Kind: captions
Language: en
hey there it's dr william lee i am
physician author and uh scientist
and i'm actually uh doing this video
series with my friends and colleagues
specifically like-minded doctors uh to
be able to have a conversation about the
real experiences that we have with food
and health and and really to kind of uh
get the people who are watching and
listening to this um the feeling that
they're just a fly on the wall listening
to friends talk about uh things that
that they care about so um i'm here
today with my good friend and
awesome
fellow author uh dr will bolsoewitz the
fiberfield doc who um we developed our
friendship uh a few years ago before you
had your book your first book out and i
remember
um chatting with you
about my experiences and just trying to
share with you um how i what i what i
encountered that was new
uh that i wished i had been prepared for
and then i watched you
um walk yeah walk up to bat and swing it
and hit like a home run the first time
so anyway um it's great great to see you
will uh
uh
uh do you want to talk about
let's just let's just talk about
something we did recently so
i i know you've been
in the middle of a really big
thing what is that big thing yeah
first of all thank you uh for having me
it's exciting
i launched my second book
and you know it's um
it was interesting this time around so
going back to the first book my first
book was fiber fueled
you and i connected for the first time
at uh effectively like a retreat yeah
and there were
hundreds of people there
and yet
in this massive event
we found each other and it was like an
instant connection
i remember by the way
it was like at the opening reception
and
it was like you and i were like the two
nerdy
guys at the high school dance
sitting standing off of one corner right
and everyone else was just doing their
networky thing
and and like they were just the two of
us standing there and they were like
why are we here yeah
yeah i think we felt a little bit out of
place and we found each other you know i
like the high school analogy i think it
makes a lot of sense
and um and then you know next thing you
know we're like sitting at the same
table enjoying breakfast together and
a relationship started there
uh you actually were quoted on the cover
of my first book
and
the book came out in may of 2020 and you
know the thing about it is that in that
position
there were zero expectations
it is a pandemic
my entire book launch campaign has been
upended i was supposed to fly out to la
and like do shows like rich roll
cancelled
and um
it turned out really well actually
things went really well i i ended up
i've since sold over 200 000 copies of
fiberfield
you hit listen i i'm just telling you
like
if anybody listen to this so
i was quietly
um
crossing my fingers and toes for you
during your first book launch because
the world was flying apart like no one
knew what what the heck was happening
as the pandemic was unfolding right
remember like tv was all about all the
death and destruction and every nobody
knew exactly was going on and and
doctors even the medical community was
you know fleeing from what was happening
or struggling to just kind of stay
afloat and i thought oh my gosh um my
friend will is going to
be flying into this category 5 hurricane
and little did i know in a triangle
little did i know
that you actually
had like a super sonic jet
that could fly through these clouds and
you came out very quickly on top so
what did that feel like i mean it must
have been it must have felt really weird
to be so successful
i mean like you must have connected with
people
in a way that you're still connecting
with people uh
even when all this other stuff was going
i was like what is what is it about you
well it's i think there's a little bit
of a story to this so you know
effectively what happened i was up
actually a lot of people have never
heard this story before i've never
talked about this on a podcast
i was up in new york in early march
and i was recording a podcast with my
friend simon hill from the proof it used
to be called plant proof right
and so we record a podcast
and we go out to dinner
and it was like the weekend
that it all changed
we went out to dinner and the next day i
was supposed to meet my friend who's the
chief spice mama on social media right
and conscience and i was supposed to
meet her for breakfast we cancelled
because it's like the world is ending
like there is a pandemic in new york
city
i come back to charleston wearing an n95
mask in laguardia in laguardia airport
okay i like flew up for just a weekend i
come back wearing a 95 mask
my practice is upended
all right we 50 of what we do is
colonoscopy colonoscopy is shut down
there's we're not allowed to do it
um so i'm sitting there in late march
and i'm like my life is falling apart
i don't have the ability to make money
for my family
and my book launch is a disaster
and after moping around for a couple
weeks because i did do that i did mope
around for a couple weeks
um
i
got to a point where i was like you know
forget this
this
the moping does no good
where are people
because people still exist in fact if
anything people have more time because a
lot of people aren't working right now
right
where are they
well they're not at barnes noble anymore
now they're on their phone
so i built my entire book launch around
trying to connect to people you rebuilt
it yeah you rebuilt it yeah i had to
pivot and i went in a brand new
direction literally just in the last
couple of weeks leading up to the book
launch it's like new idea here's what
i'm gonna try and i reached out to all
these different people online online
personalities
and i and i said to them um
my book launch has been destroyed
is there any chance you'd be willing to
support me and do an instagram live
and i did an entire book launch from
basically like a chair
like you were like i mean first of all
for anybody watching listening
this story that you've just told me
uh will is like the one of the ultimate
stories i've heard about resilience
right so here you were with perfectly
good plans that were completely upended
and you
thought about it you didn't panic but
you thought about it and realized that
it was time for you to figure out a new
plan a
you
leveraged what you believed were going
to be necessary for you to be able to
resources to be able to fly and you got
no cockpit and you took off and you flew
i mean so so this time right so this is
the the first book was called fiber
fueled uh which is about the gut
microbiome and how amazing uh uh how
amazingly empowered you can be yourself
to be able to have better gut health but
this one is a cookbook based on the
first one right so what was
what's this one about well first of all
this this book
um
i
wholeheartedly believed in just as much
as i did my first book my first book was
a passion project
and i i view it as the first book is why
why you should care about gut health
this book is the how it's actually so
much more than a cookbook if you if you
go to amazon reviews and you read them
this is what everyone says they're like
this is way more than a cookbook i was
expecting recipes and i got a lot more
and so i knew that i had going into the
book launch something special that no
one had seen and they would not see
until the book actually comes out
and i effectively what i did will is i
doubled down on the strategy that i used
before
so
i knew the way to connect with people is
like
i want them to hear the story
that's podcasting
yeah
and i want them to have live
interactions with me in person like if
you want to meet the author
i'll give you
a hundred opportunities
and you can do it from your living room
in your pjs
right
so
um so these were the instagrams that you
did
live
yeah yeah fantastic
and
the
book came out
and uh you don't know what's gonna
happen
but
there are expectations this time around
the first time
was a surprise
this time it's more like people are
expecting something and
the book came out and during launch week
it sold 28 000 copies oh my gosh that's
amazing
and i uh
i thought i had a shot at number one on
the new york times now here's the
interesting thing about it
um
the book
uh atomic habits is actually
selling more copies in year four
than it sold in year one
by the way have you read that book
i have not i've heard great things about
it i i have it in my uh in my library
and i i got it because you know what
actually it's i would i would tell you
it's worth reading because it's really
about this idea that small things
actually have big impacts and that if
you have a habit of doing a lot of
little small things you can actually get
reap a lot of the benefits from it and i
actually think that it's it's it's
relevant to um putting those action
steps that you have in the fiber field
cookbook because basically what you have
which what you've just launched is
really
a action guide right so the first one is
the the what and this is the how it's
the action guide and you know i think a
lot of people wind up getting
um
overwhelmed if unless they're really
familiar with
changing their lifestyle
doing everything all at the same time
and one of the things that i'm a big
believer on is like you know just take
one
baby step
that works for you and and you'll be
rewarded
with just that baby step and that just
shows you you can take another baby step
oh i so so i so wholeheartedly agree
with that actually so if you go back to
the very beginning for me
you know when i'm at my lowest point in
my life
and um i need to figure out a way to dig
myself out of this hole that i'm in
the the transitional moment and this
literally happened this is not just a
story this is what already happened
i diverted away from hardee's which is
where i typically went for dinner i was
in chapel hill north carolina
and at hearties for five bucks
you can get about 2 500 calories they
would give you a double cheeseburger a
chili cheese dog fries a beverage and an
apple pie
all right for five bucks
and i diverted home
and the issue is i'm not a french
trained chef
i needed something easy
so i pulled out a blender
and i made a massive smoothie
and
uh i felt
so
energized
what means you made what made you do
that though what was the
what was what was going on in your head
that said you know what i'm just gonna
screw the hardies i'm just gonna go for
the i'm gonna pull this stuff out and
make it myself
well um
this was the moment that was built up
too it's not like it happened overnight
okay during my medical training you know
how it goes i was working six days a
week 15 hours a day sometimes 30 hours
in a row
many times without even eating yeah
right and
we were we were we were by the way
the world's expert of time-restricted
feeding when we were training
and also it was a sleep deprivation and
sleep there for a way yeah it's sort of
like going against each other they're
going against each other and that that's
the issue is like you know you actually
put your body through a lot even though
you're in your late 20s early 30s
and unfortunately ultra processed foods
and fast foods they fit so conveniently
and perfectly
cheap
quick
easy
tastes great no denying that it tastes
good
and so it just fits so perfectly in my
life but there's a compromise that you
make
which is that you compromise your health
it just takes years to show up that's
the problem
so there i was and my health had been
compromised
and i was quite miserable i was 50
pounds overweight was depressed anxious
fifty five zero oh my gosh seriously i
weighed 240
i weighed 240 now i'm six how tall are
you
i'm six three six four so i'm pretty
tall guys so i can hide it
but it was there i could see it in the
mirror when i'm looking
and what you can't see in the mirror is
all that visceral fat
that's
encasing your organs oh 100 and and but
uh you know my brothers are making
comments about me when i go home for for
the holidays
um i'm depressed i'm anxious i
have high blood pressure and high
cholesterol and to be perfectly honest
with you i just wanted to curl up under
a blanket in a dark room and be left
alone that's where i was at and
so i knew that something needed to
change
and unfortunately the scenario was that
my medical training had not provided me
with the tools in order to do that
so i didn't want to take a pill and i
wasn't going to take a pill to fix my
obesity you know my overweight obesity
issue
so
uh i tried exercising my way out of this
and it failed
i did get stronger swim further this was
a very rigorous exercise program by the
way i was pushing hard
and i i could
you know get stronger and run farther
and things like that but not fix these
health issues
and then what ended up happening will is
actually it's i mean it's so
so bizarre that this is actually what
happened but this is true okay what is
it
i went on a first date with the person
who is now my wife okay
all right we have three kids together
now
and uh by the way that's the other thing
that happened during the book launch is
we had another baby
and a book baby
happened around the same time
all right and well so anyway uh
we're on our first date together in
carrboro north carolina at a place
called acme
and i'm getting a pork chop
and
she
orders something that's not even on the
menu
she says to the waiter there's these
sides there's black eyed peas there's
collards there's mashed potatoes right
you can get your your sides to accompany
your meat dish
she says can you put three or four of
these onto a plate for me and just make
it look nice wow
so i'm like who are you
it's 20 20 13. who is this person early
2013 who is this person that i'm sitting
here with i've never been around anyone
like you in my life this is right
well first of all again you know really
really clever thinking right because
most people just follow tick the boxes
off the menu and order
the appetizer and an entree or whatever
it is and and here she is choosing
something as you say that's
on the menu but not on the menu and and
advocating for
what she knew was going to be better for
her
so she looked amazing
her health appeared to be completely
aligned um she loved her food she ate
until she was full cool and when we were
done
she wanted the date to keep going and i
felt compelled to go home because i was
exhausted
and
so this was not a an intervention
unless this was like an intervention by
god this was
this was though a seed
that got planted in my brain right i
noticed this
and i ruminated on that
and then it was enough for me to say
maybe i should try that
so that's how they define the better
half
right
well like like you were inspired
like it changed your mind or you were
maybe already on that threshold
of knowing something needed to be done
and you watched it being done right in
front of your eyes essentially
it was a uh
a radical observation from my
perspective because i again like i did
not know a single person who was either
vegetarian or vegan right so to observe
this to be on a date with someone who is
okay and see it in real life
and you go interesting
maybe there's something there
right
and that was all that i needed she never
once in my entire life
in the 10 years that my wife and i have
been together
we met in 2012 for the first time 2013
this was this date
for in the 10 years that we've been
together she's never once said this is
what you need to do in terms of your
diet
but i changed because of her well she
set the example showed it could be done
made you think differently and frankly
you know what a what a great kind of
like little restaurant hack you just
shared which is
you know what if you can't find
something that you feel is like exactly
what your body uh
craves from a health perspective
just go off this is by the way this is
what i actually do go off to the to the
sides the contouring or whatever it is
and pick a few of those little side
things you know they have some roasted
brush brussels sprouts or some you know
broccoli or whatever it is that that
like is cool just have them
have them bring you that decides like
three sides is an entree or two sides is
an entree kind of thing exactly exactly
so and you know the thing is going back
to the atomic habits idea
this moment when i had this smoothie
i felt instantly energized
instantly
and i there was a part of me that felt
like
almost like i have been deprived
and now i am receiving what i need
can i ask you what did you have in that
smoothie i want to know
i
want to know what what it was that
actually
turned on your lights with that smoothie
what would you say i am not
i am not a recipe guy which is bizarre
because here i am with a cookbook right
uh what i am is i'm a chemist
i like throwing stuff in there and see
what happens do you remember what you
threw in there yes
uh bananas
okay
um berries multiple types frozen
okay and greens
what kind of greens so i think it was
like a big bunch of kale
like
i'm talking green kale and i'm ripping
it off the stem and then just throwing
it in there cool
all right and then obviously liquid and
i think the liquid on that one was
probably water because there's no way i
had any sort of plant milk in my fridge
there's no way
so
uh and then and then some ice just to
kind of give it the proper texture that
i was looking for sure
and
so you know buzz that and this thing was
i mean i'm not kidding it's definitely
more than 30 ounces probably 36 ounces
and it took me three maybe three and a
half large
glasses to to complete it
and um i felt completely full
yeah right but i felt light
and i felt energized
and i went normally after dinner for me
back then i would need to lay on the
couch and just kind of
decompress from dinner yeah
and i felt so energized that an hour
later i went to the gym and had a great
workout
and this was i think the point from my
perspective is this it's
it's it's not even like
the uh
the energy level
what it is really truly was the
juxtaposition of how i felt in that
moment relative to how i felt prior to
that moment
interesting yeah
i
for anyone who has suffered with these
types of issues
you just want to feel well
right
and i felt so much better
so you know like i mean and look i mean
we're both doctors and so
uh
you know the whole idea about
uh an individual patient that we might
be seeing uh when there's a difference
in their life something's made a
difference like that's the
they they it it um instantly is
something that they are able to
recognize and talk about and so what
you're just kind of sharing with me is
sort of your sort of your side of the
white coat kind of thing where like you
were feeling one way and then you tried
something different and you felt
completely different and so
so i mean obviously that inspired you to
uh dive deeper into doing all the things
you've done
um
has it changed the way that you were
talking to patients as well
so uh first of all this is perhaps an n
of one thing right and
we may want population data to back up
what we do
and part of what happened here was i had
my n of one moment
and then i turned to the data
and this is where i discovered the
relationship between
dietary fiber
and the gut microbiome
did you know anything about the
microbiome before it did not really and
in fact i trained with some of the
cleaning if you go to a microbiome
meeting
you're going to hear one of the most
brilliant people
is belfor starter
and i was
i was in his clinic
treating inflammatory bowel disease for
years
but he never told you about the
microbiome it wasn't a focus right
because we're we're we're not talking
about these nebulous ideas of the
microbiome back in you know 2010 2011
right right right
um we're talking about biologics right
and inflammatory bowel disease these are
biologics by the way for people who are
wondering i'm talking about like very
very powerful anti-inflammatory drugs
so
uh but
that's i think part of what happened is
this inspired me to say
how come i haven't been taught this
interesting to find the confirmation
of how i felt as a single individual
person
in a overwhelming body of evidence that
exists
that i had not been taught in my medical
training despite being at these great
institutions great institutions and
having great mentors
um
it made me understand that
we can't allow ourselves to remain
within the box right of conventional
medicine well you know like for me it
was a little bit different i i
um i never had a problem with my weight
uh
but for me i got thrown into my interest
in food and health before i went to
medical school i did a gap year and i
went to the mediterranean and i lived
there and i by the way i just came back
from there a few days ago doing research
for my next book
and when i was there uh at the very
beginning before med school what i was
so interested in is um
how is it that some people live
to eat as opposed to eating to live you
know like the idea that you just kind of
sit down and wolf your food down get
your calories in and keep on doing your
stuff like that that's that's eating in
order to survive isn't that kind of an
american thing don't you think you know
i think that anybody who is used to
breaking bricks you know like in a slag
heap i think that's the mindset you have
like you have a foreman who's whipping
you and it's not a pleasant way of
living and then you know when i when i
really
embedded myself in italy and in greece
and started to see how people were
living and then i went to asia
what i saw is that people are excited
about their food like when you just
talked about your your smoothie your
blender and you were talking about the
berries and the bananas like you can see
the passion in your eyes as you're
recounting something that's what happens
in these countries that i like i just
got back from greece every time you sit
down with anybody over a meal
their eyes light up when they start
talking about their food and it's
something that you know i
really believe is really important um
uh
and uh
one of the things that i by the way i i
just sort of tearing a page from your
playbook is
this idea that um
i was
[Music]
doing research
looking at something that most people
who are doing healthy eating don't spend
a lot of time doing that's why i did it
plant-based foods dietary fiber
absolutely important
i wanted to take a little bit of time to
research something that most people
don't think about
for lots of reasons which is seafood
most of the data shows that people who
eat seafood
in moderation actually have better
health outcomes and i wanted to i was so
curious about like why that is and what
about the omega-3s and so i sat down and
i looked at every
thing on the menu and you know and to
try different components of it and one
of the things i didn't realize for
omega-3s which of course you can get
from plants through ala
is that almost all the seafood not just
the greasy ones actually the oily ones
actually have omega-3s
but one of the things that eating
seafood doesn't give you is plant-based
foods so when i sat down at
a taverna and i was in greece and i and
i went up looking at how to build my
meal
what did i do
i went to the appetizers and the
vegetables and i did exactly what your
uh
your significant other back did back
then i went and put together like i
wanted to try some seafood stuff but i i
put together a meal of
santorini and giant fava beans
i put together a meal of uh volcanic
tomatoes um with mint
i put together um
a meal with uh
um
wild greens salad greens that are
basically harvested from
the hills uh you got to have a little
trust that you know like this is in the
middle of the mediterranean so it's
pretty healthy the the air it's like a
thousand feet above the sea they wash
them up they saute them a little garlic
a little shallot
and it was so great like when they were
bringing out the meals like i i kind of
felt like you which is you know i was
hungry
and yeah you know like if somebody put a
burger in front of me i mean i don't
normally eat burgers but i probably
could have eaten one because i was
pretty hungry but but just eating that
healthy food
uh in a healthy environment and and then
listening to the people talking about
the food because i would always ask
people about what they were eating and
where it came from and how they prepare
it was just like a like a like an
elevating type of experience so i