The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - My Chat with Jillian Michaels, Fitness and Wellness Expert (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.000 hey guys this is god sad for the sad truth there's a lot of crazy stuff happening in the world so

00:00:05.740 oftentimes you feel guilty when you talk about anything other than the suffering that's happening

00:00:10.520 somewhere actually in my in my backyard and to some extent you also have roots there uh jillian

00:00:17.700 uh but we need life goes on uh i've got today with me arguably the biggest fitness and well-being

00:00:26.820 guru in the united states jillian michaels how you doing i'm good how are you i'm doing well i want

00:00:33.780 to for the three or four people who don't know who you are let me just read now some of these some of

00:00:39.260 these uh metrics i don't get envious but i think you could consider yourself envied home workout

00:00:46.940 dvds have sold 100 million copies is that is that right did i get that number right 100 million

00:00:53.080 well remember dvds were different times so you couldn't just stream everything for free on

00:00:58.080 youtube so yeah look at her trying to be all modest no it's true it's the truth now it's a very

00:01:03.740 different game but at that time yeah you're you're able to better establish a monopoly in the space if

00:01:09.940 you will and that's how i think i pulled it off emmy nominated tv personality who has starred in

00:01:14.540 several hit tv shows creator of the fitness app host of the keeping it real conversations with

00:01:21.280 jillian michaels podcast i've been honored to be on it twice second one should be dropping soon am i

00:01:27.180 right absolutely right i believe i think it's i think it might be next week actually oh right i'm so

00:01:34.380 excited great conversation as always and then finally eight time new york best-selling

00:01:41.100 author eight times eight times also when when you couldn't get um when you couldn't get fitness

00:01:50.820 and nutrition advice uh on the web quite so easily books were the best avenue to educate yourself in

00:01:58.460 that arena so again i was able to be successful in that space at that time maybe we could start

00:02:04.280 there so how what was your journey to become the the expert that you are in terms of fitness and

00:02:10.220 well-being and to our point some of your answers that you're giving now so modestly is that you

00:02:15.080 know the ecosystem is now very cluttered whereas perhaps when you came in you had the first mover

00:02:20.280 advantage so tell us that whole story so that people know your story i absolutely did um well the the

00:02:26.000 interesting part is that if we talk about your new book you know about happiness and you discuss

00:02:32.300 pursuing a career that brings you purpose this was a very purposeful path for me because as a kid

00:02:41.980 i struggled with my weight and it was rooted in family dynamics um and it wasn't until my mom had the

00:02:50.380 foresight to get me into martial arts not for my weight but rather as an avenue to build self-worth

00:02:57.420 self-esteem resilience i lost weight over the course of several years but i learned to appreciate

00:03:05.260 fitness as transcendent you know the more i felt strong physically the stronger i felt in other facets

00:03:12.620 of my life so at 17 i was training for my black belt because i had started karate at like 12 and um

00:03:20.860 people would see me in the gym and they thought i was a trainer so they would ask me you know how much

00:03:26.060 do you charge and i'm thinking for what and i ended up taking on personal training clients for 15 an

00:03:33.820 hour and luckily my mom had the foresight to suggest i get some sort of credential so she paid for my first

00:03:40.620 fitness training certification through a company called ace and it really sort of took off from there

00:03:46.620 very organically i had a brief i wasn't too brief actually about five year period in my 20s where i went

00:03:54.380 through the you know i should get a real job thing never been more miserable as you suggest in your

00:04:00.060 book right never made less money uh and the long and the short of it is that i ended up back in fitness

00:04:06.220 opened up a sports medicine facility by the time i was 30 and then ended up on tv by the time i was 31

00:04:12.060 and here we are how did you get on tv was it was there a particular path or was it just the serendipity of

00:04:18.460 life um it was the serendipity of life so that foray into a quote real and responsible job was in

00:04:27.180 the entertainment industry so i ended up meeting a lot of agents and one of them was training at my gym

00:04:35.180 the sports medicine facility that i'd opened also had a personal training facility and he heard about

00:04:39.660 the show on nbc and he's like you should really go in for this and i actually hate reality tv can't stand

00:04:46.780 it and i hated the name the biggest loser so i didn't want to go in i was like this is gross

00:04:52.060 i hate this name i hate reality tv so he convinced me to go he's like what do you have to lose just

00:04:57.740 just go you don't have to take the job and i ended up getting the job and the long and the short of it

00:05:03.660 is you know a blessing and a curse if you will so it gave me this incredible platform but it also

00:05:10.380 had some significant downsides which is why i ended up leaving the show for the third and final time

00:05:15.980 i believe in 2014 uh but it was through that crappy job that i ended up making the connections

00:05:25.660 to establish uh a public platform on television so yeah pretty serendipitous wow so so going to the

00:05:33.580 second part of that question which was you know what are your thoughts about how cluttered the space

00:05:38.060 is today before you answer that let me just kind of contextualize it in other situations so for

00:05:43.500 example when i first came into the uh you know the long form you know podcast genre there were very

00:05:50.780 very few people who were doing i mean yeah of course there was joe rogan and certainly in academia there was

00:05:56.140 no one uh that i'm aware of now you know fast forward 10 years later i probably received you know 50 invitations

00:06:04.620 uh you know a week to appear on podcasts and many times it's just someone that just opens up their

00:06:14.140 laptop and says i've got a new podcast because the the barrier to entry is so small you just need a laptop

00:06:19.980 you need to and so what that creates is a difficult situation i mean from my perspective who should i be

00:06:26.700 saying yes to on the one hand you want to promote and encourage people to find their voice so you're

00:06:32.300 saying hey get out there your voice matters start something but on the other hand if everyone thinks

00:06:38.300 they've got something interesting to say if everybody wants to be the next joe rogan or julian michaels

00:06:43.740 then you very quickly get overwhelmed with requests so in the fitness environment i think it's the same

00:06:49.820 thing everybody is a fitness life coach everybody has their own personal stories so how do we navigate

00:06:57.180 in in trying to decide who is the real deal julian michaels and who are all the faux folks who are

00:07:04.380 peddling all kinds of nonsense to us the first thing i would look for in an expert is education

00:07:11.500 and then passion because at the end of the day if you're turning to somebody for advice

00:07:18.780 you need to make sure that advice is credible and safe so we want it to yield results right

00:07:26.060 but we want you to achieve those results as safely as possible and that's why in my line of work at

00:07:32.940 this point i don't even i wouldn't even recommend trainers with a weekend certification even though

00:07:39.420 that's how i got my start and all the more to the point is how ignorant i was with a weekend

00:07:47.020 certification 30 years later how much i've had to learn and i appreciate the fact that now i think

00:07:56.060 somebody training somebody else should have a degree period i i would look for a degree in exercise

00:08:03.980 science i just think you know when you're messing with your health in any way mentally or physically

00:08:10.620 you need a person who is very well educated and then beyond that you want to make sure that they're

00:08:17.260 passionate about what they do so that you know they're being authentic with their message because

00:08:22.780 so much of the health care system has been corrupted um and you know we could get into that or not but

00:08:29.820 it's it's a huge problem and you also need to identify with the person who's working with you

00:08:35.820 so you feel safe and you feel motivated to take their advice and continue onward with it okay what

00:08:42.300 about so i was now i was talking about the clutter of the entrance into the space but how about the

00:08:47.660 clutter of the actual content of the information that we're each exposed to right so i can take

00:08:53.420 any prescription that you could think of and i can show you two experts that prescribe the exact

00:08:59.020 opposite eggs are good for you eggs are bad for you coffee's good for you coffee's bad for you

00:09:03.100 statins are good for you you should never take statins cholesterol is is the is the curse when

00:09:09.420 it comes to heart disease cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease and it's not quacks who

00:09:14.620 don't have the degrees i can bring you absolutely certifiable experts that exactly enunciate the

00:09:22.460 opposing position on anything you could think of it applies to fitness it applies to diet it applies to

00:09:28.780 nutrition so how is the average person to navigate through that conundrum well the first thing is

00:09:36.620 what's their motivation because oftentimes if you follow the money when you're reading different

00:09:44.140 studies who funded it and why right are these doctors being paid by big food are they being paid

00:09:51.420 by big pharma is the trainer on your instagram recommending a skinny tea because they were paid

00:09:57.980 to do so follow the money right and then if it's like well everybody just has a unique opinion that's

00:10:06.700 pretty rare it really is because i can answer those questions about coffee and eggs the truth is generally

00:10:14.220 in the middle it's a balance eggs are pretty darn good for you actually unless you are according to

00:10:19.100 dr agatston who i believe is one of the greatest cardiologists in the world right now unless you

00:10:25.340 have a genetic predisposition to hyper absorb cholesterol eggs are great for you and we've

00:10:31.500 pretty much established that but things like coffee you're up to 400 milligrams a day we know that you're

00:10:37.580 okay right we know that that's fine organic coffee because it's the most heavily sprayed crop in the world

00:10:44.300 it's usually common sense and the truth falls in the middle but when you're hearing

00:10:48.300 information that is really polarizing or vastly divergent or doesn't ring true in your gut

00:10:56.140 it's generally motivated by money whether somebody's trying to kind of make noise by being contrarian

00:11:01.260 because you see a lot of that too oh you'd only need like well that's gonna make a lot of noise and

00:11:07.580 then you find out oh you'd only liver and the guys on hormones and steroids it's like common sense will

00:11:12.540 usually guide you to the truth but if somebody has the credentials that's why you really need

00:11:18.380 to check their motivation like what are their interests are they being uh corrupted by outside

00:11:27.340 financial influences if you will got you okay what are so i'm going i think we might have discussed uh

00:11:33.420 my weight loss journey on your show if i if i remember correctly but for those of us for those

00:11:38.460 folks who may not be familiar i'm going to share my weight loss journey and you tell me if you know

00:11:43.660 that is pretty much the standard way there's no magic recipe or whether there's something that i

00:11:49.340 might have missed that could have added can i can i go ahead and mention what i basically did i still do

00:11:57.500 about 15 to 20 000 steps a day which can come in any variety of ways it could be just walking with my

00:12:03.500 wife it could be i'm on the treadmill it could be on a stationary bike i'm always tracking my movement

00:12:09.020 in a day now of course as you know probably better than anyone that only covers about maybe 10 percent

00:12:14.940 of your i mean you can't outrun as they say a bad diet so the other the second part is that i try to

00:12:21.260 eat by tracking all my calories about 15 to 1700 calories a day of largely protein and some you know

00:12:30.060 vegetables and rarely also some fruits not too much carbs and just doing that i ended up from my

00:12:36.460 heaviest weight to my lightest that i've gotten there was a fluctuation of or drop of 86 pounds

00:12:44.620 over you know 18 months to 24 months period is it nothing but that have i have i struck the the

00:12:52.540 magic recipe or is there something that i'm missing that can actually improve that journey it's nothing but

00:12:58.220 that and people will try to tell you that it is but i promise you it isn't and i can address any

00:13:08.140 question you have what about hormones and what about this brain disease that people are now claiming

00:13:14.220 obesity is it is a chicken and an egg conversation of course your hormones your entire endocrine system

00:13:20.860 gets disrupted when we have excess adipose tissue or excess body fat so yes you start to kind of dig

00:13:28.620 yourself into a bit of a hole and it's slow going on the way out to begin to reverse your biochemistry

00:13:35.260 right you might become insulin resistant you might develop pcos a host of things can happen when we

00:13:41.660 become overweight making it harder to lose weight so let's say the car is in reverse in that situation

00:13:47.900 right we got to get it into neutral then into first then second then third then fourth but when you

00:13:53.980 do the things you're talking about we can gradually begin to climb out of the hole and get the car from

00:13:59.260 reverse into drive and by continuing onward controlling your calories in moving more right burning more

00:14:08.380 calories getting more calories burning out it's really kindergarten math and common sense and anybody who

00:14:15.900 tells you otherwise is selling you something and i wrote that book on hormones and metabolism and

00:14:23.260 it was a master it's called master metabolism monster bestseller i wrote it with an endocrinologist

00:14:29.340 but at the end of the day it is eat less move more and use common sense with your food choices it is

00:14:35.500 that simple period so it is i mean you you are a proponent of the calories in calories out if if if

00:14:43.820 my basal rate is 2200 calories if i eat 1700 i'm 500 down do that for seven days i'm 3500 down therefore

00:14:54.700 i'm one pound less fat is that is that the math pretty much it can vary a little bit and some people

00:15:01.660 will argue like well hold on how come my boyfriend can eat whatever he wants and never gain weight

00:15:06.940 yes we all have a different basal metabolic rate that's not a genetic disease and it's not a um genetic

00:15:17.340 pre-determination of like oh you're going to be overweight this is just not the truth

00:15:21.660 so uh for example i burned 1300 calories a day if i didn't move at all right my brother burns 2000

00:15:29.660 calories a day i don't have a genetic disease because i burn less i just unfortunately am in

00:15:35.660 my late 40s i'm five foot two and i'm 115 pounds i don't get to eat as much as he does at 5 foot 11

00:15:43.900 at 31 years old as a man that's just life and people think oh this isn't fair therefore i have a

00:15:50.140 disease or i don't want to take responsibility therefore i have a disease and these doctors are

00:15:55.180 telling me i have a disease so therefore i must have this disease but the reality is you don't have

00:16:01.500 a disease obesity is not a disease it's just simply we are eating more than our body can manage it is

00:16:08.620 that simple i'm not saying it's easy because we eat too much for a variety of reasons which are pretty

00:16:17.100 complex actually but losing weight is really an energy equation health is a bit of a different story

00:16:23.820 so if we ate nothing but twinkies right there's a diet called the twinkie diet by a professor of

00:16:28.860 nutrition i believe his name is mark haub and he illustrated that he could eat nothing but crap

00:16:35.260 twinkies it was called the twinkie diet and still lose weight because he ate less of them and he did

00:16:42.140 he did improve his biomarkers his total cholesterol went down and all the things but skinny people also

00:16:48.220 have type 2 diabetes right and heart disease and cancer so that's where the quality of your food

00:16:53.740 comes into play is your overall health but you can shrink by eating less and moving more and it's

00:17:00.780 still better for you at the end of the day right so i guess there's a two-pronged approach as to why

00:17:07.900 people sing some of the stuff that you're talking about the obesity is a disease removes the agency from

00:17:14.380 me i can't control the fact that i have a disease therefore you know it is what it is and therefore

00:17:20.780 it's external locus of control the the second thing which is arguably as insidious if not more

00:17:27.020 is the argument that i am healthy and beautiful at any weight and i think that's where you got into

00:17:33.420 trouble with the perfectly weighted lizzo because it would be wrong for us to say that a 840 pound woman

00:17:41.340 is the wrong way she's beautiful she's strong she's healthy and there's absolutely no medical

00:17:47.740 proof that being 400 pounds overweight has any negative downstream effects of course i'm being

00:17:53.180 satirical but it aren't those the two the the two frontal attacks that actually are terribly harmful to

00:18:01.260 people right you want my physician to tell me hey god you have to start losing weight you have young

00:18:06.860 kids i imagine if he said no god you are perfect at 250 pounds don't you dare lose a pound it's a

00:18:15.340 disease you can't do anything about it well here's what's really scary is that if your doctor does

00:18:21.580 suggest that you have to lose weight it can be considered racist or ableist so doctors are now

00:18:28.300 terrified to say anything at all but conversely enter ozempec buongiorno all of these semaglutide and

00:18:38.220 weight loss drugs they're now being financially motivated to say aha hold on it's a disease and

00:18:47.740 if you take these drugs they'll help you lose the way because you can't do it any other way because you

00:18:52.460 have a disease um and in fact uh new research is coming out there have been many articles written

00:19:00.140 that doctors are clamoring to get into this business because they can easily make over 700 000 a year

00:19:05.740 prescribing ozempec um and if a doctor even discusses obesity with a patient they can bill medicare

00:19:15.660 i think an extra amount just for having that conversation it's very financially motivated

00:19:22.780 for a host of reasons so conversely it's like oh you're healthy at any size oh wait no no no it's

00:19:29.420 actually a disease you can't have it both ways right but the healthy at any size conversation i believe

00:19:36.140 comes from virtue signalers who you know go on ozempec to lose 10 pounds but you are beautiful at 400 pounds

00:19:45.100 you go girl and buy my product and watch my show that's everybody knows that's so that's

00:19:53.900 literally nefarious simply because people want to be liked so they say it and the people who are

00:19:59.740 feeling hurt and who have been marginalized because they're overweight which is very real um

00:20:07.500 turn to victimhood because it absolves them as you said and or are like i'm healthy at any size and i

00:20:13.020 was born this way because that makes them feel better instead of somebody giving them the empathy

00:20:19.020 that is required which is like listen i understand this is scary i understand it's painful i understand

00:20:25.420 you've been marginalized but let's let's put all that aside because if you really love yourself right

00:20:31.500 then you would work out because you love your body not because you hate your body you would want

00:20:37.500 everything great that life has to offer you which is vastly improved through physical health so let's

00:20:44.140 get to the bottom of where you're struggling and let's help you improve and take all of the blame game

00:20:50.140 out of it that's really the conversation that needs to be had but it doesn't financially benefit anybody

00:20:55.420 so taking ozempic or doing the bariatric surgery uh i think the the most famous example of sort of a

00:21:05.580 show that does that is the 600 my life yeah 600 pounds uh at what point if a client came to see you

00:21:13.580 and i think we touched on this in on my most recent appearance on your show where i was talking about

00:21:17.980 locus of control where you know i don't want to take a pill because then i feel like i've lost rather

00:21:22.700 than me making the lifestyle decisions to address the issue at what point would you go to someone

00:21:28.620 notwithstanding that yes you should improve your diet yes you should exercise more i think for you

00:21:35.580 taking that pill is a good idea or getting that surgery makes sense or would you never say that

00:21:41.500 there's always only lifestyle interventions that will get you to the promised land

00:21:47.020 you know i've had a host of these conversations with doctors that i greatly respect and

00:21:52.540 trust um i had this conversation with dr peter atia dr william lee and dr casey means because i trust

00:22:00.220 all three of them implicitly and i don't believe they're compromised in any way shape or form

00:22:05.100 um and i'll speak specifically on my conversation with dr lee at the moment

00:22:09.900 and his answer is as follows he said that we should look at this as honestly a life or death

00:22:18.380 intervention only with regard to the drugs in particular because the consequences and the side

00:22:23.740 effects are extremely severe largely unknown in the long term it's like oh well you only get

00:22:31.020 only a small percentage get thyroid cancer only a small percentage get stomach paralysis only a small

00:22:36.220 percentage get pancreatitis only is you guys fucking kidding you got to be on these drugs forever

00:22:43.100 there's no getting off of them it's a lifetime patient and we know from all the meta-analysis

00:22:48.860 all the studies that if people get off they gain it all back and then some that's that's already been

00:22:54.620 shown so you got to be on for the rest of your life the side effects are pretty scary and extreme and

00:23:02.140 we don't even know what it looks like being on it for 10 years they're now prescribing it for children

00:23:07.180 12 and up which is just flat out terrifying this is ozempic you're talking about okay and other weight

00:23:17.020 loss drugs and even surgery by the way right so they're going after our kids which could not be

00:23:23.260 scarier and in in dr lee's opinion he was saying to me listen jill if we had somebody that was on the

00:23:30.620 verge of death and we needed to run an immediate intervention while hitting them you know on a myriad of

00:23:35.980 difference psychologically physically like working on the problem where you need to be working on it

00:23:42.380 right like what's driving them to eat because you've got to get to the bottom of what the problem is

00:23:47.100 he's like but if we needed to create an immediate intervention then that's where i would recommend it and

00:23:52.860 that's only when i would recommend it and because i i you know i don't deal in opinions i only deal in

00:23:58.940 data i'm not an idiot i defer to him i trust him completely and i believe that to be the best

00:24:05.820 way forward with those drugs what about when so on the show the 600 pound show uh the the physician

00:24:15.500 often will say you know uh you need to go into psychotherapy to understand the emotional pain

00:24:22.220 and i'm often quizzical when i see that because really well i well so and i want you to correct

00:24:28.300 me if i'm wrong uh okay in many cases i think that one can draw a causal link between someone's food

00:24:36.460 hoarding and some emotional issues that might cause that food hoarding but i also think that food is a

00:24:43.580 very pleasurable thing right so it could it could well be that my lack and again i'm not trying to play the

00:24:51.820 play blame game no do it hit it all right so you know if i eat it it's a very direct pathway to the

00:25:00.700 pleasure center of my brain and so there is no other way to become 600 pounds than through an incredible

00:25:09.500 orgiastic set of decisions every single day that are causing me to say i don't care about self-control

00:25:17.500 another extra piece of chicken wing or extra pizza it's just going to feel good and i don't think that

00:25:24.060 each of those micro decisions was linked to something that happened in my childhood i went

00:25:29.180 through a very difficult childhood in the lebanese civil war yet i don't blame my weight gain once i

00:25:37.660 stopped being a soccer player to that tragic childhood i could easily say well you know that's what caused it

00:25:43.900 i faced such difficulties it was so traumatic that that's why it happened so what are your thoughts

00:25:49.820 on the link between emotional trauma and overeating well first let me say that this is something

00:25:57.980 that is multifactorial and on on keeping it real i've interviewed addiction specialists and neuroscientists

00:26:06.300 psychiatrists psychoanalysts and each one has a different way in and i think they're all correct

00:26:14.700 so if you were to talk to daughter and dr anna lemke from stanford who's yes i just bought her book

00:26:20.060 hold on hold on hold on stay with me wait a second is it dopamine nation yep i just bought exactly

00:26:26.620 she's gonna tell you like listen we could talk about your mother all day long but until we fix your brain

00:26:32.140 chemistry we're not going to get anywhere right you could talk to a neuroscientist who's going to say

00:26:37.260 oh you know you've turned to these to these behaviors and now your brain is wired this way

00:26:42.700 and the reality is that we are under siege we're being chemically addicted to process garbage food and

00:26:49.180 big food is hiring neuroscientists to addict us to this food there is no question and it will light

00:26:55.820 up the dopamine centers of your brain like cocaine and nicotine it proven you're 100 right but i do

00:27:04.620 believe that we are psychologically hungry on some level so they're exploiting that psychological hunger

00:27:12.140 when we're stressed when we're sad when we're depressed when we're lonely with dopamine hit

00:27:15.740 dopamine hit dopamine hit now having said all of that right there in my opinion and my experience

00:27:24.140 is without question for people that are addicted to food there are links back and i'll give you a

00:27:33.420 few examples and my mom happens to be a psychoanalyst so my entire tenure on biggest loser behind the

00:27:40.940 scenes she would help me try to help the people i was working with but unfortunately you know it needs

00:27:46.620 someone like my mom for a very concentrated period of time to help them get to the bottom of it but here's

00:27:53.260 an example of what i'm talking about there was a boy on biggest loser who was 18 years old named austin

00:28:00.060 and he showed up with his dad it was like a partner season or something and these guys had lost like

00:28:06.780 a hundred pounds each in two months but it was the holidays so on biggest loser they would always go home

00:28:12.780 for the holidays even though the show would frame it like we just want to see how you do at home

00:28:18.220 so they both go home for the holidays all the contestants go home for the holidays they all

00:28:23.260 come back to the ranch they all start weighing in that one loses 10 this one loses 8 5 15. ken

00:28:30.620 gets on the scale the dad he loses nothing and everyone's like strange austin gets on the scale the

00:28:37.580 18 year old and he gained like five or six pounds immediately the contestants start co-signing each

00:28:43.900 other's bullshit right oh you're traveling so hard to get the workout in oh there's no healthy food at

00:28:49.820 the airport i'm like all right all of you shut the fuck up shut up next day i sit down with austin

00:28:56.780 i'm like honey walk me through it just take we walk me through from when you leave to the moment you get

00:29:02.380 back and i get all the you know i there was no food at the airport i didn't have time to get my steps

00:29:07.820 blah blah blah arrives at home the door flies open everybody's there including his mom right big welcome

00:29:17.500 party his mom sees him and his father and starts sobbing and i do not mean tears of joy because upon

00:29:25.820 immediately seeing her much fitter husband and son she is also overweight and she immediately feels

00:29:35.180 abandoned like they broke the contract and she withdraws so what does austin do slams on the

00:29:44.220 brakes with his weight loss and starts eating with his mother what does the food provide him an emotional

00:29:49.980 connection to his mother and he doesn't realize what it's providing him and in my opinion for austin

00:29:59.820 at one time or another that food meant his psychological survival because it's a primal abandonment

00:30:06.940 should he give it up so i think for some people there are without question deeper factors there sexual

00:30:15.420 abuse survivors i think that food can represent coping mechanisms and defense structures for

00:30:21.340 certain individuals and that's an example yeah i think now that you're speaking i think the way that

00:30:28.540 i framed the question was too broad as if emotional yeah it just it is never an explicative cause and of

00:30:37.740 course that can't be right because as you said it's you know every almost every phenomenon that we can

00:30:43.100 talk about is multifactorial so i i appreciate it got you all right let's move on so we i think we've

00:30:49.260 covered a lot of a lot of the people would want to hear about let's let's kind of segue into other

00:30:54.860 possible areas so when i when you were kind enough to invite me last time on on your show it was to

00:31:00.460 discuss happiness in the times that i've spoken to you or seen you in in public settings you always seem to

00:31:08.860 have a radiant smile you always seem to be happy so i'm not even sure if anything that you read in my

00:31:14.860 book was of any value because you've already you know exactly so what is what is your pathway are you

00:31:23.100 you know what is it something that you've had to work on uh or is it something that you know you're

00:31:29.260 innately a sunny disposition person is it a bit of both tell us your journey towards mount happiness

00:31:34.860 you know you actually helped clarify for me what happiness is because it isn't whistling zippity

00:31:44.940 doodah every single morning you know it is it's having a partner that you love spending your life with

00:31:51.580 it's having a job that does bring purpose into your life and i'm fortunate enough to have those things

00:32:00.780 i'm not prone to depression so i'm very lucky with that but i can be prone to a negative mindset i i'm

00:32:12.060 very susceptible to outside influences on my mood um and that is something that i i have had to learn

00:32:22.940 quite honestly i hate to say this but to tune out and you know my wife and i were having an argument

00:32:28.300 yesterday about what's going on in israel and she's telling me these horror stories and i'm like

00:32:31.980 i don't know how many times i need to tell you i don't want to hear it and she's like you need to

00:32:37.340 know what's going on in the world i'm like for what what do you think i'm going to be able to do about

00:32:42.140 this this has been going on since the beginning of humanity and then i'm like and there's genocide

00:32:48.620 here and there's genocide there and there's genocide over here and we're and then i'm like we all

00:32:52.380 just need to be extinct like like i am very susceptible to that and i can become very nihilistic

00:32:59.180 if i'm not careful so some of it i quite honestly have to tune out and live in the world that you

00:33:07.260 talk about in the book of like my personal relationships my work you finding meaning finding

00:33:14.700 time to play smelling the flowers but it is it is something i have to work on because i can go

00:33:23.820 down that rabbit hole fast and i you know i really don't know why but it's something i know that i'm

00:33:28.780 i'm susceptible to well but just the mere fact that you've got the introspective ability that's

00:33:35.660 already half the battle one because that you know many people don't have that ability right so how

00:33:40.700 you know to use the old cliche you first have to recognize that there's a problem before you can

00:33:44.700 do something about it so the fact that at least you know you're susceptible to that negative mindset

00:33:50.380 and that nihilism i i think you said uh allows you to then set up the the strategies to inoculate

00:33:57.260 yourself against those outside forces that you can't control is there a way for us to teach people

00:34:03.340 how to be more introspective i'm gonna say that's your job that's why i love you

00:34:11.660 i'm gonna be quoting you and your book on that because i am the farthest thing from an expert

00:34:17.900 i honestly think that my answer would be the true layman's which is if something upsets you

00:34:25.900 it's okay it's an easter egg hunt for me and here's what i mean by that do you remember i i don't know

00:34:32.780 if no because you're jewish but i still had easter egg hunts my parents didn't subscribe me to any

00:34:38.140 kind of religion i had i got all the holidays so i'm grateful to them for that so my mom would hide

00:34:43.500 eggs all over the house and of course as a fat kid i would run around the house and be so excited but

00:34:48.300 you get closer to a hidden egg and you'd be warmer right the farther away you would get from it the

00:34:54.380 colder you would be i try to play this game in my relationships of does this friendship make me feel

00:35:00.300 better like am i warmer okay yeah this friendship makes me feel good let me cultivate that relationship

00:35:06.860 does it make me feel bad this probably isn't a friendship for me and i don't mean hard work

00:35:12.700 right does it make you feel bad about yourself are they making you feel left out are they

00:35:17.020 marginalizing you are they passive aggressive with you is the dynamic unhealthy for you

00:35:22.060 is it you know same thing with your work same thing with your hobbies if there's something you love

00:35:26.380 to do do do more of it if you find that it's bringing you peace so i try to take this inventory

00:35:32.620 all the time the news upsets the hell out of me so i just don't i don't care call me ignorant i don't

00:35:40.140 want to know i will never unravel whether we should be funding ukraine or not i have no idea

00:35:45.580 and i have no control over it anyway i can't i can't so i just don't right but the stuff that makes

00:35:53.260 me happy like cat videos on instagram like perfect you can watch the news i'm gonna watch a cat video

00:36:00.860 on instagram because that makes me laugh i that's how i kind of do it is by taking this emotional

00:36:06.620 inventory with my relationships and my activities and if something makes me feel good in a way i know

00:36:12.300 is obviously healthy i do more of it if it makes me feel bad i take space from it i think so your answer

00:36:19.500 demonstrated so to use the fancy language epistemic humility right because what you said hey you just

00:36:25.580 asked me a question i'm not sure that i've got the answer to it and i don't have the expertise to it

00:36:30.460 guess what answering that way builds trust because it's authentic right so i think one of the secrets

00:36:37.340 to why you know you resonate with so many people is because when they listen to you they don't see a

00:36:43.500 peddler of potential because by the way that's if i if i can speak about myself i think that's

00:36:50.140 something that i also am able to do which is if you ask me a question about something that i truly

00:36:55.340 feel confident about i will answer you with all of the swagger that comes with me knowing that i know

00:37:01.340 what i'm talking about but on the other hand there's a million things that you could ask me about

00:37:05.580 that i absolutely know probably less than nothing about therefore i never try to wing it because if

00:37:12.060 i tried if i tried to wing it and you catch me we both have pretty big large audiences where people

00:37:20.140 are attuned to every one of your syllables and it takes a nanosecond of miscalibration on your part

00:37:26.700 to lose all of the capital of trust that people have built for you right and therefore always be truthful

00:37:34.540 if you know speak with authority if you don't know bow your head and say you know what you got

00:37:40.860 me on this one it's above my pay grade and then people will flock to you because they see you as a

00:37:45.740 truth peddler i certainly hope so i i think it comes from fear because you and i are in a position

00:37:54.620 where we have huge targets on our backs and i have learned quite honestly after i read parasitic

00:38:03.420 mind and had that dialogue with you that when i am an expert in something i can plant my feet firmly

00:38:09.500 and shout from the mountain top because i'm so damn confident and i fact check everything i have

00:38:15.100 experts with phds and mds double board certified i go to the well give me all the knowledge i need

00:38:22.860 let me form an opinion based on that and then i can expand on my opinion with confidence but when i do

00:38:29.900 not have that expertise i i don't need to take the bullets for this i don't know what i'm talking

00:38:35.500 about it becomes but that really was clarified for me after you and i had that first conversation

00:38:43.420 when i had read parasitic mind i was like okay great here i can be supremely confident here i need

00:38:48.620 to take a back seat you're oh what a beautiful answer uh okay let's talk so towards the end of

00:38:55.580 my happiness book i taught i have a whole chapter on regret and there i talk about the difference

00:39:01.100 between regret due to actions versus regret due to inactions by the way that taxonomy is not mine

00:39:06.060 it's actually one of my former uh professors in in my phd program his name is thomas gilovich

00:39:11.420 who really pioneered that distinction now it turns out uh jill that over the long run most people's

00:39:19.180 looming regret is one due to inaction so just to to explain in a concrete sense to to our listeners

00:39:25.900 uh regret due to action would be i regret that i cheated on my wife and that led to the dissolution

00:39:32.140 of my marriage so i i did something and now i regret it regret due to inaction is i regret that i never

00:39:39.100 pursued my interest in art and i never became an artist i became a pediatrician because my dad is a

00:39:44.140 pediatrician and i really hate medicine and i i regret that i didn't live an authentic life the

00:39:48.860 one that that that tickles my fancy and people's greatest regrets tend to be over the long run for

00:39:55.980 things that they didn't do the the path that they didn't take so if i were to ask you you're still a

00:40:01.580 young woman you still have many years ahead of you knock on wood if i were to ask you today what's your

00:40:07.260 most looming regret or regrets what would you answer i am a woman of action in my younger years almost

00:40:17.020 impulsively so there are very few things that i have not done i've dealt with the mistakes of doing them

00:40:25.100 wrong um you know the biggest one of those uh would change the course of my career and i'm a big

00:40:35.980 supplement person i advocate for supplements all day long personally i take them you don't have to

00:40:42.220 i like them a lot they give me that little edge right if we if we were to go for a hack with regard

00:40:47.180 to health or weight loss they provided and i've always experimented with different supplements and

00:40:52.700 nutrients to improve my performance to enhance my metabolism so i'd written a book called making the

00:40:58.060 cotton i talked about the good the bad and the ugly of weight loss supplements right

00:41:02.060 our pills that people were taking book was a huge bestseller and i decided i wanted to come

00:41:07.980 up with my own fat burner and it was all organic it was like it had you know beets and green tea and

00:41:16.140 coffee and the whole everything was clean nevertheless it ended up doing really well and we got hit with the

00:41:24.140 fake class action lawsuit that said i was killing people and i had sold out and of course

00:41:29.820 it was all dismissed the the class action the person that had the class never even bought the

00:41:36.220 products but no one prints that it's all dismissed and everybody just goes oh my god the woman that i

00:41:40.860 trusted was a fraud she sold out she did this she did that she said pills and it was a whole it was a

00:41:48.060 shit show and i wish that i had stopped and thought what could go wrong what could go wrong here it was

00:41:58.780 the biggest mistake of my entire career that and bad legal advice and that comes from two things one

00:42:08.220 impulsivity not thinking things through and two with bad legal advice i feel that people can become

00:42:14.860 intimidated by things they don't understand whether it's their health care their legal advice or their

00:42:20.300 finances so they opt out of the conversation and hand it off to somebody else and that is devastating

00:42:27.100 i've dealt with many catastrophes outside of health care because of my attitude there and i regret that

00:42:32.540 and have subsequently changed um if i was to have a inaction regret it hasn't occurred yet but i i fight it

00:42:43.740 like crazy and that's getting to the end of my life and thinking like should i have gone to one more

00:42:49.900 soccer game you know what i mean like with the kids or one more spring sing and i make it to like

00:42:57.580 i don't know a third of them because there's so many of them and it's like you have to work and

00:43:02.700 you're you know you're juggling all these balls and you think but i'm the one that has to work i have

00:43:05.900 to pay for everything like i have to do these things i have to travel for work i have to and then

00:43:10.620 i wonder am i really going to hate myself for this that's the part that scares me so i i try so hard

00:43:17.100 to like find a balance but it does worry me is there going to be the soccer game that i miss and the

00:43:22.860 kids hate me for so that's the one that i i'm a little concerned about i mean from doing from a

00:43:29.100 parental regret perspective my my only regret so far and may it hopefully be the only one that i ever

00:43:35.900 experienced is that i regret that uh so my i speak four languages and my wife speaks three uh two so

00:43:44.540 two of the languages i speak she doesn't speak in one of the language so she speaks armenian i don't

00:43:49.180 i speak arabic and hebrew and she doesn't so between the two of us we cover five languages and yet our

00:43:54.620 children only really you know i mean they might recognize little words here and there but they

00:43:59.420 i mean fluently only speak french and english and i really regret that because i feel that

00:44:04.780 the amount of i don't know if i don't think the right word will be gravitas but the the amount of

00:44:11.580 power that being able to speak many languages affords you is simply extraordinary so you know let's so for

00:44:19.100 example talking about the the what's happening in the middle east now the fact that i am an arabic

00:44:23.820 speaker that arabic is my mother tongue allows me to right away bond with people that otherwise might

00:44:31.180 have been difficult to bond with because we come from different you know religions and different

00:44:36.460 probably political persuasions but simply having in that venn diagram the intersect intersection of our

00:44:42.380 linguistic heritage removes a lot of the barriers and so you know i'm able to you know go on an arabic

00:44:49.500 show and suddenly there are millions of people that would have otherwise never heard of my

00:44:53.260 story in lebanon that have heard it because i speak you know fluent arabic so that would probably

00:44:58.860 be my regret is this i mean i guess you can't have such a regret in the united states because not to

00:45:04.300 be stereotypical most people barely speak one language properly you know you say that but i just

00:45:10.140 had this conversation with a friend of mine who's chinese and her i met her little six-year-old the

00:45:15.900 other day and i was like does she speak chinese does she speak mandarin she's like no and my friend is

00:45:22.460 from china and i was like dude so many of my adult friends whose parents were from italy or puerto rico

00:45:32.700 or venezuela they don't speak spanish or italian and my father whose parents came over from lebanon

00:45:40.540 and syria he doesn't speak arabic at all and i wonder if it's because i don't know you'd have to

00:45:47.980 you'd have to tell me but it's very common what you're talking about so i think i'm thinking that

00:45:53.740 if one wants to be charitable about it it's hey you're moving to a new land put away all the other

00:46:00.700 stuff assimilate yourself so in in that sense that reflex is quite noble right right put away your

00:46:06.860 religious heritage put away but you could still fully assimilate in the new experiment into the your

00:46:12.940 new host country without losing the really rich elements of your history right i i mean i love

00:46:18.780 falafel and hummus that doesn't mean that i'm not fully canadian right so i can take the beautiful

00:46:24.460 parts of my heritage but the bad parts right if if your heritage says that women should be subjugated or

00:46:32.620 this is what should be done to uh uh members of the lgbtq community please keep those values at the door

00:46:40.140 when you come in but your spices your language your hummus bring that in it's going to make us a

00:46:47.020 richer society right 100 i mean that's that's what we celebrated about america in my opinion is that we

00:46:55.660 were supposed to be this incredible melting pot and now unfortunately i believe that we're becoming

00:47:01.980 more and more segregated um which is just i don't know again a rabbit hole i can go down and get

00:47:11.100 pretty depressed about but i think that's the whole that was the whole idea is that it was this beautiful

00:47:16.300 blending of cultures that was kind of supposed to be the point that was what was so exciting about

00:47:21.900 america let let's and freedom but yeah let's stay positive so that we don't go down and let's talk about

00:47:29.500 culture you ready where i'm going it's the n-word namibia that's where we're going next joey and

00:47:36.620 michael okay now perfect so now here before let me set up the the question uh you recently got married

00:47:44.860 i think your honeymoon was in namibia yes and uh and it turns out that that's a big you know bridge

00:47:52.860 between between the two of us in that unbeknownst to me that you had been to namibia i only found this

00:47:58.300 out when you know doing my homework uh about your recent past uh i've been wanting to go to namibia

00:48:05.340 because i think we talked about this offline when i appeared on your show last time i have this

00:48:09.740 fascination with this particular i mean there's there is the desert lions but even more mythical

00:48:15.500 is the long-haired desert hyena of namibia and uh i'm a huge animal lover and so i've always had this

00:48:22.540 kind of mythological fantasy of going and seeing the ghosts of the namibian desert in person and so

00:48:29.100 i've got a sabbatical coming up in january and i'm hoping to organize a trip so tell us everything that

00:48:35.340 we need to know about the magic of namibia take it away namibia is unlike any other part of africa

00:48:43.420 that i have been to um i personally find it to be the most magical continent i'm obsessed with it i've

00:48:51.020 been um to the congo uganda uh zambia zimbabwe botswana south africa namibia i i love it i always always

00:49:01.980 go back typically professional or just for for pleasure for personal just for pleasure but uh

00:49:10.780 i went to the congo for with the unhcr on a refugee trip the united nations refugee agency um i actually

00:49:21.020 wanted to work with regard to what was going on in syria because i was like i have syrian blood and

00:49:26.220 they're like yeah no we've got ben stiller and angelina joe leon if you could go to the congo

00:49:32.060 that'd be great i was like all right sure so that was one of the reasons i i ended up in the congo but

00:49:37.820 um namibia the reason i bring up all those different places is because it is unlike any

00:49:45.340 other part of the continent that i've seen to date and it's where the desert meets the sea

00:49:51.020 um it feels otherworldly i'll be honest exactly exactly yeah you feel like you've just landed on a

00:49:59.260 different planet uh so whether you're climbing these massive majestic sand dunes or you're

00:50:06.540 going to the skeleton coast which i believe is one of the most dangerous stretches of coastline in the

00:50:14.300 world littered with shipwrecks and whale bones and these crazy huge seal colonies and then you're

00:50:22.220 watching like jackals kill baby seals i was sobbing by the way i hate i love africa hate the kill the

00:50:30.860 kill miserable and i always like i always see one which is so frustrating uh so um that and the sand is

00:50:41.900 purple and you can go from riding atvs in the dunes to you do not go on the water but you could take

00:50:48.700 like a helicopter ride along the coast it is so diverse and so incredible and such an interesting

00:50:56.860 intersection of wildlife and landscapes that i i can't recommend it strongly enough and you'll still

00:51:04.860 see the lions and the elephants and the black rhino they're they're there without question less um

00:51:12.060 in lesser numbers as you might find obviously in like the okavanga delta but it is truly magical and

00:51:20.620 unique without question well how were the the people i mean are they set up for tourists is there

00:51:27.900 very much so very much so so they were a german colonized by the germans so you know for better or

00:51:36.060 worse everything is very organized not to make a sweeping generalization but the truth is everything

00:51:44.220 is kind of very organized very safe the people are lovely um they coexist very well and you know you could

00:51:55.020 go to obviously different countries in africa and things are not so stable you know south africa is not

00:52:02.700 very safe right now um but here they at least when i was there last summer they're all coexisting very well

00:52:14.460 um and you could not feel more safe the people are lovely but i have found everywhere in africa the

00:52:23.260 people to be lovely which is one of the things i love about africa namibia is no different um so i'll say

00:52:30.460 that i find oh they're right on the border of angola which is really cool because if you go up to the

00:52:37.180 border uh along the river and you can see the huge crocodiles it's it's pretty it's pretty magical

00:52:45.020 i think africa in general though really falls under that umbrella because the creatures are just

00:52:51.900 incredible the landscapes are dramatic the people are lovely the history is devastating but they somehow

00:52:59.660 manage to contend with it and it's you know i guess if we were to look at other parts of the world it

00:53:05.180 would be equally as rife with conflict um but in most places they manage it pretty well and they they

00:53:15.180 inspire me because i'm thinking my god if you went through this right clearly i can survive x y or z

00:53:22.140 right so i just find it to be inspirational and awe-inspiring in every way and namibia is

00:53:29.100 by far the most unique place i have been to in africa well i mean so two quick points number one

00:53:35.820 in the united states uh you know i visited quite a bit of the united states and new mexico is rightly

00:53:42.060 titled land of enchantment because when you visit some of the landscapes in new mexico it does feel

00:53:48.380 otherworldly and while i've never been to namibia many of the images that's what draws me exactly

00:53:54.940 speak to what you described in your in the opening of your of your uh response to my question which is

00:54:00.220 it feels like you've landed on another in another dimension and i'm so attracted to this second point

00:54:06.540 one so i have and you may or may not remember this in the first chapter of the parasitic mind i talk

00:54:11.500 about my i think adaptive phobia of mosquitoes and i say adaptive because no animal no no

00:54:18.220 crocodile or no or no lion or no polar bear has killed remotely as many people i mean in the order

00:54:25.500 of thousands of magnitudes greater the mosquito and so oftentimes when i'm thinking about visiting a place

00:54:31.900 it's based on the mosquito density and you'll correct me if i'm wrong i think one of the things that draws

00:54:37.740 me to namibia is that because it is a desert because it's very dry you know the the mosquito index in

00:54:44.860 namibia is going to be much more in my favor than in some other places in africa where given my phobia

00:54:51.260 i better never set foot in does that make sense it makes a hundred percent sense um i don't think i got

00:54:57.660 one bite there you go although to be honest depending on where you are in africa um or what time you go

00:55:06.540 makes a huge difference in miami i i carried 20 bites on my body at all times and my mother's in

00:55:14.700 los angeles and she's like the mosquitoes here have den fever i'm like doing dead den i've never what's

00:55:21.260 den fever dang gave me no den fever i'm getting pictures of welts these suckers are omnipresent and

00:55:29.660 torture torture little mini torture devices so i i totally agree with you but i would venture to say

00:55:34.700 namibia you're safer than los angeles and miami there you go go and have a blast oh that's fantastic

00:55:41.500 all right uh last question although of course i could keep you another five hours chatting what are

00:55:47.660 some current projects that you're working on next book next app next television series that's making

00:55:54.860 you wake up in the morning and rub your hands in anticipation if you're willing to share with us take

00:55:59.740 it away of course i listen i can't promise that any of them will end up coming to fruition because

00:56:04.540 it's it's harder and harder these days um to kind of bring something all the way through the bases

00:56:11.820 to home plate but there is a tv show that we're developing and it is about tackling obesity on

00:56:18.780 that myriad of fronts that you and i discussed right and not just getting weight off of people

00:56:23.420 because the irony is that it isn't really a weight loss show it's about fixing the biochemical addiction

00:56:30.300 the behaviors and the neuro the the neuroscience that goes behind kind of brainwashing people into

00:56:37.580 different attitudes uh dealing with it with regard to fitness and nutrition so just this very 360

00:56:44.220 comprehensive approach we and i say we because i have a business partner um and we run a company

00:56:50.220 together we continue to form strategic partnerships whether it's affordable wearables a line of fitness

00:56:56.940 equipment relationships at walmart or qvc to get fitness clothes etc basically accessible affordable

00:57:09.500 options to the things that people need to i don't need but can help facilitate them staying fit so

00:57:15.580 partnerships along those lines investing in different companies that i think are doing better for you

00:57:22.380 versions of our favorite stuff so whether it's an organic coffee company or a water company

00:57:31.020 or a supplement company or a spin gym i will invest in those companies and try to help grow those brands

00:57:39.340 uh i try to put my money where i would like to see things expand in my field you know don't invest in

00:57:46.860 uh companies in the stock market that sell drugs to people and tobacco and they'll fill up more

00:57:54.060 stock in my portfolio so instead i i try to invest in the things i believe in that will do better for

00:58:00.380 other people um and let's see i mean honestly i don't think books work in my area anymore because people

00:58:09.500 are very caught up in blogs and vlogs and it's all free so i've been focused more on writing op-eds

00:58:19.020 in my area of expertise so whether it's on ozempic or obesity being branded as a medical disease of the

00:58:26.940 brain or you know the way that our healthcare system has been corrupted by big pharma those are the

00:58:33.740 the messages that i'm trying to expose people to because i just think if we can unplug people from

00:58:40.140 the matrix one by one and show them that they are empowered to take control that's really all that's

00:58:48.540 really all we have right we're never going to take down big pharma we're never going to change

00:58:52.860 people lobbying our politicians and we're not going to change the system that's never going to happen

00:58:59.260 never the david and goliath thing david dies here not going to happen but if if david can wake up

00:59:05.820 one person at a time that's what i'm endeavoring to do through all of these different avenues

00:59:11.740 well continued success i hope i i often make it to southern california and so hopefully uh next time

00:59:18.300 that i'm there we can hang out maybe we can go for a run and make me look like a buffoon while we run

00:59:24.540 on the beach because uh while i'm in pretty good shape uh i'd be going against the messi the leanel

00:59:30.860 messi of fitness so uh please be gentle on me if we do train together uh i would love it continued

00:59:36.940 success best of luck in your future and i look forward to having this up and also my appearance

00:59:44.220 on your show up which i'll be happy to share on my uh social media thank you so much you'll stay on the

00:59:48.700 line so we can say goodbye offline what a delight thank you so much cheers

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - October 26, 2023

My Chat with Jillian Michaels, Fitness and Wellness Expert (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_610)

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