Dr. Tom Rifai

My Birmingham is truly a walkable city! It’s wonderful when your environment supports your Flex5 Lifestyle. Learn more at MyFlex5. com

My last “Flex5 Friday Feelings” before I take the main stage next week in London at The Longevity Show, and I can’t help but ask – when it comes to food, are we still proverbially confusing wolves with dogs?

Let me explain. Wolves and dogs may look similar from a distance.

One serves you.

One serves itself.

We are living in an era increasingly captivated by peptides, injections, supplements, biohacks, optimization stacks, and endless searches for the next shiny object.

Yet many of the most powerful levers for expanding healthspan remain remarkably simple.

So simple, in fact, that they can almost seem unbelievable.

Which brings me back to the wolf and the dog.

One of the most common things I tell patients is that I don’t deny myself any particular food. However, there are many things I choose not to have chronically “in my face.”

Why?

Because worshiping at the altar of willpower is a foolhardy game.

Reality Meets Science teaches us something much more useful:

We are what we eat, and we eat what surrounds us.

Many years ago, I stopped focusing so much on individual eating decisions and started focusing much more on food environments.

What is in your kitchen?

What is on your counter?

What is in your pantry?

What is in your office?

What is in your car?

What is in your hotel room when you travel?

The question is often not whether something is “good” or “bad.”

The question is whether it serves you or serves itself.

A fruit bowl on the counter serves you.

A bag of CRRAHP oral stimulatory food-like products sitting in plain sight serves itself.

One quietly waits.

The other continually asks for attention.

One nourishes.

The other stimulates.

One is rooted in food.

The other is often a highly engineered oral stimulatory food-like product.

And this is where the wolf-and-dog metaphor matters.

A wolf is not evil.

A wolf is a beautiful animal.

Powerful.

Magnificent.

Exactly what it was designed to be.

But it was meant to live outside.

So don’t blame the wolf if the wolf bites you after you invite it to live in your house.

That is how I think about many CRRAHP oral stimulatory food-like products.

They don’t need to be hated.

They don’t need to be moralized.

They don’t need to be treated as forbidden forever.

But they also don’t need to live on your counter, in your pantry, in your desk drawer, in your car, or in your face 355 days a year.

Why 355?

Because The Flex5 Lifestyle® is not about perfection.

It is not about never eating birthday cake.

Never eating Thanksgiving dinner.

Never eating Christmas cookies.

Never enjoying your favorite treat.

We believe in a 5% Fun Zone.

Thanksgiving is a day.

Christmas is a day.

A wedding is a day.

A birthday party is a day.

The issue is not what happens on a handful of special occasions.

The issue is what surrounds us the other 355 days of the year.

The wolf isn’t the occasional visitor.

The wolf becomes a problem when it becomes a permanent resident.

This is not absolutism.

It is environmental design.

This is why The Flex5 Lifestyle® emphasizes environments.

Not just what we remove.

What we intentionally place in front of ourselves.

The fruit bowl.

The prepared vegetables.

The visible water bottle.

The healthier options that become the easier options.

Because out of sight is often out of mind.

We’ve all seen the apple forgotten in the crisper drawer until it becomes a wrinkled science experiment.

Yet that same apple in a fruit bowl on the counter gets eaten.

Environment matters.

And there is another weapon in the Flex5 arsenal that I have used for years.

A food bag.

Not a fancy meal-prep system.

Not an expensive gadget.

Not spending half of Sunday evening creating perfectly portioned containers for the week.

If you enjoy doing that, wonderful.

But many people don’t need that level of complexity.

A simple insulated food bag from Walmart, Target, Costco, Amazon, or wherever will do just fine.

Mine happens to have a smaller upper compartment and a larger insulated lower compartment, but almost any version works.

Then simply:

Throw some healthy sh*t in a food bag.

Fruit.

Vegetables.

Nuts.

Seeds.

Beans.

Whatever aligns with your preferences and lifestyle.

Then take your food environment with you.

To work.

On errands.

To the airport.

To the soccer game.

To the hotel.

To life.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming their food environment begins and ends at home.

It doesn’t.

Your car is a food environment.

Your workplace is a food environment.

Your travel schedule is a food environment.

Your hotel room is a food environment.

Even your friend’s house is a food environment.

And this is where Mind Matters enters the conversation.

In The Flex5 Lifestyle®, we often discuss the Three Levels of Control:

What you can control.

What you can influence.

What you cannot control.

You may not control every environment.

But you can often influence them.

Flying somewhere?

Consider stopping at a grocery store before checking into the hotel.

Staying with friends?

Consider bringing fruit, vegetables, or other healthier foods to share.

It feels like a gift because it is a gift.

At the same time, you’re gently influencing the environment in your favor and perhaps in theirs as well.

No lectures.

No judgment.

No nutritional sermons.

Just a little strategic dilution.

A little less wolf.

A little more dog.

The food bag is one way to take your environment with you.

The grocery store stop is another.

Both are examples of something we often forget:

The most powerful environmental changes are frequently the simplest ones.

And that brings me back to London.

In a world increasingly searching for the next needle, perhaps more of us should consider regularly dosing ourselves with a food bag, checking our blood pressure regularly, and finding opportunities for movement snacks and a little more NEAT movement throughout the day.

Don’t misunderstand me.

Innovation has its place.

But some of the most powerful interventions in human health remain surprisingly simple.

Simple.

But not simplistic.

Simple enough to do.

Powerful enough to matter.

This isn’t about perfection.

It’s about understanding the difference between an occasional visitor and a permanent resident.

Because the wolf doesn’t have to bite today.

It simply has to keep living in your house.

Control what you can.

Influence what you can.

Release what you cannot control.

And remember:

We are what we eat, and we eat what surrounds us.

Find where Reality Meets Science.

Looking forward to sharing the main stage at The Longevity Show with this exemplary group.

Special thanks to innovator Phil Newman and all the coordinators putting this first ever UK Longevity festival together.

Someone cut me in half! But I’m powering through it 💪 😂 I want to hear your Thursday Thoughts 💭

What is your top thought or question today that you’d like to contribute anywhere in the areas of psychology, food, physical activity, food/social environments or accountability ( )?