The Doctors with Dr. Ian Smith

We talk with Dr. Ian Smith, Host of the Emmy Award-winning Television Show, THE DOCTORS AND New York Times Best Selling Author about the current state of health and how we can teach our patients to eat better and live longer.

Dr. Ian Smith

https://www.thedoctorstv.com/doctors/ian-smith https://doctoriansmith.com

Transcript:

don't allow yourself to be circumscribed by the perceptions and the expectations of others you're a medical doctor but you're more than a medical doctor you're a human being you're a father you're a brother you're you're many things you can still do those other things medicine should not define you it should be part of who you are

i'm just so happy that you actually decided to dress up for our our special esteemed guests normally you wear some some dirty scrubs

yeah ladies and gentlemen we have a special guest today welcome back to recommended daily dose i am dr clinton coleman along with my colleague dr siraj sugar this this guy needs no introduction but i'm going to try to get through this introduction he is the host of nationally syndicated emmy award-winning television show the doctors on cbs you've also seen them on rachel ray show bh1 celebrity fit club oprah the view dr oz steve harvey your time's best-selling author uh the shred revolutionary diet clean over lean mind over matter and many more he also has a new book out a novel called the unspoken which we'll get into but we wanted to welcome to the show we have dr ian smith in the building welcome sir hey guys thanks for having me i appreciate it oh thanks for being here really appreciate it want to get an idea of what you've been into and if you can give us some guidance on you know giving the message out to people to eat healthy especially during this time so and also how to stay lean as you can see clinton has let himself go a little bit um you know he's really he's used to fill up that jack a lot better as you can see i'm i'm still pretty lean so if you could help him out also i would appreciate he is my friend so i appreciate the help yeah thanks guys no i've been uh i've been really busy actually i you know in the beginning of this whole nonsense i say nonsense because the way the country's handled this has been just so deplorable on every level but in the beginning of it i stated on ig on instagram that i was just going to stay active um and that i was going to be productive and that there are things in life you can control things in life you cannot control and so i really am happy that i focus my energy on the things that i can control uh so writing a lot lifting a lot working out in the basement hanging out with my family and connecting with them playing tennis outside things that i know i can do and schedule and feel good about i've done so it's been a really productive uh quarantine uh period for me pandemic for me it's a weird thing to say sure considering over 250 000 of our fellow americans are in the ground unfortunately um i'm very frustrated by that um i think it's terrible uh but i also feel like um you know i'm not the president united states and i'm not wasn't asked to be on the coronavirus task force um and had i been i would have had a different opinion but that being said guys listen you guys know this you guys on the front lines um in a different way than i am um and we all have to do what we can do uh to try to make it better but by the same token you got to take care of yourself too right and so you know you can't lose your identity um and your life basically um doing the other thing so it's it's it's been a weird time but like i said i've been blessed and um i i see the end of the tunnel approaching us and i'm excited about it let me let me ask you a question you guys just celebrated your 2000th episode on the on the doctor's uh congratulations as a position in the media how has like your focus changed as far as getting the message out to patients or i guess your your audience now you know because now that we see things have changed as far as health and wellness with the quarantine it's such a thing as the quarantine 15 where you know i have patients who either do very well as far as their diet and lifestyle or they have the opposite um yeah how do you address that well it's interesting so on the show um you know we are not live so unfortunately we're not on like good morning america or the today show where we can respond right away right to something that happens but you know the the pandemic's been a while for so many months so we're able to talk about it and one of the big parts is basically how people are coping whether it's weight gain or relationship issues um sexual issues we dating we cover all these things on the show but the way issue is one obviously that's near and dear to me being a person who writes a lot of diet books um and my whole thing has been to people listen you know it's interesting we always talk about we don't have enough time right uh because we're always so busy guess what you got a lot of time now at home control your environment um organize yourself and really be serious about improving yourself once again back to things you can control improve how you eat improve how you move improve your sleep all these things that we tend to let go because we're in such a frenetic paced world on the show we talk about how people need to reconnect and so i'm constantly on the show trying to encourage people to uplift people to challenge people to be at the end of the show i say you know be a little better each day you know what i mean little improvements make a big difference so it's a tough thing we're trying to tackle on the show uh we're trying to we're not trying we are bringing credible voices to talk about coronavirus and vaccinations and medications that's our responsibility on the doctors and so we're taking it very seriously now i appreciate it you know we've talked about on our own show um the physical toll and health told us to take and not just physically though also mentally right i mean this is a huge thing mentally as well people don't realize that depression anxiety even among healthcare workers you know nurses doctors you know things i've seen things clinton's seen it's almost like a ptsd with the second surge occurring across the country so um you know it's so like you said it's so important uh you know to take care of your health i will tell you as and i'm sure a lot of doctors and nurses i'm sure you've talked to uh it is exhausting you know doing this mentally physically and so you know i bought a peloton i try to get home and disconnect and um and work out and do the best i can but it's not always easy sometimes people have more time but they're not using that time wisely so i like what you said about organizing yourself and reconnecting with just the availability of time is not necessarily going to be conducive to a healthier lifestyle but it's really using that time in an efficient manner so uh i appreciate those words for sure yeah you know i'm big on efficiency people are asking me how do i do so much writing books doing tv i got a family it's all about efficiency you know um i really try to make use of my time wisely so you're not binge watching shows on netflix and amazon yeah i i don't think are you kidding me oh my goodness you still find time for that yeah yeah yeah you got to you know the crown just came out and uh i love the crowd i love the club on netflix so uh you know so i'm watching that but um but i really watched tiger king did you watch tiger king of course of course that was that that got me through the first phase of kobet i have to be honest yeah tiger king um lots of stuff i watch i watch harry bosch on amazon prime sure you know um the thing is this the thing is that people have to compartmentalize if you're good at compartmentalizing right able to have focus i tell my kids all the time you know focus focus it's so and i learned that as an athlete you know um and it's really helped me in life so when i'm writing my novels i'm focused and so i don't need to spend the same amount of time someone else has to spend when they get distracted easily when i sit down to write i'm ready to go when i'm on the tv show in the studio i'm ready to go i'm focused on the show but when i leave the show and i leave the set right whatever my next endeavor is that's where my focus is i think that really helps me be more efficient and more productive and i also have a lot of energy i just i've always been that way um and i listen to my body when i'm tired you know i do i go to sleep right like i run run run run run my body says that's it it could be i have luxury it could be three o'clock in the afternoon or three in the morning boom i'm gone uh and i just think that people have to be self-aware you know sure you don't know how to make it work now earlier you mentioned um the government's response to the pandemic um siraj and i have dealt with a lot of social issues and tried to speak out on things do you think there's a role for doctors particularly in that that area outside of just talking about medicine should we just you know speak on things that affect our patients or just be like the boring stuff yeah some people say you know stay in your lane you know other people say no racism is a public health issue so i think it's the shoot of a horrible uh analogy shut up interesting i'm gonna tell you guys something i gotta tell you this whole pandemic is the lane of doctors sure um and doctors were not allowed to be up front and those doctors who were pushed to the front were compromised politically yeah and it has cost us dearly um it's really really terrible and um it frustrates me i can't tell you how much it frustrates me to see a fellow physician who took the same courses i took to allow pseudoscience and politically motivated misinformation to be propagated it's so frustrating you know for example you know i probably shouldn't call them out but you know sanjay did an interview with berks on cnn yep you know i'm not going to watch that interview because we needed that interview eight months ago right right we needed you to sit down and talk to the country in a real scientifically credible way eight months ago now you want to do it now you want to do it and sanjay is sanjay gonna ask her how could you stand behind someone who was spewing absolute scientific falsehoods how could you stand there with a straight face and in that company and not walk away from it right it's just it boggles the mind you could tell on her face that she was so uncomfortable and it's just as a physician you're probably maybe she should have been more vocal i think that's what he's saying if you're uncomfortable you know what you do walk yeah walk look is is the is the appointment and the lights and the name is is it that important to you that you will compromise your integrity as a physician no my answer is leave say you know what guys this isn't for me this isn't what i do this isn't my oath i'm gonna leave yeah why not do that why it's terrible it's terrible yeah you know we talk about the pandemic but there's also an infodemic right just a a uh misinformation that's out there and it's incredible how you have these um really slickly produced uh youtube or other social media videos uh you know out there just telling people no it's made up in a lab people are trying to control your mind the vaccine is gonna control your body you know i mean and you're it's actually surprising to me as a physician and as a human being how seemingly educated people uh can kind of fall for these type of things right and there's actually studies showing that during times of high emotional stress um i.e a pandemic that very well-meaning people can be easily swayed and that's what i've seen you know i've had people come and say don't you think this is all made up don't you think this is a uh a democratic virus you know or you know i always tell people that this is an equal opportunity uh harbinger of death and destruction it doesn't care who you are what you are it's clearly outlined socio-economic disparities in this country right we know that people of minorities lower socioeconomic status are uh disproportionately afflicted by this we've talked about it before and you already know this and i'm sure you've talked about it but there's still people out there who think there's a agenda whether it's political or otherwise uh with this virus and it's mind-boggling how people um will will uh propagate that kind of misinformation any second year medical student can say and understand that a virus looks for a host that's that's what it doesn't matter virus has no discriminating ability whatsoever it needs a live host to live in and to propagate it's that simple and so i just feel like honestly and i don't want to you know keep beating the rails here but i just feel like you know well i just feel like the doctors who are quote unquote in charge like talk to people you know talk to people in plain regular english with real emphasis don't sit up there in front of the mic in front of the country and use all this medical ease that people have understand and data and graphs and charts no you sit there and tell people very simple that's my point if right in the beginning they had stood up and said guys this is a virus this is how viruses work okay then this is what a virus will do to you when we can't control the virus and it propagates in your lungs i mean the kind of straight talk that i've tried to do my whole career sure i just felt frustrated that the people who were given the light and the platform didn't do it but now you want to come do it well no you got 250 000 americans in the ground now if you say 250 and you know models suggest another 150 total 400 000 uh by early next year if things don't change around so you know you make the mention we're all physicians we're healers but the idea of being educators and you know you using platforms you use your incredible platform across so many different aspects of media uh you know to a small much smaller level clint and i try to do it whenever we do the local news in new york but i tell you i i do enjoy it and just i can sense your passion because it's not medical meetings it's just you know taking complex medical issues dissecting them into very simple things that the average person non-medical person can understand and i personally i know i'm sure we all do feel very gratified if someone can say oh okay that's what that means you know because the idea of a virus and looking for a host i don't think most people get that right so it's something as simple as that that just all the virus wants to do isn't give a damn who you are as long as you have some dna or rna that they can incorporate themselves into and hijack your system um they're good to go so that's a point the next challenge is going to be trying to convince people who historically are scared of vaccines to actually take a vaccine that may help them of course they're scared to take a vaccine wouldn't you be afraid when i mean people aren't as stupid as the government want thanks people are yeah wouldn't you be afraid to take a vaccine that one was rushed that everyone understands is rushed that two people are making pronouncements that the vaccines will be ready by an election and you don't think that's a coincidence that there's a political charge to that come on so so people who we need to take the vaccine we need 75 of the country to take the vaccine for this would be effective a lot of intelligent smart people well many people are like uh i don't know about that why because now they've been their minds you know have been twisted because they're doubtful and understandably so so now people like us have to use our platforms to educate people about like one of my instagram posts in the next couple days is i'm going to explain how vaccines work in a very simple way i try to show people on a white i'm going to get a white board and i'm going to say this is how the vaccine works it's not going to give you coronavirus because people think that it will they may get coronavirus of course so you know like you said earlier it's people like us who have the platforms we're the ones we're the soldiers that have to go out and really educate the people and we can't like me like i'm frustrated by the people who actually have the national light like they should have been doing it but that's okay i can't sit here and cry over spilled milk sure what i have to do is galvanize people like you we all have a voice big or small and then it becomes a network of us educating the public our brothers and sisters and neighbors and letting them know what the truth is and that's the only way to beat these guys is that we have to speak up and stand up as physicians and and educators uh immediate personalities say this is how it works i said we really appreciate what you do as far as educating large massive audiences about you know health and wellness i want to get into your books i don't know if uh saraj had a question before we get into your books no i just want to comment i like how the sunlight is almost like dissecting your head there in the in the picture so i found that that was a little comical interlude i'm trying to pick a good rule i think both dr ian and i both appreciated that in the science nicely it's like sorry i had to someone had to say something you know so it's like a witness

i want to know more about the book so um so historically your books have been about nutrition wellness lifestyle what made you decide to write a novel the unspoken available now yeah there it is if you need it if you need an actor if you need an actor for the lead that's me i'm ready well actually it's just that option to be a tv series fingers crossed a network will buy it or a streaming service then coleman denzel washington want to be but okay if you want to take it to bollywood you call me so i'm just letting you know there you go you know i gotta be honest with you guys i've always been a lover of fiction i've always read fiction i've always written fiction for myself i love good stories um and it was interesting because i've also always been a guy who liked science right so i always knew i wanted to be a doctor but you know growing up i'm much older than you guys growing up you know i was always kind of taught that you chose one thing and you stayed in that lane yeah yeah i never understood that that just didn't make sense to me i'm like well let's see if the average like life expectancy for a black guy is 70 something years old why do i want to do one thing for 75 years i want to do as much as i can i ain't got much time right so um i always love fiction and novels jean my genre i love is always suspenseful thriller and i'll never forget when um so i started writing when i was in college uh fiction but then when i was in med school uh my second year um we had the guy who wrote the house of god the medical novel oh that is actually required reading for all interns the fat man's rules are are true to this day gomez go to they can always hurt you more you know yes yes i gotta go back and read it actually but um it's incredible but he came and visited us and i was just as a student i was up at dartmouth at the time and i was just thinking wow how cool like here's a doctor and he decides to write this novel that's very interesting and engaging and funny and great stories so that i really think said to me hmm i can still be a doctor and i can still write and write something that's not just straight medical like you know you know non-fiction medical but write some creative fun and that gave me the idea so the unspoken by the way is my third novel it is um based on a character named ash kane is african-american uh private investigator he used to be a detective with chicago police department he leaves because he won't participate in a police shooting the cover-up of a bad police shooting he leaves becomes a private investigator to take on very select cases in and around chicago and his first case is a very wealthy girl a real estate heiress who goes missing young girl and her mother comes down to the city to hire our guy ash kane to find her missing daughter and then the ride begins it's fun it twists its turns it's up and down but it's it's a great distraction uh from all the stuff that's going on now and people really like this i'm happy people are loving the book you know what uh we were very fortunate to get a copy um and i look forward to dissecting and reading it uh you know very soon so we appreciate you sending us guys to be an indian hero like there's plenty of indian heroes one of them is is on the screen so don't worry about it um can i ask you just a quick question because just go back to your earlier um your thoughts on diet if you could just summarize um just just a quick bullet like i'm a pescetarian you know i don't um culturally being from india we don't need a lot of we don't eat red meat anyway and i gave up chickens i'm a pescetarian but what is kind of the basis of you know there's so many people say you have asked 10 people there's 12 different diet books they follow what are kind of the the universal themes that you kind of would ascribe to in terms of diet nutrition um you know not only the average person can follow but even myself or clinton for example yeah so my most recent one is this one which is called clean clean lean all right um and the idea behind this book is very simple i take clean eating which means reducing processed ingredients okay there are way too many processed ingredients you know in our food chain but i take clean eating and i combine it with intermittent fasting um and there are two major types of intermittent fasting there's um trf time restricted feeding where right take the 24 hour clock and you break it up into a fasting window in the feeding window you've this is the most popular but then there's also the 5-2 fasting where you take five days of eating whatever you want in two days of eating 800 calories or less so two types of intermittent fasting but this combines the time restricted feeding fasting and so basically it's this guy's it's the idea that one if you eat cleaner foods they tend to be lower in calories right they tend also not to mess up your hormones and your metabolism which a lot of these process ingredients can do by the way as a as a side effect and then if you do some intermittent fasting um you tend to actually drive your body uh into the mode of burning your fat for energy which is more efficient right and so yeah so i think those two those two you know clean eating by itself is very successful right intermittent fasting by itself can be successful i believe in synergy so combine the two of them together and you know you get the result which i think let me let me interject let me interject which i think is the um the issue now that i see like seeing patients is that they're home so they're cooking more theoretically eating less processed foods but they're gaining weight because they're eating all day because they have nothing to do so i think they they've accomplished the the goal of eating better and cleaner and less processed foods but they're just in the kitchen all day because they're bored so i think that's an excellent point that you brought up is having some kind of regimen where you you know you eat you stop eating and you let your body metabolize the calories that you took in i even tell i have patients tell me to do the emotional eating right which can be counterintuitive just keep eating all day and i mean i think clinton should come clean because i i mean how many times a week do you eat popeye's fried chicken popeyes and years there's a line outside when they when they came out with that new chicken you were the first in line i'm just saying be honest with yourself be honest with dr ian also and i look like five guys you say clean food so you know some people have come on and talked about plant-based and that's not for everyone you know i get that but you're saying like even if you're eating meat um eat the most high quality freshest less so if you're gonna eat meat eat fresh meat don't eat uh bologna right don't eat processed meat that's the idea so interesting you say that so my next book actually in april of 2021 is called fast burn which is a no sorry 2021 fast burn i knew maple that would be a diet book in 2022 i'm writing a book that is a plant-based book actually so i'm going to talk about plant-based so that's uh down the road a little bit but listen here's the idea the idea is that people have to understand clean eating doesn't mean eating like a vegetarian though you can be if you want to sure it means it means eating the food as cleanest as possible no hormones no antibiotics making sure your beef has been grass-fed i mean you know these things by themselves they aren't a big deal but in an additive way right it becomes important right so you know people say yeah well does that mean eat all organic no doesn't mean eat all organic at all organics a whole different situation or you know and i believe i subscribe to the belief that you only need to eat the dirty dozen organic which means those things that you're going to eat the skin of when it comes to fruits and vegetables otherwise you know why do you need to eat an organic banana i mean there's no different traditionally right uh between that the only reason to eat an organic fruit is if you're going to eat the skin of the fruit and you're like so like blueberries raspberries right right apples if you're gonna eat the skin if you're worried that there might be and by the way in most cases there's not but if you're worried that there might be pesticide residue right on the fruit or vegetable of the skin then you may choose to eat organic but to be very honest with you guys eating traditionally farmed fruits and vegetables and the vast majority of cases is completely fine but if you're really if you're really anal about it and you're really worried about it then you eat organics only when you're going to eat the skin of something makes sense you know what if i play dell's advocate because some patient will say well doc that's fine you know you can afford to go to whole foods but it's expensive at least in some people's mind eat healthy and if you're talking about even much lower socioeconomic status and you have to be always we always have to be empathetic about this we're giving advice well that's easy for you to say doc but you know for me i can feed a family of four at mcdonald's or fast food for 20 bucks and you know it's it's high fat food it fills up the kids so how do what do we how do you kind of answer that because i know people will sometimes push back when i speak about that to patients or others three ways yeah the first way is it may be inexpensive to eat foods from fast food restaurants like that but it's extremely expensive when you get sick no sure so the money you're saving now by eating those foods and being able to feed your and i get the financial pressures i'm not i'm not insensitive to it i get it but i have a long-term view the money i'm saving on the meals and the food is going to cost me down the road with obesity and heart disease and high blood pressure and high cholesterol and to me as a physician and just as a person there's no monetary value i can place on not having to take medications every day for high blood pressure or for diabetes right like i don't care how much money i save i don't want that stuff okay you guys know that is life-altering and it's not fun so that's the first thing is understanding what the long-term play is the other part of it is to be very honest with yes eating healthier foods eating organic foods which are not always tied together but eating those types of foods yeah they're a little more expensive but they're not the margins of expense is not what it used to be yeah 15 years ago when i started writing these books organic food was you know 50 60 percent more expensive healthier food that were much more expensive right but because of the demand in the marketplace that the average joe wants healthier foods thankfully manufacturers have responded that's a very excellent point that's a good point right they've made healthier foods more affordable once again still a little more expensive but the margin in the old days this was regular food this was healthier food it was like this right now it's like this so you know then the last thing i want to say is sure it's all about investment right people complain about the expense of healthier food but they don't complain that they're buying a forty dollar case for a phone for a piece of plastic thanks so much that's right right they don't complain about cell phone bills when you look at your bill by the way almost 30 or 35 percent of it is in taxes and fees has not do your service so people spend money where they want to spend money and to use the excuse that healthier food is more expensive well i want to invest in my health and the longevity of my life all day long i don't know what your investment should be but you got to think about what your investment should be also yeah well said oh that's an excellent excellent point you know you have uh inspired us to be a better physician you know before we wrap up you mentioned like in the old school of medicine you take you know you go to med school uh internship residency fellowship whatever so now they had med school when you were growing up exactly but you know the idea that's what you do until you drop dead you just keep doing it and i think physicians of today and they're better for it are uh interested in doing many different things and you know you are a clear example and honestly quite honestly you know giving us goals you know of doing so many different things all tying back to health but you know in different realms whether it's fiction non-fiction uh obviously all the media that you do it's very inspiring i must say um before we wrap it up can you just tell us where uh you know listeners can find you social media instagram facebook all that kind of stuff sure my instagram is at dr ian smith spell the doctor out ian smith my twitter is dr ian smith i just joined tick tock so i have one follower uh you're not gonna be doing dances are you are you gonna be doing those uh no but i may we'll see what happens you know i gotta get you know you gotta relate man you gotta go where people are so that's true street cred is on the line though you know well that's all right that's all right that's i feel good i'm old man so i you know i don't have any embarrassment but now i've done my thing uh older old school it's okay that's okay yeah my tic tac is uh the official dr ian d-r-i-a-n and my website is dr ian smith.com spell the doctor out guys listen i gotta tell you something you know in all seriousness we need more doctors of color yes of mixed backgrounds and when we get doctors of color we don't always have to be clinicians we need doctors and government we need doctors in business doctors on tv we need doctors in law we need doctors everywhere and i think that when i first started doing this people looked at me like i was crazy like what like you matched in orthopedic surgery and you want to do tv why would you what a waste this is way back in the day and doctors would shun me and they wouldn't i'd go to any i was a correspondent for nbc news i'd go and interview doctors about new papers that were very interesting and very helpful and you know oh my goodness no they were too important to talk to me well fast forward 15 years and my goodness you know doctors are almost willing to pay you to interview them you know what i mean like whole things change so i'm glad you guys are doing what you're doing uh you know i'm gonna retire and you know someone needs to take the baton and i keep encouraging young guys like you like don't allow yourself to be circumscribed by the perceptions and the expectations of others you're a medical doctor but you're more than a medical doctor you're a human being you're a father you're a brother you're you're many things you can still do those other things medicine should not define you it should be part of who you are well said i think that i don't think either of myself on that note we cannot i cannot possibly uh touch that so i'm going to simply say we are very grateful and thankful uh for having dr ian come on our show today it's been an incredible discussion eye-opening inspiring uh for both myself and my my inspiring colleague over there clinton coleman um of course this has been recommended daily dose please tune in and listen in and we'll see you next time dr ian thank you so much