May 10, 2022 • 34 mins
This week, host Louis Carr speaks with Dr. Ian Smith, American physician, author and television host best known for hosting The Doctors.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Louis Carr, and welcome to the Blueprint Connect podcast.
This podcast is an extension of the Blueprint Men Summer,
where we have consistently given men a prescription for growth,
not just for themselves, but also for their families and
their communities. During these podcasts, we will educate and motivate
(00:21):
our listeners about entrepreneurship, careers, finances, health and wellness, and
even relationships. So tell someone you know to look out
for us weekly. On today's podcast, Doctor in Smith. I
guess I could call him, uh, celebrity workout guys, celebrity doctor,
(00:44):
just a celebrity. He's been on every talk show on
the planet. Dr Smith. Welcome, Louis, thank you so much.
Please call me he and of course, and I'm very
happy to join you for this conversation. And I guess
Dr and I should reveal to our audience that I
have the privilege of you being my neighbor. Yes, well
(01:08):
you were there first, so you know I followed you
into the neighborhood. This this is very exciting, specially at
a special time in our country when we're dealing with
so much from health to racial inequities in this country.
So it's the privilege to have you here today. Thank you,
uh dr. And you spent most of your career educated
(01:31):
and motivating people to eat better, exercise, live or healthier lifestyle.
How and why did you choose that path? It's interesting.
I don't know if I chose that path versus the
path choosing me. I was always planning on being a surgeon. Actually,
UM I went to medical school UM training for surgery.
(01:53):
UM I started doing my residency in orthopedic surgery. But then,
you know, the best laid plans, um I started working
as a medical journalist. When I was doing my internship
in the hospital in New York, I started working for
NBC News and UM I also I was doing that,
started writing for Time Magazine. I had my own column
(02:14):
and Time magazine. And I was a young guy in
the city, single, um not married, and so I had
so much free time. And I realized, and I was
writing my magazine column that so many of my readers
they were asking me questions about weight loss and nutrition
and fat burners. I could write an article about, you know,
(02:37):
the flu, and my email box would be full of
weight loss questions. I write an article about the time
and law scare way back in the day, and my
mailbox is full of fat burner questions. So I just said, man,
something's out here. And as a as a physician, a
medical student, we had no training whatsoever and nutrition zero
by the way, and so UM, I said, I gotta
(02:58):
learn this because I felt an obligation of my readers.
I felt like they were asking me these important questions
and I didn't have the answers to them. And so
random house UM asked me, they send me an email,
uh and said, we love your column. Do you want
to write a book? I said, of course, who doesn't
want to write a book, And they said, you can
choose whatever you want. And so one of my first
books was called The Take Control Diet. And the reason
(03:20):
why I wrote that book is because I wanted that
to be some of a guide to all my readers
of my column who would ask me for so many
years about nutrition, weight loss, and exercise. So that's how
I really got into It wasn't by design. It was
feeling that I needed to answer um that question, all
those questions semi readers actually had. So that then when
(03:42):
you were in college, where you going down the path
of medicine or journalism, all right, I interview Dr Vats,
who is the first African American Dean of the Walter
Cronkite School of Journalism. So what path where you going down? Medicine.
(04:04):
I'd always wanted to be a doctor. In fact, I
wanted to be a neurosurgeon. And what happened was when
I got into medical school at the University of Chicago UM,
I actually met an anchor for NBC in Chicago. Gentleal,
you may know my name of Art Norman. And I
met him at an evening gala and my girlfriend at
the time was not my wife, who was also in
(04:25):
the Universicago Law school. We went to the fancy dinner
because we were struggling students with no money and this
was a nice free meal. But at this meal, and
this is why I tell people all the time, young
people particularly, it's so important network. At this dinner, I
saw the guy who I had watched every morning on
the morning news and I went to medical school class
and I saw him and I just said to him,
(04:46):
I want to be your intern, just like that, and
he said, absolutely, come on down to the station. And
I wanted to do that because I was finishing up
medical school and I knew it was the last time,
probably for a long time, I'd be able to do
something that was not better than relating, because once you
enter medical school and then go to the residency, it's
years and years. And so I said, let me take
(05:07):
this shot. And it happened, and I fell in love
with the business of journalism, the art of journalism, and
I decided to combine that with my medical degree and
experience with journalism, and I became a medical journalist. Wow,
that's that's absolutely amazing. So I know you focused a
(05:29):
lot on all communities, but specifically the Black community. What
are some of the historical barriers to us living a
healthy lifestyle? I know there are many, but what are
some of the key historical barriers. Let me give you
three it. The first is a lack of willingness to
(05:53):
acknowledge what is healthy and what is not healthy. And
let me explain that a little more. You know, African
Americans are very we are very proud people, and we
do not like people to judge us or to misrepresent us.
We love who we are and we should love who
we are. We come from a great line of resilient survivors. However,
(06:17):
that being said, for a long time, I believe we
have confused healthiness with aesthetics. And by that I mean that,
you know, the business that we tend to be curveer,
we tend to be fuller bodied. That's an aesthetic thing,
(06:38):
and we have to separate that from aesthetic versus health implications.
And so one of the barriers has been trying to
get African Americans to realize the desire to get us
to lose weight and to reduce our fat and eat
healthier is not making a judgment call on your aesthetic
how you look. Rather, it's about trying to reduce your
(07:00):
risk for all these diseases that we tend to lead
the categories in heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, you
name it, we're leading all these categories. So that's one thing.
The second thing, obviously, is our culinary culinary history, how
we eat. You know, a lot of we come from
the South and the Southern cuisine, which I grew up on.
(07:20):
By the way, even though my grew up in Connecticut,
my grandparents are from the South, and so they cooked
that type of cuisine, and so we have grown up
with the type of cuisine that while it's very tasty, uh,
tends not to be very health promoting, and it's very
difficult to get people to break away from that style
of eating. And you compound that, by the way, with
(07:43):
lack of financial resources, particularly in urban areas where access
to good food is not there, and um, what people
tend to get easily tends to not be very healthy.
So that's number two. Number three I think is that,
um a lack of knowledgey. You know, we're so worried
(08:04):
about being cast a certain way or being judged in
a certain way, we don't tend to acknowledge kind of
where our faults are. And we have to understand that
acknowledging where our shortcomings shortcomings are is an acknowledgement that
helps us move forward. It's not to be pejorative or
(08:25):
to be negative. It's to help us understand this is
where we are now, we know where we need to go,
and so we have to as African Americans, have to
have a real conversation and acknowledge where we are, where
we are, where we fall short, to give us the
inspiration to move forward. We'll be right back with more
(08:47):
of my interview after this quick break. Do you think
a lot of times doctor and we fall short because
we don't know what healthy is or looks like. Wow,
that's a wonderful question, by the way, and it's a
(09:10):
very eloquent question because the lack of education, particularly for
African Americans, I believe, particularly when it comes to health,
has been one of the greatest obstacles for us to
increase our life longevity or lifespan as well as the
quality of our lives. Uh. Listen, medicine and health can
(09:30):
be very difficult. It can be very esoteric, very inside baseball,
and so you have to have people who are able
to communicate the message. I've been doing this almost twenty
five years. I'm just one person, but you need a
whole complicated people who are communicating to our people and
helping them understand the realities and dispel some of the
myths that have plagued us for so long. When you
(09:53):
get superstars, celebrities, I won't mention any names, but this
has happened recently COVID. When you get celebrities who are
very much in our communities saying things that are completely
a scientific that are completely wrong from a medical standpoint,
but because people look up to them, they listen to
their music, they watch their movies, people follow them. That
hurts us and people like myself. I'm not a celebrity
(10:16):
like some of these singers and actors, and I'm sitting
here trying to educate people on the real science. It's
very difficult for my voice to be heard versus the
voices that really don't have an understanding or a basis
and real science. So um, it's it's the education part
is critical for us. We have to be more educated.
The other part, by the way, we need more black doctors.
(10:38):
And you know Dr Oz and I just had a
conversation today. Uh. He has a campaign and more Black
doctor's campaign that I'm working with him on because we
need to get more of our people communicating the message.
There is something inherently cultural about an African American physician
or a nurse or health care provider and talking to
an African American patient. I'm not saying that white, non
(11:00):
black doctors and medical professionals can't do it, but studies
have shown that when people who look like you and
talk like you and come from where you come from
communicate that message, it's received in a much better way.
Well I know that personally, Uh, doctor and my mother
died at My father died at fifty nine, and I
(11:24):
had a friend who was a physician who basically said, Lewis,
it's gonna be hard for you to live past fifty
unless you make some dramatic transformational changes because you have
this history and these genes that if you don't do
(11:47):
something dramatic, you're gonna die even earlier. Because my grandparents
died in their sixties, so now my parents are died
in the fifties. So for me, it was like a
wake up call and I got on a path to
determine to sort of break the chain. That's why when
(12:08):
people look at me now they always grow You're so skinny.
What happened. All of that was just really intentional to
sort of break that chain. So how do we help
our community break the chain of these historical challenges. What
is your message to sort of help them do that? Well,
(12:31):
my message has been consistent since I started doing this,
which is I'm honest and open, and sometimes the message
is tough to hear. Sometimes people like that was a
tough message you received that, Lewis, unless you make some
dramatic transformation, you're gonna die early. That's a tough message. Again,
it was so tough his mind. His wife was angry
(12:53):
at him, saying, you're a doctor. How do you just
say that so coldly to him? That's right, that's right.
And and if the message is not spoken in the
right way from the right source, it could be a problem.
And so the first thing that we need you to
to solve this is to get not just the doctor
Egan's of the world. We need to get many communicators
(13:15):
from different backgrounds to be able to try to communicate real,
scientifically credible messages to our people. We have to educate. Uh,
that's just where it starts, Louis. If we don't explain
things to people and break it down, what is high
blood pressure? Why do these foods contribute to high blood pressure?
(13:36):
They're not going to understand, like I understand physiology and
all that kind of stuff. I'm not expecting that. But
they need to be able to understand the basic causal
relationship between what we eat and how we behave and
decisions to make and the impact on our health. So
the first thing is education, and not just from doctors
but from people who have influence. Influencers need to be
(13:57):
able to do this. The second thing Lewis is, we
have to really concentrate on making access to good health
care available to our people. So many of our people, unfortunately,
for all kinds of reasons, just don't get access to
quality care. They get access to some care, but that
care is not quality. People are people who are are
(14:18):
under resourced and don't have money should walk into a
health clinic in any urban environment and get the same
level of care and experience that someone who walks into
a clinic and an affluent and more posh area, And
unfortunately that doesn't happen. And so the interface that our
(14:39):
people have with the medical community and the health community,
unfortunately interface is not a good interface. And therefore that
mars the experience and how someone's gonna receive the message. Right.
If you walk into a clinic and the security guard
of the receptionist is rude, popping, they're gum, not paying
(15:01):
attention to you, that's not a good experience, right, And
so how we interface with the system has to change.
And the last thing I would say about how we
resolve this is we have to do a better job
with our kids. We have to start earlier, right. We
can't wait into our kids are in college or demo
(15:21):
graduate from high school. We got to start talking about
farm to table right in the beginning with kids are
five and six and teach them these things because it
was a lot of times studies them shell that kids
are the ones who bring the message back home to
the family. And so I think we need to make
a better, more concerted effort of educating our children. Sod
(15:45):
In COVID nineteen has sort of ravaged our community, and
we read things that the underlying conditions that we have
is sort of have effected that. But it's also are
information lifestyle. How would you address people right now? As
(16:09):
we know we have low vaccine rates in our community?
How would you address the people who have not made
the decision to get the vaccine? And I know that's
a tough one Louis as a medical professional, as a scientist,
as a humanitarian, how our people and others let's talk
(16:34):
about our people, how our people have behaved and made
decisions during this pandemic. Has been one of the most
disheartening periods of my life professional life, because my grandfather
used to say, if I tell you that that building
(16:55):
is on fire, if you decide to walk into that build,
you get it's very difficult when you know what building
is on fire and you are streaming and yelling to
the top of your loans this building is on fire,
don't go in it. And you constantly see a line
of people, for whatever reason, deciding they're going to go
(17:16):
on step building. That's what's happened with COVID nineteen. As
it relates to African Americans, we have an we have
a we have a mistrust understandably by the way, with
the medical community for some of the experiments that have
happened in the past. Everyone knows it, they get it.
I understand it, no doubt about it. So it's fair.
But there's a difference between having skepticism and some mistrust
(17:40):
versus being vulnerable to complete mythical creations, lies, misperceptions, and
being deceived. Those are two very different things. And unfortunately,
here we are we are the most vulnerable to this
IRIS because of our underlying conditions I mentioned before, we're
(18:04):
the most vulnerable. Therefore, we need vaccines the most, and
we need masks and social distancing and all types of
mitigating factors the most. And yet here we are with
all range of reasons of why we shouldn't do it,
and It's very frustrating, Lewis. It hurts me um the
(18:26):
number of our brothers and sisters who are in the
ground unnecessarily, Uh, is ridiculous. And then you turn around
and to be very honest with you, you you hear you
know some celebrities, some singers recently speaking against the vaccine.
I mean, you know I'm not an electrician. Okay, Dr
Ian Smith is not electrician. You do not want to
(18:47):
listen to me about you know, how to fix the
wiring in your house. That's just not all that do.
I mean, I can say what I want to say,
but I'm not a reliable source. And to have as
many people as we've had during this pandemic who are
not medical professionals, who don't know a thing about science
to have a virology the study of viruses to stand
up and make the statements they've made has been so infuriating,
(19:10):
literally infuriating. And and history is going to look back
at this time and history is going to call it
like it is, which is that a lot of people
have misled and sent people to their graves unnecessary. Wow,
dcor and I have another friend, Uh, I think you
know Dr Courtney how Well, and I always tell him, Oh,
(19:34):
you clearly can do what I do. I know you
can do what I do, but I can't even think
about doing what you do right to your point of
getting the right source of information from the right people,
you are dead on it. You've got a new book out,
(19:54):
guy that's doing extremely well. Tell us about that new book. Yeah. So,
my most recent book is called fast Burn, The Power
of Negative Energy Balance, and basically it's a nine week
program that is I wrote this bookbook. It's my twenty books.
I want to do something special. I wrote this book
based on all the reasons why people say they can't
follow a plan. So there's alcohol in the program, there's
(20:19):
meat in the program, there's pasta, there's pizza, there's pancakes.
So you're not deprived of all these foods that you
tend to miss when you're on a program. But what
I do is I and introduced those foods in a way,
in a healthier way, so you still have the taste,
but you're not over consuming and they're not hiding calories.
And and nine weeks people whose on average about twenty
(20:41):
pounds um. And it has some intermittent fasting in there,
which is all the rate and people really love the
program of all my books, low is people say that
this is the easiest plan that I've built because it's
so realistic. It's foods accessible, you don't need to belong
to a gym. There's a whole chapter on at home
exercise you can do without any equipment. So fast burns
a program that has helped lots of people and people
(21:04):
like it. Tell people how they can get it. Yeah,
So anywhere Amazon dot com, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walart
dot Coomas it's everywhere. I think. If you can't get it,
if you can't buy, go to your local library and
get it for free. I just want people to have
you You You don't have to buy the book, go to
your library and get it. That's great. We'll be right
(21:28):
back with more of my interview after this quick break. So,
speaking of books, you said you wrote twenty Yeah, yeah,
I'm gonna tell you, sorry, DCR And I met a
guy about the name of Harvard mckatt okay who wrote
(21:50):
Swimming with the Sharks, right well known book. And he
asked me when I met and we were sitting next
to each other on a plane, he said, when are
you going to your book? And I'm like, why would
you think I would write a book? He said, because
every living person has at least one book in them
(22:11):
as an author. What do you think about that statement?
Is that true or fault? It's interesting you just say
that I just finished reading a critique from someone and
they said just the opposite. They said, everyone thinks that
they have a book in them, but it's absolutely not
true this review. Now, this is what I think, though.
(22:33):
I think what he probably made been trying to convey
is all of us, in some way or fashion, have
an interesting story that could make a book. Whether or
not you could write it, whether or not you have
the patience to get it out, that's a whole different
ball game. But you have a book in you in
(22:54):
the sense of we all have unique stories and and
someone's gonna find that story interesting. So I believe there
are a lot of people that have books in them
and simply don't believe that they do, or are afraid
of the process of righting because it's can be rigorous.
And so I think that a lot of great stories
unfortunately not shared because people are not able to overcome
(23:16):
those obstacles. Yea dr and we here at waymaker believe
that every successful person has had a way maker in
their life. You clearly have been extremely successful. Tell us
about some of the way makers in your life. Well,
(23:36):
you know, my family is the first. You know, my
grandfather and grandmother and my mother, and I grew up
with other father and my mother was my mother and
my father, but my grandparents and mother really really really
set the table for me. Um. I am the man
who I am today because of them. It's that simple
watching them work hard, sacrifice, be resilient, uh fail and
(23:58):
and get back up. Just experiencing that as a child,
I wouldn't trade. I didn't have a very wealthy from
financial standpoint childhood, but I was wealthy and lessons. We
were wealthy and lessons and love and hard work, and
so that they're my first waymakers. Um. And then I
have to say, you know, along the way, it's interesting.
(24:19):
Along the way you meet people who just make a
difference in your life. Are Norman, the anchor from NBC
in Chicago, who allowed me to become his intern. Paula Madison,
who at one point was the highest ranking African American
person in news, hired me at NBC in New York.
Here I was never had a job in my life.
(24:39):
It's the number one market. She hires me, she made away.
So there's so many people along the way Lewis who
believed in me, encouraged me, inspired me, which is why
it's so important for me to do the same thing.
Because we stand on the shoulders of those who come
before us, many that we will never meet or know
the names of. And I think that that as the
(25:00):
great legacy of black people, UM, is that we've always
believed that the next generation should have it easier than
our generation and have it better. And I think that's
part of what being a way maker is making a
way for others uh to pursue and reach their dreams.
What's the best advice anyone has ever given you professionally?
(25:21):
Go there mhm. When I was young, UM and getting
and getting into this game, someone said to me that
no matter what you decide to do in your career,
make sure you understand your projects in your endeavors from
(25:41):
the bottom up and the top down. And what they
were trying to tell me was, even if you're high up,
you need to understand what the work and how to
do the work of those who may be lower on
the total poll, and that has served me so well
in my life low his career because I am very
(26:03):
curious by nature. But all the things that I do,
whether it's writing, whether it's doing campaigns, pr I know
how to do all of it from the beginning because
I do it. And people will say to me. When
I first started writing books and promoting books, I was booking.
I didn't have a p RG. I was booking myself
on TV shows and radio shows. So I understood how
(26:25):
do you put together a pitch, how do you sell
the idea to a station. So when I, you know,
got bigger and bigger and I needed to hire people
to do that, I now understood what they needed to
do and I could tell if they were doing a
good job or a bad job. You know, I understood it.
And so that has served me well in my career
(26:45):
is understanding, as they say, from suit to nuts, understanding
how it works at all levels. When you have that
kind of knowledge, I think that makes a big difference,
and it allows you to be more productive and more insightful.
And I at the privilege of interviewing a world class
athlete not so long ago, and I asked him, how
(27:07):
did he stay motivated during COVID and all of these
other barriers and obstacles. And he looked at me with
a straight face and he said, I don't. He said,
I'm just disciplined. I'm not always motivated. What do you
think about that statement. I think that statement was absolutely fantastic.
(27:28):
It's fantastic because there's so much in that statement. You know,
I am a very motivated person. Naturally, I'm motivated by
lots of things, by the way, small things motivate me.
But what he said is so important because I'm also
a very disciplined person. And I get that from my family,
my way makers, but I also get it from sports,
(27:48):
from a big sportsman, where I where the rigors of
discipline are so critical. I teach my kids this. And
so what he's saying is that sometimes you're sad, you're
not feeling up to it, you're just not in the mood,
so you don't have the motivation to do it, but
you have a discipline that says it's got to get done,
and that's critical. And so I would think, I love that,
(28:10):
and I'm going to use that, you know, But I
would say to people that it's the combination of discipline
and motivation that helps you achieve most of what you
want in life. Because if it's like an engine with
it's like a plane with two engines. If one engine
fails the other end, you can still carry it. And
(28:32):
that's what motivation and discipline do for you. So I
think that is absolutely a very insightful, um in eloquent
way of saying kind of what it is that keeps
you going. I would have to say the same for me.
Uh doctn as as we kind of come to a close,
what you have been doing is more important now than
(28:53):
ever before as we struggle through this process of keeping
our health together. There give our audience the top tide
things they can do to get started, not to get
it done, just to get started, because it's just like
any workout, you just gotta get there, all right. So
(29:16):
what are those things that people can do to get
started today? The first thing anybody should do is to
sit down and have a conversation with yourself. Number one.
It all starts above the neck and between the ears,
It starts in your head. Being on safari in Kenya,
(29:37):
I keep telling people was life changing because here you
are out in the vast you know, savannah of Africa
with wild animals around you, no kind of you know,
advanced technology. You're just out in the bush. And what
that allows you to do is is it gives you perspective.
And I think that what we have to start with
(29:59):
number one is gaining a perspective about our lives, where
we've been, where we want to go. If we have
that conversation, and it's gonna be an honest conversation too,
by the way, if you have that honest conversation first,
then you can proceed to the next four items. So
after that conversation, then the second thing is how do
(30:19):
you put together a strategy. People don't understand how to
set goals Lewis and you as a business person, you
know the whole idea about smart goals. People don't set
goals properly, and I think that's a big reason why
people don't succeed, which because they don't have the right goals.
So making the right goals both short term and long term,
(30:39):
I think is the next thing that you gotta do.
Number three. Now you have to devise the strategy idea.
You have to devise a strategy, find a strategy, or
get someone to help you develop a strategy. But you
have to have a strategy. People say, Hey, dr Ian,
I want to lose dirty pounds, Okay, I'm good with that.
I'm gonna start eating better than exercising, okay, But what's
(31:01):
your real strategy though, that's not a strategy, that's a concept,
And so people have to have real specific strategies about
how they are going to reach those good goals, those
smart goals that they said. Number four, you have to
figure out what your priorities are. And this sounds cliche,
(31:21):
but you can't attack everything once. You have to really
decide what is most important and give it really some
kind of rating. And when you get that priorities, that
kind of gives you a guidance of where you need
to focus and when you need to focus on those
different items. So the fourth thing is your priorities. So
I'd say to people, hey, list five or ten things
(31:43):
and literally try to put them in order. Uh. And
the last thing I would say is that one of
the best things I think people can do is to
surround themselves with good people and good support, find other
people who are successful who are positive. Studies have shown
by the way that positive a positive attitude can be contagious.
(32:07):
Good habits can be contagious. Find people who are positive,
who are are moving forward in their life, and associate
more with them rather than people who are aren't happy,
who aren't optimistic, who see things always see the glass
us as being you know, half empty. And so I
think that with those five things, that those things in
(32:30):
order can get people on the right path to try
to reach some of their goals. DC Den, this has
been wonderful. Thank you so much for informing, educating our audience. Uh,
you do it every day for a living. We thank
you for that. That in itself is being a way maker.
So we appreciate that and we look forward to many,
(32:52):
many more conversations with our way maker community. This ain't
the last time they're gonna hear from you. Well, Lottis,
thank you for inviting me, and thank you for doing this.
By the way, I know, you know, we all do
things in our own series. We often don't get credit
for it, but something like this is going to change.
If it just changes one person's life, to me, it
makes a big difference. And you doing this and talking
(33:14):
to people and and getting wisdoms from people is going
to change a lot of lives. So I appreciate that.
God damn before we tell people how they can stay
in tucht with you, because a lot of people are
following you and get advice from you on social media
and all that. So tell people how they can stay
in touch with you absolutely. Instagram is at dr Ian
Smith spelled the doctor out I A N. Smith, and
(33:37):
my Twitter is d r dr Ian I A N. Smith.
So d r Ian Smith on Twitter, spell the doctor
out on Instagram, and you know, send me a d M.
I try to keep up with everyone who sends you
a message.
Hi, I'm Louis Carr, and welcome to the Blueprint Connect podcast.
This podcast is an extension of the Blueprint Men Summer,
where we have consistently given men a prescription for growth,
not just for themselves, but also for their families and
their communities. During these podcasts, we will educate and motivate
(00:21):
our listeners about entrepreneurship, careers, finances, health and wellness, and
even relationships. So tell someone you know to look out
for us weekly. On today's podcast, Doctor in Smith. I
guess I could call him, uh, celebrity workout guys, celebrity doctor,
(00:44):
just a celebrity. He's been on every talk show on
the planet. Dr Smith. Welcome, Louis, thank you so much.
Please call me he and of course, and I'm very
happy to join you for this conversation. And I guess
Dr and I should reveal to our audience that I
have the privilege of you being my neighbor. Yes, well
(01:08):
you were there first, so you know I followed you
into the neighborhood. This this is very exciting, specially at
a special time in our country when we're dealing with
so much from health to racial inequities in this country.
So it's the privilege to have you here today. Thank you,
uh dr. And you spent most of your career educated
(01:31):
and motivating people to eat better, exercise, live or healthier lifestyle.
How and why did you choose that path? It's interesting.
I don't know if I chose that path versus the
path choosing me. I was always planning on being a surgeon. Actually,
UM I went to medical school UM training for surgery.
(01:53):
UM I started doing my residency in orthopedic surgery. But then,
you know, the best laid plans, um I started working
as a medical journalist. When I was doing my internship
in the hospital in New York, I started working for
NBC News and UM I also I was doing that,
started writing for Time Magazine. I had my own column
(02:14):
and Time magazine. And I was a young guy in
the city, single, um not married, and so I had
so much free time. And I realized, and I was
writing my magazine column that so many of my readers
they were asking me questions about weight loss and nutrition
and fat burners. I could write an article about, you know,
(02:37):
the flu, and my email box would be full of
weight loss questions. I write an article about the time
and law scare way back in the day, and my
mailbox is full of fat burner questions. So I just said, man,
something's out here. And as a as a physician, a
medical student, we had no training whatsoever and nutrition zero
by the way, and so UM, I said, I gotta
(02:58):
learn this because I felt an obligation of my readers.
I felt like they were asking me these important questions
and I didn't have the answers to them. And so
random house UM asked me, they send me an email,
uh and said, we love your column. Do you want
to write a book? I said, of course, who doesn't
want to write a book, And they said, you can
choose whatever you want. And so one of my first
books was called The Take Control Diet. And the reason
(03:20):
why I wrote that book is because I wanted that
to be some of a guide to all my readers
of my column who would ask me for so many
years about nutrition, weight loss, and exercise. So that's how
I really got into It wasn't by design. It was
feeling that I needed to answer um that question, all
those questions semi readers actually had. So that then when
(03:42):
you were in college, where you going down the path
of medicine or journalism, all right, I interview Dr Vats,
who is the first African American Dean of the Walter
Cronkite School of Journalism. So what path where you going down? Medicine.
(04:04):
I'd always wanted to be a doctor. In fact, I
wanted to be a neurosurgeon. And what happened was when
I got into medical school at the University of Chicago UM,
I actually met an anchor for NBC in Chicago. Gentleal,
you may know my name of Art Norman. And I
met him at an evening gala and my girlfriend at
the time was not my wife, who was also in
(04:25):
the Universicago Law school. We went to the fancy dinner
because we were struggling students with no money and this
was a nice free meal. But at this meal, and
this is why I tell people all the time, young
people particularly, it's so important network. At this dinner, I
saw the guy who I had watched every morning on
the morning news and I went to medical school class
and I saw him and I just said to him,
(04:46):
I want to be your intern, just like that, and
he said, absolutely, come on down to the station. And
I wanted to do that because I was finishing up
medical school and I knew it was the last time,
probably for a long time, I'd be able to do
something that was not better than relating, because once you
enter medical school and then go to the residency, it's
years and years. And so I said, let me take
(05:07):
this shot. And it happened, and I fell in love
with the business of journalism, the art of journalism, and
I decided to combine that with my medical degree and
experience with journalism, and I became a medical journalist. Wow,
that's that's absolutely amazing. So I know you focused a
(05:29):
lot on all communities, but specifically the Black community. What
are some of the historical barriers to us living a
healthy lifestyle? I know there are many, but what are
some of the key historical barriers. Let me give you
three it. The first is a lack of willingness to
(05:53):
acknowledge what is healthy and what is not healthy. And
let me explain that a little more. You know, African
Americans are very we are very proud people, and we
do not like people to judge us or to misrepresent us.
We love who we are and we should love who
we are. We come from a great line of resilient survivors. However,
(06:17):
that being said, for a long time, I believe we
have confused healthiness with aesthetics. And by that I mean that,
you know, the business that we tend to be curveer,
we tend to be fuller bodied. That's an aesthetic thing,
(06:38):
and we have to separate that from aesthetic versus health implications.
And so one of the barriers has been trying to
get African Americans to realize the desire to get us
to lose weight and to reduce our fat and eat
healthier is not making a judgment call on your aesthetic
how you look. Rather, it's about trying to reduce your
(07:00):
risk for all these diseases that we tend to lead
the categories in heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, you
name it, we're leading all these categories. So that's one thing.
The second thing, obviously, is our culinary culinary history, how
we eat. You know, a lot of we come from
the South and the Southern cuisine, which I grew up on.
(07:20):
By the way, even though my grew up in Connecticut,
my grandparents are from the South, and so they cooked
that type of cuisine, and so we have grown up
with the type of cuisine that while it's very tasty, uh,
tends not to be very health promoting, and it's very
difficult to get people to break away from that style
of eating. And you compound that, by the way, with
(07:43):
lack of financial resources, particularly in urban areas where access
to good food is not there, and um, what people
tend to get easily tends to not be very healthy.
So that's number two. Number three I think is that,
um a lack of knowledgey. You know, we're so worried
(08:04):
about being cast a certain way or being judged in
a certain way, we don't tend to acknowledge kind of
where our faults are. And we have to understand that
acknowledging where our shortcomings shortcomings are is an acknowledgement that
helps us move forward. It's not to be pejorative or
(08:25):
to be negative. It's to help us understand this is
where we are now, we know where we need to go,
and so we have to as African Americans, have to
have a real conversation and acknowledge where we are, where
we are, where we fall short, to give us the
inspiration to move forward. We'll be right back with more
(08:47):
of my interview after this quick break. Do you think
a lot of times doctor and we fall short because
we don't know what healthy is or looks like. Wow,
that's a wonderful question, by the way, and it's a
(09:10):
very eloquent question because the lack of education, particularly for
African Americans, I believe, particularly when it comes to health,
has been one of the greatest obstacles for us to
increase our life longevity or lifespan as well as the
quality of our lives. Uh. Listen, medicine and health can
(09:30):
be very difficult. It can be very esoteric, very inside baseball,
and so you have to have people who are able
to communicate the message. I've been doing this almost twenty
five years. I'm just one person, but you need a
whole complicated people who are communicating to our people and
helping them understand the realities and dispel some of the
myths that have plagued us for so long. When you
(09:53):
get superstars, celebrities, I won't mention any names, but this
has happened recently COVID. When you get celebrities who are
very much in our communities saying things that are completely
a scientific that are completely wrong from a medical standpoint,
but because people look up to them, they listen to
their music, they watch their movies, people follow them. That
hurts us and people like myself. I'm not a celebrity
(10:16):
like some of these singers and actors, and I'm sitting
here trying to educate people on the real science. It's
very difficult for my voice to be heard versus the
voices that really don't have an understanding or a basis
and real science. So um, it's it's the education part
is critical for us. We have to be more educated.
The other part, by the way, we need more black doctors.
(10:38):
And you know Dr Oz and I just had a
conversation today. Uh. He has a campaign and more Black
doctor's campaign that I'm working with him on because we
need to get more of our people communicating the message.
There is something inherently cultural about an African American physician
or a nurse or health care provider and talking to
an African American patient. I'm not saying that white, non
(11:00):
black doctors and medical professionals can't do it, but studies
have shown that when people who look like you and
talk like you and come from where you come from
communicate that message, it's received in a much better way.
Well I know that personally, Uh, doctor and my mother
died at My father died at fifty nine, and I
(11:24):
had a friend who was a physician who basically said, Lewis,
it's gonna be hard for you to live past fifty
unless you make some dramatic transformational changes because you have
this history and these genes that if you don't do
(11:47):
something dramatic, you're gonna die even earlier. Because my grandparents
died in their sixties, so now my parents are died
in the fifties. So for me, it was like a
wake up call and I got on a path to
determine to sort of break the chain. That's why when
(12:08):
people look at me now they always grow You're so skinny.
What happened. All of that was just really intentional to
sort of break that chain. So how do we help
our community break the chain of these historical challenges. What
is your message to sort of help them do that? Well,
(12:31):
my message has been consistent since I started doing this,
which is I'm honest and open, and sometimes the message
is tough to hear. Sometimes people like that was a
tough message you received that, Lewis, unless you make some
dramatic transformation, you're gonna die early. That's a tough message. Again,
it was so tough his mind. His wife was angry
(12:53):
at him, saying, you're a doctor. How do you just
say that so coldly to him? That's right, that's right.
And and if the message is not spoken in the
right way from the right source, it could be a problem.
And so the first thing that we need you to
to solve this is to get not just the doctor
Egan's of the world. We need to get many communicators
(13:15):
from different backgrounds to be able to try to communicate real,
scientifically credible messages to our people. We have to educate. Uh,
that's just where it starts, Louis. If we don't explain
things to people and break it down, what is high
blood pressure? Why do these foods contribute to high blood pressure?
(13:36):
They're not going to understand, like I understand physiology and
all that kind of stuff. I'm not expecting that. But
they need to be able to understand the basic causal
relationship between what we eat and how we behave and
decisions to make and the impact on our health. So
the first thing is education, and not just from doctors
but from people who have influence. Influencers need to be
(13:57):
able to do this. The second thing Lewis is, we
have to really concentrate on making access to good health
care available to our people. So many of our people, unfortunately,
for all kinds of reasons, just don't get access to
quality care. They get access to some care, but that
care is not quality. People are people who are are
(14:18):
under resourced and don't have money should walk into a
health clinic in any urban environment and get the same
level of care and experience that someone who walks into
a clinic and an affluent and more posh area, And
unfortunately that doesn't happen. And so the interface that our
(14:39):
people have with the medical community and the health community,
unfortunately interface is not a good interface. And therefore that
mars the experience and how someone's gonna receive the message. Right.
If you walk into a clinic and the security guard
of the receptionist is rude, popping, they're gum, not paying
(15:01):
attention to you, that's not a good experience, right, And
so how we interface with the system has to change.
And the last thing I would say about how we
resolve this is we have to do a better job
with our kids. We have to start earlier, right. We
can't wait into our kids are in college or demo
(15:21):
graduate from high school. We got to start talking about
farm to table right in the beginning with kids are
five and six and teach them these things because it
was a lot of times studies them shell that kids
are the ones who bring the message back home to
the family. And so I think we need to make
a better, more concerted effort of educating our children. Sod
(15:45):
In COVID nineteen has sort of ravaged our community, and
we read things that the underlying conditions that we have
is sort of have effected that. But it's also are
information lifestyle. How would you address people right now? As
(16:09):
we know we have low vaccine rates in our community?
How would you address the people who have not made
the decision to get the vaccine? And I know that's
a tough one Louis as a medical professional, as a scientist,
as a humanitarian, how our people and others let's talk
(16:34):
about our people, how our people have behaved and made
decisions during this pandemic. Has been one of the most
disheartening periods of my life professional life, because my grandfather
used to say, if I tell you that that building
(16:55):
is on fire, if you decide to walk into that build,
you get it's very difficult when you know what building
is on fire and you are streaming and yelling to
the top of your loans this building is on fire,
don't go in it. And you constantly see a line
of people, for whatever reason, deciding they're going to go
(17:16):
on step building. That's what's happened with COVID nineteen. As
it relates to African Americans, we have an we have
a we have a mistrust understandably by the way, with
the medical community for some of the experiments that have
happened in the past. Everyone knows it, they get it.
I understand it, no doubt about it. So it's fair.
But there's a difference between having skepticism and some mistrust
(17:40):
versus being vulnerable to complete mythical creations, lies, misperceptions, and
being deceived. Those are two very different things. And unfortunately,
here we are we are the most vulnerable to this
IRIS because of our underlying conditions I mentioned before, we're
(18:04):
the most vulnerable. Therefore, we need vaccines the most, and
we need masks and social distancing and all types of
mitigating factors the most. And yet here we are with
all range of reasons of why we shouldn't do it,
and It's very frustrating, Lewis. It hurts me um the
(18:26):
number of our brothers and sisters who are in the
ground unnecessarily, Uh, is ridiculous. And then you turn around
and to be very honest with you, you you hear you
know some celebrities, some singers recently speaking against the vaccine.
I mean, you know I'm not an electrician. Okay, Dr
Ian Smith is not electrician. You do not want to
(18:47):
listen to me about you know, how to fix the
wiring in your house. That's just not all that do.
I mean, I can say what I want to say,
but I'm not a reliable source. And to have as
many people as we've had during this pandemic who are
not medical professionals, who don't know a thing about science
to have a virology the study of viruses to stand
up and make the statements they've made has been so infuriating,
(19:10):
literally infuriating. And and history is going to look back
at this time and history is going to call it
like it is, which is that a lot of people
have misled and sent people to their graves unnecessary. Wow,
dcor and I have another friend, Uh, I think you
know Dr Courtney how Well, and I always tell him, Oh,
(19:34):
you clearly can do what I do. I know you
can do what I do, but I can't even think
about doing what you do right to your point of
getting the right source of information from the right people,
you are dead on it. You've got a new book out,
(19:54):
guy that's doing extremely well. Tell us about that new book. Yeah. So,
my most recent book is called fast Burn, The Power
of Negative Energy Balance, and basically it's a nine week
program that is I wrote this bookbook. It's my twenty books.
I want to do something special. I wrote this book
based on all the reasons why people say they can't
follow a plan. So there's alcohol in the program, there's
(20:19):
meat in the program, there's pasta, there's pizza, there's pancakes.
So you're not deprived of all these foods that you
tend to miss when you're on a program. But what
I do is I and introduced those foods in a way,
in a healthier way, so you still have the taste,
but you're not over consuming and they're not hiding calories.
And and nine weeks people whose on average about twenty
(20:41):
pounds um. And it has some intermittent fasting in there,
which is all the rate and people really love the
program of all my books, low is people say that
this is the easiest plan that I've built because it's
so realistic. It's foods accessible, you don't need to belong
to a gym. There's a whole chapter on at home
exercise you can do without any equipment. So fast burns
a program that has helped lots of people and people
(21:04):
like it. Tell people how they can get it. Yeah,
So anywhere Amazon dot com, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walart
dot Coomas it's everywhere. I think. If you can't get it,
if you can't buy, go to your local library and
get it for free. I just want people to have
you You You don't have to buy the book, go to
your library and get it. That's great. We'll be right
(21:28):
back with more of my interview after this quick break. So,
speaking of books, you said you wrote twenty Yeah, yeah,
I'm gonna tell you, sorry, DCR And I met a
guy about the name of Harvard mckatt okay who wrote
(21:50):
Swimming with the Sharks, right well known book. And he
asked me when I met and we were sitting next
to each other on a plane, he said, when are
you going to your book? And I'm like, why would
you think I would write a book? He said, because
every living person has at least one book in them
(22:11):
as an author. What do you think about that statement?
Is that true or fault? It's interesting you just say
that I just finished reading a critique from someone and
they said just the opposite. They said, everyone thinks that
they have a book in them, but it's absolutely not
true this review. Now, this is what I think, though.
(22:33):
I think what he probably made been trying to convey
is all of us, in some way or fashion, have
an interesting story that could make a book. Whether or
not you could write it, whether or not you have
the patience to get it out, that's a whole different
ball game. But you have a book in you in
(22:54):
the sense of we all have unique stories and and
someone's gonna find that story interesting. So I believe there
are a lot of people that have books in them
and simply don't believe that they do, or are afraid
of the process of righting because it's can be rigorous.
And so I think that a lot of great stories
unfortunately not shared because people are not able to overcome
(23:16):
those obstacles. Yea dr and we here at waymaker believe
that every successful person has had a way maker in
their life. You clearly have been extremely successful. Tell us
about some of the way makers in your life. Well,
(23:36):
you know, my family is the first. You know, my
grandfather and grandmother and my mother, and I grew up
with other father and my mother was my mother and
my father, but my grandparents and mother really really really
set the table for me. Um. I am the man
who I am today because of them. It's that simple
watching them work hard, sacrifice, be resilient, uh fail and
(23:58):
and get back up. Just experiencing that as a child,
I wouldn't trade. I didn't have a very wealthy from
financial standpoint childhood, but I was wealthy and lessons. We
were wealthy and lessons and love and hard work, and
so that they're my first waymakers. Um. And then I
have to say, you know, along the way, it's interesting.
(24:19):
Along the way you meet people who just make a
difference in your life. Are Norman, the anchor from NBC
in Chicago, who allowed me to become his intern. Paula Madison,
who at one point was the highest ranking African American
person in news, hired me at NBC in New York.
Here I was never had a job in my life.
(24:39):
It's the number one market. She hires me, she made away.
So there's so many people along the way Lewis who
believed in me, encouraged me, inspired me, which is why
it's so important for me to do the same thing.
Because we stand on the shoulders of those who come
before us, many that we will never meet or know
the names of. And I think that that as the
(25:00):
great legacy of black people, UM, is that we've always
believed that the next generation should have it easier than
our generation and have it better. And I think that's
part of what being a way maker is making a
way for others uh to pursue and reach their dreams.
What's the best advice anyone has ever given you professionally?
(25:21):
Go there mhm. When I was young, UM and getting
and getting into this game, someone said to me that
no matter what you decide to do in your career,
make sure you understand your projects in your endeavors from
(25:41):
the bottom up and the top down. And what they
were trying to tell me was, even if you're high up,
you need to understand what the work and how to
do the work of those who may be lower on
the total poll, and that has served me so well
in my life low his career because I am very
(26:03):
curious by nature. But all the things that I do,
whether it's writing, whether it's doing campaigns, pr I know
how to do all of it from the beginning because
I do it. And people will say to me. When
I first started writing books and promoting books, I was booking.
I didn't have a p RG. I was booking myself
on TV shows and radio shows. So I understood how
(26:25):
do you put together a pitch, how do you sell
the idea to a station. So when I, you know,
got bigger and bigger and I needed to hire people
to do that, I now understood what they needed to
do and I could tell if they were doing a
good job or a bad job. You know, I understood it.
And so that has served me well in my career
(26:45):
is understanding, as they say, from suit to nuts, understanding
how it works at all levels. When you have that
kind of knowledge, I think that makes a big difference,
and it allows you to be more productive and more insightful.
And I at the privilege of interviewing a world class
athlete not so long ago, and I asked him, how
(27:07):
did he stay motivated during COVID and all of these
other barriers and obstacles. And he looked at me with
a straight face and he said, I don't. He said,
I'm just disciplined. I'm not always motivated. What do you
think about that statement. I think that statement was absolutely fantastic.
(27:28):
It's fantastic because there's so much in that statement. You know,
I am a very motivated person. Naturally, I'm motivated by
lots of things, by the way, small things motivate me.
But what he said is so important because I'm also
a very disciplined person. And I get that from my family,
my way makers, but I also get it from sports,
(27:48):
from a big sportsman, where I where the rigors of
discipline are so critical. I teach my kids this. And
so what he's saying is that sometimes you're sad, you're
not feeling up to it, you're just not in the mood,
so you don't have the motivation to do it, but
you have a discipline that says it's got to get done,
and that's critical. And so I would think, I love that,
(28:10):
and I'm going to use that, you know, But I
would say to people that it's the combination of discipline
and motivation that helps you achieve most of what you
want in life. Because if it's like an engine with
it's like a plane with two engines. If one engine
fails the other end, you can still carry it. And
(28:32):
that's what motivation and discipline do for you. So I
think that is absolutely a very insightful, um in eloquent
way of saying kind of what it is that keeps
you going. I would have to say the same for me.
Uh doctn as as we kind of come to a close,
what you have been doing is more important now than
(28:53):
ever before as we struggle through this process of keeping
our health together. There give our audience the top tide
things they can do to get started, not to get
it done, just to get started, because it's just like
any workout, you just gotta get there, all right. So
(29:16):
what are those things that people can do to get
started today? The first thing anybody should do is to
sit down and have a conversation with yourself. Number one.
It all starts above the neck and between the ears,
It starts in your head. Being on safari in Kenya,
(29:37):
I keep telling people was life changing because here you
are out in the vast you know, savannah of Africa
with wild animals around you, no kind of you know,
advanced technology. You're just out in the bush. And what
that allows you to do is is it gives you perspective.
And I think that what we have to start with
(29:59):
number one is gaining a perspective about our lives, where
we've been, where we want to go. If we have
that conversation, and it's gonna be an honest conversation too,
by the way, if you have that honest conversation first,
then you can proceed to the next four items. So
after that conversation, then the second thing is how do
(30:19):
you put together a strategy. People don't understand how to
set goals Lewis and you as a business person, you
know the whole idea about smart goals. People don't set
goals properly, and I think that's a big reason why
people don't succeed, which because they don't have the right goals.
So making the right goals both short term and long term,
(30:39):
I think is the next thing that you gotta do.
Number three. Now you have to devise the strategy idea.
You have to devise a strategy, find a strategy, or
get someone to help you develop a strategy. But you
have to have a strategy. People say, Hey, dr Ian,
I want to lose dirty pounds, Okay, I'm good with that.
I'm gonna start eating better than exercising, okay, But what's
(31:01):
your real strategy though, that's not a strategy, that's a concept,
And so people have to have real specific strategies about
how they are going to reach those good goals, those
smart goals that they said. Number four, you have to
figure out what your priorities are. And this sounds cliche,
(31:21):
but you can't attack everything once. You have to really
decide what is most important and give it really some
kind of rating. And when you get that priorities, that
kind of gives you a guidance of where you need
to focus and when you need to focus on those
different items. So the fourth thing is your priorities. So
I'd say to people, hey, list five or ten things
(31:43):
and literally try to put them in order. Uh. And
the last thing I would say is that one of
the best things I think people can do is to
surround themselves with good people and good support, find other
people who are successful who are positive. Studies have shown
by the way that positive a positive attitude can be contagious.
(32:07):
Good habits can be contagious. Find people who are positive,
who are are moving forward in their life, and associate
more with them rather than people who are aren't happy,
who aren't optimistic, who see things always see the glass
us as being you know, half empty. And so I
think that with those five things, that those things in
(32:30):
order can get people on the right path to try
to reach some of their goals. DC Den, this has
been wonderful. Thank you so much for informing, educating our audience. Uh,
you do it every day for a living. We thank
you for that. That in itself is being a way maker.
So we appreciate that and we look forward to many,
(32:52):
many more conversations with our way maker community. This ain't
the last time they're gonna hear from you. Well, Lottis,
thank you for inviting me, and thank you for doing this.
By the way, I know, you know, we all do
things in our own series. We often don't get credit
for it, but something like this is going to change.
If it just changes one person's life, to me, it
makes a big difference. And you doing this and talking
(33:14):
to people and and getting wisdoms from people is going
to change a lot of lives. So I appreciate that.
God damn before we tell people how they can stay
in tucht with you, because a lot of people are
following you and get advice from you on social media
and all that. So tell people how they can stay
in touch with you absolutely. Instagram is at dr Ian
Smith spelled the doctor out I A N. Smith, and
(33:37):
my Twitter is d r dr Ian I A N. Smith.
So d r Ian Smith on Twitter, spell the doctor
out on Instagram, and you know, send me a d M.
I try to keep up with everyone who sends you
a message.
Host
Louis Carr
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