The 3 Foods You Will NEVER EAT AGAIN After Watching This! | Dr. William Li & Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes 0:00 We are about to dive in in this episode, all things healing the body, and losing weight, and preventing disease. That's what this is gonna be about. And I'm curious, before we get into these, these insights-

Dr. William Li 0:11 Yeah

Lewis Howes 0:12 ... if people follow the advice we give them today, if they start following some of these principles, how many more years do you think they'll be able to ex- extend on their lifespan if they just start applying some of the things that we're gonna talk about, and also the things that you have in your book?

Dr. William Li 0:29 You want a number?

Lewis Howes 0:30 Yeah. What's-

Dr. William Li 0:31 20.

Lewis Howes 0:31 20 years?

Dr. William Li 0:32 Yep.

Lewis Howes 0:33 You think we can extend life?

Dr. William Li 0:34 I think so, yeah.

Lewis Howes 0:35 Wow.

Dr. William Li 0:36 Yeah. We ought to be able to actually get ... I mean, look, I'm a medical doctor. We ought to be able to get people well into their 90s in-

Lewis Howes 0:43 Oh

Dr. William Li 0:43 ... really vibrant health, and the only things that actually keep us from getting there really are the impediments that we create for ourselves.

Lewis Howes 0:50 Hmm. What are those key impediments that we create for ourselves?

Dr. William Li 0:53 Habits, um, and that is, uh, a big umbrella for a lot of things that can actually take down and, uh, cripple our health.

Lewis Howes 1:00 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 1:01 Um, I would say, uh, access. That's, you know, an issue of society.

Lewis Howes 1:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:07 Uh, more people need to have equal access to things. And then I think, um, something that you talk about, which is self-doubt.

Lewis Howes 1:16 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:16 A lot of people doubt their ability to, um, uh, to claim their health, to be able to command their health. And one of the things that I really believe in, I mean, because I, I've seen this myself, I really try to get other people to practice it, is how do you overcome those self-doubts so that you feel armed, so that you are capable, and you're confident to be able to go out there and, and take back your health?

Lewis Howes 1:42 Right. Right. It's interesting because I feel like a lot of us have basic knowledge that you're supposed to eat good things, you're supposed to sleep a certain amount of hours, you're supposed to drink mostly water, and you're supposed to move your body. I feel like a majority of, of at least Americans know or have heard that at one point, right? Middle America has heard that at one point, if not many, many times. So we have the basic knowledge of living a healthy life, but why do you think we go against medical advice, holistic health, uh, practices, and wisdom of extending our life?

Dr. William Li 2:19 Because I think the idea of eat, move, sleep, smile, right? Those are the ... That, that's a bumper sticker.

Lewis Howes 2:25 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 2:25 All right? And everyone can wear that T-shirt or drive around with the bumper sticker, but actually knowing what to do is n- is, I, I think, compromised if you don't know the why. Why should you do it? Because that internalizes the reasons.

Lewis Howes 2:40 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 2:40 You know? And that what should give you the motivation. So again, you know, back to this whole idea of h- you have to be confident in order to be able to go out there step by step every single day to be able to take your health. You know, it belongs to you.

Lewis Howes 2:52 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 2:53 What I tell people is that health does not happen in the doctor's office. Healthcare does not happen in a doctor's office. That's sick care.

Lewis Howes 3:01 Right.

Dr. William Li 3:02 Healthcare actually happens when you're ... between the doctor's visits. That's what we gotta do for ourselves. And finally, the science is beginning to deliver on the whys. That's what's important.

Lewis Howes 3:13 The, the science, you said, are delivering on the whys?

Dr. William Li 3:15 Yeah. We're starting to understand why we should be doing things.

Lewis Howes 3:17 Really?

Dr. William Li 3:18 Yeah, why we should be sleeping, why we should be moving, why ... And you know, the, and they're also adding nuances to the what's because, you know, eat healthy things, whatever that means. Even when people talk about eat plant-based foods, well, why?

Lewis Howes 3:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 3:31 You know, what is it exactly? And to go beyond, you know, the hand waving, kale waving kinda stuff, I think that's ... Well, that's what I'm all about.

Lewis Howes 3:40 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 3:40 Getting to those details.

Lewis Howes 3:42 And what would you say are the three or five foods that people should avoid that will take care of a lot of these problems? If they just avoided a few key foods or ingredients, that would help them extend their life tremendously.

Dr. William Li 3:55 Yeah. Well, look, I'm gonna tell you them, but I wanna first say my research and sort of really what I've been trying to do is to tell people what they should add to their lives.

Lewis Howes 4:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 4:04 Because if you spend more time adding the good stuff to your life that you enjoy, there's just less room for the bad stuff. But if you want actually the answer to what are the sort of unquestionably bad things that if you were to really systematically remove, you're gonna be better off for it and live longer and better, I can tell you. Um, ultra-processed foods is one of them.

Lewis Howes 4:23 Yes.

Dr. William Li 4:23 Okay? Anything in a box that has, like, you know, 20 ingredients that you can't pronounce, that's a pretty good sign, and if you look cl- more closely, there are artificial preservatives, artificial coloring, artificial flavorings. You know the drill.

Lewis Howes 4:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 4:35 That's the stuff that's been, you know, flooding our nation really since the 1950s.

Lewis Howes 4:40 Mm.

Dr. William Li 4:40 And with a lot of marketing associated with it. So then it kind of, like, um, hypnotizes you to go for that. Um, that's one. Number two, I would say processed meats.

Lewis Howes 4:51 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 4:51 Now, look, I mean, we all grew up eating different kinds of processed meats, but you know that lunch meat that ... You know, the bologna sandwich that, you know, the-

Lewis Howes 4:59 Used to love that, yep

Dr. William Li 5:00 ... cafeteria lady-

Lewis Howes 5:01 Ugh

Dr. William Li 5:01 ... you know, your moms put in your lunch boxes. Look, um, the World Health Organization considers that a, a, a level one carcinogen.

Lewis Howes 5:10 Really?

Dr. William Li 5:10 Yeah. And so think about what that means, that a world authority on health has put a label on it.

Lewis Howes 5:17 Man.

Dr. William Li 5:18 All right? Doesn't mean that you can't eat it sometimes.

Lewis Howes 5:20 Right.

Dr. William Li 5:21 But if you eat it regularly, like a lot of people do, that's ... You wanna cut out. That's number two.

Lewis Howes 5:26 Okay.

Dr. William Li 5:26 Number three, soda, both regular soda and diet soda.

Lewis Howes 5:30 Ugh.

Dr. William Li 5:31 Now, look, I, I enjoy a soda every now and then, just like the next person.

Lewis Howes 5:36 Yes.

Dr. William Li 5:37 All right? However, most people don't realize there's, like, nine teaspoons of, of refined sugar in a typical can of soda.

Lewis Howes 5:45 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 5:46 And that overwhelms your metabolism, all right? And your body just can't handle that. It can handle a can, but you know those people who say, like, "I have a, I have a six-pack of soda every day"?

Lewis Howes 5:58 A day. That's crazy.

Dr. William Li 5:58 Yeah, it's crazy. Like, clearly you're not able to ... Forget about the word calorie It's just that you're flooding your system with things that challenge your metabolism, and there's no way it can actually handle that

Lewis Howes 6:10 And what happens to the system when you flood it with that much sugar at once, and then if you do it over and over every day for years?

Dr. William Li 6:18 When it ha- Okay. So when you put sugar in your body, it, the same, it... What happens is the same thing that happens if you put any kind of, a piece of fruit near, in your, in your body or anything healthy, broccoli. Um, your body will sense that it has food that's fuel, that's energy, calories, all right? And immediately, your body secretes hormones like insulin-

Lewis Howes 6:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 6:45 ... and that insulin basically says, "Hey, let's take any energy you got and let's put it into the fuel tank." All right? That's like pulling your g- your car over to the filling station and putting that nozzle in the gas tank.

Lewis Howes 6:55 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 6:56 And so the insulin rises, and you're, you're taking the energy you need and storing everything that you don't need at the moment, all right? Now, your, uh, regular cells are running off this fuel. Anything extra are gonna s- get stuffed into these tiny little fat cells, normal, healthy fat cells. We need our fat, okay? They're our, they're our fuel tanks.

Lewis Howes 7:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 7:15 But if it, but nine tablespoons of sugar, you're gonna be filling it more and more and more and more. Those fat cells are gonna expand, and when they run out of space because you've actually filled up the water balloon, your body's gotta make more fat cells.

Lewis Howes 7:27 Wow.

Dr. William Li 7:27 All right? And they, those get filled up as well, and that's what happens day after day after day after case after case of soda. And I'll tell you, people say, "Well, I'll, I'll, then I'll have the non-nutritive, uh, soda. I'll have the, the diet soda."

Lewis Howes 7:41 And what does that do?

Dr. William Li 7:42 It's worse.

Lewis Howes 7:43 Diet soda's worse?

Dr. William Li 7:44 Ironically, it's worse.

Lewis Howes 7:45 Come on. How so?

Dr. William Li 7:46 The reason is diet soda with artificial sweeteners actually doesn't overwhelm your metabolism directly. What it does is that the non-nutritive sweeteners that don't get absorbed in your body as calories, sugar-free-

Lewis Howes 8:00 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 8:01 ... go down and poison your gut microbiome-

Lewis Howes 8:04 Come on

Dr. William Li 8:04 ... your gut bacteria. Now, a lot of people say, "Well, you know, the evidence isn't really there." I can tell you as a scientist following this field that the evidence is stacking up. You damage your ecosystem of your critical health bact- healthy bacteria, and that healthy bacteria commands our immune system, lowers inflammation, helps us heal from the inside out, and even controls how we feel, our emotional wellness.

Lewis Howes 8:27 Ooh.

Dr. William Li 8:27 All right? So the bottom line is that either way you cut it, if you need to slake your thirst on a super hot day, you know, there are other things that you can drink.

Lewis Howes 8:37 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 8:37 If you need to drink a soda... And listen, I've been in that spot. It's super hot.

Lewis Howes 8:42 Yes.

Dr. William Li 8:42 I just gotta have a-

Lewis Howes 8:43 Something

Dr. William Li 8:43 ... something. All right. Well, you, you name the brand. One can, and then realize that, you know, your body's gonna have to recover from that. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 8:50 Yeah. [laughs] It's gonna take a day or two until you get back on track.

Dr. William Li 8:53 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 8:53 Wow. And so if you had to choose between regular soda with all the sugar or diet soda with all the other ingredients, which do you prefer?

Dr. William Li 9:03 I used to play this game with a friend of mine.

Lewis Howes 9:04 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 9:05 Um, you know, would you be eaten, rather be eaten by a white shark or drop into a volcano?

Lewis Howes 9:09 [laughs] Which one? [laughs] They're both bad. Yeah.

Dr. William Li 9:13 You know what? Honestly, from what I know as a scientist, I'd rather have the regular soda.

Lewis Howes 9:16 Really?

Dr. William Li 9:17 Yeah. One can.

Lewis Howes 9:19 One can.

Dr. William Li 9:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 9:19 If you had to choose one can of each.

Dr. William Li 9:21 Listen, uh, my metabolism, because I don't have diabetes, actually will spring back. It'll take a little while.

Lewis Howes 9:28 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 9:28 All right? It's, it'll be resilient. I've got 39 trillion bacteria in my gut microbiome, and that's gonna take a lot harder to recover that.

Lewis Howes 9:35 Mm. Wow. W- is there one more thing you would add to this list of what to avoid?

Dr. William Li 9:42 Well, I mean, I guess, again, all these things in, in, in-

Lewis Howes 9:45 Moderation

Dr. William Li 9:46 ... moderation will be okay. I would say alcohol.

Lewis Howes 9:48 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 9:49 You know? Now, and I'll tell you, this is, I was just telling, uh, some folks about this. I have a very specific philosophy about alcohol because, you know, you've heard about, "Well, one or two glasses of red wine a day lowers your risk." Okay. In no case is the benefit coming from the ethanol, the actual alcohol, coming from the stuff that comes out of the fermentation-

Lewis Howes 10:11 Right. Resveratrol. Right. Yeah

Dr. William Li 10:11 ... in the red wine, the resveratrol and the other polyphenols, and even beer. You know? I mean, beer has hops. Those hops-

Lewis Howes 10:17 Yes

Dr. William Li 10:17 ... actually ferment out some of the really great stuff. It's not the alcohol in the beer either. And so what I tell people about alcohol is as far back as humans have been cultivating grain, they've also been fermenting it. Alcohol is very part, much part of humanity. We celebrate births, deaths, weddings, holidays with alcohol, and so I'm a big believer in being who we are, right? So-

Lewis Howes 10:43 Traditions and, yeah

Dr. William Li 10:44 ... traditions, and, and I believe in that.

Lewis Howes 10:45 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 10:46 So what I would say is, you know, if that's important to you, go for it, but be moderate and recognize, again, this is the why part of it, that in no case is it the ethanol and the alcohol that's good for you. It's the other stuff-

Lewis Howes 11:00 Mm

Dr. William Li 11:00 ... that's good for you. But you know what? I totally respect the fact that it plays a role-

Lewis Howes 11:04 Yes

Dr. William Li 11:04 ... in huma- in our humanity.

Lewis Howes 11:06 Right. And I, I have a hard time with this 'cause I've never been drunk in my life. You know, my parents didn't drink, and, and they were just like, "You wanna have a clear mind as frequently as possible." Life is hard enough with a clear mind trying to make good decisions consistently and managing stress.

Dr. William Li 11:22 Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 11:22 When you flood your mind to be weaker and the brain to literally be weaker and the body to be weaker with alcohol, it just makes it harder to make conscious decisions.

Dr. William Li 11:33 So I'll, I'll, I'll kind of give you a little refinement on the medical side. It is weaker, but it's actually, um, less coordinated.

Lewis Howes 11:43 Exactly.

Dr. William Li 11:43 To make good decisions, we need really good coordination. We need to have situation awareness, good coordination, alignment, strategy, execution.

Lewis Howes 11:52 Speech awareness, everything.

Dr. William Li 11:53 Speech awareness, everything. All that kind of goes with the fog-

Lewis Howes 11:57 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 11:57 ... you know, when we actually have mind-altering substances.

Lewis Howes 12:00 What does alcohol do for the gut microbiome? How does it affect it positively or negatively?

Dr. William Li 12:07 You know, I would say that, um, by and large, if you drink a lot of alcohol, it's a negative. Most of the studies so far, and we're s- just still learning how to study the microbiome-

Lewis Howes 12:18 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 12:18 ... fairly neutral. If, you know, like, if you ... 'Cause you're drinking alcohol with food oftentimes.

Lewis Howes 12:23 Yes.

Dr. William Li 12:23 All right? Like, we're not talking about, you know, loss in Las Vegas kind of stuff.

Lewis Howes 12:26 Sure.

Dr. William Li 12:27 All right? And, um, uh, and actually some of the, some of the polyphenols that come from fermented alcohol products actually help the gut microbiome.

Lewis Howes 12:36 Mm.

Dr. William Li 12:36 So it's not a simple picture.

Lewis Howes 12:37 Sure.

Dr. William Li 12:38 Right? Um, different than the soda.

Lewis Howes 12:41 Different than the soda.

Dr. William Li 12:41 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 12:42 With no be-

Dr. William Li 12:42 Ironically

Lewis Howes 12:43 ... there's no benefit. Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

Dr. William Li 12:45 Right.

Lewis Howes 12:45 Just straight sugar bomb. Um, one other thing, but I lo- I love that you said alcohol as a doctor that this is not something that we should ... This is something we should avoid. You know, if you wanna do it for the traditional base or things like that, cool, but just know it's not really adding a lot of nutritional value to your life.

Dr. William Li 13:03 Zero. Zero.

Lewis Howes 13:03 Zero nutritional value. So it's the same thing with me of wanting to have a candy bar. It's not adding any nutritional value.

Dr. William Li 13:08 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 13:09 But I'm gonna do it from time to time.

Dr. William Li 13:10 And you're gonna enjoy it-

Lewis Howes 13:12 Enjoy

Dr. William Li 13:12 ... that time.

Lewis Howes 13:12 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 13:13 It, but, but you're not gonna continuously abuse that. You're-

Lewis Howes 13:16 Exactly

Dr. William Li 13:16 ... you're not gonna be a glutton about it.

Lewis Howes 13:17 Exactly.

Dr. William Li 13:18 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 13:18 And what about the three to five things we should add or use more frequently to help us improve the quality of our health?

Dr. William Li 13:25 In my first book, I wrote about 300 different foods.

Lewis Howes 13:28 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 13:28 In it's ... my new book, I wrote, I write about 150 foods that improve your metabolism.

Lewis Howes 13:32 Mm.

Dr. William Li 13:33 So I've got quite a-

Lewis Howes 13:33 Mm.

Dr. William Li 13:34 I, I got quite a choice, uh, uh, list to choose from for, for choice. Um-

Lewis Howes 13:40 What are the, what are the five most powerful to burn fat and heal your metabolism?

Dr. William Li 13:45 And live longer.

Lewis Howes 13:46 And live longer.

Dr. William Li 13:47 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 13:47 What would you say if you could only choose five foods consistently?

Dr. William Li 13:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 13:51 And obviously variety plays a big part i- in, you know, nutritional value and the gut microbiome, but let's just play devil's advocate.

Dr. William Li 13:57 Let me, let me give you, let me give you two for sure.

Lewis Howes 14:00 Yes.

Dr. William Li 14:01 And then I'm gonna come up with five as sort of a, a flyby of things that I enjoy.

Lewis Howes 14:06 Cool.

Dr. William Li 14:07 Two things for sure: coffee and tea.

Lewis Howes 14:10 To add?

Dr. William Li 14:10 To add, yeah.

Lewis Howes 14:11 Really?

Dr. William Li 14:12 Yeah. Tea in every way activates your body's health defenses and improves your health defenses. And not just green tea, uh, not just straight on green tea in a bag. Matcha tea-

Lewis Howes 14:21 Mm

Dr. William Li 14:21 ... ceremonial tea, oolong tea, the fermented, slightly fermented tea, and even the ultimate fermented tea, which is pu-erh tea. Comes from a little village in China, and it's a ultra-fermented, dark, smoky, digestive tea.

Lewis Howes 14:35 Mm. Interesting.

Dr. William Li 14:35 It's a probiotic tea. Good for your gut microbiome.

Lewis Howes 14:38 Okay.

Dr. William Li 14:38 Improves your metabolism.

Lewis Howes 14:40 Okay.

Dr. William Li 14:40 All right? So, uh, so tea as a category would be one.

Lewis Howes 14:43 But not like a tea, like normal tea bags that you get at a store, but specific types of tea. Is that what I'm hearing?

Dr. William Li 14:49 Uh, well, but you can get them in tea bags.

Lewis Howes 14:51 Okay, cool.

Dr. William Li 14:51 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 14:52 Gotcha.

Dr. William Li 14:52 Um, the other thing is coffee. I talked about-

Lewis Howes 14:55 Now, now why coffee? Why ... I mean, I've heard from different individuals, I don't know if they're actual nutritionists or scientists, but I've heard different people talk about this from a sports performance point of view.

Dr. William Li 15:06 Okay.

Lewis Howes 15:06 That coffee in the morning causes the body to be more acidic, and you don't want it to be acidic, you know, for performance. But I don't know, again, I'm not a nutritionist or a scientist, so can you speak into that?

Dr. William Li 15:18 Yeah. Well, uh, let me first address what you just were describing from a medical doctor's perspective. There's a lot of discussion about acidic blood and basic blood. I can tell you as a physician who's taking care-

Lewis Howes 15:33 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 15:33 ... of people in the ICU, all right, our body is a perfect balancer of pH in your blood at all times. Very narrow range. You cannot acidify your blood. If-

Lewis Howes 15:46 Mm.

Dr. William Li 15:46 If, if you had acidic blood, you'd be in the ICU with-

Lewis Howes 15:49 Wow

Dr. William Li 15:49 ... sepsis, and you'd be on your way out. Guarantee you that.

Lewis Howes 15:52 Okay.

Dr. William Li 15:52 All right? So this whole idea that the foods you eat can acidify or neutralize your blood, not true. It's ... I mean, I've never seen it as a physician.

Lewis Howes 15:59 Okay.

Dr. William Li 15:59 All right? I don't think it can be done because a bacteria can do it. Like, when you're, when you're septic, you have overwhelming infection. That will acidify your blood. Cup of coffee, absolutely not. Now, I'll tell you, though, there is acid in coffee. It's called chlorogenic acid. But unlike a harmful effect, in fact, it gives you all benefit.

Lewis Howes 16:19 Really?

Dr. William Li 16:19 Couple of things that chlorogenic acid does, and then I'll tell you something really interesting about, about the organic versus a conventionally grown coffee.

Lewis Howes 16:25 Okay.

Dr. William Li 16:26 So chlorogenic acid actually, um, first of all, activates your circulation.

Lewis Howes 16:31 Mm.

Dr. William Li 16:31 Makes your blood flow better. Uh, all your brain, your, your muscles, your organs have better blood flow over time. Okay? Not, it's not like a instant hit and boom, you got better circulation, but over time when you say regularly drink-

Lewis Howes 16:44 Yes

Dr. William Li 16:44 ... that's what it actually does. Number two, it actually, uh, protects your stem cells, so it helps you renew yourself from the inside out.

Lewis Howes 16:51 Mm.

Dr. William Li 16:51 So we're healing ourselves, continuously replacing the, um, injured and the dead and the slough- sloughed off stuff, just more tissue. Um, chlorogenic acid actually helps your gut microbiome.

Lewis Howes 17:02 Mm.

Dr. William Li 17:02 Makes a better gut health, all right? Which then helps your immunity and everything else. Chlorogenic acid also slows down the degradation of your telomeres-

Lewis Howes 17:13 Really?

Dr. William Li 17:13 ... which means that it slows down cellular aging, and it improves your immunity. All right?

Lewis Howes 17:18 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 17:19 On top of that, chlorogenic acid helps to fat, fight excess body fat. One of the ways it does it is prevents new fat from being made. It slows down the loading up of existing fat cells with extra fuel-

Lewis Howes 17:36 Hmm

Dr. William Li 17:36 ... so your balloon doesn't blow up quite as much as it normally would.

Lewis Howes 17:39 Oh.

Dr. William Li 17:39 And the other thing it does is it turns on brown fat in your body, which is a special kind of fat. It's not jiggly fat. It's wafer-thin fat. It's around your neck. It's underneath your, your, your, uh, breastbone. It's under your arms, a little bit behind your back. When the, when that brown fat lights up, it is like putting a, uh, it's, it's like putting a lighter to your gas range. Whoosh.

Lewis Howes 18:02 Mm.

Dr. William Li 18:02 You got flame. And the energy it takes to burn that flame is drawn from bad fat.

Lewis Howes 18:07 Really?

Dr. William Li 18:07 So this good fat can burn down bad fat. And chlorogenic acid does that. So coffee actually has all of these benefits

Lewis Howes 18:15 So coffee can help you burn fat.

Dr. William Li 18:19 Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 18:20 Now, is it the type of, type of quality of coffee? Is it all coffees? Is it generic brand coffee? You know, you scoop in, you pour instant coffee, or is it... What types of coffee?

Dr. William Li 18:31 From everything that research has shown, it is the chlorogenic acid in coffee. So, so, so you're asking the right question. So what are the different levels in different types of coffee?

Lewis Howes 18:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 18:41 So that has not been exactly studied yet to know if one brand-

Lewis Howes 18:46 Got it

Dr. William Li 18:46 ... or Folgers or whatever. Okay. But I will tell you one thing that has been studied. Chlorogenic acid is much higher, the good stuff, there's a lot more of it, three times as, as much in organic coffee compared to conventionally grown coffee.

Lewis Howes 19:01 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 19:01 And the reason why is that chlorogenic acid is one of those natural chemicals, b- bioactives we call it, that's w- made in response to injury. So basically, when, uh, in, um, organic plants that don't have pesticides, you've got normal bugs that nibble on the leaves and the stems, and so as a response, they're making chlorogenic acid, lots of it.

Lewis Howes 19:24 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 19:24 Okay? Add some pesticides there, fewer plants... fewer, fewer, fewer bugs-

Lewis Howes 19:29 Right

Dr. William Li 19:30 ... fewer pests, less nibbling, doesn't make as much.

Lewis Howes 19:32 But the plants aren't as strong defending themselves. Is that what that means?

Dr. William Li 19:36 That's right. Exactly.

Lewis Howes 19:36 Right.

Dr. William Li 19:37 Just they don't need-

Lewis Howes 19:37 They don't need to defend themselves

Dr. William Li 19:38 ... they don't need to defend themselves.

Lewis Howes 19:39 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 19:40 You take away the ability to defend yourself.

Lewis Howes 19:43 Interesting. So it's called chlor- ... What's it called?

Dr. William Li 19:45 Chlorogenic.

Lewis Howes 19:46 Chlorogenic-

Dr. William Li 19:47 Acid

Lewis Howes 19:47 ... acid.

Dr. William Li 19:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:48 Now, is this a similar case where, you know, people say it's good to drink a glass of wine every night because of the resveratrol, but the potential ne- the side effects of having alcohol can outweigh just having the supplement of resveratrol.

Dr. William Li 20:03 Hmm.

Lewis Howes 20:05 Is, is there any side effects to coffee that outweigh the benefit of the chlorogenic acid-

Dr. William Li 20:12 Acid, yeah

Lewis Howes 20:13 ... where you could pull that from some other source, uh, a plant-based source or a, a supplemental source instead of also having the coffee caffeine and the other things that come with it?

Dr. William Li 20:25 Yeah. It's different than wine because coffee doesn't have the alcohol, which is a, which is toxin- toxic to your system.

Lewis Howes 20:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 20:32 Coffee does have caffeine if you have a caffeinated version. Some people are very sensitive to caffeine, right? So coffee isn't right... Caffeinated coffee isn't right for everyone.

Lewis Howes 20:41 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 20:41 All right? So there's no absolutes here, right? It's all individualized.

Lewis Howes 20:44 Yes.

Dr. William Li 20:44 That's what we're learning about health, uh, in, across the board. It's all about who we are and what's right for our body. Uh, now-

Lewis Howes 20:52 Can decaffeinated coffee get the same benefit?

Dr. William Li 20:54 It's gotta be wa- it's gotta be decaffeinated using a water process, all right?

Lewis Howes 20:59 Oh.

Dr. William Li 20:59 Now, most decaffeination processes used to use solvents to remove the caffeine. So they actually put chemicals into the tea or coffee to remove the caffeine. In so doing, they leave some of the residue of the solvent in the coffee or the tea.

Lewis Howes 21:13 Oh, that's not good.

Dr. William Li 21:13 And they also take away the polyphenols as well-

Lewis Howes 21:16 That's good

Dr. William Li 21:16 ... including the chlorogenic a- right.

Lewis Howes 21:17 So what's the point of it, then?

Dr. William Li 21:18 Exactly.

Lewis Howes 21:19 Just the-

Dr. William Li 21:19 Exact- well, you don't have the-

Lewis Howes 21:20 ... the placebo of having coffee taste-

Dr. William Li 21:21 Well, no, you don't, you don't have, you don't have as much caffeine.

Lewis Howes 21:23 All right. Okay.

Dr. William Li 21:23 All right? But, but you're not getting the good stuff.

Lewis Howes 21:25 The benefits.

Dr. William Li 21:25 You're getting less of the bad stuff, but you still don't have the benefits. So-

Lewis Howes 21:28 Interesting

Dr. William Li 21:29 ... what's, what's interesting is that, um, there... So coffee, generally safe to drink. You know, there's a, a lot of people used to think, "Well, it'll cause esophagitis. It'll actually, you know, cause your heart to race." Not for most people. Actually doesn't increase heart disease in most people. Obviously, if, if you're a particular person, you're sensitive to it, you gotta be careful. But there's other sources of chlorogenic acid as well. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Apples have chlorogenic acid.

Lewis Howes 21:54 Really?

Dr. William Li 21:55 But so does a pear. A pear has chlorogenic acid as well. So you don't have to... You know, I try to en- encourage people not to get fixated on only one food substance and try to go at it like crazy, like mad. Learn that, you know, just know that we're beginning to discover what's in certain foods that are good for us.

Lewis Howes 22:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 22:15 And many times, those elements that are good in one food are also found in other foods as well.

Lewis Howes 22:19 Right.

Dr. William Li 22:20 And that opens up the gateways to be able to have diversity.

Lewis Howes 22:23 Exactly. I love that. Now, speaking of fruit, and you're gonna, you're gonna... These are your top two is, like, the coffee and tea-

Dr. William Li 22:30 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 22:30 ... um, which I think is powerful that you explained all this. But speaking of fruit... Before the interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're gonna love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video.

Lewis Howes 23:08 Eat to Beat Your Diet: Burn Fat, Heal Your Metabolism, and Live Longer, which is what you talk about in the book. How important is fruit in this factor, or does fruit have too much sugar spiking, which I've heard from some nutritionists over the last couple years that I've interviewed, where, you know, you take a, a handful of grapes, and the glucose monitor spikes through the roof. Is that really healthy for metabolism and living longer, or how do we manage our fruit intake so that it's not too much?

Dr. William Li 23:40 All right. So there's a kind of a myth out there that the sweet fruits, the sugar in fruits actually, um, are just as bad as sugar in candy.

Lewis Howes 23:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 23:52 All right? Um, and that's not necessarily the case. First, candy is just sugar and other stuff. Fruits are nutrient dense, which means that not only does it have sugar, but it's got all these other polyphenols, and dietary fiber, and other, uh, uh, a- aspects, uh, small molecules and other things, other natural chemicals that are actually good for our body. Most of those, net-net, actually benefit us.

Lewis Howes 24:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 24:17 Okay? For the average person who eats reasonable amounts of fruit, the, uh, even a sweet fruit like a mango, which is one of the sweetest fruits that I know of, totally fine. When you eat it, it'll taste really sweet. Uh, or pomegranates for example. Your, um, uh, your blood sugar will spike, but I wanna come back to that in a second. But you're also getting all these other polyphenols- Hmm ... that actually will work on different parts of your body- Interesting ... including your metabolism, to benefit you. Interesting. And so, and by the way, our body needs sugar. We, our brain consumes sugar like crazy, um, even outside of the diet, uh, outside of candy. And so we actually need actual sugar. If we don't have it, our body will make it. All right? So th- this is the whole thing, you know, in the wellness space, in the health and wellness space, there's sort of two categories that people veer towards. They tend to make something a hero or a demon. All right? And I think that's really, the God is in the details. We need to know these details, and that actually allows us to be more reasonable. Yeah. And so for me, eating fruit is perfectly reasonable if you don't have diabetes. And okay, spiking sugar, sugar spikes. All right? If you're an average, normal person, no problem. Your body is fully capable. You know, spiking sugar is kind of like character assassination of the food. Hmm. It actually doesn't matter. Your body is supposed to have a sugar spike, and then it'll actually take it down. It's just drawing energy into your cells. What I tell people is, like, spiking sugar is basically like what happens in your car when you're filling it with gas. Gas tank's gonna go up, all right? But then you're gonna burn it down. Yeah. And your body actually stores it. So I wouldn't get, I wouldn't get wigged out about, uh, you know, people that are monitoring, like, moment to moment their sugar spikes. That's interesting, but it's less important than overall what actually happens. If your body's unable to take down that sugar- That's a problem ... that's a problem. The spike isn't the problem. Hmm. The s- the, it's the long tail of your body's not, if your insulin's not working, you're not sensitive to insulin, um, or if your metabolism's not working, you can't take that energy in, now you got a problem. Yeah. How do we maximize our metabolism to take in the sugar spikes of life? [laughs] That's a good question. Um, the way to actually do it, honestly, is the, not only what we eat, which matters a lot, but how we eat- Hmm ... and when we eat. So you, you know that, um... Okay, let me give you the analogy and, and this will actually get a little bit into the topic of intermittent fasting, which we'll talk a lot about. I like to explain metabolism in a very, very simple way. Our body is just like a car. When you're driving your car, you got an engine. You check out the fuel tank. When the fuel tank is running low, pull over to the filling station, take out the nozzle, fill up the tank. All right? When the tank is full, click, nozzle stops putting gas in. Put it back, get back in the car, and drive off, and your gas tank is full. Our body's the same way. Our body's an engine. It runs, okay? And when we're low on fuel, all right, and fuel for us comes from our food- Mm-hmm ... what we gotta do is pull over to the dinner table- Yes ... or to the restaurant or to the k- refrigerator in order to load up on fuel. Now our fuel comes from food, and we call it calories, but I, I tell people, "Don't get fixated on the word calories." Don't ne- you don't need to count every calorie you actually have. Hmm, hmm. All right? The quality of the fuel matters for sure. We talked about that a little bit, all right? So you do want the highest qual- quality of fuel that you can put in your body. Just like if you actually put, um, crappy fuel in your gas tank- Right ... you know, your car's gonna run- It'll affect the engine. Yeah, yeah ... but eventually over 10 year, five years, 10 years, you're gonna be screwing that engine. All right? Right. Your car's not gonna run as well as, as if you took care of it. That's kind of like the analogy for our body. All right, so how do you actually maximize your metabolism? Our metabolism is how our body takes the fuel, the food, energy from food, moves it into our cells, and then allows our engine to power it up to do whatever it is we're doing. Blinking, speaking, jogging, running, lifting, whatever it is you're doing. All right? That's what our metabolism actually is. Now, you put food in your mouth, that's fuel. Your body senses the fuel, send, it produces the hormone insulin. Insulin actually takes that fuel in, right? You put it into your fuel tank. Yes. Your fuel tank, uh, your body's gonna run on it, but then any extra goes into your little fat cells, your fuel tank, your gas tank. No big deal. And the, the little gas tank gets a little bit bigger 'cause it's filled with fuel, all right? And then when you stop eating and the fuel gets loaded up, the insulin levels will go down. All right? And then you're, you're off. You're driving away from the filling station. Mm-hmm. That simple. Yes. All right? Now, our body is rigged so that when we are putting fuel into our system, eating, all right, it's like putting gas into our tank of our car. You can't burn the fuel. It doesn't want to burn the fuel. You- When you, when you eat, it doesn't wanna burn it. Right, right, 'cause it makes, makes sense. Yeah. You wanna actually load up, not- Mm-hmm ... deplete. You're s- you're storing up. Right. All right? And that, that's like, the, your car in the filling station, you turn off your engine when you're filling up your- Yes ... tank. All right? Rest. Rest. Yeah. [laughs] And then when you, when you, when you're fill- filled up, then you can drive off again. Hmm. Now- So we shouldn't be moving while we're fueling. Shouldn't be. Shouldn't be. Can, you can, but you shouldn't be. It's an override, right? Like, so we, we can override that stuff, but you shouldn't be. Uh-huh. So you're asking about how to optimize this. Yes. How do you, how do you take advantage of your, what your body's hardwired to do? Yeah. Now, think about it. When you're at the gas station and you're filling gas in your tank, when the tank is full, there's a click, no more fuel comes out. Imagine what would happen if there was no click. The tank would fill up. It would come out of the tank, overflow, down the side of the car, around the wheels, pool around your feet, and you are standing in a dangerous, flammable li- Mess, right?

Lewis Howes 30:23 Yes.

Dr. William Li 30:23 Now-

Lewis Howes 30:24 Hmm

Dr. William Li 30:24 ... when we eat food, we don't have a clicker to stop us from putting food-

Lewis Howes 30:28 Right

Dr. William Li 30:28 ... in our mouth. Okay?

Lewis Howes 30:30 We should.

Dr. William Li 30:31 We should, but we don't. All right? And so what happens is when we actually eat, overeat, okay, eat too much ... So this is the how. Eat too much, what winds up happening is we're putting a ton of fuel into our system. Now there's no leaking of the food out the ... We don't, it come, won't pool down around our feet. Our body quickly stuffs it, right? So it's, it, you, it has all the energy it needs. It stuffs what, some excess into the existing fat cells. Existing fat cells get bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. All right. Oops, now you've filled them up. They're like tight water balloons about as big as they'll get.

Lewis Howes 31:03 Wow.

Dr. William Li 31:03 Now the body, still got fuel to store, what does it do? It makes more fat cells.

Lewis Howes 31:08 Ah.

Dr. William Li 31:08 And now it fills those up, and then makes more, fills those up. Now you can see why when you overeat, you have too much fuel, why you gain weight and you develop too much body fat. Now, what happens to that fat grows bigger and bigger and bigger over time. It's a big ... It goes from a little bit to a bigger mass. It needs a blood supply.

Lewis Howes 31:27 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 31:27 Okay? So it actually reaches out to try to grab more blood vessels to feed it, but if it, if you're, if you're overeating and the fat is expanding so fast 'cause you're just storing fuel, and you're not able to ... it's not able to get blood, uh, blood vessels fast or a blood supply fast enough, guess what? The middle of it starts to die. It's called hypoxia.

Lewis Howes 31:45 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 31:46 And that middle of the fat behaves like a tumor. It starts to die-

Lewis Howes 31:51 Hmm

Dr. William Li 31:51 ... and when it dies, it becomes inflammatory. This is why when you have too much body fat, it becomes an inflam- dangerous inflammatory situation just like if you were standing in that filling station-

Lewis Howes 32:04 Yeah, this is ... yeah

Dr. William Li 32:04 ... with the gas over-bloating, just spilling out over on your feet.

Lewis Howes 32:07 And what happens when the body stores too much body fat and we have that much inflammation-

Dr. William Li 32:13 Oh

Lewis Howes 32:13 ... in the body fat?

Dr. William Li 32:14 Yeah. Well, first is it derails your metabolism. All the hormone, natural hormones ... We should talk about what fat normally does, 'cause that's another big myth that has been, you know, that science has actually started to help us rethink, uh, what, what body fat actually is. But, but basically our body fat normally, um, protects us. It's a cushion. Um, it's a space heater. It'll burn extra energy. But it also is an organ in the body.

Lewis Howes 32:40 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 32:40 I don't know, people don't realize that.

Lewis Howes 32:41 Fat is an organ.

Dr. William Li 32:41 Fat is an organ.

Lewis Howes 32:42 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 32:42 Like your pancreas, like your liver, like your kidneys, your fat is now really truly an organ. It's an endocrine organ, which means that it secretes hormones. All right? The three hormones ... It secretes 13 hormones that we know of, but the three that are most important: one is leptin, which basically is a volume switch to your brain for your appetite.

Lewis Howes 33:01 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 33:02 When your fat makes, uh, leptin, it tells you, "You know what? Slow down there. Hey, buddy, you're not that hungry."

Lewis Howes 33:08 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 33:08 All right? So it turns it down. So the volume goes down. So you need that. All right?

Lewis Howes 33:12 I got, I got more of that. I need more of that-

Dr. William Li 33:14 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 33:14 ... to turn it down for me. [laughs]

Dr. William Li 33:15 Now, uh, the other th- hormone it makes is called adiponectin. Now many people won't have heard of ... Some people might have heard of leptin.

Lewis Howes 33:23 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 33:23 They n- may not know adiponectin. Adiponectin is the hormone that if I were to take a vial of blood from you and measure it in a lab, is 1,000 times higher in level than any other hormone in your body, 24/7.

Lewis Howes 33:36 Wow.

Dr. William Li 33:37 And the reason is adiponectin allows insulin to pull energy into your cells. So you need that, and your fat, healthy fat, makes adiponectin.

Lewis Howes 33:48 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 33:48 All right? Very, very important.

Lewis Howes 33:50 Okay.

Dr. William Li 33:50 And then the third, uh, hormone that is of utmost importance is called resistin, and resistin basically is the brake to the adiponectin, what's gas pedal. Gas pedal, adiponectin, lots of energy. Brake, resistin, slow down there, buddy. All right? And so these three, leptin, adiponectin, resistin, they're made by normal, healthy fat.

Lewis Howes 34:12 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 34:12 So what happens when fat overgrows and it becomes inflammatory? All of those hormones get, go haywire. They don't, they're not behaving the way they should behave. You're not pulling in energy. All right? You're not actually absorbing ener- you're not absorbing energy. Your hunger mechanisms are not working right. You're overeating, all right? And then you can't stop your, your, your, um, your ability to, uh, uh, uh, sort of f- uh, trigger your metabolism, what it nor- needs to star- start and stop.

Lewis Howes 34:42 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 34:42 That, that gas brake thing-

Lewis Howes 34:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 34:44 ... completely messed up. On top of that, you've got inflammation that spills out from your fat. All right? And when it spills out from your fat, that's kind of like the gas, uh, gasoline leaking out around your shoes at the gas station. In the gas station, it's flammable. In your body, it's inflammatory.

Lewis Howes 35:02 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 35:03 It screws up your immune system. It sets you up for diabetes, sets you up for cancer, sets your blood vessels up to narrow, so you wind, are set up for stroke and heart attack.

Lewis Howes 35:13 Wow.

Dr. William Li 35:13 It's all bad.

Lewis Howes 35:15 Excess fat is all bad.

Dr. William Li 35:16 Excess body fat. But, but don't forget, one of the things that I started saying is that some fat is absolutely critical.

Lewis Howes 35:23 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 35:23 In fact, we, we need normal fat. Fat is good-

Lewis Howes 35:26 Hmm

Dr. William Li 35:26 ... until it's bad.

Lewis Howes 35:27 Right.

Dr. William Li 35:28 So we don't wanna fear it. We wanna tame it.

Lewis Howes 35:30 If someone has got ... I mean, if someone's listening or watching this right now, and they're thinking to themselves, "Man, I've just struggled my whole life with, with my body weight, and I've ... You know, life happened, and, you know, kids and, or divorce or just career changes and just life just happened, and just it got away from me," and they're 50, 70, 80 pounds overweight. They've gained that, gained that excess body fat that they know they don't wanna have, but they don't wanna beat themselves up because that doesn't help them either. You know, they've beaten themself up for too long, um, and that almost makes them wanna eat more bad foods because they don't feel good about themselves. How can they emotionally and psychologically break free while also changing their habits, and know that this is a journey? It's not gonna happen in two weeks and lose 50 pounds and stick, but it's like it's gonna take time, and it's gonna be a journey. What can someone in that position start to think and do to start seeing consistent results, do you think?

Dr. William Li 36:30 Yeah. Well- Uh, there's two main things I talk about in my new book. One i- is actually, um, time y- time your food

Lewis Howes 36:39 Mm

Dr. William Li 36:39 ... figure out what time you eat and, and don't eat. And secondly is choose foods that actually can help your body fight fat. That's a little bit of a surprise that you can eat foods to lose weight, to fight extra body fat, but it turns out science tells us that it's actually true.

Lewis Howes 36:54 Wow

Dr. William Li 36:54 And it's studied in, in people as well. Let's talk first about the timing of food. All right? Remember I told you when your insulin is level, uh, level is high, 'cause when you're eating, you can't burn fat, so when your insulin level's low, when you're not eating, your body switches into fat burning mode. When does that actually naturally happen? When you're sleeping.

Lewis Howes 37:13 Oh

Dr. William Li 37:13 Most people when they're sleeping are not eating.

Lewis Howes 37:15 Right

Dr. William Li 37:15 Right? They ... And then what happens when they get up in the morning, they eat breakfast, they're breaking their fast. So sleeping is fasting.

Lewis Howes 37:22 Mm.

Dr. William Li 37:22 It's very normal. It's not a, it's not necessarily invented as a new fad or a trend. It's actually how we're body's wired. And so if you follow the wiring, the hardwiring of our body, the operating system of our body, when you're sleeping and not eating, your body's burning down fat. You've got extra weight, extra body fat, take advantage of what your body naturally wants to do.

Lewis Howes 37:42 Right

Dr. William Li 37:42 Now, how do you actually give your body the most chance to burn down extra body fat? Sleep. L- let's just, let me just kind of like set out some hypotheticals. Let's say you sleep eight hours. You go to bed at 11:00, wake up at 7:00. All right? During that time your body's actually burning fat, okay? Which is good. That's gonna get you over time to, uh, get to your fighting weight, so to speak.

Lewis Howes 38:06 How much fat do we burn, uh, with eight hours of sleep, do you know?

Dr. William Li 38:09 It, it actually depends on how good your sleep is. It also depends on when you ate before-

Lewis Howes 38:15 Interesting

Dr. William Li 38:15 ... you went to bed. It also matters who, how your, who you are, right?

Lewis Howes 38:18 Huh

Dr. William Li 38:18 Like, and, and lots of other stress factors.

Lewis Howes 38:20 The way you think about yourself, your identity, your-

Dr. William Li 38:22 Oh, totally.

Lewis Howes 38:23 Wow.

Dr. William Li 38:23 Totally. So what the things that you talk about sort of like this-

Lewis Howes 38:26 Uh-huh

Dr. William Li 38:26 ... really harnessing your knowing yourself and harnessing your strengths and, uh, and, and healing-

Lewis Howes 38:32 Yes

Dr. William Li 38:32 ... from the inside out, that is critical-

Lewis Howes 38:34 Wow

Dr. William Li 38:35 ... for getting good qual... using those eight hours.

Lewis Howes 38:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 38:38 Now, let's talk a little bit about, um, when you're actually eating last because if you're sleeping eight hours-

Lewis Howes 38:45 Mm

Dr. William Li 38:45 ... 11:00 to 7:00, okay, because you're not eating and you're burning fat, let's say that you, um-

Lewis Howes 38:50 When should, when should your last bite be and by?

Dr. William Li 38:53 Exactly. So I'm gonna, I'm just trying to give you analogies that people can understand very easily. Let's say you eat dinner at 7:00, all right? And you finish dinner at 8:00. All right? You put your dishes away at 8:00.

Lewis Howes 39:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 39:06 All right? Um, that seems pretty reasonable for most people. After 8:00 and you go to bed at 11:00, do not snack.

Lewis Howes 39:13 No nibbling

Dr. William Li 39:13 No midnight snack. No nibbling.

Lewis Howes 39:15 No, no cookies.

Dr. William Li 39:15 No waiting for the-

Lewis Howes 39:16 No chips

Dr. William Li 39:16 ... no chips. No waiting for the dessert at the end.

Lewis Howes 39:18 Ah.

Dr. William Li 39:19 All right?

Lewis Howes 39:19 Got it.

Dr. William Li 39:19 Now you've gained three extra hours from 8:00-

Lewis Howes 39:22 Uh-huh

Dr. William Li 39:22 ... when your dishes get put away all the way till you go to bed, don't eat.

Lewis Howes 39:26 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 39:26 I don't eat.

Lewis Howes 39:27 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 39:27 It's fine. You know, in the beginning you're, you might have some habits like, "Oh, man, I should..." Don't.

Lewis Howes 39:31 [laughs] Don't.

Dr. William Li 39:33 That's, that's the habit-

Lewis Howes 39:34 Stop. Yeah

Dr. William Li 39:34 ... that's a habit you wanna break.

Lewis Howes 39:36 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 39:36 Okay? Because, and here's the why, because when v- you don't eat your insulin levels will go down quickly, all right, from dinner.

Lewis Howes 39:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 39:43 And then what'll happen is you get those three extra hours added on to the eight hours that you have that your body's doing what it's doing.

Lewis Howes 39:50 So does that mean you can still have tea or like a, a carbonated water-

Dr. William Li 39:54 Yeah

Lewis Howes 39:54 ... or like a sparkling water?

Dr. William Li 39:55 Any-

Lewis Howes 39:56 Just nothing with zero calories.

Dr. William Li 39:57 Nothing, no calories. Right.

Lewis Howes 39:58 Okay.

Dr. William Li 39:58 No food. Okay? Especially no desserts. No noshing on those little sweet things-

Lewis Howes 40:02 Mm

Dr. William Li 40:02 ... nibblies at night.

Lewis Howes 40:03 What if there's a little lemon in the like water?

Dr. William Li 40:05 Lemon's okay.

Lewis Howes 40:05 That's okay.

Dr. William Li 40:06 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:06 Okay.

Dr. William Li 40:07 Um, no sugar.

Lewis Howes 40:08 Gotcha.

Dr. William Li 40:08 No, no ... And, and like ... So then what happens, now you've actually built yourself eight hours of sleep, three hours of extra time, that's a bonus.

Lewis Howes 40:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 40:16 Okay? Get up in the morning, let's say you get up at 7:00, right? Don't do what your mommy told you to do when you were a kid-

Lewis Howes 40:22 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 40:22 ... which is roll out of bed, eat breakfast, get on the school bus to get to school.

Lewis Howes 40:26 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 40:26 Right? That's w- that's how we're all conditioned. Here's what you wanna do. Get up, um, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, take your time to get oriented to the day. I usually don't eat anything for about an hour after I get up, and I'm perfectly fine. You know? It's, it's really habit that makes you wanna sit down-

Lewis Howes 40:47 Mm

Dr. William Li 40:47 ... and pull a, pour a bowl of cereal.

Lewis Howes 40:48 Yes.

Dr. William Li 40:48 All right? Now you've gained an extra hour.

Lewis Howes 40:50 Mm-hmm. So that's 12 hours now, right?

Dr. William Li 40:52 Now you got 12 hours.

Lewis Howes 40:53 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 40:53 Okay? You got 12 clean hours. That's half the day.

Lewis Howes 40:56 With no food.

Dr. William Li 40:57 Your v- With no food your body's burning. It's different than 16 and 8, but it's the same principle.

Lewis Howes 41:02 Right.

Dr. William Li 41:02 16/8 intermittent fasting, like now you gotta really push it so you're squeezing all your foods in eight hours. May not work for everybody, but what I'm trying to empower people, you know, to be great y- you don't need to go to 16.

Lewis Howes 41:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 41:16 12 gets you into great zone.

Lewis Howes 41:18 Wow. Really?

Dr. William Li 41:19 And think about it. And, and because, because m- how many people do you know say, "You know, I get eight hours of sleep," but then when you really talk to them they're actually eating late at night.

Lewis Howes 41:28 Right before they fall asleep. Yeah.

Dr. William Li 41:29 Yeah. Now you're cutting into your burn time.

Lewis Howes 41:31 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 41:31 All right?

Lewis Howes 41:32 Wow.

Dr. William Li 41:32 So lots of ... So that's, that's one thing is really sort of the timing of your meals.

Lewis Howes 41:36 Man.

Dr. William Li 41:37 Oh, by the way, I mean, I'm sure this has happened to you as well, busy people, um, sometimes skip breakfast for whatever reason.

Lewis Howes 41:44 Skip breakfast.

Dr. William Li 41:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 41:45 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 41:46 Or sometimes skip lunch.

Lewis Howes 41:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 41:47 All right? Totally fine. You can think about that when it happens that you're buying yourself extra fat burn time.

Lewis Howes 41:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 41:56 All right? And so for people who, you know, in that scenario you gave, you know, somebody who's overweight, who's been struggling with it, and say like, you know, "This is what happened to me," here's a really simple way-

Lewis Howes 42:07 Mm

Dr. William Li 42:07 ... just to get a little bit discipline. Diary out, f- journal out when you normally eat, when you stop eating, when you go to bed. And what I say in my book is that, you know, try to create a 12-hour food window that you, that, that you're gonna open up in the morning. What time do you open the window that you're gonna eat, and then what time are you gonna close the window that you're not gonna eat anymore?

Lewis Howes 42:26 Yes. Yeah.

Dr. William Li 42:27 You know, uh, it's ... You'll be ... Believe me, you'll be fine if you don't eat after dinner-

Lewis Howes 42:31 [laughs] Yeah

Dr. William Li 42:31 ... when you put your dishes away.

Lewis Howes 42:33 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 42:33 And you'll be fine if you- Take a little extra time before you sit at the breakfast table. Guarantee you-

Lewis Howes 42:39 Yeah

Dr. William Li 42:39 ... you, you know, like, you're, you're gonna be just fine, and you're gonna be healthier for it.

Lewis Howes 42:43 And some people think, like, eating in a eight-hour window is too short for them, but 12 hours is much more manageable. It seems like it's, it's really not that hard to do.

Dr. William Li 42:51 It's been studied, actually, in clinical trials in people. They actually compared 12 and 12, 12 fasting, 12 eating, with 16 fasting and eating.

Lewis Howes 42:59 Oh. Oh, what happened?

Dr. William Li 43:01 Um, both lost weight.

Lewis Howes 43:03 Mm.

Dr. William Li 43:03 Both burned fat. You got about 40% more fat burn when you went 16.

Lewis Howes 43:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 43:08 All right? So it, you know, you're fasting more.

Lewis Howes 43:10 Got more, yeah.

Dr. William Li 43:11 It makes, it makes sense, right? You're just having more time to burn.

Lewis Howes 43:13 Yes.

Dr. William Li 43:14 If you can manage that, but the problem is that most people can't sustain that. And for me, what I- I'm, I sort of practice reasonableness.

Lewis Howes 43:22 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 43:22 You know? Like, if you can-

Lewis Howes 43:24 Don't be so extreme

Dr. William Li 43:25 ... don't be extreme.

Lewis Howes 43:26 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 43:26 Human nature's not extreme. We can all do extreme things once in a while.

Lewis Howes 43:30 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 43:31 But if you really wanna kinda level set to be good all the time, great all the time, frankly-

Lewis Howes 43:37 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 43:37 ... we head towards greatness, you wanna be good all the time.

Lewis Howes 43:38 It's con- and it's consistency.

Dr. William Li 43:39 Consistency.

Lewis Howes 43:40 That's the key.

Dr. William Li 43:41 Yeah. And be committed to it.

Lewis Howes 43:43 Yeah. Okay, so 12-hour window. Um, and what about if you were gonna skip one meal, is it better to skip breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Is it better to have, like, a, "I'm gonna eat my protein and veggies in the morning after an hour of waking up, and have, you know, solid meal to fuel me for the day. I'm gonna have, like, a lighter lunch," and then no dinner, and have a longer burn time before you go to sleep? Or is it better to skip breakfast and have lunch and a lighter dinner?

Dr. William Li 44:13 Um, uh, you know, I, I think whatever works for people.

Lewis Howes 44:15 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 44:15 But I will tell you that it's better to prob- for me, the way I, way I look at it, I encourage people to skip breakfast.

Lewis Howes 44:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 44:22 Just 'cause you're, you're burning fat all night long. Just keep the burn going.

Lewis Howes 44:25 Keep burning.

Dr. William Li 44:25 Keep burning.

Lewis Howes 44:26 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Li 44:26 Okay? And, uh, and, and then, and the key, though, if you're gonna skip a meal, all right, if the key is if you're gonna skip a meal is not to overeat the next time you sit down for food.

Lewis Howes 44:37 And think, "Well, I'm starving. Ah, yeah."

Dr. William Li 44:39 Yeah, don't do it.

Lewis Howes 44:40 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 44:40 I mean, a- again, you know, these things take a little bit of-

Lewis Howes 44:43 Yes

Dr. William Li 44:43 ... mindfulness, a little bit of self-actualization. You, you, you just have to recognize it's in your control.

Lewis Howes 44:50 Right. What is the ... Okay, so we're talking about fat, and we're talking about your new book, Eat to Beat Your Diet: Burn Fat, Heal Your Metabolism, and Live Longer. Make sure you guys get a copy of this. Packed with tons of research, uh, wisdom, and practical application that you can do for your daily life. Um,

Lewis Howes 45:10 what is the most surprising science around fat in your mind? And you talk about fat not being the villain, uh, we've made it out to be. In what ways does it support us?

Dr. William Li 45:22 Okay. So I wanna tell people, 'cause I'm a scientist, I'm a, I'm a vascular biologist as well as a doctor, as scientists, we like to look at origins of tissue, of organs, okay? What's the origin of fat, right? Well, so a lot of people don't know this, but it's been studied. Your mom's egg met your dad's sperm. You were a ball of cells in the womb, okay? And when you started to form who you will later be, the first tissue get, gets laid down are your blood vessels, your circulation.

Lewis Howes 45:52 Hmm. Interesting.

Dr. William Li 45:53 Every cell, every organ needs a blood flow, right? Otherwise, it's not gonna survive. Blood vessels. Second or- tissue that gets laid down are nerves.

Lewis Howes 46:01 Oh, interesting.

Dr. William Li 46:01 Because every organ needs, um, a signal pathway. You know, you need to be able to send commands to the organ-

Lewis Howes 46:07 Interesting

Dr. William Li 46:07 ... through your nerves.

Lewis Howes 46:07 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 46:08 All right? Third tissue that gets laid down, fat.

Lewis Howes 46:11 Really?

Dr. William Li 46:11 Little, tiny fat cells start to form like bubble wrap around your blood vessels, okay? And the reason it does this is because, remember we talked about this, your fat cells are your fuel tanks, and your blood receives the fuel, so it's gotta load it right into the tank.

Lewis Howes 46:28 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 46:29 It's, you know, like, if you were designing a car, that's what you would do.

Lewis Howes 46:31 Right.

Dr. William Li 46:31 Right? Okay. So, um-

Lewis Howes 46:33 So this is over muscle. This is over tissue. This is over bone.

Dr. William Li 46:36 Yeah, this is the, this is the primordial-

Lewis Howes 46:38 This is first, fat, yeah

Dr. William Li 46:39 ... system. All right?

Lewis Howes 46:40 Okay.

Dr. William Li 46:40 So you had fat before you had a face you could stuff with food.

Lewis Howes 46:43 Crazy.

Dr. William Li 46:44 That's a key thing because we don't start to think about fat until later on in life.

Lewis Howes 46:47 Ah.

Dr. William Li 46:47 Right? Now, when you're born, what is a health ... What, what gives us joy when we see a baby? It's a fat baby, chubby baby, chubby cheeks, round belly, uh, arms and legs that look like a, like a circus, uh, balloon.

Lewis Howes 47:01 Sure, like Michelin Man.

Dr. William Li 47:02 A Michelin Man.

Lewis Howes 47:03 Right, yeah.

Dr. William Li 47:03 Right? That's the ... And, and, and we know that a baby is healthy if it's kinda pudgy and chubby. Now, imagine if you saw a baby that had chiseled cheekbones like a fashion model-

Lewis Howes 47:13 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 47:14 ... thin arms, and long, thin thighs. Long li- You'd say, "There's something seriously wrong with that baby."

Lewis Howes 47:19 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 47:19 And you'd be absolutely right. So I'm just telling you, we have to rethink, re- uh, what, what we know about body fat.

Lewis Howes 47:25 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 47:25 It's not bad. What does it do? Well, I mentioned to you, it actually is a hor- it, it's a, uh, an organ that secretes these critical hormones that turn up or turn down our appetite, that, um, allow us to suck in energy fro- you, along with insulin, that can be a, the break for sucking that energy in. Very, very important. In fact, 13 hormones, three ... Those, those three are the most important ones. What else does it do? It's a cushion. Now, if we didn't have fat in our body, if we tripped on a rug and fell on the floor, our organs would rupture.

Lewis Howes 47:56 Wow.

Dr. William Li 47:57 Okay? Got in a car accident, bam, your or- your organs would rupture. Thank goodness we've got some padding in there so that we can actu- it can be a shock absorber for us.

Lewis Howes 48:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 48:05 All right? That's very, very important. And then the brown fat, okay, which is not the jiggly fat. There's two colors of fat in our body, brown and white. White fat is the jiggly fat, the fat under your arm-

Lewis Howes 48:18 Ah

Dr. William Li 48:18 ... under your chin, the muffin top.

Lewis Howes 48:20 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 48:21 All right? Around your thighs and your butt. That's the stuff that people kind of like-

Lewis Howes 48:24 They wanna get rid of

Dr. William Li 48:24 ... they wanna get rid of.

Lewis Howes 48:25 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Li 48:25 Okay? That's actually not that ha- It, it, it may not be pleasing. You might wanna get rid of it, but it's not the most harmful part. The most harmful part of fat is- Uh, is, uh, lumpy, bumpy, and it grows inside your body

Lewis Howes 48:39 In the organs

Dr. William Li 48:40 In, around your organs.

Lewis Howes 48:41 Okay.

Dr. William Li 48:42 Yeah. It's kind of-

Lewis Howes 48:42 It's not the external fat on your body

Dr. William Li 48:43 It's not the external fat. It's actually inside. So you-

Lewis Howes 48:46 That's the scary fat.

Dr. William Li 48:47 Yeah, because you could have a big body size, okay? Like a heavyweight, uh, a boxer, or you could be th- rail thin, all right? Like a javelin thrower, and you could still have excess body fat packed inside-

Lewis Howes 48:59 Really?

Dr. William Li 48:59 ... your thin, skinny frame.

Lewis Howes 49:00 How does that happen if you're skinny and you still get fat on the inside?

Dr. William Li 49:04 It has to do with your body frame. Some people have thin frames. Think about it this way. You go to the FedEx and you're gonna ship some v- a fluorescent light bulb. It's kinda delicate. You don't want it to break, so you're gonna get a big, thin box and then you're gonna actually get some peanuts and you're gonna pour-

Lewis Howes 49:18 To pad it

Dr. William Li 49:18 ... the peanuts in there.

Lewis Howes 49:19 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 49:19 To pad it, right? Now, let's say you get an extra bag of peanuts. You're gonna really cram those peanuts in there so that light bulb is being pressed by the peanuts, and you're gonna force that thinning box to be shut, tape it shut. That arm's like the skinny box. Inside it's bursting-

Lewis Howes 49:35 Mm

Dr. William Li 49:36 ... about to burst. That's what can happen with-

Lewis Howes 49:39 Interesting

Dr. William Li 49:40 ... that's what can happen with visceral fat.

Lewis Howes 49:41 Wow. So how do we get rid of the visceral fat around our organs?

Dr. William Li 49:45 It's one of the first fats that energy is drawn from when your brown fat fires it. So let's talk about the hero fat-

Lewis Howes 49:52 Okay

Dr. William Li 49:52 ... the good guy. So I talked ... I told you the white fat, subcutaneous and visceral fat, the stuff that grows inside you, actually is lumpy, bumpy, jiggly, wiggly. All right? Brown fat is wafer thin-

Lewis Howes 50:04 Mm

Dr. William Li 50:04 ... and it's not close to the b- it's not close to the skin. You can't see it. It's close to the bone, around your neck-

Lewis Howes 50:09 Interesting

Dr. William Li 50:10 ... behind your chest. Uh, okay, so it's really deep inside you, and it fires up whenever you actually need it to fire up. Originally, we thought, we think actually it was intended for cold temperatures.

Lewis Howes 50:22 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 50:22 All right? So basically, when you're really cold, um, it lights up your brown fat and i- and the brown fat, again, as, as a space heater, takes fuel from wherever it can get, like your visceral fat, and it burns it down in order to generate heat. All right? Keeps your core body temperature warm. Where does it get that fuel? From your excess fat.

Lewis Howes 50:43 Wow.

Dr. William Li 50:43 Draws from there first. All right? That's why when you see there's certain foods that you can eat that turn on your brown fat, they also decrease your waist circumference because they are shrinking the harmful fat that's inside your body. That's the fat you wanna get rid of.

Lewis Howes 50:58 Gotcha. Wow. Okay. And the easiest way to get rid of it is, is how?

Dr. William Li 51:03 The easiest way to get rid of it is actually to allow your body to normally burn, as we talked about-

Lewis Howes 51:08 Uh-huh

Dr. William Li 51:08 ... with the, you know, the, the timed eating.

Lewis Howes 51:11 Yes.

Dr. William Li 51:11 All right? But another way that you can add on top of that is choosing foods that I write about in my book-

Lewis Howes 51:17 Mm

Dr. William Li 51:17 ... 150 of them-

Lewis Howes 51:18 Yep

Dr. William Li 51:18 ... that wh- when you eat them, ignite your brown fat.

Lewis Howes 51:21 Okay.

Dr. William Li 51:21 So it ignites extra burn. You get ... Y- you know, it's sort of like the putting nitro into your body. It actually fu- it actually helps your body burn extra fuel. Where does it get the fuel from? The brown fat burns down fuel and it gets that fuel from the white fat, the harmful fat. Good fat fights bad fat.

Lewis Howes 51:39 So you've got 150 of these foods in Eat to Beat Your Diet, the new book, and I'm curious if you could share five that help burn fat, the foods that you should eat to help burn fat.

Dr. William Li 51:50 All right.

Lewis Howes 51:50 What would those be?

Dr. William Li 51:51 So this is the second section of my book where I actually tell people about the foods. And the way I wrote this, by the way, uh, Lewis, is I take the reader into a trip in my grocery cart.

Lewis Howes 52:05 Okay.

Dr. William Li 52:05 It's like when you're a kid.

Lewis Howes 52:06 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 52:06 You know, you rode your mom's grocery cart-

Lewis Howes 52:07 Yes

Dr. William Li 52:07 ... and she pushed you around.

Lewis Howes 52:08 Yeah, it was the best.

Dr. William Li 52:09 All right. So what I, what I do is I put you in the grocery cart and I wheel you around the store, a grocery store-

Lewis Howes 52:14 Mm

Dr. William Li 52:14 ... and I narrate into your ear, whisper into your ear what foods you should put into the cart. All right? So we go to the produce section. We go to the beverage section.

Lewis Howes 52:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 52:21 We go to the middle, the forbidden middle aisles.

Lewis Howes 52:24 Oh, man.

Dr. William Li 52:24 I tell you how to find the good stuff in there.

Lewis Howes 52:26 The box aisles.

Dr. William Li 52:27 And then we go to, and then we go to the seafood section-

Lewis Howes 52:29 Yeah

Dr. William Li 52:29 ... and we pick up different foods. So let's, uh, let me, let me come up with five just, uh, going through, cr- cruising through the, the section-

Lewis Howes 52:37 Mm

Dr. William Li 52:37 ... of the grocery store. Produce section, I look at tomatoes that contain lycopene, and the lycopene actually dissolves in your fat. So when you eat a tomato, the lycopene naturally dissolves in your fat to fight fat.

Lewis Howes 52:52 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 52:52 All right?

Lewis Howes 52:52 Now, what about the case about the lectins with tomatoes?

Dr. William Li 52:55 Uh, okay. Uh, big urban legend. Uh, tomatoes do have lectins. There are hundreds of lectins. T- the ones that are in tomatoes are harmless.

Lewis Howes 53:01 Okay.

Dr. William Li 53:02 All right? That's it. That's end of story. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:03 There you go.

Dr. William Li 53:04 You know?

Lewis Howes 53:04 Okay.

Dr. William Li 53:04 I mean, so again, well-meaning people try to interpret things, and they, they tend to kind of miss ... They, they try to put together a story that actually doesn't, isn't supported by science.

Lewis Howes 53:15 Okay.

Dr. William Li 53:15 All the evidence for tomatoes show that in fact you get net, net health benefits from it.

Lewis Howes 53:18 Positive. Okay.

Dr. William Li 53:19 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:19 So tomatoes.

Dr. William Li 53:20 So it's tomatoes overall.

Lewis Howes 53:20 Now, is it tomato in any form? Is that in tomato sauce, or is it more-

Dr. William Li 53:23 It could be, it could be raw tomatoes, it could be tomato sauce, tomato paste-

Lewis Howes 53:26 Okay

Dr. William Li 53:27 ... double concentrated tomato paste in a tube-

Lewis Howes 53:29 Interesting

Dr. William Li 53:29 ... even more concentrated 'cause it's got even more lycopene. There's even tomato powder you can find. All right? The, the, the ... and tomato sauce, the canned tomatoes, tomato paste, you f- don't find that in the produce section.

Lewis Howes 53:41 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 53:41 You find that in the middle aisles.

Lewis Howes 53:42 Right.

Dr. William Li 53:43 So-

Lewis Howes 53:43 So this, so tomatoes help you activate the process of burning fat.

Dr. William Li 53:47 That's right.

Lewis Howes 53:47 Wow.

Dr. William Li 53:47 Exactly. And b- and what's really cool about tomatoes is that the stuff that is in tomatoes, lycopene, that does the fat burning, okay, dissolves in fat. So when you eat it, it immediately travels into your fat, okay-

Lewis Howes 54:02 Wow

Dr. William Li 54:02 ... it, it embeds itself in your fat to fight the fat.

Lewis Howes 54:04 Nice.

Dr. William Li 54:04 Pretty powerful.

Lewis Howes 54:05 That's great. Okay. So tomatoes fight the fat.

Dr. William Li 54:07 All right. Now, now we're still in the-

Lewis Howes 54:09 What else you got?

Dr. William Li 54:09 I wanna, I wanna show another one that's actually pretty powerful. Uh, there was a study that showed eating just two pears a day would help you lose three pounds.

Lewis Howes 54:18 Come on. Really?

Dr. William Li 54:19 Okay. Yeah. Over t- o- you know, over about a month. And the bottom line

Lewis Howes 54:23 Oh, it's only eating two pears a day, or-

Dr. William Li 54:24 No, no, no, no, no. You eat everything else, but you add-

Lewis Howes 54:26 And you add that

Dr. William Li 54:26 ... just add two pears a day.

Lewis Howes 54:27 Huh.

Dr. William Li 54:27 Now why? Because pears have the same thing as in coffee, chlorogenic acid that fights body fat, but pears in addition have six grams ... A, a medium pear has about six grams of dietary fiber.

Lewis Howes 54:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 54:40 The fiber is prebiotic- It feeds your gut bacteria, your gut microbiome, and your gut microbiome is very, very happy. It gets happy and pays you back by helping to up your metabolism, streamlines your lipids, your blood cholesterols, actually helps to lower your blood pressure, lowers inflammation, and it actually improves your metabolism as well and helps you burn body fat. And so as a fruit, pear's got the fiber, it's got the chlorogenic acid-

Lewis Howes 55:07 Mm

Dr. William Li 55:08 ... also not too sweet.

Lewis Howes 55:10 It's not too much sugar, right?

Dr. William Li 55:10 Not too much sugar either.

Lewis Howes 55:11 Compared to an apple, which typically has more, right?

Dr. William Li 55:14 Compared to a pineapple or compared to a mango.

Lewis Howes 55:16 Uh-huh. What about apples compared to pears?

Dr. William Li 55:18 Uh, you know, it's also, it's about, apple and pear is about the same.

Lewis Howes 55:21 About the same.

Dr. William Li 55:22 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:22 Okay, cool. Depe-

Dr. William Li 55:22 Yeah

Lewis Howes 55:22 ... does it depend on the type of apple? 'Cause some apples are, like, filled with a lot of su- they're huge and they're-

Dr. William Li 55:27 Yeah, so again, I think that the focus on the sugar is sort of a little bit of a bogey.

Lewis Howes 55:32 Okay.

Dr. William Li 55:32 All right?

Lewis Howes 55:32 Got it.

Dr. William Li 55:33 What you wanna do is to focus on the good stuff, uh, in apples, and I'll tell you for the polyphenols in apples, um, that that has been studied. All right? Golden Delicious, uh, Granny Smith, and the Reinette apple are the three varietals that actually have the highest polyphenols.

Lewis Howes 55:50 What are those again? Golden-

Dr. William Li 55:51 Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and the Reinette, R-E-I-N-E-T-T-E. That's a smaller European apple. You'll see if you, if you go to any European market in the fall-

Lewis Howes 56:03 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 56:03 ... it's all over the place.

Lewis Howes 56:05 So these have more polyphenols-

Dr. William Li 56:07 Polyphenols

Lewis Howes 56:07 ... than, say, the, the Fuji apple-

Dr. William Li 56:09 Oh, yeah

Lewis Howes 56:09 ... or the other.

Dr. William Li 56:10 Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 56:10 Okay.

Dr. William Li 56:10 Fuji has actually one, r- relatively little. They're, they're on the lower end of the polyphenols.

Lewis Howes 56:15 Right, it's just more like candy bar. That's, it's like just sugar-

Dr. William Li 56:18 Uh, you know, um-

Lewis Howes 56:18 ... is what it tastes like. It tastes so good. That's the [laughs]

Dr. William Li 56:20 It, yeah, it's, it's, it's light. I mean, I would say that-

Lewis Howes 56:23 Ah, yeah

Dr. William Li 56:23 ... it's a, it's got kind of a light flavor.

Lewis Howes 56:25 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 56:25 It doesn't have a, it's not as dense and it doesn't produce as much polyphenols.

Lewis Howes 56:28 Got it, okay, so Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and the other one. Um, okay, so pears and apples.

Dr. William Li 56:34 Uh, uh, no, well, we added tomatoes, and we did pears.

Lewis Howes 56:36 Tomatoes, pears.

Dr. William Li 56:37 Those are my two picks.

Lewis Howes 56:38 Okay.

Dr. William Li 56:38 Let's, let's, let's dive into the middle aisle-

Lewis Howes 56:40 All right, let's bring it

Dr. William Li 56:41 ... 'cause I love that. The first place I'd go in the middle aisle actually is the, uh, spices, and I would get a bag of dried chili. Chili powder, um, poblano chilies, uh, ancho chilies, you know, any kind of chili. Um, and by the way, it's chili, so you could get the powder, you could get the dried pods. Or if you wanted to get a salsa, a chili salsa-

Lewis Howes 57:06 Mm, chili salsa

Dr. William Li 57:07 ... that would also work. If you wanna go to get sriracha sauce, that also works. I'm just telling you, this is, this is how you get to 150 different foods. There's a, it- it's the chili in it. Now, what's in chili? You're gonna love this. Now, there is something called capsaicin. Capsaicin and, and capsaicinoids, all right? Those are the two things in, in chili that, um, give you the burn.

Lewis Howes 57:30 Mm.

Dr. William Li 57:31 All right? Now you-

Lewis Howes 57:32 Make you sweat, too

Dr. William Li 57:33 ... they make, uh, tell you ex-

Lewis Howes 57:33 For me as a, as a white boy, it makes me sweat a lot actually

Dr. William Li 57:36 ... I'm gonna tell you why, and now, now I'm gonna tell you why.

Lewis Howes 57:38 I like 'em, but I'm, like, dripping sweat.

Dr. William Li 57:40 I'm gonna tell you why now.

Lewis Howes 57:40 Tell me.

Dr. William Li 57:41 Because the capsaicin in chili binds to, ac- turns on a switch on your tongue and in your mouth. It's called, um, TRPV1. Okay, don't worry about the name of it, just know that there's a switch. Cap- pepper, capsaicin goes to the switch, turns on the switch in your tongue. Your tongue then sends a text message to your brain, and your brain releases two kinds of hormones. One is an endorphin, so it's a feel-good hormone. That's why you love it.

Lewis Howes 58:09 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 58:10 Okay? That's why some people are addicted to chili-

Lewis Howes 58:12 Yeah

Dr. William Li 58:12 ... or hot s- hot spice. The other one is called noradrenaline. Noradrenaline's a stress hormone, actually. All right? And so, and you can feel this next time you have something spicy. Um, put it in your mouth, feel the burn, and if you pay attention to it, like in a quiet room, or if you can, if you can, like, kind of go into a zen state, you'll feel the text message go to your brain.

Lewis Howes 58:33 Right.

Dr. William Li 58:34 You will feel the hormones being sent down the nerves of your neck. Like, literally, you'll feel it. And th- those nerves and those hormones light up your brown fat. They turn on your brown fat, like a, a key into an ignition.

Lewis Howes 58:45 Mm.

Dr. William Li 58:46 Boom, turn it on. And, and you, and you... And by the way, that noradrenaline, nor- norepinephrine, actually causes you to sweat.

Lewis Howes 58:53 Right.

Dr. William Li 58:53 Right? So now you understand-

Lewis Howes 58:55 Right

Dr. William Li 58:55 ... exactly was it... But you're also turning on your metabolism, and that brown fat it's turning on is burning down harmful-

Lewis Howes 59:01 Interesting

Dr. William Li 59:01 ... uh, extra fat.

Lewis Howes 59:02 So sweating when you eat is not a bad thing.

Dr. William Li 59:04 It's a reflection of the fact that your brain is doing something.

Lewis Howes 59:08 It's working.

Dr. William Li 59:08 It's working.

Lewis Howes 59:09 It's burning calories.

Dr. William Li 59:10 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:10 It's connecting to the fat-

Dr. William Li 59:11 Yeah

Lewis Howes 59:11 ... the brown fat, right?

Dr. William Li 59:12 Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:12 It's starting to activate the metabolism.

Dr. William Li 59:14 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:14 Is there any side, like, negative side effects to having in, you know, in chilies in the, in your gut or in your intestines where it's, like, inflaming something or it's-

Dr. William Li 59:26 Right

Lewis Howes 59:26 ... impacting it in a negative way?

Dr. William Li 59:27 So it turns out that, um, some, some-

Lewis Howes 59:29 Kind of feel a burning, you know?

Dr. William Li 59:30 Well, so first of all, every- everyone is a little bit different.

Lewis Howes 59:33 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 59:33 So let's recognize that it's super important to listen to your body, and if something is-

Lewis Howes 59:39 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 59:39 ... you're not responding well to something, cut it down or cut it out or try it in a different way, for sure. So some people will be very sensitive to chilies, other people not.

Lewis Howes 59:48 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 59:48 Right? Now, here's the thing. That switch that I told you, the TRPV1 that the chili activates in your tongue to text message your brain, it's present along your entire gut.

Lewis Howes 59:57 Mm.

Dr. William Li 59:57 So it keeps on, as it's rolling down, it keeps on sending that message all the way to the end, which is, you know, why some people-

Lewis Howes 1:00:03 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:00:03 ... feel a burning on the way out.

Lewis Howes 1:00:04 I feel that burn on the way out, too.

Dr. William Li 1:00:05 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:00:06 Now, what does that mean when, when you eat something and then the next day it burns too on the way out, and sometimes [laughs] I'm sweating again. Is that a good thing?

Dr. William Li 1:00:13 Well, I mean, it just shows you that, that what you ate is actually doing something. It's your body's response-

Lewis Howes 1:00:18 Okay

Dr. William Li 1:00:18 ... to what you ate, and it, yeah, it's actually turning on your metabolism.

Lewis Howes 1:00:21 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:00:21 Okay?

Lewis Howes 1:00:22 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:00:22 So it doesn't mean that you want it to burn on the way out.

Lewis Howes 1:00:24 Right. [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:00:25 Right? You want to tune it to-

Lewis Howes 1:00:25 Have a little bit less than the-

Dr. William Li 1:00:27 Have a little bit less.

Lewis Howes 1:00:27 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:00:28 All right?

Lewis Howes 1:00:28 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:00:28 Um, uh, now the other thing that's-

Lewis Howes 1:00:31 Okay

Dr. William Li 1:00:31 ... really interesting about... So anyway, so that's a, that's a, that's a middle aisle one. That's three.

Lewis Howes 1:00:34 Dried chili powder or salsas. Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:00:36 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:00:36 Chili salsas. Sriracha sauce, yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:00:39 Fourth.

Lewis Howes 1:00:39 Yep.

Dr. William Li 1:00:40 I'm gonna pick, um, can of beans. Or it could be-

Lewis Howes 1:00:43 A can of beans

Dr. William Li 1:00:44 ... or it could be dried beans. Yeah, beans.

Lewis Howes 1:00:46 A can of bean. What type of beans? Black beans, pinto beans.

Dr. William Li 1:00:48 Um, so actually any of these beans. They're all legumes, so it could be- It could be, uh, navy beans, pinto beans, red beans, black beans. Could even be lentils, frankly. But the point is that they're beans, and these legumes actually not only have healthy fats, they are very rich in dietary fiber.

Lewis Howes 1:01:09 Really?

Dr. William Li 1:01:09 Now, why, why is that good for your metabolism? When you eat beans, not only are you fee- feeding that, your gut microbiome with the fiber, it turns out that beans actually make you feel a little more full.

Lewis Howes 1:01:21 Mm, they fill you up.

Dr. William Li 1:01:22 Fill you ... Well, they give you the sensation that you're filled up.

Lewis Howes 1:01:25 The feeling. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:01:25 You feel that way. They don't necessarily cause you to bulge out, okay? So if you even eat a, um-

Lewis Howes 1:01:31 Couple spoons

Dr. William Li 1:01:31 ... spoonful of beans slowly, or bean soup, bean stew.

Lewis Howes 1:01:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:01:35 If you eat it slowly, don't chug it, all right? Even a few spoonfuls will make you feel like eating a little bit less.

Lewis Howes 1:01:41 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:01:42 That's playing in your brain. That's actually helpful, right? It's, it's your body just helping you ... You're, you're using your operating system to basically-

Lewis Howes 1:01:50 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:01:50 ... say, "Eh, don't eat so much."

Lewis Howes 1:01:51 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:01:51 And yet your, those beans are feeding your gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome is lowering inflammation, helping your metabolism, making your body more sensitive to insulin so your, uh, metabolism is more efficient, all right? Helping you heal better, text messaging your brain to release social hormones. All good things. And so it's been ... And by the way, it's been studied at the University of Toronto, um, basically one cup of beans eaten five days a week, right? So that's, uh, that's not every day of the week, and it's not a whole can. It's about a half a can-

Lewis Howes 1:02:22 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:02:22 ... three-quarters of a can, actually will shrink your waistline by about almost two inches.

Lewis Howes 1:02:27 Come on. Wait, wait. H- One cup of beans a week?

Dr. William Li 1:02:30 Yeah, this has been studied. University of Toronto.

Lewis Howes 1:02:32 For how long?

Dr. William Li 1:02:33 About a month.

Lewis Howes 1:02:34 A month?

Dr. William Li 1:02:34 Yeah, and that's the only thing you do. No workout, no special dietary risk, no caloric restriction.

Lewis Howes 1:02:39 Eating the same amounts of foods you normally eat.

Dr. William Li 1:02:41 Yep, just adding-

Lewis Howes 1:02:42 Kinda same-

Dr. William Li 1:02:42 ... the beans

Lewis Howes 1:02:42 ... just adding the beans.

Dr. William Li 1:02:44 Yeah. I'm telling you, this is why you can eat to beat your diet.

Lewis Howes 1:02:46 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:02:47 Like, you know, the whole idea about dieting is what? It's cutting out, deprivation, elimination, doing something you don't wanna do. I'm telling you, like, you can lean into this, and you can actually find foods ... And, and again, you know, beans are one of them. Chili is another one.

Lewis Howes 1:03:01 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:03:01 Uh, chili peppers.

Lewis Howes 1:03:02 Yep.

Dr. William Li 1:03:03 Chili peppers and beans, now you got chili.

Lewis Howes 1:03:05 Well, there you go.

Dr. William Li 1:03:05 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:03:05 There you go.

Dr. William Li 1:03:06 So-

Lewis Howes 1:03:06 It's a chili. Yeah, yeah

Dr. William Li 1:03:07 ... right. So again, combining them, you can actually get all this other stuff. It's just really interesting-

Lewis Howes 1:03:11 Interesting

Dr. William Li 1:03:11 ... what the science is showing us.

Lewis Howes 1:03:13 Now, there's so many different diets out there. I, I can't remember which one says don't eat legumes. If that's the paleo diet or something else like this that's saying, like, legumes are bad for you or whatever it is. What is it about legumes that some people say you shouldn't eat?

Dr. William Li 1:03:28 I think people talk about lectins again in legumes.

Lewis Howes 1:03:30 Lectins in legumes, of like you should remove these or-

Dr. William Li 1:03:33 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:03:33 ... have them a certain way, but-

Dr. William Li 1:03:34 You know, you, you wanna soak your beans.

Lewis Howes 1:03:36 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 1:03:36 That'll let you neutralize everything.

Lewis Howes 1:03:38 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:03:38 No, no biggie.

Lewis Howes 1:03:39 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:03:39 Like, you know, I, I, I, I wanna basically communicate how it's a non-issue.

Lewis Howes 1:03:44 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:03:45 You know?

Lewis Howes 1:03:45 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:03:45 And the lectins are not poisonous.

Lewis Howes 1:03:46 Gotcha.

Dr. William Li 1:03:47 They're not, they're not poisonous to the beans. So soak them in a ... L- if you soak, the longer you soak them, the less gas they can cause.

Lewis Howes 1:03:52 Oh.

Dr. William Li 1:03:53 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:03:53 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:03:53 That's also helpful.

Lewis Howes 1:03:54 That's nice.

Dr. William Li 1:03:55 Um, exactly.

Lewis Howes 1:03:56 Are there certain beans that are already pre-soaked that you can buy? Or-

Dr. William Li 1:03:59 A can ... You know, honestly, a can of beans is already pre-soaked. Like, ready-to-eat can of beans.

Lewis Howes 1:04:03 Can of pinto beans or black beans is-

Dr. William Li 1:04:05 Yeah. Now we can get into all the, you know, are there plastics in the can and all that kinda stuff.

Lewis Howes 1:04:09 Are they organic and this and that? Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:04:11 Yeah, yeah. I mean, we can get into that.

Lewis Howes 1:04:12 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 1:04:12 But I can tell you that, like, this is pretty simple stuff.

Lewis Howes 1:04:15 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:04:15 You know, we were talking about the dude out there that has got a lot of extra weight and wants to know, what can I do for myself, in addition to timing your eating and with the things we talked about, look, get into the grocery store and start picking selectively-

Lewis Howes 1:04:27 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:04:27 ... the stuff. And it could be, by the way, it could be dried chili peppers-

Lewis Howes 1:04:30 Right

Dr. William Li 1:04:30 ... or it could be fresh chili peppers.

Lewis Howes 1:04:32 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:04:32 You wanna make some Thai food?

Lewis Howes 1:04:33 There you go.

Dr. William Li 1:04:34 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:04:34 I like it. Okay, great. So now-

Dr. William Li 1:04:36 I think I owe you one more.

Lewis Howes 1:04:37 Yes, that was beans.

Dr. William Li 1:04:38 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:04:38 So the fifth one, a food that will help you burn fat and lose weight.

Dr. William Li 1:04:43 I'm actually gonna go to the seafood section.

Lewis Howes 1:04:45 Mm, okay.

Dr. William Li 1:04:45 And I know seafood can be controversial because a lot of people say, "I don't like fish."

Lewis Howes 1:04:49 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:04:49 But I can tell you that, um, if you don't like fish, you haven't had ... If you don't like ... If you say, "I don't like seafood," you just haven't yet had seafood cooked the right way.

Lewis Howes 1:04:59 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:05:00 I'm just telling you that.

Lewis Howes 1:05:01 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:05:01 There are people that live along the coast that eat seafood, and it is so-

Lewis Howes 1:05:05 Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:05:05 ... delicious.

Lewis Howes 1:05:06 The Mediterranean diet is one of the diets that helps people kind of live longer in certain blue zones.

Dr. William Li 1:05:10 Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 1:05:11 Right. Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:05:11 And also in Asia-

Lewis Howes 1:05:12 Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:05:12 ... as well. So and that's why I, I call my f- approach to eating Mediterrasian.

Lewis Howes 1:05:17 Mediterrasian.

Dr. William Li 1:05:17 It's-

Lewis Howes 1:05:17 I like that.

Dr. William Li 1:05:17 Yeah, it's kind of like a, a mix, a blend of both.

Lewis Howes 1:05:20 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 1:05:20 It's how I naturally eat. But let's talk about the seafood section. So everybody used to say, think, again, this is a little bit of myth-busting. It's, "You've gotta have oily fish. It's gotta be salmon or sardines-

Lewis Howes 1:05:31 Mm. Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:05:31 ... or mackerel or anchovies." And people go-

Lewis Howes 1:05:32 To get the omegas, right? The-

Dr. William Li 1:05:34 Because the omegas. "Oh, man. Like, that's too fishy for me. I don't think I could eat sardines, you know? Oh, I, I ... You know, my mom made to- salmon once and I don't like it." Okay, but here's the surprise. The science has now shown that even non-oily fish, less oily fish, can actually have oma- enough omega-3s to give you the benefit. So salmon will actually cause you to lose weight, but cod, which is a non-oily fish, will also-

Lewis Howes 1:06:00 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:06:00 ... cause you to lose weight.

Lewis Howes 1:06:00 Love cod.

Dr. William Li 1:06:01 A little bit less than salmon.

Lewis Howes 1:06:02 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:06:02 A little bit less weight, but it turns on your metabolism. The omega-3 in cod is enough to turn on your fat-burning system for your metabolism. It activates your metabolism. Now, from that-

Lewis Howes 1:06:13 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:06:13 ... from, from the omega-3 in cod, you can then extrapolate to other seafood, clams, mussels, shrimp. I can tell you four shrimp will turn on your, uh, fat-burning system the way that a piece of cod would.

Lewis Howes 1:06:26 Ooh.

Dr. William Li 1:06:26 It will actually burn fat, right? Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:06:28 Four shrimp. I love shrimp.

Dr. William Li 1:06:29 Yeah. Now, I can tell you how you cook your food-

Lewis Howes 1:06:32 Ah

Dr. William Li 1:06:32 ... makes a big difference. If you deep-fry your shrimp-

Lewis Howes 1:06:35 Right. [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:06:35 You know, you take something good-

Lewis Howes 1:06:36 That's not good

Dr. William Li 1:06:37 ... you've kinda gone backwards.

Lewis Howes 1:06:38 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:06:38 But depending on how you cook it, it's about being mindful.

Lewis Howes 1:06:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:06:41 But ... And this is really the, the, the fact that it's pretty amazing. So in ... My publisher when I first, uh, said how I was gonna set up my book, they're like, "Be careful about the seafood. People don't like seafood."

Lewis Howes 1:06:52 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:06:52 And I'm like, "That's the reason I'm gonna write about them."

Lewis Howes 1:06:55 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:06:55 'Cause I'm gonna write about it the way that people love seafood, write about it, and I'm not just gonna cover salmon. I'm gonna talk about cod and hake and halibut, and then I'm gonna talk about shrimp, which every- which is what people love to eat-

Lewis Howes 1:07:08 Yes

Dr. William Li 1:07:08 ... and clams and mussels and squid, calamari, and octopus, and all these other f- and, and I get into some pretty, um, unusual, uh, things that you can get in, uh, the Mediterranean and also in Asia as well. Like, this is the, I think this is the first book that has the word diet on the cover. It's an anti-diet book, not a diet book.

Lewis Howes 1:07:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:07:25 That actually talks about mantis shrimp-

Lewis Howes 1:07:28 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:07:28 ... and mitten crab.

Lewis Howes 1:07:30 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:07:30 These are... By the way, if you, if you live in Europe or in Asia, you, and along the coast, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Lewis Howes 1:07:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:07:37 But I wanna push people's imaginations. I wanna ... You know, like, when you watch the Food Channel, you watch Iron Chef or something-

Lewis Howes 1:07:42 Yeah, yeah

Dr. William Li 1:07:43 ... like, you're really curious about what these things are.

Lewis Howes 1:07:45 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:07:45 Or Anthony Bourdain. I want people to approach the seafood section like that.

Lewis Howes 1:07:49 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:07:50 Like, what's Dr. Li gonna write about next?

Lewis Howes 1:07:52 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:07:53 Just take, I wanna take you on that journey.

Lewis Howes 1:07:55 Wow. Now, I'm kind of, I like certain seafoods, but I feel like if I went to Asia, I'd be like, "Uh, I don't know if I'm gonna try these things," 'cause it'd be too intense looking for me.

Dr. William Li 1:08:03 Tru- trust the locals.

Lewis Howes 1:08:05 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:08:05 And this, and this is what I always do when I travel-

Lewis Howes 1:08:07 Interesting

Dr. William Li 1:08:07 ... and I do my research. I fi- you know, a local will take me to some place, and I, be open-minded, learn, be willing to learn.

Lewis Howes 1:08:15 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:08:15 You know? And by the way, you know, like, uh, trust the experience-

Lewis Howes 1:08:21 Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 1:08:21 ... that you just might discover your new favorite thing.

Lewis Howes 1:08:24 Interesting, yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:08:25 All right? That's, that's a big leap of faith.

Lewis Howes 1:08:27 It is. It is.

Dr. William Li 1:08:28 But to me, that's actually an important thing to be willing to do to be able to conquer your fear-

Lewis Howes 1:08:34 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:08:34 ... in order to be able to actually master your, um, your, your f-

Lewis Howes 1:08:37 That's true. That's true. Um, I love these five foods, so let me rephrase, uh, recap these. Tomatoes, pears, dried chili powder or chilies, uh, beans, and cod or you said salmon-

Dr. William Li 1:08:51 Sh- for shrimp

Lewis Howes 1:08:52 ... and for shrimp. Yeah, for shrimp. So those are beautiful. These are five foods that will support you in burning fat and optimizing your metabolism, five of 150 that you talk about in this book.

Dr. William Li 1:09:03 With the doses, by the way.

Lewis Howes 1:09:04 With the exact doses.

Dr. William Li 1:09:05 With the exact dose that research would dictate will be helpful to turn on your fat-

Lewis Howes 1:09:09 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:09:09 ... burning.

Lewis Howes 1:09:10 I love that.

Dr. William Li 1:09:10 So that's a key thing. Food dosing, by the way, very important concept because not only do you wanna know what to eat, you wanna know how much to eat that's based on science.

Lewis Howes 1:09:20 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:09:21 Now, there's a lot of experts, you being one of them, obviously, who is doing the research, working in the science, seeing the studies that other people are doing, testing the studies, um, using it with different clients and patients, using these things yourself, seeing how it is. How can we know how to b- trust our own selves as the expert when there is lots of experts out there saying different things and different research and different, um, methods to apply? How can we see all the things that are out there and everything in the fitness and nutrition industry in general and still say, "Okay, I know everyone's saying all these different things, and there's different research for things, but how do I learn to trust myself as the expert for optimizing my nutrition and my body?"

Dr. William Li 1:10:13 I, I write about this. Um, there's a whole chapter in here that, um, uh, I write about Bruce Lee.

Lewis Howes 1:10:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:10:21 And I wrote about Bruce Lee because, uh, I was a big fan of Bruce Lee when I was a kid, and, and I loved the martial arts, and I studied martial arts. But actually, it's less about, uh, as I've sort of, you know, gotten to be an adult, what's really still amazing about him is really his philosophy and his approach to fitness and health and actually approach to life. And one of the most important, um, I think, uh, uh, concepts he talks about is really knowing yourself.

Lewis Howes 1:10:47 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:10:47 Like, being very honest with yourself, taking the time to really have that self-knowledge. And I think you talk about this as well, about self-knowledge and understanding what makes you tick, what injuries you've had, what your preferences are, who you are inside.

Lewis Howes 1:11:03 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:11:04 That's the key to the unlock.

Lewis Howes 1:11:05 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:11:05 And I think that's true for food as well. By understanding, uh, who you are, what you respond to, what your origins are, you know. Look, we all are connected to food from the time we were a kid. Every one of us, no matter who it is, who, who's watching this, you have some food, some smell that came out of your mom's kitchen that makes you feel good.

Lewis Howes 1:11:27 Mm, my mom's lasagna, so good.

Dr. William Li 1:11:29 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:11:30 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:11:30 Okay. And so that's part of who you are. That's part of self-knowledge. We, y- if you do more of that, you actually can trust yourself-

Lewis Howes 1:11:38 Yes

Dr. William Li 1:11:38 ... to know what your preferences are. The other way you can trust yourself is to really find, uh, learn how to find trustworthy sources.

Lewis Howes 1:11:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:11:47 You know, uh, look at credentials. Look at what else people are doing.

Lewis Howes 1:11:51 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:11:52 But, uh, but what I would say is that look for people who are not offering you quick fixes.

Lewis Howes 1:11:57 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:11:57 You know, when it comes to your health, it's never a quick fix. It's a journey, as you s- as you said.

Lewis Howes 1:12:01 Yeah, it is.

Dr. William Li 1:12:01 And so anybody who basically says, "Just eat this, and you'll be all set," or the superfood or super supplement-

Lewis Howes 1:12:07 Uh-huh

Dr. William Li 1:12:07 ... that's a promise they can't deliver on.

Lewis Howes 1:12:09 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:12:10 All right? And so what happens when you try that, it doesn't work. You learn to not trust yourself.

Lewis Howes 1:12:14 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:12:15 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:12:16 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:12:16 So look at, look at your, look at your, um, learn how to trust yourself to trust other people.

Lewis Howes 1:12:23 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:12:24 How do you, who do you learn to trust? Think about it. You're at school. Who are you gonna, which teachers are you gonna trust?

Lewis Howes 1:12:28 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:12:28 Uh, which coaches are you gonna trust? What friends are you gonna trust? Same deal, I think, when we get all this other information that's out there. I, I actually think that part of the, um, confusion that we actually have on health and wellness and diet and nutrition is not that we have too many voices out there. It's that everyone has their own philosophy of what should be done. Look, even veganism, let me just, uh, explain this. Like, I'm totally all for people that decide to go for veganism, but understand that the choice of being a vegan is not really because of health. It's really a, an ethical decision.

Lewis Howes 1:13:06 Right, right.

Dr. William Li 1:13:06 That's not a health decision. That's not based on science. That is your ethics. That's your morals. Go for it.

Lewis Howes 1:13:11 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:13:12 I, I support you with that.

Lewis Howes 1:13:12 And own it. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:13:13 And own it. Okay?

Lewis Howes 1:13:14 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:13:15 Um, but and I think that to really then people try to twist that and to say, "Eh, it's gonna be healthy for you. Now you gotta do it this way." And even th- you know, things that we talked about, like intermittent fasting, you know what? It's not a trend. It's what we do. It's how our body's wired.

Lewis Howes 1:13:29 Sure.

Dr. William Li 1:13:29 And so, uh, what I try to do is to really take down some of this mystery, make it non-mythical, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:13:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:13:35 And, and if there's an urban legend, I wanna bash it because-

Lewis Howes 1:13:38 Sure

Dr. William Li 1:13:38 ... it doesn't believe there. It doesn't belong there.

Lewis Howes 1:13:41 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:13:41 It, uh, is gonna confuse people. So I think that's another way to have people trust themselves. And then, you know, I think an- the third thing that is absolutely vital to learn how to trust yourself, to move forward, to continue to trust yourself, is do things that you enjoy, things that bring you pleasure and joy.

Lewis Howes 1:13:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:13:59 When it comes to food, human na- nature abhors deprivation.

Lewis Howes 1:14:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:14:05 Don't do this. Don't do that. You're a bad person if you do this, you know. And then and you associate that with foods that you love, it's terrible. You, you're not gonna stick to that. You're not-

Lewis Howes 1:14:13 Right

Dr. William Li 1:14:14 ... then you don't know who to listen to, and you can't trust your inner, inner voice. What I try to do is to say, look, I, I, in my books, I actually put lists of food out that I've done all the hard work to tell you, and I show you what the science is showing that are good. I tell people, bust out a Sharpie or, you know, or however you actually digital, and circle the foods that I've listed, that I've already done the homework for you, that you already like. Start with those. You're already ahead of the game. You're already eating foods that you like. Then you can start to trust the information.

Lewis Howes 1:14:44 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:14:44 Now you wanna kinda explore more. Look, there's a lot of other foods you didn't circle. Give it a shot.

Lewis Howes 1:14:49 Yeah. That's great. I'm cur- how long have you been doing this work for? It's been, what?

Dr. William Li 1:14:54 30 years.

Lewis Howes 1:14:54 30 years. Three decades. And I feel like there's things that have evolved in science and research in the medical field over the last 30 years, right? I'm curious, what is the thing that when you started your medical practice and started science and research around nutrition and, and healing and cancer and all these different things, what has come out in the last decade that we didn't know 30 years ago, that you didn't even know was possible 30 years ago, and now we're seeing, oh, this is a common day practice? So we'll start with that, and then the second thing would be, what do you see is gonna be possible over the next 30 years that seems impossible or we just don't know the answer to yet?

Dr. William Li 1:15:36 All right. The single most mind-blowing thing to me about nutrition, uh, that's come out not just in the last 10 years, how about the last two years?

Lewis Howes 1:15:47 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:15:48 The last 24 months has changed our entire understanding of metabolism. So I can tell you this, just two years ago, in 2021, all right, there was a research paper that was published, a research study that was published, that was an epic study, the most ambitious, largest, most impactful study of human metabolism ever conducted.

Lewis Howes 1:16:14 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:16:15 And it was published in the journal Science, which is one of the top peer-reviewed credible journals. And the Science, that journal, uh, publishes discovery. So this is a discovery in the last two years that completely changes everything-

Lewis Howes 1:16:29 Hmm

Dr. William Li 1:16:29 ... that we knew about human metabolism. It's so new, so profound, that the textbooks on metabolism are being ripped up-

Lewis Howes 1:16:35 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:16:36 ... and torn out right now, and the new ones haven't even been written yet.

Lewis Howes 1:16:39 Come on. Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:16:39 All right. So let me tell you what it is.

Lewis Howes 1:16:41 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:16:41 All right? Um, so, uh, uh, there was a researcher named Herman Pontzer, uh, out of Duke University, who worked with 90 other collaborators. This is a big research project, all right?

Lewis Howes 1:16:55 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:16:55 Um, across 20 countries-

Lewis Howes 1:16:57 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:16:57 ... global, and they studied 6,000 people-

Lewis Howes 1:17:01 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:17:01 ... in exactly the same way for metabolism. All right? Now, this was impossible until a few years ago.

Lewis Howes 1:17:07 Sure.

Dr. William Li 1:17:08 And the way they studied them is they gave everybody a drink of water, uh, H2O, right, water. The hydrogen is H. The oxygen is the O. And they tweaked the hydrogen and the oxygen just a little bit so you can measure it, all right? So you g- they drank the water, and then the body metabolized the hydrogen and the oxygen, and you can measure the metabolism in the breath, in their breath. You can measure it in their blood, and you can measure it in their urine.

Lewis Howes 1:17:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:17:34 Right? And he studied this exactly the same way in 6,000 people. Now, here is the, uh, kind of the mic drop part of this. They studied the entire human lifespan from two days old to 92 years old. The, they studied people from across 20 countries-

Lewis Howes 1:17:53 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:17:53 ... from this entire age range, different body sizes, different races, ethnicities. Everything is different, different sexes, genders. All right. Now, and they measured the metabolism. What do you think they found at the beginning? At the beginning for metabolism, what do you think they found?

Lewis Howes 1:18:09 Um, they probably found, from all the different types of people-

Dr. William Li 1:18:12 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:18:12 ... they probably found-

Dr. William Li 1:18:13 6,000 people, 20 countries.

Lewis Howes 1:18:16 I mean, this is just-

Dr. William Li 1:18:16 Two days old to 90 years

Lewis Howes 1:18:17 ... a very uneducated guess, but they probably found that the metabolism is different for different people, I mean, based on age or, or-

Dr. William Li 1:18:26 Well, so that's what they found.

Lewis Howes 1:18:27 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:18:27 The results-

Lewis Howes 1:18:28 Okay

Dr. William Li 1:18:28 ... the results are all over the map.

Lewis Howes 1:18:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:18:30 All right? Just like you would expect.

Lewis Howes 1:18:31 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:18:31 Right? So you, you had an honest guess-

Lewis Howes 1:18:33 Uh-huh

Dr. William Li 1:18:33 ... based on common sense-

Lewis Howes 1:18:35 Yes

Dr. William Li 1:18:35 ... and based on what we kind of observe around us.

Lewis Howes 1:18:37 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:18:38 However, th- we now live in the age of artificial intelligence and supercomputing. So this group designed an algorithm that would be able to go into the dataset and correct the result based on the metabolism as it should be, a- as it is, if you remove the effect of excess body fat.

Lewis Howes 1:19:00 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:19:01 And when you removed every person's excess body fat from this completely natural study, all right, what they revealed, it wa- the results were not all over the map anymore.

Lewis Howes 1:19:10 They're all the same.

Dr. William Li 1:19:11 It was-- No. There was only four phases of human metabolism that were revealed across our entire lifespan. So now we know humans go through four phases of metabolism and depending on your age, you go through exactly the same four stages. All right, this is how we're hardwired. This, Lewis, is our operating system for our metabolism. All right? Now, what are those systems? What are those four phases? This first stage is when you're born. So when you're born, you come out of your mom, your metabolism's kind of synced up with your mom like a menstrual cycle.

Lewis Howes 1:19:43 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:19:43 All right, you pop out and your metabolism in, from zero to one, stage one skyrockets like a rocket ship blasting off. All right? And your metabolism by the time you're one year old is 50% higher than when you're gonna be an adult. That's how high it overshoots. All right? Now, stage two is from one year old to 20 years old. One to 20, and your metabolism goes down, down, down, down, down, down from one to 20. Down through teenage years, through adolescence, uh, to, to 20. Now the reason that's important, when it's going down, is because teenage years, adolescence, that's when your height skyrockets, people bu- put on muscle-

Lewis Howes 1:20:27 Yes

Dr. William Li 1:20:27 ... they're eating two dinners-

Lewis Howes 1:20:28 [laughs]

Dr. William Li 1:20:28 ... they're bouncing off the wall. Every parent says, "My kid must be... Their metabolism must be going through the roof."

Lewis Howes 1:20:33 Through the roof.

Dr. William Li 1:20:33 No, it's actually coming down-

Lewis Howes 1:20:35 Interesting

Dr. William Li 1:20:35 ... down, down, down, down to age 20, which is when you hit your adult level.

Lewis Howes 1:20:39 Did we not know this before two years ago?

Dr. William Li 1:20:41 No. This is-

Lewis Howes 1:20:42 We didn't know that the metabolism goes down-

Dr. William Li 1:20:44 No, this is-

Lewis Howes 1:20:44 ... in your teens?

Dr. William Li 1:20:44 No. This is completely spanking new-

Lewis Howes 1:20:47 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:20:47 ... discovery. Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:20:49 It's still high, but it's going down is what you're saying.

Dr. William Li 1:20:51 It's going down.

Lewis Howes 1:20:52 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:20:52 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:20:52 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:20:53 It started from 50% higher.

Lewis Howes 1:20:54 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:20:54 Now it's going down to adult level. Now 20-

Lewis Howes 1:20:56 At 20 years old

Dr. William Li 1:20:56 ... hits your adult level. Now, here's the big surprise.

Lewis Howes 1:20:59 And is everyone at 20 or sometimes 19 or 21? Is it kind of around this?

Dr. William Li 1:21:03 Th- they, they hit the spot at 20.

Lewis Howes 1:21:05 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:21:06 Okay?

Lewis Howes 1:21:06 Everyone is-

Dr. William Li 1:21:07 That's what they hit.

Lewis Howes 1:21:08 Wow. Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:21:08 Okay. Now, let me tell you, from 20 to age 60, human metabolism, your operating system for metabolism, is rock stable through pregnancy, through menopause, through middle age, up until you're 60. It doesn't change. It's hardwired to be the same. Okay? Now-

Lewis Howes 1:21:28 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:21:28 ... that means that 60 can be the new 20.

Lewis Howes 1:21:31 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:21:31 If you allow your metabolism to do what it wants to do.

Lewis Howes 1:21:33 That's amazing.

Dr. William Li 1:21:34 That's what's inside us. That's our operating system, okay? And we didn't know that for sure.

Lewis Howes 1:21:39 Huh.

Dr. William Li 1:21:39 Most people say, "Oh, when I'm middle-aged, I'm gonna have struggle with my weight."

Lewis Howes 1:21:42 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:21:42 Okay? It's all of these external factors and some-

Lewis Howes 1:21:45 Hmm

Dr. William Li 1:21:45 ... internal fact- changes your behavior, marketing, the cho- bad choices-

Lewis Howes 1:21:49 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:21:49 ... you make. Um, and then what the... I'm gonna come back to that for a second to explain that. So then at age 60, that's the third phase, age 60 to 90, the final stages is stage four, and guess what? Your metabolism from 60 onwards does slow down a little bit. By the time you're 90, it slows down 17%. So when you're 90, your metabolism is only 17% of what it was at 60, but it was also 70% of what it, what you were at 20.

Lewis Howes 1:22:16 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:22:17 All right?

Lewis Howes 1:22:17 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:22:18 This is the pattern of human metabolism. This is what the new textbooks are wr- This is the new discovery about how humans actually work across our lifespan. Very important. Now, one more thing about this.

Lewis Howes 1:22:28 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:22:28 You only reveal this when you remove the effects of excess body fat. What happens then when you put the effect of excess body fat back in, you smash your metabolism. You suppress it.

Lewis Howes 1:22:39 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:22:39 So it's not that a slow metabolism that you're born with makes you gain weight and get fat.

Lewis Howes 1:22:44 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:22:44 It's the other way around. Excess fat slows your metabolism.

Lewis Howes 1:22:49 So if you burn the fat or if you get rid of the fat, then your metabolism goes up.

Dr. William Li 1:22:53 Your m- goes up because it's a, that's the operating system. Your, you unleash your inner metabolism.

Lewis Howes 1:22:57 Interesting.

Dr. William Li 1:22:57 That's powerful. That's very powerful.

Lewis Howes 1:23:00 And why do we wanna have a s- a, a powerful metabolism? What's the po- importance of it?

Dr. William Li 1:23:04 Energy, uh, mental clarity, cognition-

Lewis Howes 1:23:08 Hmm. Mm-hmm

Dr. William Li 1:23:08 ... uh, uh, better muscle strength. I mean, all the things you want over the course of your life. Metabolism's our body's ability to run the engine-

Lewis Howes 1:23:16 Wow

Dr. William Li 1:23:17 ... of your body like a car engine.

Lewis Howes 1:23:19 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:23:19 You wanna be able to drive at 90 the same way that your car was when you bought it, when you rolled it out, out of the, out of the, off the, uh, uh, out of the car shop.

Lewis Howes 1:23:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:23:28 Right?

Lewis Howes 1:23:28 Sure.

Dr. William Li 1:23:29 So that's what I'm saying, is that this, and this hardwired pattern, you know, which I have in my book, it's, it's like a drawing of exactly how it works.

Lewis Howes 1:23:36 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:23:36 This puts the power back into our hands. So for the person who says, "You know what? This is my life and I've been struggling with weight," I'm telling you, in your body, your operating system wants to operate at a higher level. You've got extra some, extra body fat.

Lewis Howes 1:23:50 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:23:50 Okay. You gotta unleash, you gotta work to unleash that inner metabolism. It's gonna rise. Your water level will rise when you actually fight that body fat.

Lewis Howes 1:23:59 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:23:59 And by the way, you don't need to suck it out or burn it out or chop it out. Most people don't. Now, some people who are morbidly obese, they might have a medical pro- a serious medical problem, but what I'm saying is that the behaviors that we take, the accountability, the commitment that we take-

Lewis Howes 1:24:13 Yes

Dr. William Li 1:24:13 ... to just adjust our life pattern. Look, finish, put your dishes away and don't eat until you, until you wake up in the morning.

Lewis Howes 1:24:20 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:24:21 Don't eat breakfast for like an hour after you get up. That gives you 12, that gives you 12 hours of fat burning.

Lewis Howes 1:24:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:24:28 You'll start moving in that right direction. Then add some of these 150 foods that you can find-

Lewis Howes 1:24:34 Hmm

Dr. William Li 1:24:34 ... in the grocery store.

Lewis Howes 1:24:34 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:24:35 You don't have to order this, uh, online from some special, you know-

Lewis Howes 1:24:39 Exotic place

Dr. William Li 1:24:39 ... exotic place.

Lewis Howes 1:24:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:24:41 This is in the grocery store. That's what I'm talking about.

Lewis Howes 1:24:45 Hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:24:45 That's what you can eat to beat your diet.

Lewis Howes 1:24:46 Hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:24:47 I love this. Uh, I'm so inspired by this and, uh, I want everyone to get a copy of Eat to Beat Your Diet. Again, if you're looking to burn fat, if you're looking to heal your metabolism and live longer, then this is the book for you. Uh, again, I'm, I'm inspired by all of your work. You've got another t- uh, TED Talk that's got, I think, over 11 million views. It's called Can We Eat to Starve Cancer? In our previous interview, we talked a little bit about, you know, some of these concepts as well. So if people want more from you, check out that other interview we did ... get this book, and also follow you at drwilliamli.com, and also all over social media, Dr. William Li, that's L-I, uh, everywhere on social media. This is inspiring work, and I'm curious, how else can we be of support and service to you?

Dr. William Li 1:25:38 Well, look, um, I- my mission is to get information out.

Lewis Howes 1:25:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:25:44 So I wanna invite everybody to sign on to my newsletter. Uh, I pump out new information, new research that I'm seeing-

Lewis Howes 1:25:50 Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:25:50 ... every single week.

Lewis Howes 1:25:51 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:25:51 I, I'm, I'm sort of like drinking from a fire hose of the new research. I do all the heavy lifting to translate everything, to figure out what's important, what's ready for prime time or not ready for prime time.

Lewis Howes 1:26:02 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:26:02 But what I do with my newsletters, I put it out there so you can actually see for yourself the re-

Lewis Howes 1:26:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:26:06 Look, I've been involved with biotechnology and drug development, okay? That can take a decade, and maybe it won't work.

Lewis Howes 1:26:12 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:26:12 All right? Food research that is credible has immediacy because something that you hear-

Lewis Howes 1:26:19 Mm

Dr. William Li 1:26:20 ... that I tell you that's based on science, once you hear it, you could put it in action that evening.

Lewis Howes 1:26:25 And get re- start getting results.

Dr. William Li 1:26:26 And, and start getting-

Lewis Howes 1:26:27 Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:26:27 ... results. And it, and be- it becomes self-actuating.

Lewis Howes 1:26:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:26:30 That's why I really got into, um, food as medicine.

Lewis Howes 1:26:34 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:26:34 And so I think, you know, sign on to the newsletter. Um, you know, I do these free master classes. Uh, and I love the fact that I've got people from all around the world that sign on. Everybody's united by their l- love of health and their desire to see if there's some way to make food work out.

Lewis Howes 1:26:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:26:50 And so what I tell people is to love your food, to love your health, and then if you're really serious, you wanna do a deep dive with me, come with me on one of my four-week online, uh, digital courses that I teach. Um, I come on, do office hours, and I talk to people, and it's a Q&A. Um, or I have these little mini courses that you can actually do as well.

Lewis Howes 1:27:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:27:09 But the point is, this is all part of my mission to get that-

Lewis Howes 1:27:12 Yeah

Dr. William Li 1:27:12 ... information out there.

Lewis Howes 1:27:13 Wow. And that's all at drwilliamli.com, right?

Dr. William Li 1:27:15 That's right.

Lewis Howes 1:27:16 All that information. So sign up for the newsletter, courses, all that stuff. How often are you sending out the research? Is it weekly in the newsletter?

Dr. William Li 1:27:23 Weekly.

Lewis Howes 1:27:23 Okay. Um, this is inspiring stuff. Uh, Dr. Li, I wanna, I wanna acknowledge you for your constant commitment to knowledge, science, and research to helping people improve their life. For me, that's what I'm excited about. I don't have the skills to do the research like you and understand the science, but I'm grateful that you are doing it so that I can have you on this show and share this with the world as well. And I'm, and I really acknowledge you for taking the time to do all the research for this book, 'cause I know how much energy it takes to create a book. Um, you've done a few of them, and so thank you for putting this together so we can understand it, hopefully conceptualize it, and apply it, and take consistent action. So I really appreciate you creating this and adding so much value in the world. Um, I asked you this last time, but I'm curious if it's different, 'cause it was over a year ago when we had you on last time. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths question. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. You live as long as you wanna live, but it's your last day. You've applied all of your wisdom, and you've extended more than 20 years of your life, right? You live as long as you want. But for whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, you've gotta take all of your message with you. Your books, this interview, all your content you've ever created has to go to the next place, hypothetical. So we don't have anything to remember you by except for these three final truths that you would share with the world, or three lessons from all your wisdom that you would share. What would be those three truths for you?

Dr. William Li 1:28:53 One of them is to try to align your, um, health with the things that bring you joy. Very important, um, 'cause that way you can do it the whole time and always feel good about it. Second thing, I would say take the time to know yourself. It's so easy not to take that time, but it's so valuable and so worth it to take that time. And the third is to listen to your body. You know?

Lewis Howes 1:29:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:29:26 We, we run around doing things all the time, and we sort of treat our bodies as if they were this passive engine we can push through, you know, a snowstorm. And actually, if we paid attention and listened and learn how to be in tune with our bodies, we're gonna actually be a lot healthier.

Lewis Howes 1:29:41 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:29:42 No matter what.

Lewis Howes 1:29:43 Yeah. Those are beautiful. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Dr. William Li 1:29:49 Joy.

Lewis Howes 1:29:50 Mm.

Dr. William Li 1:29:51 When you can actually find a place where, and, or, or an area in your life where you really truly feel joy, you're great. A lot of the guidelines are just like, you know, watch your calories, watch your calories, watch your calories. And I think it's a disastrous sort of idea because the thing about calories is that calories is a measure of food energy, right? That's how much energy is released when you put a piece of food into a sort of-