Eat THIS to Lose Fat, Prevent Disease, & Feel Better Now With Dr. William Li

Mel Robbins 0:00 (instrumental music plays) You hear the word "diet" or "lose weight" and you immediately, you're like, "Ugh." And it feels like you're gonna have to restrict. But I love food. How the hell do I lose this fat?

Dr. William Li 0:08 Keep weird stuff out of your body. Let's talk about the bad stuff. Soda. A can of regular soda contains seven to nine teaspoons of cane sugar. Bottled water. Plastic bottles are shedding microplastics into the water. We're actually pouring plastic into our bodies.

Mel Robbins 0:25 Whoa. Tell us about the five things that we can add in.

Dr. William Li 0:30 Tomatoes. Triggers your brown fat to burn down harmful extra body fat. Pomegranates. Mother Nature's pharmacy is found in the juice of a pomegranate. Kiwi has a lot of dietary fiber. Matcha. It actually shrinks your waistline.

Mel Robbins 0:44 Matcha, kiwi, pomegranates, and tomatoes help you burn fat?

Dr. William Li 0:49 That's right. And so does- (suspenseful clock works)

Mel Robbins 0:53 Hey, it's your buddy Mel Robbins. I am so fired up that you're here. Can you tell? You know, there are, there are moments where you tune in and you're like, "Whoa, Mel has eaten something today." Well, I've eaten up our guest and everything he's gonna share with you. It is so exciting what we're about to talk about, and it is such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. If you're brand new, I wanna welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I think this is gonna be one of those episodes that can change the trajectory of your life, and I know you're gonna share it with a ton of people that you care about. And I also know you're the type of person who values your time and that you're interested in learning about ways that you can improve your health. I love that and I love that for you, I love that for the people that care about you. And if you or anyone that you care about is interested in losing weight or burning fat or just feeling better and getting healthier, holy smokes, you chose the exact podcast episode to listen to at the exact moment, because Dr. William Li is in our Boston studios. So let me tell you a little bit about him. Dr. Li is a renowned physician scientist and the founder and president of the Angiogenesis Foundation here in Boston, where he's educated over 40,000 physicians and is currently working on cutting-edge research on blood vessels and clinical applications of angiogenesis. His foundation has over 100 scientific publications in leading medical journals and textbooks. He's also served on the faculties at Tufts, Dartmouth, and Harvard Medical Schools. Dr. Li's work has impacted more than 50 million people worldwide, and his work has led to effective prevention, novel treatments, and even reversal of diseases that span cancer, chronic wounds, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and vision loss. And today, this New York Times bestselling author of two books, Eat To Beat Disease and Eat This To Beat Your Diet, is here in our studios to teach you the science that you need to know to unlock your body's natural ability to burn fat, lose weight, and be healthier. So please help me welcome Dr. William Li to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Dr. Li, I'm so excited that you're here, and the way that I wanted to start is, could you tell the person that's listening what they might expect to change in their life if they take everything that you're about to share with us today to heart and they apply it?

Dr. William Li 3:15 You know what I always tell people is that it's possible to love your food and love your health at the same time. So you don't fear your food, you lean into it, and you get to really enjoy your life finally.

Mel Robbins 3:28 I actually love that you're starting there, because I feel like so many of us have a very conflicted love-hate relationship with food, and I think you're about to empower us to be able to understand how to love food and also have it love your body and your health.

Dr. William Li 3:45 Yeah. And, and by the way, it's not about giving permission. It's really about allowing our own human nature to take over our being, because we're all hardwired, part of our humanity is based around food. That goes back to history and, you know, what I try to do is to bring it right to the present because we all have it inside us.

Mel Robbins 4:05 Wow,

Mel Robbins 4:06 I've never heard anyone say it like that. So Dr. Li, according to our research, about a third of our listeners have set a goal to either lose weight or to start a new diet in the new year, and I would love to have you connect the dots between metabolism and how it functions and what your research has shown about those of us that have excess body fat and that are carrying more extra weight around.

Dr. William Li 4:33 Yeah. Well, look, losing weight is a natural goal. Most of us think about losing weight in terms of the number on a scale or maybe, um, uh, the size of your clothing or fitting, the comfort of fitting into your clothing, or maybe how you look in the mirror, right? It's pretty crude, and it turns out that the, if you care about your health, if that's really your priority for losing weight, you wanna burn down the kind of fat that you can't see. And fat that you can't see is not wiggly-jiggly. It's actually located deep inside the tube of your body. Our bodies are really, if you stand up straight, you know, and you were to, uh, do a scan across our body, it's like a tube. We've got a oval, our organs are inside there, and the re- really, really harmful body fat that expands is called visceral fat, and it wraps around our organs like a baseball glove, and when it grows, it expands everything inside the sack of your, the tube of your body, which is why your waistline increases, right? So the more visceral fat you have, the bigger your waistli- uh, your waistline has to be. The belt is just being expanded more and more and more. That's different than the fat that's under your arm.

Mel Robbins 5:49 And I, I just wanna kind of unpack this a little bit, because I think if you're a person that has struggled to lose weight, you feel very discouraged and you feel a lot of frustration that the weight's not gonna come off, and you're making a very big distinction between the kind of fat that might be flabby arms versus that very stubborn fat that starts to gather around the midsection of a lot of people's bodies.

Dr. William Li 6:16 Body fat-... isn't all just what we think it is, right? So look, we've all done it. You're taking a shower in the morning. You step out, you're drying yourself off, you're naked. Out of the corner of eye, you look in the mirror and you see a lump or a bump that you didn't like to see.

Mel Robbins 6:30 Ugh, yes.

Dr. William Li 6:30 And you're like, "Ugh." And then what's the next thing you do?

Mel Robbins 6:32 (laughs)

Dr. William Li 6:32 You step on the scale, and if that number isn't the exact number you were hoping for, damn.

Mel Robbins 6:37 That's not what I do. I put a towel on and hide from the mirror.

Dr. William Li 6:39 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 6:39 But that's... And then I go eat a donut 'cause I'm depressed. So I'm like making all the (laughs) wrong choices.

Dr. William Li 6:45 Well, but then, but, but then you say like, "Man, I gotta do something about this." Right? Like it's-

Mel Robbins 6:48 Yes.

Dr. William Li 6:48 ... a realization.

Mel Robbins 6:49 Yes.

Dr. William Li 6:50 But the fat, the body fat you can see is not the part that's harmful to your overall health.

Mel Robbins 6:56 What?

Dr. William Li 6:57 Okay. Because fat is, comes in two different types of fat. You've got white fat, which is what you can see, and you've got brown fat, which you can't see. But I gotta explain a little bit further.

Mel Robbins 7:08 Okay.

Dr. William Li 7:09 So, you know, like, all right. The word fat-

Mel Robbins 7:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 7:14 ... immediately stimulates kind of this, this like negative reaction in our minds, right?

Mel Robbins 7:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 7:19 That's how we've been trained in society, right? But there is a situation where body fat is actually good and it makes everyone smile. And you know when that is?

Mel Robbins 7:28 When?

Dr. William Li 7:28 Babies.

Mel Robbins 7:29 Yes, that's true. They're so cute.

Dr. William Li 7:31 When you see a big fat baby-

Mel Robbins 7:33 Yes.

Dr. William Li 7:34 ... pudgy, cute-

Mel Robbins 7:35 Yes.

Dr. William Li 7:35 ... you wanna pinch its cheeks, all right, and big balloon-like, uh, arms and legs. Everyone smiles, and, and that's how we know that fat can't be all bad, right? In fact, if you saw a baby that had chiseled cheeks and long thin arms and thighs like a, like a runway model-

Mel Robbins 7:53 Yeah, I'd, I'd be like, "Somebody call Child Services."

Dr. William Li 7:55 9-1-1, right?

Mel Robbins 7:56 Yes.

Dr. William Li 7:56 Okay. So the, the, the fact of the matter is that our body fat is, is really, really important. It actually releases hormones. It's a, it's one of the endocrine organs. Our body fat's actually an organ in our body.

Mel Robbins 8:09 Wait, your body fat is an organ?

Dr. William Li 8:13 Body fat's an organ. It actually produces hormones, and these fat-produced hormones actually help our body absorb blood glucose. So the fuel tank actually produces the stuff that our body needs is to run the engine, glucose, so we have energy.

Mel Robbins 8:33 That's so cool.

Dr. William Li 8:33 All right? And in fact, one of these, uh, hormones is called adiponectin. All right? Now, you might not have ever heard of adiponectin. Actually, a lot of doctors never heard of adiponectin. But what if I told you adiponectin works with insulin? And we know m- we know insulin basically helps your blood glucose, takes all that energy and, you know, people talk about glucose spikes and high glucose and low glucose and insulin insensitivity. Look, insulin is the hormone that is made by your pancreas in order to be able to draw blood glucose into, to your, your muscles so you have energy-

Mel Robbins 9:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 9:05 ... so you can run. If you've got problems with your insulin, that can lead to diabetes, right? Okay, but do you know that insulin can't do the job by itself very well?

Mel Robbins 9:14 No.

Dr. William Li 9:15 Okay. Insulin needs a partner. It's like, uh, like two cops on a beat.

Mel Robbins 9:21 Don't tell me it's fat.

Dr. William Li 9:23 It is adiponectin is the hormone that insulin ... which is made by fat, helps insulin w- do its job. Adiponectin is so important, by the way, Mel, that if I were to take, um, a sample of your blood-

Mel Robbins 9:36 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 9:37 ... and send it to the lab and ask it to measure every hormone in your body, every one, okay?

Mel Robbins 9:43 Okay.

Dr. William Li 9:43 Estrogen, thyroid hormone, you know, ev- you name it. Thy- uh, w- okay, I will tell you, adiponectin, your adiponectin will be 1,000 times higher in amount than any other hormone in your body, 1,000. Tells you it's important. Fat, made by fat, by body fat, so body fat actually is good. It actually helps us, n- not surprisingly, use our energy. Now, if you have too much fat, guess what happens? The fat gets really, really big, it gets really, really inflamed, and now the hormone engine doesn't work anymore. You're not producing the right amount of adiponectin. Now insulin's not gonna work very well and now you're gonna have a metabolic problem. Okay? And this is why overeating, and overeating especially low-quality fuel, food, is so damaging to your body. But you, but because it's hardwired, all hardwired into us, if we take the, you know, realize that we have the agency to be able to make those choices for better quality fuel-

Mel Robbins 10:47 Right.

Dr. William Li 10:47 ... and don't eat too much, and get a little more active.

Mel Robbins 10:52 You know, that makes me think of another question, Dr.

Mel Robbins 10:54 Lee. Is there a way to lose weight and still enjoy food? I mean, how do you want us to think about this?

Dr. William Li 11:01 Okay. So I like to think about it in a much simpler way.

Mel Robbins 11:04 Okay.

Dr. William Li 11:05 Metabolism is how your body gets energy and burns down energy, just like if you were a car, okay? Human metabolism is really by just putting fuel in your body.

Mel Robbins 11:15 Right.

Dr. William Li 11:16 Once you're done eating, okay, it's kinda like you've stopped filling up your tank. Now you're driving back on the road, about your way, you're burning fuel. And that's what we do when we finish eating. We're loading up on the fuel, we're finished, now we're burning the fuel. And basically, that's how we live day in and day out. That's how, how we work. And the quality of fuel actually matters. Now, I wanna say one thing about besides quality of fuel-

Mel Robbins 11:41 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 11:41 ... it's quantity of fuel. You fill up your tank, it's a metal tank, all right? And you fill it up. When the w- when the gasoline reaches a certain level, it'll go, it'll force, the nozzle's going to click and it won't, no more gas will come out.

Mel Robbins 11:54 Yeah, I feel-

Dr. William Li 11:54 All right?

Mel Robbins 11:54 ... like I don't have a click, Dr. Lee.

Dr. William Li 11:56 Okay. Well-

Mel Robbins 11:57 (laughs)

Dr. William Li 11:57 ... imagine what would happen, and this is what happened, used to be in the old days-

Mel Robbins 12:01 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 12:01 ... with the filling stations. No click. What's gonna happen? You're gonna easily overfill your tank. If you're not paying attention, the tank's gonna overflow, the gasoline comes right out of the car, runs down the side of the car, around the tires, and pools around your shoes.

Mel Robbins 12:15 Right.

Dr. William Li 12:15 And now you are standing in the midst of a dangerous, toxic, flammable mess.

Mel Robbins 12:21 Right.

Dr. William Li 12:21 Right? Okay. Now that's at, what happens at the gas station.... at the dinner table or the pantry, or the drive-by convenience store. All right. We, if you don't actually control the amount of fuel that you put in your body, 'cause we don't have a clicker, just as you said, we can keep filling it up. What happens is that our fuel tanks are our fat cells. Our metabolism uses body fat. Body fat's very, very important. It's healthy. We want our fat cells to be what they serve as our fuel tank. When you eat, you, you use some of the energy just to up, run around, but the rest of it is stored in the fuel tank, which is our fat cells. We call them adipose cells, adipose tissue, and when you add up a lot of little, tiny little fat cells, you get a chunk of fat. Now, because we don't have a clicker, the more you eat, then you're gonna fill up your tank. Oh, you're still eating? Let's fill up another tank. Fill that one up, and by the way, each tank car is metal and fixed. It won't expand. Body fat, fat cells can expand to three times, 300%. You can really blow up a fat cell with fuel, meaning food that you eat, up to 300%, like a balloon, like a water balloon. So now you're still eating? Let's blow up another one. Oh, you're still? Another one. And one more piece of cake, one more second helping, another one. Oh, and by the way, once you run out of fat cells, guess what?

Mel Robbins 13:47 Yeah. I don't know.

Dr. William Li 13:48 Your fuel tanks are set, your body will look for stem cells to create brand new fat cells, and now you can keep on loading them up. Now think about this.

Mel Robbins 13:58 Wait, so you're basically, if you eat beyond the click in terms of what you actually just need for fuel-

Dr. William Li 14:05 Yep.

Mel Robbins 14:06 ... your body is designed to, through fat cells, to create storage tanks-

Dr. William Li 14:11 That's right.

Mel Robbins 14:11 ... for all this fuel, and when you run out of the storage tanks in your fat cells, your stem cells actually kick into gear and create more cells to hold this energy.

Dr. William Li 14:22 More fuel tanks, exactly.

Mel Robbins 14:24 Wow.

Dr. William Li 14:24 And, and this is, this can happen over the course of your whole life. So the more you overeat, and it's even worse if you use poor quality fuel. Now, excess body fat in this situation is exactly the overflow, the overfilling of your fuel tanks. So if you follow your hardwiring, if you fill up your tank only to what it's supposed to be and don't overflow, you will actually follow those four patterns. But how many people do you know who control their eating in a way that's mindful so you're not overflowing your fuel tank? And the reason I'm actually saying this is that, you know, over the course of a year, you pick the holiday. All right?

Mel Robbins 15:06 Right.

Dr. William Li 15:07 You could talk, talk about the winter holidays, you can talk about Easter, you could talk about the summer, 4th of July, you could talk about any holiday you want. All right? Um, uh, Thanksgiving. You're talking about the experience we've all had, which is sitting down with family and friends with a, um, incredible food in front of you, and what you wanna do is fill that plate up and eat it and then go back for seconds.

Mel Robbins 15:31 Right.

Dr. William Li 15:32 Okay? And how many of us have felt this?

Mel Robbins 15:34 Every one of us.

Dr. William Li 15:34 You go back, you, you have one more or two more forkfuls after that second plate and you're like, "Wait a minute. I shouldn't have done that." You know that you've actually, um, uh, overfilled your tank.

Mel Robbins 15:47 Absolutely.

Dr. William Li 15:48 Right? That's like, not the click, that's the leak. You're, now you're sitting in this toxic, flammable mess.

Mel Robbins 15:53 Yes.

Dr. William Li 15:53 And in fact, by the way, that extra fuel will indeed leak out of your fat cells eventually, and when we, when I use the word flammable, it is very inflaming. So in other words, when you overeat, too many calories, you blow, blow up your body fat, it'll eventually, like, like a water balloon, like it can't hold anymore, it starts to leak out, and now you've got fat that leaks out all throughout your body. You know the organ that actually picks up all that fat?

Mel Robbins 16:22 No.

Dr. William Li 16:22 It's the liver. So you've heard of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?

Mel Robbins 16:27 Uh, no, I hadn't.

Dr. William Li 16:28 That is a condition where you overeat, the fat flows out of your fat cells 'cause they can't hold anymore. Like, you've, you've strained the storage capacity to the limit. The fat leaks out into your cells, gets trapped in your liver, and your liver becomes replaced by, liver cells become replaced by fat. It is a num- it used to be alcohol and hepatitis that were the biggest causes of liver transplant.

Mel Robbins 16:54 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 16:54 Now livers are failing all around the country because of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So this is the silent epidemic. It's, it's nasty because, um, uh, your, when your liver fails, that's your detox. You talk, people talk about going to detox, you know, going to the spa for a cleanse, detoxing. Your liver does it every single day, so we need to do that. The good news is all of this, the extra body fat, the leakiness, the inflammation, the, the clogged up liver-

Mel Robbins 17:25 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 17:25 ... that's gonna fail on you, it's all reversible if you make good choices. Even if you have a lifetime, decades of making bad choices, you can actually work your, swim your way back to your baseline operating system.

Mel Robbins 17:41 Okay, I wanna offer up a visual for the person listening and I wanna see if this could be helpful. So as you were talking about the fact that we all have, that food is fuel, that we have a tank for fuel inside of us, and when we overeat or we just have too many calories or we're too sedentary and we're not intaking enough calories for the fuel that we need but we're taking in more, it's like your body finds all these extra fuel tanks inside your body and that's basically the purpose of fat cells. Storing extra energy and fuel. So I all of a sudden got this visual.

Dr. William Li 18:20 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 18:21 Of a pickup truck, and the pickup truck is barreling down the highway, and it's not just got a full tank of gas, but in the back bed of the pickup truck, there are all kinds of fuel cans just piled high. And if I'm listening to the good news and I'm listening to your excitement about the fact that your metabolism...... based on research, your ability to burn the calories and burn the fuel effectively, that it's basically the same for your life, no matter how many fuel tanks you got in the back of the pickup truck. And that if you were to start to follow the advice, slowly but surely, that pickup bed would become empty because your c- your internal body's ability to just drive down the highway, it is always there, no matter how much fat is stored in your body. Is that true?

Dr. William Li 19:14 That is completely true. And that means you can offload that fuel.

Mel Robbins 19:19 Okay.

Dr. William Li 19:19 Okay? So if you, if you exercise and you're burning more fuel, that's basically throwing some of the tanks off the pickup truck, so you're lightening the load, so to speak.

Mel Robbins 19:26 Great.

Dr. William Li 19:26 Okay?

Mel Robbins 19:27 So now I wanna know, Dr.

Mel Robbins 19:28 Lee, how the hell do I lose this fat? You know, I see all over the place, "10 days to shed 20 pounds," and all these diets that, you know, keto this and do that over here and do this. What do you actually do?

Dr. William Li 19:41 Let me give you some really simple tools that anyone can actually use, that you've probably even heard about. One is called intermittent fasting.

Mel Robbins 19:48 Okay.

Dr. William Li 19:49 But I'm gonna debunk that too.

Mel Robbins 19:51 Oh my god. So you're telling me to do it, now you're debunking it?

Dr. William Li 19:54 (Clears throat) Let me tell you-

Mel Robbins 19:55 (laughs) .

Dr. William Li 19:55 ... first of all, intermittent fasting is thought of as a health fad, a trend that everybody does and you gotta go, uh, what is it? Like 16 hours of not eating and squeeze everything in eight hours. Hey, listen, that would be, uh, very hard for someone like me and probably like you, running around all the time. Okay? It doesn't, it doesn't work very well. But let me tell you, uh, that there's more than one way to get at it, and the best way to intermittently fast is, uh, to take advantage of the fact that when you're sleeping, when we're sleeping, we're not eating.

Mel Robbins 20:25 Okay.

Dr. William Li 20:26 When we're not eating, we're fasting. Okay? So sleeping is intermittent fasting because we don't sleep all the time. Uh, uh, and when we get up and we break our fast, which is called breakfast, all right? Um, and that's the best way to get intermittent fasting. But I gotta give you a little understanding of this-

Mel Robbins 20:42 Okay.

Dr. William Li 20:42 ... because after you eat the last bite of food the night before, all right, your body is like, "Okay. Is that, is that it? That's, uh, all the... That's the last drop of fuel we're gonna get tonight?" (Clears throat) The moment it realizes you're not gonna put any more fuel in your body, your body r- your metabolism recognizes, it goes from fuel storing mode, "Come on, give some more. Let me put it in my fat. Oh, no more food. Let's now switch gears," okay? Like, like literally like a gearbox in a car. If you're, um, uh, if your body's a Ferrari, all right? And you're going, you're gonna switch gears when you're no longer eating, it switches into fuel burning mode, from fuel storing-

Mel Robbins 21:27 Okay.

Dr. William Li 21:27 ... "Let's load up that body fat to fuel burning." So when you're sleeping and not eating, your body's burning down fuel from your fat cells. You're actually losing weight, burning fat, while you're sleeping.

Mel Robbins 21:39 Well, how long do you have to not eat for this to work?

Dr. William Li 21:42 Okay. So this is actually the important part. We know that eight hours of sleeping is the healthy amount of sleeping for all kinds of things, brain health and metabolic health and anti-aging and everything else. You wanna sleep eight. It's more like seven to nine. Eight's, uh, right in the middle. Eight hours is where you're gonna start to get that benefit. But let me tell you how anybody can expand their body's own hardwired fat burning period.

Mel Robbins 22:08 Okay.

Dr. William Li 22:09 Okay. So what you do is you expend it on both sides before you go to bed and when you get up in the morning. Let me talk about the, the night before. All right? So, like, if you eat, sit down and eat at 7:00 and you're done at 8:00, when you put your dishes away, no more eating. All right? There's no midnight snacking. Don't take a bag of chips with you and sit on the couch and watch the game or whatever else you might do. All right? Don't be nibbling. No last minute before bedtime, open and get that piece of pie. When you're done at 8:00, when you put your dishes away, that's it. Now, let's say you go to bed at, uh, at 11 o'clock. I'm just gonna give a, an example. Eat dinner at 7:00, stop eating at 8:00, put your dishes away. No more food until the next day.

Mel Robbins 22:51 And no drinking?

Dr. William Li 22:52 And no drinking. Actually, tea is okay. All right? As long as you

Narrator 22:55 I'm talking alcohol.

Dr. William Li 22:56 ... put milk in it. No, no drinking, for sure.

Mel Robbins 22:58 Okay.

Dr. William Li 22:58 Anything with... And no more calories. Okay?

Mel Robbins 23:00 Okay.

Dr. William Li 23:01 8 o'clock. Let's say you go to bed at 11:00. Okay? That's three hours between 8:00 and 11 o'clock. Three hours. You've just bought yourself three extra hours of fat-burning time. 11:00 to 7:00 in the morning, that's eight hours. Okay? So that's three hours plus eight hours. That's 11 hours of fat burning that you've given your body, just by not eating after you put the dishes away. Now, when you get up in the morning, this is like a super little easy tip that I tell anybody. I do, I practice it myself. Get up in the morning, don't do what your mom told you to do. Right? So when we were growing up, "Get out of bed, get down to that breakfast table, eat something quickly so you can actually go to school and learn something. Don't be hungry." No. We're adults, and it turns out you don't need to eat right in the m- right away in the morning. Get up in the morning, take your time getting ready. And for me, I will, before I eat anything, I will go for a walk, I'll open a door, get some fresh air, uh, maybe read a book, check my email, whatever. Wait at least an hour from the time you wake up until the time that you put the first thing in your mouth. Now, that's one extra hour. So three hours the night before bed, eight hours, that's, uh, uh, 11 total of fasting, meaning fat-burning time. Now add one more hour, okay? By not eating right away, and you've got 11 plus one is 12 hours, 12 out of 24 hours, 50% of your day, you've had your body burning down harmful body fat, extra body fat. That's the simplest way to use intermittent fasting. 12 hours. Now, you might say, "Is 12 hours enough?" Yeah, because eight hours is enough. 12 hours is a little bit better. Clinical studies have shown that 12 hours of fasting, much... in the way that I've told you, actually is plenty time to actually lose weight over time.

Mel Robbins 24:50 So are you saying that this is a tool that you... That based on the research, anybody can use to eat in an eight-hour window from like noon to 8:00 PM?

Dr. William Li 25:01 Yep.

Mel Robbins 25:01 And that will help you, no matter what your health looks like? That will help you kick into fuel burning and fat burning mode without really having to even worry about the food yet that you're eating?

Dr. William Li 25:15 You don't have to break into a sweat doing that because it's all very easy. I mean, plenty of people are already doing this. But the key

Dr. William Li 25:21 thing, Mel, is that you wanna make sure that when you finally do eat, whether it's breakfast or lunch, you don't overfill your tank.

Mel Robbins 25:30 Well, how do you know when you're full? I know this is, uh, kind of an odd question to ask, but I love food. Espe- like especially if I've got something in front of me that I really love, like a big juicy burger that, you know, the kind you squeeze to try to get in your mouth and some of the juice is coming down. There is no way I need to eat that entire thing, especially if it's a smash burger with a couple patties.

Dr. William Li 25:55 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 25:55 And so... Yet, I ca- Like, how do you know when enough is enough and the click has happened?

Dr. William Li 26:03 Right. So, it's all hardwired inside us, and the problem why we miss the cues, uh, that our body sends us that we have actually filled up our tank is we eat too fast.

Mel Robbins 26:15 Oh.

Dr. William Li 26:15 All right? So when you eat quickly, right? Busy people tend to eat really quickly, distracted people tend to eat quickly. If you're just checking out social media, you're not paying attention and you're eating by yourself, uh, you're just shoveling food in your mouth, you're paying attention to something else. That is a common mistake that we all make, is that we're distracted and we're used to just shoveling all of the abundant food that's placed in front of us. Okay. Let me just tell you something that I learned before I went to medical school-

Mel Robbins 26:44 Okay.

Dr. William Li 26:44 ... to be a doctor. I did a gap year, and, uh, in my gap year, I went to Italy and Greece, the Mediterranean. And what I was interested in studying there was the connections between food, culture, and health in those places. Now this was long before people were talking about the Mediterranean diet. I came from America, I landed in Italy, I was staying with a host family. Uh, within a day or two, I began realizing, wow, the way that people eat in the Mediterranean is completely different than what I grew up and what I'm used to. We, in America, sit down and we're gobbling food-

Mel Robbins 27:22 (laughs)

Dr. William Li 27:23 ... we're, we're, we're complaining about things, we're eating with somebody else. Uh, we're kvetching about, you know, some problems going on. We're eating fast, there's way too much food in front of us. And, um, uh, or we're eating alone.

Mel Robbins 27:36 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 27:36 And you're eating alone, you're doing, you're distracted by something else. And before long, you know, you've cleaned the whole plate, all right? And you don't, you don't even realize what you've eaten. It might taste good, but you're not thinking about it. In the Mediterranean, in Italy specifically, and it's as clear as day for me, you'd sit down for food. You would never eat by yourself. You would always eat with a friend or a family member or a coworker, all right?You would, you would take the time to order the food. And when the food comes, you're not, you're not kvetching or complaining about your boss or, you know, the family or the weather or the sports team. You are sitting, when the food arrives, with full of gratitude and talking about the joy of the food. "Man, this pasta was just like my mother made. Is this the right season for it? Yeah. You should see the mushrooms that we have. How do you, how do you make it?" People would talk about their food, okay? The food that was not just something that was shoved in front. You would engage with the food, and when you're eating the food, you would taste the food and talk about the food, and people would enjoy the actual part of eating. The enjoyment of the food, the mindfulness was, uh, completely different. And by the way, y- they never ser- over-serve you, all right? More is more.

Mel Robbins 28:51 So do you have a rule for that? Like, would you use like a sandwich plate instead of a dinner plate if you're trying to-

Dr. William Li 28:56 You know what? So here- So here's what I al- always tell people. Whatever your eye wants to actually put onto your plate, right? So think about a... This is the classic meal I always talk of, this Thanksgiving meal. Like, you're all getting together, maybe you haven't eaten all day, and now it's all this great food that reminds you of your, all the happy times. You're gonna load your plate up, right? What I tell people, that's a mistake. Whatever your, whatever your eyes tell you you wanna put in, only ta- take two-thirds of that plate.

Mel Robbins 29:23 Okay.

Dr. William Li 29:24 Okay?

Mel Robbins 29:24 Two-thirds.

Dr. William Li 29:24 Leave a third, leave a third back.

Mel Robbins 29:26 Okay.

Dr. William Li 29:26 And never go for seconds, all right? You will actually... And just eat those two-thirds and really enjoy the taste, savor the taste, you know? If you're a foodie, like me, you enjoy great-tasting food.

Mel Robbins 29:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 29:39 All right? Doesn't have to be fancy. It could be super simple. Uh, it could be comfort food. Eat it slowly to savor it, okay? That savoring the food is something I notice is always done in the Mediterranean, and also in Asia, you know-

Mel Robbins 29:53 And it slows you down.

Dr. William Li 29:53 ... two of the healthiest cuisines in the world. Slows you down.

Mel Robbins 29:54 And it slows you down. You know, Dr. Lee, you have a four-week meal plan that you've designed based on almost 30 years of experience. Can you break down some of the key features for me and the person listening?

Dr. William Li 30:07 Yeah, okay. So, wherever, w- wherever your starting point is, this is the key thing, you can always begin a healthier, uh, uh, life and get over your own body fat, like, like you can win that battle easily by doing a couple of things. I tell the first thing you do

Dr. William Li 30:25 is to, um, do an assessment, a food diary is what I te- uh, call it, okay? Don't try anything yet, just do what you're gonna do for a couple of weeks. Take out a piece of paper or maybe even notes on your mobile device-

Mel Robbins 30:39 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 30:39 ... and just record what you're eating and how much you're eating every single meal.

Mel Robbins 30:43 Why is that important?

Dr. William Li 30:44 Because a lot of us don't realize what we're eating and how much we're eating. Every time you snack, pop out that piece of paper or your, your notes section and, and write it down.... uh, no guilt, no shame. Uh, this is all about just recording it.

Mel Robbins 30:58 Okay.

Dr. William Li 30:59 Now after two weeks, go back and look at it, and most of us will be surprised at what we ate, how often we ate, and how much we actually ate. All right? By having that self-realization, by documenting it. You know, it's kind of like, uh, you're trying to develop an allowance, you're teaching ch- children how to-

Mel Robbins 31:16 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 31:17 ... spend money responsibly. Write down what you spent and then add it up at the end of a couple of weeks, and then you'll know exactly what you did.

Mel Robbins 31:23 And after recommending this to patients and researching this, what might the person who does this find or have a realization other than, "God, I eat a lot"?

Dr. William Li 31:34 Well, I would say, first, um, the amount of food that they ate.

Mel Robbins 31:38 Okay.

Dr. William Li 31:38 And how frequently they ate. "Man, I had no idea that I ate that much and that often." All right? So, the second epiphany is by, by identifying what kind of food, most people go, "Geez, I kinda ate, I kinda eat junky food." All right? Just documenting that for yourself, again, no judgment, this is just so you can see where you are, and that's the first phase-

Mel Robbins 32:01 Okay.

Dr. William Li 32:01 ... I think. And then you go on to the swap in phase.

Mel Robbins 32:05 What? Swap in?

Dr. William Li 32:06 I, what I call it swap in.

Mel Robbins 32:07 That-

Dr. William Li 32:07 Not swap out.

Mel Robbins 32:07 Oh.

Dr. William Li 32:08 Swap in.

Mel Robbins 32:08 Oh, swap in. I thought you said swamp.

Dr. William Li 32:10 Nope.

Mel Robbins 32:10 I'm like swamp, like I'm like, "That doesn't sound good." Okay.

Dr. William Li 32:13 No, no, no.

Mel Robbins 32:13 You want to swap in.

Dr. William Li 32:13 Swap in.

Mel Robbins 32:14 Okay.

Dr. William Li 32:14 Right? Because basically, people like go, "Oh, so now the part, now's the part where I actually have to deprive myself, right?" Nope. I'm saying, "Listen, you know when you're not eating good stuff. Let's talk about swapping in. Take something that you love to eat that's healthy and swap it in." Okay? And there's all kinds of things that we, uh, love to eat that is healthy, and that's in my book, Eat To Be Your Diet. I, I give lists of 200 different food items, ingredients, (clears throat) that are all delicious that you can swap in. The reason I call it swap in is because when you're s- eating something, you're displacing something that is not so good for you.

Mel Robbins 32:55 Mm.

Dr. William Li 32:56 The more good stuff that you swap in, the less room you're just gonna have in your life for the stuff that's not so good for you.

Mel Robbins 33:01 Well, what I love about that is because you hear the word diet or lose weight, and you immediately, you're like, "Ugh." And it feels like you're gonna have to restrict. And your swap in like methodology, it makes a lot of sense, because if I think about it, I could eat a bag of chips and not even think about it. I'm not gonna eat a bushel of apples.

Dr. William Li 33:23 No.

Mel Robbins 33:23 So if I'm adding in something healthy, I'm probably not gonna overeat it anyway.

Dr. William Li 33:30 Exactly. That's the, that's the other thing. But you might also find, you know, you'll be a little bit more mindful. So do an assessment, step one. Number two, swap in.

Mel Robbins 33:40 Okay.

Dr. William Li 33:41 Number three is then do that intermittent fasting part that I told you. Now, the key though with this, don't overeat when it is time to eat.

Mel Robbins 33:48 That's the two-thirds rule.

Dr. William Li 33:49 Okay. Two-thirds rule, and one, one thing I'll tell you that's a, um, Japanese saying that comes, came from Confucius is called stop when you're 80% full. Now, I'm gonna tell you how you know this. Um, but there's a, the Japanese saying is called Hara Hachi Bun Mi. Hara Hachi Bun Mi, uh, uh, really means just listen to your body when you're, uh, about 80% full. How do you know when you're 80% full? Well, you-

Mel Robbins 34:15 I have to unbutton my pants usually. (laughs) That's why.

Dr. William Li 34:17 Well, okay. By the time you feel full-

Mel Robbins 34:22 Yes.

Dr. William Li 34:22 ... you've already passed 80%.

Mel Robbins 34:24 It's true. You know, like I just, I kinda just feel that, that sense that, oh, but I just, there's just one more bite and it's not ever as good as the one-

Dr. William Li 34:35 Here's the o-

Mel Robbins 34:35 ... that came before it.

Dr. William Li 34:35 L- L- Listen, here's an, here's an example, Mel. You know like when you're parking a car like in a, in a parking lot-

Mel Robbins 34:40 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 34:40 ... and there's like those little cement things in front, right?

Mel Robbins 34:43 Yes.

Dr. William Li 34:43 Like, you're pulling it up a little bit further, a little bit further, and you know like when you start hitting that, when you see that grating sound-

Mel Robbins 34:49 Yes.

Dr. William Li 34:49 ... of your car-

Mel Robbins 34:50 Yes.

Dr. William Li 34:50 ... you've gone too far. That's what happens when you have to unbutton your, your pants.

Mel Robbins 34:54 It's true.

Dr. William Li 34:55 So, but if you eat slowly and then listen, thi- this is a very important point. You want to stop eating when you're satisfied, not when you're full. When you feel, "Ah, that was pretty good," not when you're full. We, we're so trained to f- look at the volume of our stomach, the pouching. We're looking for, we're trained to unbutton our pants.

Mel Robbins 35:21 Right.

Dr. William Li 35:21 Okay? But really, if you eat slowly and mindfully, and take your time and savor your food, at some point, when you put your fork down, you're gonna go, "That was pretty good. I like that." That's 80%.

Mel Robbins 35:35 I love that. What are the top five foods that we should add in to boost our natural metabolism and lose weight?

Dr. William Li 35:44 Okay. So a lot of people don't know this, but there are certain foods that will fire up your body's extra fat burning, uh, uh, machinery. Now, we didn't talk about this yet, so I'm gonna quickly f- uh, slide this in.

Mel Robbins 35:59 Please do.

Dr. William Li 36:00 (clears throat) You got white fat, which I told you is the wiggly, jiggly kind you see in the mirror.

Mel Robbins 36:04 Yep.

Dr. William Li 36:05 Uh, um, it's under your chin, it's under your arm.

Mel Robbins 36:07 A- you're looking at me when you say this.

Dr. William Li 36:09 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 36:09 Like, are you saying that I have white fat under my chin?

Dr. William Li 36:12 It's-

Mel Robbins 36:12 The wiggly, jiggly type. (laughs)

Dr. William Li 36:14 We, we, we all, the, the muffin top, the thigh, the butt, that's white fat.

Mel Robbins 36:16 Oh my God, have you seen me naked?

Dr. William Li 36:18 All right. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 36:18 Dr. Lee, you're describing me. I'm sorry, Chris.

Dr. William Li 36:21 And it's also in the tube of your body, the visceral fat, that expands your waistline.

Mel Robbins 36:26 What do you mean in the tube of your body?

Dr. William Li 36:27 Look, our, our body's a tube, right? Think about it.

Mel Robbins 36:29 Yes.

Dr. William Li 36:29 Right? And inside the tube of our body is our organs, but our fat can grow inside there.

Mel Robbins 36:33 Got it.

Dr. William Li 36:33 Our guts are called our viscera.

Mel Robbins 36:35 Uh-huh.

Dr. William Li 36:35 So visceral fat's the fat that grows around our guts. The more you load up that extra fuel, the more that fat grows, starts to strangle your organs, and when it becomes inflamed, it's really dangerous. That's a dangerous kind of fat. So you want to burn that fat down.

Mel Robbins 36:49 Okay.

Dr. William Li 36:49 Now, it's called brown fat.

Mel Robbins 36:51 Okay.

Dr. William Li 36:52 Brown fat is not wiggly, jiggly.

Mel Robbins 36:54 We love brown fat.

Dr. William Li 36:54 Okay? Brown fat is close to the bone. It's not even near the surface. It's around our necks, plastered around our necks, under our breastbone, a little bit between our shoulder blades, and scattered in our belly a little bit. Brown fat is not white fat. Brown fat is a kind of fat that when you activate brown fat-It fires it up like, uh, a space heater. Actually, another analogy I've heard get at this that's even- even clearer is that if you've got a gas cooking range in your kitchen and you wanna heat up some water to make some soup or some tea, what do you do? You go to the gas range, you turn the knob, click, click, click, whoosh. That's what brown fat does, okay? And-

Mel Robbins 37:36 It burns the jiggly fat?

Dr. William Li 37:37 ... it burns, it burns away the jiggly fat.

Mel Robbins 37:39 Shut up. Really?

Dr. William Li 37:40 When you turn on brown fat, you burn down the white fat.

Mel Robbins 37:42 So how the heck do I turn on the brown fat?

Dr. William Li 37:43 Okay. So we originally evolved brown fat for hibernation. Cold temperatures trigger brown fat, and the brown fat burns down the white fat to give energy and heat. It's a process called thermogenesis. So when you hear about cold plunges being good for your metabolism-

Mel Robbins 38:05 Yes, cold showers.

Dr. William Li 38:05 ... indeed it does. Indeed it does. It... Because cold temperatures in our body will trigger on our brown fat.

Mel Robbins 38:11 Well, well, now I'm motivated. So how long do I have to stand in a cold shower in order to, like, ignite my brown fat to burn the jiggly white fat?

Dr. William Li 38:19 So listen, I'm a medical doctor, so I am very careful to tell people that before you do something that could create a shock to your system like cold plunge or a super cold shower, you should probably talk to your doctor about it or a healthcare provider to make sure that you're not making a move that's not good for you.

Mel Robbins 38:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 38:35 You might have high blood pressure. You might have a heart rhythm issue. So please, don't just, like, uh, solo this on your own, all right? You really need to be able to do this... But if you wanna actually, if you get into a warm shower, turn that temperature down until it's cooler, all right? So now you're not endangering yourself.

Mel Robbins 38:53 Yep.

Dr. William Li 38:53 You know, I think if you're in there for 10 minutes-

Mel Robbins 38:57 10 minutes? What?

Dr. William Li 38:57 ... of a cool sho- cool. I'm not saying freezing.

Mel Robbins 39:00 Oh, okay.

Dr. William Li 39:01 Turn it down cool, then turn it to a, to a, so you, so it is hard to stand it, okay?

Mel Robbins 39:06 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 39:07 And you'll start feeling it. Like, you start feeling it, like, look, go out to the winter without a coat on. You can go out there-

Mel Robbins 39:13 Feel it.

Dr. William Li 39:13 ... for a little while.

Mel Robbins 39:13 It's true.

Dr. William Li 39:14 Pick up your mail at the end of the snowy driveway, all right?

Mel Robbins 39:17 It's true.

Dr. William Li 39:17 And at some point you're like, "Oh man, this is getting a little bit..." When you start feeling this is getting a little bit too, stop, okay?

Mel Robbins 39:24 Okay.

Dr. William Li 39:24 And that's why it's true, like some people will get these, like, ice baths, they're gonna do their cold plunges in the morning. Please, when you start feeling like you're, you know, uh, going down with the Titanic, like, you better get out of there, all right? But the brown fat turns on. Now, here's the cool thing. Besides cold temperatures, it turns out that certain foods that you can eat will trigger your brown fat to turn on and to start burning down fat. Food, eating foods can turn on your good fat to fight bad fat, to burn down excess fat and lose weight.

Mel Robbins 39:56 All right, talk to me, doc. So what are the top foods we need to eat to turn on the brown fat, to burn the jiggly fat so I can lose weight?

Dr. William Li 40:04 You can find this in any grocery store, in the produce section, in the middle aisle. Let's go to the produce section and take a look, all right?

Mel Robbins 40:11 Okay.

Dr. William Li 40:12 So apples. It turns out that apples have something called chlorogenic acid inside the flesh of the apple, right? Um, and that chlorogenic acid turns on your brown fat.

Mel Robbins 40:23 Wow.

Dr. William Li 40:23 And it'll start to burn down your white fat. Okay, what a- what else, uh, is in there? What about broccoli or kale or bok choy? I love bok choy, I like to cook. You know, you cut off the bottoms, you wash the leaves, take a wok or a skillet, little extra virgin olive oil, little garlic, saute that up, little oyster sauce, boom. That's a two-minute meal. The chlor- the sulforaphanes in your greens trigger your brown fat to burn down extra body fat. Now obviously, how you cook makes a difference, right? I, I said olive oil. I didn't say butter, okay? Because if you actually use olive oil, guess what? Olive oil, which you find in the middle aisle, extra virgin olive oil has bioactives like... People like me who study this, so I tell people, "Please don't try to memorize all these terms. Just trust the people like me who do the research. We know what they are." In extra virgin olive oil, you've got hydroxytyrosine, oleocanthal. These are two Mother Nature's natural brown fat triggering, metabolism activating, fat burning substances. You saute with that, with olive oil, now you actually have the greens and the olive oil that will tr- trigger your brown fat to turn it down.

Mel Robbins 41:34 You must be really fun to go grocery shopping with.

Dr. William Li 41:36 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 41:36 I could see you in the isle, "Oh, look at the olive oil."

Dr. William Li 41:38 You know what? By the way, if you check out, uh, my YouTube channel, I actually did a video where I went to markets all around the world, uh, New York, and I went to one in France, to show people what I'm looking at and why I'm looking at it when I'm actually shopping. But it's easy to do. The things that you think are gonna be healthy for you, tend to be healthy, and then sometimes there are things that you're not sure would be healthy that are actually turns out to trigger brown fat, like a can of beans can actually do that as well.

Mel Robbins 42:05 Well, let's talk about the five things-

Dr. William Li 42:07 Okay.

Mel Robbins 42:07 ... that you recommend that everybody add, because the team went to

Mel Robbins 42:12 the grocery store, and we have here on the table some of the things that you mentioned. And so I would love for you to just kind of point out some of the stuff on this plate. Tell us about the five things that we can add in, or things that are really important to add in and why.

Dr. William Li 42:28 Okay. So let's just dive right in. One of my favorite all-time foods are tomatoes, okay? And I think most people like tomatoes, you know, uh, not just in a garden salad, but think about your grandmother's tomato sauce, or you go out to Italy and you're eating some pasta or Italian restaurant. Who doesn't like, uh, some tomato sauce? Well, it turns out tomatoes contain a natural bioactive called lycopene. Lycopene is found in, uh, uh, nature. It triggers your brown fat to burn down harmful extra body fat. And a study in Portugal showed this in a totally clear way. They took young, healthy women who were grad students, okay? Normal body size.

Mel Robbins 43:13 Okay.

Dr. William Li 43:13 And, uh, they told them, "Just go eat and exercise the way you normally do. Don't do anything special for this research study." The only thing they did is they gave them one ripe tomato to eat an hour before lunch every single day. That's it....okay? And they measured their body composition, so they put them under a scanner to look at how much visceral fat. They measured their waistline, they measured their blood cholesterol and their blood sugars and ev- all the parameters, inflammatory markers. And they found after a month of eating just one tomato a day, that, that this is the only thing, they were able to lose one pound with just one tomato one hour before lunch.

Mel Robbins 43:52 What?

Dr. William Li 43:53 That's the power of the lycopene in the tomato. You don't have to do an, extra exercise, you don't have to limit your calories, just eat the way you want. That just shows you how powerful a food actually is. Now, lycopene is what's doing this. If you want the lycopene to really fire up, now lycopene, pick a tomato off a vine and eat it like an apple, gonna be good for you, it's gonna do its thing. If you want the lycopene to be supercharged-

Mel Robbins 44:18 I do.

Dr. William Li 44:19 ...what you wanna do is you wanna heat it up, saute it, okay? 190 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, okay? Will im- amp, will amp up the power of that lycopene by 250% because the heat will change the chemistry of the lycopene into a form your body loves to absorb. So this is why Mediterranean food, whether you're talking about Spain, Greece, Italy, heating up, cooking up that tomato sauce, simmering it gently, right?

Mel Robbins 44:47 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 44:47 Okay? Um, oh, by the way, lycopene likes to dissolve in body fat. In fact, this has been studied at Tufts University. You actually feed some young people l- uh, a tomato with lycopene or foods that contain lycopene, they were able to track where that lycopene goes. You know where it goes?

Mel Robbins 45:05 No.

Dr. William Li 45:06 It, it goes, they found it, it goes right to your butt, right to your thigh. It goes r- homes in.

Mel Robbins 45:11 Dude, I'm having a tomato right after this conversation. (laughs)

Dr. William Li 45:13 Right into the body fat, where it triggers your brown fat to fight that fat.

Mel Robbins 45:18 This is amazing.

Dr. William Li 45:19 Okay?

Mel Robbins 45:20 Well, you know what's so cool about this is you're using the research and the science, which you are clearly so passionate about, to truly teach us about the extraordinary power of your metabolism and how it's designed to work correctly. And if you feed it what it needs, the proper fuel-

Dr. William Li 45:44 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 45:44 ...it like turns on for you. There's some other things that we have on the tray here. What, what, what else do these-

Dr. William Li 45:49 Okay.

Mel Robbins 45:49 ...magical things do?

Dr. William Li 45:51 Ko- pome- pomegranates, okay?

Mel Robbins 45:52 Okay.

Dr. William Li 45:53 Pomegranates, uh, you can have the pomegranate seeds on a salad, you could have, uh, pure pomegranate juice, okay? Um, and pomegranates, they're pretty sweet, so you gotta not eat too much of the, or do not drink too much of the juice. Um, actually, you just need about eight fluid ounces, one cup, all right, contains a natural substance called ellagitannins. Again, don't worry about trying to, to spellcheck it out, it's, uh, it's a complicated word, ellagitannins. Mother Nature's pharmacy is found in the juice of a pomegranate, and what that does is it activates your gut, uh, to secrete mucus, healthy mucus. How do you move stool? How do you get regular? You wanna keep it all moving, right? So you need mucus. Mucus slip-slides a thing all the way down, um, uh, uh, your, uh, your, your other end. Mucus, that healthy mucus will grow a bacteria, a healthy gut bacteria called Akkermansia muciniphila. Muciniphila means it loves mucus. Akkermansia, this is the name of a gut bacteria that everyone who's listening to this or watching this should pay attention to. A-K-K-E-R-M-A-N-S-I-A, Akkermansia. Turns out, Akkermansia is a guardian of our metabolism. Akkermansia, um, activates our immune system, lowers inflammation, and this is smoking hot research, Mel, all right? I'm just telling you.

Mel Robbins 47:16 (laughs) I love how you talk about this.

Dr. William Li 47:17 A piece of Akkermansia ... So think about Akkermansia like a, you know, an armadillo. It's got kind of a hard shell on the outside, little pieces on it on the outside. One piece has just been discovered, it's called P9, P as in Peter, 9. That fragment of Akkermansia, whether the bacteria is alive or blown into 100 pieces, that bacteria, uh, that piece of that bacteria causes your body to produce its own GLP-1, which is exactly what Ozempic and these prescription drugs are trying to do. So pomegranates grow Akkermansia. Akkermansia will cause your body to create GLP-1, and what has GLP-1 done? Lows- lowers your blood sugar, helps you lose body fat.

Mel Robbins 48:00 Wow.

Dr. William Li 48:01 Okay? That's actually th- these discoveries that are being made. Food is medicine, right? Like, that's what I do. It's super cool, um, but if you're gonna drink pomegranate juice, be very careful. Here's a practical tip. Go to the grocery store, look for pomegranate juice. I, I tell people, "Go, uh, make sure it's pure pomegranate juice." Always, always, always check the ingredient label to make sure it's not really apple juice, it's got a little squirt of pomegranate in it and red food coloring. Don't do that. Get the real deal or just buy the pomegranate. You know why? Because when you have the whole pomegranate, you're gonna get the dietary fiber from the seeds, and those seeds, that dietary fiber, feed your gut microbiome, making the Akkermansia even happier.

Mel Robbins 48:43 That's incredible.

Dr. William Li 48:44 Okay?

Mel Robbins 48:44 That's incredible. What does a kiwi do?

Dr. William Li 48:46 All right.

Mel Robbins 48:46 'Cause I see kiwi.

Dr. William Li 48:47 Kiwi is amazing because number one, kiwi's a great source of vitamin C. C as in Charlie, all right? And what does that do? That lowers inflammation. Now, if you've got a lot of, if you're carrying around extra body fat, you're inflamed. No doubt about it. So just having a kiwi, one kiwi a day gives you a big dose of vitamin C to lower that inflammation, and you will feel the difference, all right? You feel just less, uh, razzed up inside. Now, the other thing is kiwi has, is, uh, has a lot of dietary fiber, and that dietary fiber can change your healthy gut bacteria. If it's not so healthy, it'll start to grow the healthy stuff in 24 hours. A kiwi a day, in the next day, you will start seeing those beneficial effects.

Mel Robbins 49:31 What?Wait, uh, the next day?

Dr. William Li 49:34 24 hours.

Mel Robbins 49:34 So I eat one kiwi.

Dr. William Li 49:36 One kiwi.

Mel Robbins 49:37 And, and-

Dr. William Li 49:37 You'll, you'll start seeing the, you'll start feeling the beneficial effects. It'll take an unhealthy bac- uh, gut bac- gut bacteria colony, start to make it a little healthier just in one day. After four days, you're gonna get even more. All right? So this is the, this is why it's so important to think about this. A kiwi a day for breakfast is super easy. Uh, I love kiwi. Uh, uh, it's, it's really easy. Oh, by the way, the skin of the kiwi, amazing source of dietary fiber, but who would-

Mel Robbins 50:04 You eat that?

Dr. William Li 50:04 Who would eat that?

Mel Robbins 50:05 I don't know.

Dr. William Li 50:06 I'll tell you how to eat-

Mel Robbins 50:06 Not me.

Dr. William Li 50:07 I, I wouldn't do it either. But you know how you do it?

Mel Robbins 50:09 No.

Dr. William Li 50:09 Make a smoothie.

Mel Robbins 50:10 Oh.

Dr. William Li 50:11 Okay? Uh, eat the kiwi with a spoon. Toss the skin into a blender to make the smoothie. It'll disappear, and you'll get a huge amount of dietary fiber.

Mel Robbins 50:20 Wa- What a great tip. You should have a cooking show.

Dr. William Li 50:24 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 50:24 I really think you should have a cooking show.

Dr. William Li 50:25 All right.

Mel Robbins 50:25 Talk to me about matcha.

Dr. William Li 50:27 Matcha. All right. Matcha's one of my favorite ways of having green tea. Now, we know green tea. It looks like you're, maybe you're drinking some green tea in front of you right now. You know, you have it in a tea bag, so the tea leaves are steeped in the hot water and the polyphenols, the catechins come dissolving out of that into the water, and you sip it and you get the good stuff, the catechins, which by the way, turn on your brown fat to trigger down and burn harmful white fat. All right?

Mel Robbins 50:53 Watch me drink my tea now.

Dr. William Li 50:54 Yeah. Have a sip.

Mel Robbins 50:55 Here we go.

Dr. William Li 50:55 Have a sip. All right. Now, but I gotta tell you, matcha, matcha's a h- a, a heck of a lot more powerful than tea in a bag, because matcha is the entire tea leaf ground into a powder. Now you get 100% of the polyphenols. There's nothing left inside a tea bag. The whole shebang is in there and the dietary fiber. Good for your gut microbiome. So if you want a dose of the polyphenols from tea, drink matcha. You get the fiber, you get 100% of the polyphenols. It's super, super powerful. And that's been shown to burn down harmful body fat. How do we know it burns down harmful body fat? Is because it actually shrinks your waistline. You can actually lose an inch of a belt. Uh, we-

Mel Robbins 51:39 You, drinking matcha?

Dr. William Li 51:40 By drinking matcha. That's been studied, uh, by researchers in Japan in clinical research. All the foods we're talking about here.

Mel Robbins 51:46 Now, I need to clarify though, because matcha tastes like dirty grass at times. So if I wanna add in (laughs) a little sugar or a little something, am I killing all the benefit?

Dr. William Li 51:57 I would not, I would not, I would not... Uh, listen, if you have a, if you, um, are struggling with the taste of matcha, which is... Listen, it, the reason it tastes like grass is because it's a whole damn leaf in there, okay?

Mel Robbins 52:08 Yes.

Dr. William Li 52:08 Here's what you do. Make a smoothie or a shake with it and just pour it in there and it'll disappear right into the background. All right?

Mel Robbins 52:14 Dr. Lee, you're a genius.

Dr. William Li 52:16 It's, it's the simplest way. Okay. Now, uh, so matcha's really good. All right? Um-

Mel Robbins 52:22 Dark chocolate.

Dr. William Li 52:22 Dark chocolate. Who doesn't like dark chocolate? Who doesn't like chocolate, all right? Well, it turns out, a lot of people get confused. They're like, "Dr. Lee, you're telling people to eat chocolate?" Yes, I am. And the reason is because chocolate is actually a plant-based food. What? Well, chocolate is made with, what makes chocolate, chocolate is cacao, okay? And cacao comes from the coca p- uh, uh, uh, bean, pod that is growing from a tree, and you take these, uh, pods which are shaped like a football. They're heavy, all right? You cut them open, you peel off the outer skin, you dry it, you ferment it, you crush it up into a powder, and now you mix it in to make chocolate. So chocolate's a confection, but it's made with a plant-based food. What's in that seed pod? Polyphenols, up the yin yang. One of them is called proanthocyanidin. Let me just tell you, the more cacao you have in your chocolate, the higher percent cacao, right? You've heard about this, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, right? So the higher the percent, and if you, what you want to look for is 80% or higher, you're getting a ton of these polyphenols in your chocolate, all right? And those polyphenols trigger brown fat to fire off and burn down your harmful white fat. All right? Dark chocolate does that. Now, the darker, the more bitter it's gonna be. So what I like to do, what I tell people is, like, just get a little square of it and have it with coffee. You've created mocha. Bite of chocolate, sip of coffee, you've created your own mocha. And guess what coffee has. Coffee also has polyphenols, chlorogenic acid. Oh, didn't you hear me say this before with apples? That's right. Coffee has chlorogenic acid. So coffee, a ch- cup of coffee will fire up your brown fat to burn down the harmful white fat every single morning.

Mel Robbins 54:17 Wait. So coffee with chocolate helps you burn fat?

Dr. William Li 54:21 Yep. That's a double-barreled approach.

Mel Robbins 54:23 Matcha, kiwi, pomegranates, and tomatoes help you burn fat?

Dr. William Li 54:29 That's right. And so does edamame. You have a little thing of edamame on this plate here. Uh, edamame, soybeans, it turns out that, um, soybeans have been shown to trigger on the burning of harmful body fat by triggering your brown fat. And so this is actually, if you think about the foods that we talked about, these are not like, uh, crazy things you gotta spend a lot of money ordering on the internet from some, you know, crazy supplement producer. You don't have to be a body builder, you don't have to be a fitness champ. All right? The foods that we love to eat can be really healthy for us as long as you don't overeat, don't overfill the fuel tank, as long as you're keeping on moving around so you're burning some of the fuel, all right? Uh, and when you're not actually overeating, the bad

Dr. William Li 55:13 stuff. Now, we haven't spent time talking about the bad stuff 'cause my-

Mel Robbins 55:15 Well, let's talk about the bad stuff.

Dr. William Li 55:17 Listen, my whole philosophy is that if you spend more time putting good things in your body, you're just not gonna have as much room for the bad stuff. But let's talk about the bad stuff. Look-We all know that there are foods that are very common, that we've all grown up eating that aren't so good for us, right? And, you know, one of the things that I gotta say upfront is I don't do what a lot of social influencers do. I don't food bash, brand bash. Um, I don't try to shame people for what they eat. Listen, I- I love some snacks every now and then j- as much as the next person, and it's totally fine because if you spend most of the time activating your body's healthy systems, the hardwiring, you can afford to take a hit every now and then. It's like just putting some of that crappy gas in your tank every now and then. You're gonna bounce right back. We're very, very resilient. That said, I do think it's important for people to understand that, you know, we're beginning to understand why certain foods, uh, that are not so good are really bad for you. Okay? And a great one that I always, uh, uh, pick up with is soda. Okay? Uh, whether you get the blue can or the red can or whether you have, uh, regular soda or diet soda, any soda is really not healthy for you in the long run.

Mel Robbins 56:32 Even the zeros and the diets and the-

Dr. William Li 56:34 Especially those.

Mel Robbins 56:35 What do you mean, especially those?

Dr. William Li 56:36 Especially the diets. The history of soda goes, I think, back to France, where they were serving fruit juices and somebody came up with this entrepreneurial idea, "Let's bubble some things into the fruit juice and see if we can actually, uh, have a crowd pleaser." All right? And I think that was the birth of soda, all right? That- that soda fountain and everything else, right? You gotta actually put the jui- you gotta put the gas in there. Fast-forward 20th century, now you've actually got mass production of these sodas. Turns out that regular soda, regardless of what- what kind of- what brand it is, it actually contains, a can of regular soda contains seven to nine teaspoons of cane sugar.

Mel Robbins 57:19 Wow.

Dr. William Li 57:20 You come to my house and I offer you a glass a- and I put nine teaspoons of sugar in it and say, "Here, have this, Mel." You'd go, "Tha- that's disgusting. I'm not gonna do that." That's what's happening when you're actually drinking soda.

Mel Robbins 57:35 Wow.

Dr. William Li 57:35 Now, that amount of sugar overload, carb overload. We talked about carb overload earlier, all right? Now you're like really flushing out your- that tank's filling up real fast now and spilling over. But on top of that, you're overloading your metabolism because remember those hormones that have to collaborate to be able to really bring in the blood sugar to make sure you've got enough energy? When you flood that system, all right, uh, your syste- your system doesn't go so well, it doesn't function so well. It starts to derail a little bit. Listen, a single can, even two every now and then, you're gonna be just fine. All right? Your sys- your body's not gonna lo- love you for it-

Mel Robbins 58:14 Right.

Dr. William Li 58:14 ... but it'll get back to itself pretty quickly. But, you know, when I was in medical school, I remember distinctly, there was a classmate of mine, so future doctor at the time, uh, who was bragging that he would have two six-packs of soda every single day-

Mel Robbins 58:28 Wow.

Dr. William Li 58:28 ... to get through the day. I mean, you know, that's 12 cans of soda. Geez, think about the amount of sugar that that person was actually putting into his system every day.

Mel Robbins 58:37 It's like 108 teaspoons.

Dr. William Li 58:39 Uh, uh, yeah, right? I mean, th- just think about, think about the big pile. Um, now, I will tell you that the reason that the zero version, the sugar-free version was developed is because, well, in the 1970s and '80s, we started realizing that sugar causes you to gain weight, so let's come up with something else. Well, classic to the, um, industrial food, uh, uh, mindset, let's go invent something. Let's go invent artificial sweeteners, right? Non-caloric sweeteners. You can eat them, they taste sweet, but they don't actually add any calories. That must be better, right? Well, we thought so, except that research has shown that people who drink a lot of diet soda, they actually gain weight too.

Mel Robbins 59:22 Huh.

Dr. William Li 59:23 They also gain weight. All right? Even without sugar.

Mel Robbins 59:26 But I thought... But hold on, because I thought that we talked earlier about the fact that calories are fuel and there's less calories.

Dr. William Li 59:32 Exactly. You're right about that. However, we also talked about the fact your gut microbiome helps you have good metabolism and burn fuel, and it turns out, and Mel, this is pretty new, like within just the last few years, the discovery that our gut bacteria is very sensitive to artificial sweeteners. And so artificial sweeteners actually kill off some of the good healthy gut bacteria. So something that's well-intentioned, non-caloric sweetener, goes right down. We don't absorb any of it because it's not a calorie, goes down and feeds our gut microbiome, remember? And so what happens is that gut bacteria start to revolt. They don't do so well, some of them got die off, and now, guess what? Your metabolism isn't functioning normally, you're derailed from that hardwiring, and now you start to gain weight. So food number one that I think that you should stay away from are sodas, regular or diet. Um, uh, that's- that- that's just a- that's one of the ones that you wanna stay away from. All right? Second food that I tell people to try to stay away from are these, um, packaged health foods. Now...

Mel Robbins 1:00:41 Uh-oh. (laughs)

Dr. William Li 1:00:41 You go to the airport and you go to, uh, you know, you see the- the bar and it looks like it's got granola and all that kind of stuff in it-

Mel Robbins 1:00:48 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:00:48 ... it seems like it'd be a healthy bar.

Mel Robbins 1:00:49 Yes.

Dr. William Li 1:00:50 Take a look at the ingredient label.

Mel Robbins 1:00:52 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:00:53 Okay? And you will find that there are all these emulsifiers, the glue that holds the things together. Sometimes artificial flavorings that are actually in there because, you know, the healthy stuff do- doesn't have enough sweet hit for you. Um, uh, sometimes artificial coloring so it doesn't look... so it looks a little bit nicer. Or here's another one besides the bar, uh, y- you know, like tree nuts are healthy, right? So you like, uh, almonds, macadamia, pistachios, cashews, right? You go to the airport, you go to the- the- the- the convenience store part. "Oh, let me go look for something in the health food section." There's nuts in a bag, all right?

Mel Robbins 1:01:30 Yep.

Dr. William Li 1:01:30 And they're barbecue flavored. Well-... there's no such thing as called barbecued flavored. Take a look at the ingredient label. Ar- those are red food coloring, yellow food coloring. They've got artificial seasonings. It's not even real chili pepper. It's, like, artificial stuff de- designed to light it up. Anything that's manufactured like that to be healthy, please read the ingredient label. If it's, if it seems like it's Greek or Latin or you can't pronounce it quickly, it's probably an ultra-processed ingredient that's gonna harm your health. It's gonna increase oxidative stress. It's gonna stress out your body. It's gonna cause inflammation, maybe damage your gut microbiome. So again, you know, I think stay away from that ultra-processed stuff that's got... If it looks like it might be nuclear colored-

Mel Robbins 1:02:16 (laughs)

Dr. William Li 1:02:16 ... all right, it's probably not good for you.

Mel Robbins 1:02:18 It's nuclear for your gut.

Dr. William Li 1:02:19 Nuclear for your gut. Don't nuke your gut.

Mel Robbins 1:02:21 (laughs) Don't nu- don't nuke your gut. What else should we avoid?

Dr. William Li 1:02:24 All right. Another thing that you wanna actually be really, really mindful of are processed meats. Now look, we all grew up with processed meats. I can remember, you know, one of my earliest memories is, like, going to school with a, with a paper bag, uh, with the sandwich my mom made with processed meats. You go to the deli. Do you know what... By the way, do you know what the, why they call them a delicatessen or a deli?

Mel Robbins 1:02:49 No.

Dr. William Li 1:02:49 It's short for delicious. And it was actually coming from the people that were trying to figure out how to actually, uh, sell leftover meat products in a way that would be delicious. So a lot of these, um, salamis, bolognas, all the stuff that you would actually see, um, in a deli-

Mel Robbins 1:03:09 Yeah.

Dr. William Li 1:03:09 ... are all put together from little scraps of meat that come as byproducts of the food industry. First, I'm gonna come back to that, but first let's talk about why it's not so good for you.

Mel Robbins 1:03:19 That's disgusting. That's what's in the, that's what, that's what you're getting when you get sliced meat?

Dr. William Li 1:03:24 That's right.

Mel Robbins 1:03:24 No.

Dr. William Li 1:03:25 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:03:25 Really?

Dr. William Li 1:03:26 Yeah. Do you think that, uh, a turkey comes in a square?

Mel Robbins 1:03:29 Well, it kinda looks like a breast. I don't know. Like, I, like, I, I... And I see organic on the pass- package 'cause as you're saying processed meat, you're talking about, like, sliced meats.

Dr. William Li 1:03:37 Yeah. I'm talking about the kind that, you know, like the, at the deli, they move them back and forth.

Mel Robbins 1:03:41 Yes, what's wrong-

Dr. William Li 1:03:41 They slice these things.

Mel Robbins 1:03:42 ... with that?

Dr. William Li 1:03:42 Well, it turns out that the World Health Organization has identified that these processed meats, all right... And we're not talking about, like, freshly butchered, you know, prepared, a- at home, uh, or at a restaurant. But these processed meats contain all kinds of chemicals to be able to actually get them to where they are. And they have been classified as a class one carcinogen by the World Health Organization. All right? We're talking about bologna, salami, pepperoni. And by the way, uh, I remember I had a patient once who was a former USDA inspector, okay? And he was retired by then. And I would love to talk to my patients about their jobs, like, things that I didn't know, like the lobster guy would... What happens in a lobster boat? Well, this guy, USDA inspector, I would say, um, "Tell me, spare no details. Tell me everything about the inspection, meat inspection." He's like, "Well, you know, let me just tell you. I had to change my boots, my rubber boots, um, every four months because the stuff on the floor, the liquid from the, w- of the places that made processed meats would dissolve my boots."

Mel Robbins 1:04:49 Oh my God.

Dr. William Li 1:04:50 And, and so that made me, that, that, that kind of cued me in that there's probably stuff in the meats that are not so good for you. And it's not just the nitrates. I mean, it's like the synthetic nitrates in, that they put in there, other preserves, and coloring. But class one carcinogen, uh, abundant evidence that it likely to increase our risk for cancer, especially colon cancer. Not surprisingly, right? You're eating a lot of this stuff, and it goes down to your gut. But I learned something recently that, you know, when you go to the deli, uh, uh, and let's say you're ordering bologna or salami, right? It's in a, it's a, it's a meat in a cylinder. And animals don't come in cylinders like that. But again, this is the meat scraps. And I learned about this, by the way, from a, um, podcast called Science Vs. It's a really good podcast. And, uh, what I found out, 'cause I'm, I'm learning about this, is that is originally the meat scraps are all put together, and then the US military invented a meat glue that would take scraps that you could pulverize and, and, and stick in the... You know, like, uh, the particle board that we actually have-

Mel Robbins 1:06:03 Oh my...

Dr. William Li 1:06:04 ... wood. Like, you know, you go to-

Mel Robbins 1:06:05 Are you kidding me?

Dr. William Li 1:06:05 ... you go to the big box stores. These, these deli meats are basically, um, the particles are meat particles that are glued together and then molded into a cylinder.

Mel Robbins 1:06:14 Well, it's true. It does come in a tube wrapped in plastic.

Dr. William Li 1:06:16 Exactly.

Mel Robbins 1:06:16 I just assumed that was a part of an animal's body that's been-

Dr. William Li 1:06:19 Totally not.

Mel Robbins 1:06:20 Wow.

Dr. William Li 1:06:20 All right.

Mel Robbins 1:06:21 So, so if I buy, though, sliced meats and it says organic, still?

Dr. William Li 1:06:26 I, I would just say... Okay, look, I, I, I-

Mel Robbins 1:06:29 You're killing me, Dr. Link.

Dr. William Li 1:06:30 ... I'm a, listen, I'm a, I'm... By the way, I'm a reasonablist. So if you, if you, if your favorite thing is a bologna sandwich, knock yourself out. Enjoy it, but just take the time to really savor it and don't do it very often. All right?

Mel Robbins 1:06:43 Got it.

Dr. William Li 1:06:43 You know that it's not good. Listen, we are... You know not to speed on the highway, but we all do it every now and then. But it, don't speed all the time 'cause that's what's gonna lead to the cr- car crash. So I'm not endorsing people to go out to eat deli meat. What I'm saying is that just like the soda, just like, you know, the nuclear snack foods, processed meat ain't good for you. All right?

Mel Robbins 1:07:10 What-

Dr. William Li 1:07:10 Tastes, tastes good, we grew up with it, but it's not good for you.

Mel Robbins 1:07:12 What else should we avoid?

Dr. William Li 1:07:13 All right. I'm gonna tell you something you're gonna be surprised by, and this is new research, and that's bottled water.

Mel Robbins 1:07:20 Why do we avoid bottled water?

Dr. William Li 1:07:22 The wa- the water isn't the problem. It's the bottle. And we're beginning to realize that these bottled waters... I mean, come on, like, I, I, yeah, I, I used to carry around bottled water all the time with me. All right? You're supposed to stay hydrated, right?

Mel Robbins 1:07:36 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:07:36 Okay. Any vacation you go to, you're-... getting a bottle of water in your hotel room. Turns out that now we realize that the bottled water, the bottles of plastic bottles are shedding microplastics into the water. So while we don't taste it, we're actually pouring plastic into our bodies. All right. Little tiny particles, plastic particles, and you know how m- much plastic we are ingesting on average every week?

Mel Robbins 1:08:05 No.

Dr. William Li 1:08:06 A credit card's worth of plastic.

Mel Robbins 1:08:08 Really?

Dr. William Li 1:08:09 Every week, we're ingesting it. Now, listen, we've known this for some years, but, uh, and I used to be asked this all the time, you know, what's the consequence of the plastic? And I used to, I mean, just only a few years ago say, "We don't really know. It seems like it's probably okay. Our body must get rid of it somehow." Now we know, just in the last 24 months, so this is new, all right? I'm telling you a bunch of new stuff, uh, that microplastics are detectable in the human body and they're associated with badness. Let

Dr. William Li 1:08:42 me tell you. There was a study that came out of Italy, uh, with neurologists and cardiologists, uh, uh, that looked at, uh, people with clogged blood vessels, cardiovascular disease, uh, in the large vessels that feed their brain, and they were narrowed down, and what they found is that when they took out the, the pla- the clog, right? So it's kind of like calling a plumber in to clean the drain. When they cleaned the drain and removed the plaque, the clogging of the blood vessels, they found that they could detect plastic embedded in the narrowing of blood vessels that would be feeding the brain. More importantly, they found a correlation that people who had plastics embedded in their blood vessels had a fourfold increase, four times increase in having a fatal heart attack or stroke.

Mel Robbins 1:09:32 Whoa.

Dr. William Li 1:09:33 Okay? That's serious stuff. Subsequently, we've actually discovered you can actually find plastic in the brain. In fact, you can take a kitchen scale and measure two human brains and you know which one's got more plastic and it's heavier. You can measure it. Like, you know, like you're measuring flour for making cookies or whatever? You can actually measure the amount of plastic in the human brain. And we found plastic in the blood circulation. We never looked at it before, but in a blood, vial blood, in a doctor's office, if you look for it, you can actually find plastic circulating in it. And we've actually found, uh, plastic in human testicles. We found it in human semen. Don't ask me how it gets down there. And it's also found by urologists who are actually doing surgery. They've actually found it in the flesh of the penis, embedded in there, probably from years and years and years of being exposed to plastic.

Mel Robbins 1:10:27 Now, is that ma- like I, I, I don't mean to like ... It sounds terrifying. But if you ... What should you be drinking your water out of? Glass?

Dr. William Li 1:10:36 Okay. So number one, this is the... L- let me, let me just give you some real prati- practical stuff. All right. Water, if, if you want water, drink, uh, uh, put it in a glass container.

Mel Robbins 1:10:47 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:10:47 Not a plastic container. And for those of you who are bringing your, uh, bottles to the, water bottles to the gym, get a metal one or get one that's gla- lined with glass on the inside. Take the plastic ones, toss them out immediately. And when you go back to the kitchen, go root around your drawers and your, uh, cabinets, and anything that you might have once used to store leftovers, the plastic stuff, plastic containers with a plastic top, out it goes. All right? Replace it with ceramic or glass. Okay? Um, cups in your cupboard, uh, you've got, you know, the ceramic mugs, you've got the glasses for, you know, your guests, uh, you might have some plastic ones that are out there. You know, you got it at a ball game or whatever, out. Throw it out.

Mel Robbins 1:11:32 And now I feel like an idiot 'cause I've handed you a silicone glass so it doesn't make... Don't drink out of it, Dr. Lay.

Dr. William Li 1:11:38 Don't... Listen. I mean, I'm telling you, pla- microplastics are a big deal. Now I'll tell you, it's almost impossible to get away from microplastics. They're everywhere in the environment. You know, they're, they're in the al- they're in the new carpets, they're in, uh, the, the, uh, HVAC systems of our house.

Mel Robbins 1:11:54 Yeah, but that's different than actually ingesting it in your food.

Dr. William Li 1:11:58 We d- we breathe it in and it gets into our body as well. But y- you're right. What I'm trying to say is that for foods that you wanna avoid, okay, you don't... You wa- you want to stay away from plastics whenever you can. That means don't microwave something with a plastic top or with a Saran wrap on top. That means don't buy food that's packed, prepacked in plastic. You know, those kinds of quick eat meals that you could actually have. All right. It's got a big plastic thing that you nuke in the microwave and you put a fork to let the steam out.

Mel Robbins 1:12:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. William Li 1:12:29 All that stuff is just coating it with plastic.

Mel Robbins 1:12:32 And obviously impacting our metabolism.

Dr. William Li 1:12:34 And we believe that those... You know, by the way, there's... People have been talking about this for years. Like maybe these microplastics are endocrine disruptors and that's why we're actually having problems with our hormones. I don't know. I haven't seen enough data on that. I mean, listen, I'm a scientist, so here's the thing about scientists, like a real scientist, and, and I know you've talked to a bunch of them. Um, a real scientist will tell you what they know, but they'll also tell you when they don't know something. And I don't know enough information about hormone disruptors and microplastics, but I do know, 'cause I'm a vascular guy, I study blood vessels. I do know that the little particle bits that are stuck in your blood vessels are linked to real serious health outcomes and badness. And so for me, one of the things besides processed meats and, you know, nuclear foods and, uh, you know, and sodas, I would say stay away from water in a bottle that's... Or water in, in a container that's plastic because you have a choice. You can get one out of glass.

Mel Robbins 1:13:35 You have very strong opinions about, uh, what we do on airplanes.

Dr. William Li 1:13:40 On an airplane?

Mel Robbins 1:13:41 Yes. What not to drink or eat.

Dr. William Li 1:13:42 Okay. Well, listen. I...To do my research and to work with my colleagues, I do travel quite a bit. So I know a lot, as I'm sure you do, about sitting on a plane. And one of the things about planes that's- that's kind of crazy is that, you know, we're instinctively served beverages and foods. And, you know, if you're like me, I'm working on my laptop and somebody comes by and hands me something, my instinct is to take it, right? I mean, and, you know, it's free kind of thing. Well, nah, you paid for it, but it- it seems like it's something that I should eat. Well, there's a couple of things that I don't do. I don't drink coffee or tea on an airplane. And the reason I don't is because, a lot of people don't know this, but the water from your coffee or tea comes from a tank in the airplane, right? And they- they don't clean that tank but once or twice a year.

Mel Robbins 1:14:35 Ew.

Dr. William Li 1:14:36 And so you know what happens when you actually have a container you don't clean very often. It's pretty disgusting. And I don't even wanna go into the, uh, the- the- the chassis of an airplane to take a look at the rusty old tank with all the crud that's in the bottom that they are actually using and pouring out. Now listen, the- the place where the flight attendants are actually making the coffee looks pretty clean, you know? Um, the coffee looks okay. I can't taste anything, but I, you know, I'm somebody that I know enough that I care about what I put into my body, and I would rather get a glass container of water or coffee or bring, better yet,

Dr. William Li 1:15:15 bring your own thermos, metal thermos or glass thermos. Fill up your own coffee, all right? Obviously after security. And bring it on. And now you know that you actually have something reliable that doesn't have weird stuff. And I, listen, a rule of thumb for anybody listening to this, keep weird stuff out of your body. Any chemicals, anything you can't pronounce, anything you have no idea why it's there. Now that I told you about meat glue, you know? Like, it's- it's stuff that you just kind of don't really want, even if we grew up with it. Listen, there's so many things that, you know, we're getting smarter about things that are good for us, but we're also getting a little smarter about things that are not good for us.

Mel Robbins 1:15:55 Well, you know, Dr. Lee, I think one of the things that's really confusing is that there's just so much information. Where I wanna

Mel Robbins 1:16:01 go next is, since there's a lot of people around the world that may live in a place where it's really hard to find local produce or they can't grow it themselves, you know, what is the optimal place where you should be grocery shopping? And is there a difference between farmer's market and going to your local market or grocery store?

Dr. William Li 1:16:23 Yeah, you know, it's a, it's a big question. Um, I would sort of... I'm- I'm a pragmatic person, practical person. So I say, you know, if you're gonna buy food, buy the best quality food you can within the most convenient place that you, uh, you can as well.

Mel Robbins 1:16:38 Okay.

Dr. William Li 1:16:38 Like whatever makes, whatever you're able to get access to. You know, like again, I- I try to be very careful not to make people feel bad that they can't go shop at a fancy organic farmer's market.

Mel Robbins 1:16:51 Right.

Dr. William Li 1:16:51 A lot of people can't. So...

Mel Robbins 1:16:52 Let's say you can't. You're listening to this. You can't. How do you, Dr. Lee, go into a grocery store? Like, what have you discovered-

Dr. William Li 1:17:01 Okay.

Mel Robbins 1:17:01 ... based on your research?

Dr. William Li 1:17:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:17:02 If you're going into a grocery store, how do you shop?

Dr. William Li 1:17:06 Okay. So when I go to the grocery store, I go to the produce section first. It's usually in the front of the store. And I'm looking at the stuff that they put closer to the entrance, which happens to be, if you read these little signs that they put near the foods, if it's grown locally, like local apples or local strawberries, whatever, it's seasonal, that's the seasonal stuff that hasn't taken an airplane ride from South America, uh, been sitting in the back for, in a, in a box for, you know, a couple of days. That's the stuff that's more, a little fresher coming in. And local, when the, when food doesn't have to travel, it's- it's gonna be fresh. I mean, think about when you get on a plane and you fly someplace far away, you know, you're not fresh that same day. You gotta take a shower, get a good night's sleep. Same thing with the food. So local, you're fresher. So I look for that. And even in a regular grocery store, usually the stuff they put closer to you, if you read the signs, is gonna be closer. But that doesn't mean that the other foods that they have aren't so good for you. A lot of greens are grown in places where you can get, you know, uh, produce grown and farmed, uh, and picked all year round, um, that's fine. Um, uh, I go, uh, uh, I go to the middle aisle, by the way, um, and you're supposed to stay out of the middle aisle. That's also a myth. I will tell you, the middle aisle has some really, really amazing healthy foods.

Mel Robbins 1:18:21 Like what?

Dr. William Li 1:18:22 Okay. You gotta actually put your filter on so you're not looking at the chips and the candy and all the ultra-processed stuff that you might, snacks you might get there. But you think about it, you get, um, uh, extra virgin olive oil is there, lentils and legumes are there, cans of beans are on there. You know, one of my favorite beans are actually simple can of white navy beans. All right? I love them. I don't know why. When I was a kid, I- I must have had