmas party or Hanukkah or whatever it is that you might be celebrating.

But when or even on Thanksgiving, it's passed already. But when that day is over, it's okay. Maybe, and I've seen this so many times, this overbuying, you know that there's 12 people coming over, not 25 people. Why are we buying for 25 people? I doubt you're ever going to have someone that said, well, they just didn't have enough, whatever.

And I left the party. I've never seen that happen where someone started to say, okay, this is a portion size. This is how many people, this is how much you're going to buy. And it's a simple mental exercise. And then they had too little and people left. Uh, then if anything, they said, wow, you know, it was nice because when the party was over, everything was pretty much finished and I didn't have to worry about all the leftovers.

You see all these little skills start to build up and you don't understand. No, I'll never have the such and such in the house. Never is not a word that I like to use other than to say, never say, Never, but we have to find that balance, you know, and enjoying the indulgences and the spice of life is fine.

But if it starts to get to the point that you mentioned earlier, that 10 to 15 years of life are going to be like my father, a world class surgeon, but with type two diabetes, the last 10 to 12 years of his life was dementia. It was, it was an absolute honor to help.  take him to the bathroom and do everything else, but I cannot say it was a pleasure.

It was not. I did it because it was my father and I don't want that to be bequeathed to my children. I'm going to try to compress that time. I don't know if I could pull off a Jack LaLanne Aisha, but I'm going to, I'm going to come as close as I can. 

Yeah, , I think you're making such a huge impact, not only on your health and wellbeing.

By  taking this action for yourself and deciding that, okay, I don't want this to happen,  to me or my kids to have to take care of me. And I'm so sorry about, uh, your dad. I can totally relate.  My dad. Is a life and doing okay, but his health is declining, and he has had heart disease since he was 50 years old.

So I come from a similar background to you that you know we have, Hypertension and, heart disease in our, in my family. So that's why I, I do whatever I can. I got into the field of exercise physiology for that reason too. And I'm very careful with what I eat and I move a lot.  I want to highlight your flex five lifestyle here, which I really think is key.

to living a long life. First component, as you mentioned, is your mindset. If you don't have the positive mindset, if you can't create that sense of purpose, which for you came from your dad, for me, again, coming from my dad's side, because it runs in the family. Like my, , granddad had a stroke and he was bedridden for 10 years. Wasn't pretty. Um, so  I don't want that, right? So whatever your sense of purpose is, you have to have that mindset to achieve health, to achieve well being. And that's going to set you on the road to,  longevity. The second you said environment, I think the second component has to be the environment.

 Once you have the mindset, you're going to start working on your environment naturally. But it has to be intentional too. Then that would pour into nutrition. And I really recommend everybody to watch the Netflix documentary about the Blue Zones. Live 200 Secrets of Blue Zones by Dan Buettner.

It's a really good Documentary. You're going to learn a lot from it, but it's easy. You know, eat more plants and vegetables, more antioxidant rich foods,  eat protein, good amount of protein  only eat complex carbs most of the times and try to reduce the amount of simple carbohydrates. Which are everywhere like baked breads, pasta, everything is a simple carbohydrates activity exercise every day.

At least 30 minutes a day. , you can have the moderate to intense,  activity, uh, an intense could be three times a week, but move move often during the day. And then the fifth part I want to talk to you about is accountability. Tell me more about it. 

Okay. So that's a great one. And, um, I, I think, uh, by the way, Dan Buettner, good friend and inspiring.

We were in a, a, a PBS documentary together called the embrace of aging, the male perspective. So there was a female one. I wasn't in that one, but that took them to Okinawa embrace of aging, the male perspective. You can go on YouTube and see it. It was in the Sardinia and yeah, a lot of natural movement. So, I mean, you could get away without, you know, Exercise if you're truly naturally moving throughout the day, but this accountability feature, um, is, is really important when we're in, in, but particularly in these types of environments where it's so tempting to otherwise go the other direction, but accountability is very personalized too.

It can be anywhere from God to a Fitbit, right. And all the way to in between a coach, like working with a coach or a program like us, so it's not a simple, like to, uh, uh, uh, one cookie cutter scenario. I mean, the theoretical ideal, you would have a coach and a program and And, but it has to be done to just the amount that you can tolerate. 

As you mentioned, finding your why is important and we would always ask whether patient or clients, what's your why and what are your non negotiables, right? Because we don't want to take you to an extreme that you can't sustain. But at the end, then being accountable, but compassionate accountability, not a judgmental accountability, accountability people want to a community.

They want to be, Oh, if I don't get there, my. My girlfriends or my friends are not going to be in a walking team or walking group and I'm not going to be there. I'm accountable to that or my, you know, my trainer who I love to hang out with is going to be wants me to be there. You really want this accountability.

I must say, though, in a sense, it reminds me one of the threats that we have is also Lack of military readiness. We are so out of shape in the United States. We're having trouble getting adequate number of military, uh, to be, to protect the nation. So accountability is, is a really important, um, factor because when we see lifestyle change, I'll give you an example.

It typically requires, and let's just, let's just go to weight management, even though I don't like to obsess about it for obvious reasons. If you look at the national weight control registry, which has thousands and really in tens of thousands of people who've maintained weight loss, the United States, the best. 

You really find that it takes at least two years and, and you, and often more, but at least two years of maintenance before the odds of long term success for a greatly increased. And most people in the registry had a program of accountability and they were either tracking food or they're in a program with a, uh, a, a, with a hospital or a clinic.

And that accountability  reinforcement. It doesn't I mean, with all due resp biggest loser, you know, on treadmills until they  for shows and for clicks truthfully, you want to b fact, when we're talking to God, I mean, you look A number of the, um, uh, of the Seventh Day Adventists, for instance, and their healthy lifestyles or even Islam, the Hadith, you know, one third water, one third food, one third air, you know, you, you really can, uh, individualize, uh, across cultures, the accountability, but it's a factor.

And when we looked at. And we were, and we were challenged by a cardiothoracic surgeon when I was at Trinity health who were so impressed with our programs that the surgeons would, particularly this one would walk patients over to our office and say, you don't need me to cut you. You need this program.

Now he didn't check for readiness for change and so forth, which was, you know, it was an honor that he would just drop people off. But we said, are you sure they're ready for this? Cause this is, you know, this is a real serious, like learning MMA, right? You're coming in to, to, to, uh, to learn this whole set of skills.

Yeah. But 

he said, what is it? You know, can, can  some of the pros put me to a task? Can you whittle it down to four pillars? Why what you're doing works so well, this is before the five keys or the flex five were derived. I said, Oh, okay. That's, that's really good. That's a good point. Yeah. It seems complicated.

Can I simplify it to four pillars? Pillars. So I started thinking and the fact that there was five and I didn't know it yet made it great that they asked for four because I tried to put things together and it really put me into a, you know, the quote from Mark Twain, I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time.

So I wrote you a long one.  

It 

put me through this process of, okay, it really comes down to it's psychology. It's environments, nutrition, physical activity, and accountability. I mean, these, these are the, you know, These are the five, right? Psychology, nutrition, physical activity, environments, and accountability.

And now there's multiple skills and knowledge in each of those five, but it's that simple. I didn't say easy, but it's at least we don't need to make it complicated. It's really somewhere in here that something is, is needs to be addressed or, uh, is happening if things are going in a wrong direction. And, and so accountability is really a key part of that.

Now, Jack Lane, for instance, example, He started as a self admitted, you know, junk food junkie. That was his term. I don't know that I like that, but You know, that was his term and that's what he said. And he hadn't needed a coach. He had this Dr. Bragg that inspired him and gave him like, you can turn it around kid.

You can, you know, and he was kind of maybe more an old school style motivator, but it did really turn Jack around. Now, if you ask his wife, Elaine or Lala, And I confirmed this with her personally, uh, when, when I had a chance to meet her myself, there was a story of him being in a town, this is decades into him being established as, you know, the fitness guru of America, even, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, was, you know, bowed to Jack Lane.

Uh, he couldn't find a gym that satisfied, that, that really meant his, what he wanted, where he was either giving a motivational talk or he was there to, to, to do some business and his wife saw him. Elaine saw him pacing back and forth in the hotel room, unhappy, couldn't find a gym. And she said, Jack,  why don't you just skip today?

Nobody's going to know. And he said, right back to her. He said, I don't know. Now he was at that point internally accountable. It takes time to get to internal accountability. Usually external accountability. It needs to be, you need to buttress that internal accountability for about two years. And then someone really grows into autopilot.

So there's a story on accountability. 

 It's so true. It doesn't happen overnight. And I know a lot of people I work with, a lot of times people are like, we wanted it yesterday.  Well, the work has to start today. And then you're going to start seeing results. Maybe in a year.

You'll start seeing some short term results in six weeks, eight weeks. That's what I say is the realistic point of view, but where you want to be eventually is not going to happen. in eight weeks, it's not going to happen in two days. 

That's right. It's, that's, that's so true. And they, what, one of the analogies I give to people, I say, do you ever, have you ever heard of anyone that came out of the womb and just jumped onto the balance beam and got a gold medal in the Olympics on the balance beam?

I mean, how many times do you think they've had to fall off? And by the way, be ready for this because you will slip. In fact, we, we use the acronym slip, stop, look, investigate plan. It's not a crisis. It's an opportunity. You want a black belt and you want to get no bruises.  You want a Ph. D. And you want to not ever have to.

I'm sorry. None of those things happen. They're achievable, but they're achievable. And by the way, it's okay to slip. It's in. I'm not saying be happy. Oh, yay. I slipped, but embrace it as the inevitable part of the process. It stopped. It didn't die. Look at this situation. L. Objectively, no more black or white investigate where there's an opportunity to tweak and adjust for a similar future situation and then plan.

Be, you know, specific, realistic. We even take smart planning and simplify it because specific was specific, measurable, actionable, realistic time. But I don't even know if those are it's too much, just specific and realistic. Give it and then. rinse and repeat. It may work. It may not work. It may work halfway.

That's okay, too. That's how you're gonna get your black belt, your gold medal or whatever analogy you want to use. But no way. I mean, yes, short terms. Absolutely. You can address maybe something that's very important to the blood pressure. Very important. Okay, let's work on sodium, but that's just one, you know, That's going to give you a, uh, address that pain point, but if I'm just, you're just going to go into the UFC octagon with just boxing,  good luck.

You're going to have to know some jujitsu, some Muay Thai, boxing's good, wrestling, and we'll get you there. Just be patient. We'll get you there as fast as we reasonably can. Reasonably can that's probably a couple years. 

 Absolutely. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Yeah, you have to adjust.

So, as you said, I want to underscore it. It's not going to be a linear,  progress. You're going to fall down that that's part of the process there. They're going to be mistakes. They're going to be failures. You'll have to come above them. you'll have to overcome obstacles and make adjustments to your plan, but just be intentional and keep your wife front and center.

The other thing I want to underscore over here is keep in mind that you don't have to make all the changes and you don't have to apply all the five pillars all at once. Thanks.  That also happens one by one, so maybe you start working on your intention this week and maybe reach out to a coach or reach out to Dr.

Tom's team. And then start working on the other four with the guidance and help  of knowing that, you know, you have somebody has your back. 

That's correct. 

Really sprinkling it, sprinkling changes into your life, maybe moving five minutes  extra at the end of your lunch break, like maybe walking around and doing laps at home, or if you're working on site, in your office.

It's It's such a small change. These small changes add up and they do lead to improving health and to longevity and experiencing a higher quality of life. Thank you so much, Dr. Tom, for sharing all of this information. I want to be mindful of your time. Where can our viewers and listeners find you?

Really? Thank you so much. I sure this has been such a wonderful discussion. I appreciate this very much. There's two places really, if you want to go to the website, my flex five dot com. It's where you can make flex five yours. So my M Y F L E X than the number five dot com. You have opportunities for master class or coaching or just general information.

You can contact me through my flex five dot com. Most active social media is linked in and facebook. If you do facebook, Uh, you know, just go to facebook. com slash dr tom md d r t o m m d. And you can find a lot of of action there. If you do join our master class, you'll actually be allowed into our private facebook community.

That's the only place I really delve into individual questions on a weekly basis. And it's the way to get your black belt in the flex five as we're building the flex five app, which will be, I can't I wish I could tell you more, but I'm, I'm, I'm restricted from talking more about the Flex 5 app until a certain couple of things have been signed.

But I can at least say, stay tuned. That will be coming soon. And we tease a little bit about it at myflex5. com.  

Oh, awesome. Oh, I'm excited about the app now, but I understand that you can't discuss it, but I'm excited. I feel like that would be a really good,  companion for people, a guide. guide for people   to achieve their health goals and to live a long, healthy life.

So thank you, Dr. Tom. I'm going to include all the links that you mentioned in the show notes. Thank you, everyone, for listening to us and for joining us today on LinkedIn Live. And you'll be able to also listen to this in a podcast format by tomorrow on nine to five wellness podcast, wherever you listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon music.

And then there are 10 other platforms. So wherever you listen, it will be available. Thank you so much guys. Bye. Bye bye. 

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