It Takes a Village Interview: Tom Rifai M.D.

By Kevin Pereau

Tom Rifai MD is the inventor of the 5 Keys to Optimal Wellness and America’s Flexitarian lifestyle leader, is the founder of Reality Meets Science (www.realitymeetsscience.com), a forward thinking, customer journey focused digital wellness company.

We weren’t surprised that when we video chatted with Dr. Tom Rifai, he was taking a power walk through his neighborhood. Talking into his phone he stayed completely focused and on-topic every step of the way. As he walked, we got a visual tour of his neighborhood.

Tom is the primary author and online course director of Harvard’s “Nutrition and the Metabolic Syndrome,” program which integrates his 5 Keys to Optimal Wellness that he developed. It is one of the most popular Harvard online Lifestyle Medicine offerings, attended by more than 4,000 doctors and other healthcare providers worldwide. Tom has written extensively about those 5 keys and is currently writing a book based on what he calls a Flexitarian lifestyle that is based on them.

Tom, like many of the other leaders we speak with in this book, followed his own personal path to health. In his younger years, he was overweight. He didn’t exercise or follow a healthy diet. Yet you would never know that now. Tom is a fit ball of high energy, and he explains the process in terms that apply both to himself and to others.

“People think once they understand nutrition and the payoff, they will be motivated to change habits, lose weight, become healthier and enjoy other benefits,” Tom says, “I prefer to see the process not as depriving ourselves of anything, but as providing us the opportunity to achieve our life goals. Part of it centers on budgeting foods that we eat, not depriving ourselves. I avoid the terms good and bad regarding food because they don’t really mean anything.

“There’s nothing technically that I would consider off the menu. It’s all a matter of how often and how much you are eating, and what you are getting for the price. I would say that bargain you strike with what you eat will pay you back in the way you feel, the way you look, whether you can keep up with your grandchildren, whether you can travel the Galapagos, or whether you can maintain your sexual health until you’re 90. Things like that are real, not made-up. Those are real. motivators that can drive someone to understand that in food choices, it is a question of providing, not depriving.

“We can’t really compare a jelly bean to a navy bean,” Tom adds with a laugh.” I mean, they are completely different metabolic animals. It’s not smart to consider something as just carbs and not differentiate its calorie density, its fiber, its rate of glucose release based on its molecular structure, and just say they  are the same thing. Nutrition has to be filtered in a way that is sensitive to the individual. Their historical likes, dislikes, their ethnic background, their family. But ultimately, it is huge. Food is huge.

“My mindset is that I am not committed to changing my diet. But I am committed to maintaining my intellectual curiosity about how people think about nutrition.”

Rifai On Treating Type 2 Diabetes

Rather than focusing on diet and nutrition alone, the best approach is to address a number of issues that include not just diet but also hypertension, weight management, lipid dyslipidemia and the prevention of it. Tom  believes that sleep disruption is an invitation to poor health. And exercise is another key component of good health.

“Physical movement throughout the day is a key to better health for people who have diabetes,” Tom explains, “Breaking up movement throughout the day is critical, number one, in addition to exercise too.”

“All of these are part of the cardio metabolic spectrum,” Tom says.

Rifai On Tools to Measure Health

“I would say that your smart-scale has a role to play. It’s definitely convenient, but it’s hardly a body composition analysis. Nevertheless, if we’re looking at blood pressure, triglycerides, blood sugar, weight, that will typically tell us better than trying to give one a calorie target because it’s just an impossible target to actually get right.”

That statement that Tom just made seems so simple, but it is also very wise. For most of us, there are so many factors to monitor, so many dietary and other changes to make that it makes little sense to try to achieve health by fixating on only one or two of them.

The key, if you will, is making it easy and understandable to achieve.

As Tom was ending both his walk and our chat, he summed up it all up this way.

They 5 key areas to track are:

• Psychology – “The way we think about who we are and what we eat,”
• Nutrition – “We are what we eat.”
• Physical activity – “I like to keep it simple but be consistent.”
• Environments – “Your home, your work, your social determinants.”
• Accountability—“It’s your health”.

Tom explains, “Those five things – psychology, nutrition, activity, environments and accountability – make up the core aspects that almost anyone who wants to go through a transformation lifestyle change process needs to understand. And those are the areas where they generally need to build their skills.”

Now, let’s explore another business that has a dramatically different approach to think about nutrition – different, but equally effective.

About Tom Rifai

Tom Rifai MD is the inventor of the 5 Keys to Optimal Wellness; America’s Flexitarian lifestyle leader and is also the founder of Reality Meets Science (https://realitymeetsscience.com), a forward thinking, customer journey focused, digital wellness company.

Tom helps clients and patients achieve metabolic health, food behavior modification and transformational lifestyle change. He has accumulated over 20,000 hours of clinical and leadership experience directing and designing multidisciplinary intensive lifestyle intervention programs, including Henry Ford Health System, where his 5 Keys lifestyle change system is the gold standard for their metabolic health programs.

Tom is the primary author and online course director of Harvard’s “Nutrition and the Metabolic Syndrome,” program which integrates his 5 Keys to Optimal Wellness that he developed. It is one of the most popular Harvard online Lifestyle Medicine offerings, attended by more than 4,000 doctors and other healthcare providers worldwide. Tom has written extensively about those 5 keys and is currently writing a book based on what he calls a Flexitarian lifestyle that is based on them.

Follow Dr. Rifai on LinkedIn. 

You can read the full interview in Kevin’s book, It Takes a Village – Click here to get it on Amazon.