He’s known as one of the ‘most influential medical doctors’ in the country.
Dr Rangan Chatterjee, who lives with his family in Wilmslow, Cheshire, is a former GP, author and respected Feel Better, Live More, health podcaster. His critically acclaimed podcast has recently celebrated its 500th episode and has had over 240 million listens.
Last year he joined the University of Chester as a visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health, Medicine & Society.
Earlier this month he kicked off his first UK Live tour, the ‘Thrive Tour’ which is all about helping people to be the architect of their health and happiness, in Nottingham.
Travelling to 16 cities across the country, he will be coming to Manchester Opera House on March 22.
It was after a particularly busy day in his GP surgery, some 15 years ago, that Rangan had the revelation that would change his life, and that of so many others.
‘I had seen fifty patients that day and I asked myself, how many have I really helped?’ he says. ‘I realised it was probably only about 20% of them. Yes, I was compassionate, of course, and referred people for blood tests who needed them and wrote many prescriptions, but I realised I was medicating symptoms and not getting to the root cause of people’s problems.
‘And for most people, if there’s not an acute medical problem like a disease or a broken bone, what they need to be healthy is to change something in their lifestyle – and that is not what we were taught about when I was at medical school in Edinburgh.’
With that, Dr Chatterjee began his mission to change people’s health in a far more holistic way. He went around the world, attending conferences, talking to people – and ultimately becoming the doctor he is today, someone whose astonishingly effective – yet straightforward – methods have been adopted by the Royal College of GPs and who millions of us listen to for inspirational, yet achievable, advice, in order to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.
His tour will bring some of his incredible teachings to audiences who, he promises, are in for a treat.
‘This is not going to be a series of medical lectures,’ he says. ‘It is a fun, truly immersive experience, the first of its kind, with storytelling, music and visuals.
‘It is a combination of everything I have learned, everything I have put into my six books, everything from the podcasts, pulled together into tangible, achievable, small things that anyone can do. People are going to leave feeling inspired and empowered.
‘I really believe you are the architect of your own health and happiness,’ says Dr Chatterjee. ‘But it is sometimes hard to remember that. People are struggling with what’s going on in the world, they feel out of control and there is so much uncertainty – and that’s why this tour comes at just the right time. But if you feel in control of your health and happiness you can change everything. Your relationships will be better, your friendships will be better, you can earn more money. You can’t control the world but you can control the small things you do and have power in your own life.’
What kind of tips will he be sharing?
‘One of the most important questions we should be asking ourselves is ‘Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself to follow through if I say I am going to do something?’,’ he says.
‘Because if you know you can trust yourself it changes your self-esteem, which is incredibly powerful and gives you the confidence to push yourself to try other things. So what I will be encouraging people to do is make a small promise to themselves and consistently keep it.
‘I made a promise to myself several years ago that I would do just five minutes of strength training every day. As we get older it is one of the most important things we can do for our health and I knew that if I used some weights every single day, that would be a great thing. So every day, I come downstairs in my pyjamas to make my coffee. It takes five minutes to brew, and while that is happening, I don’t go on social media or check my emails. I pick up the kettlebell that I keep in the kitchen or use my bodyweight, and I do my exercises. It makes it much easier if you stick it onto an existing habit – so for me that’s making my coffee. This is not about motivation or willpower, it’s a habit, a discipline, and it shows me every morning that I can trust myself, I can rely on myself.’
Another thing he does to instil this sense of self belief is to leave his mobile phone to charge away from the bedroom. ‘If it comes into the bedroom I will look at it,’ he says. ‘There’s just too much in it that is tempting – social media, the news, emails and so on. So I let it charge in the kitchen. You can’t rely on willpower to stop yourself looking at it because your brain knows your phone has everything you want. Even trying not to look at it is too much of a cognitive load – it essentially makes you stressed to resist it. So just put it somewhere else. Then you won’t look at it, and I promise you, you will sleep better and start the day with a better mindset if the first thing you do isn’t to grab your phone and look at it.’
Other suggestions he has are that, in an era of ‘information overload’, we remember not to ‘outsource our inner expertise’ and have some self-awareness about what health advice will work for us, and what is just too complicated or inconvenient.
‘The best thing people can do is have some self-belief and one way to do that is to take a break from all the outside influences trying to pull us one way or another,’ he says. ‘A small amount of daily solitude is key, whether that is a walk, yoga, meditation or journalling.’
He has a number of straightforward tips about food.
‘These are the three simple things that are really worth doing,’ he says. ‘If you are trying not to eat it, don’t bring it into the house. If it’s there – whether it’s a cake or sweets or sugary drinks – at some point you will eat it. So don’t have it there.
‘Reduce the amount of ultra processed foods you are eating. You will improve your health dramatically and immediately. Try and make sure you know what every ingredient is on anything you buy in a packet – and a good rule of thumb is to try and avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients.
‘And have 12 hours, between dinner and breakfast, where you don’t eat. Stop after dinner at, say 8pm and don’t eat again until 8am the next day. It’s not exactly fasting – it was normal behaviour not that long ago.’
He is very clear about why he is embarking on this tour and talks about it with a huge amount of passion and excitement. ‘I honestly really care about people,’ says Dr Chatterjee. ‘We have made health too complicated. These are the very best tips that I have seen work and I want people to stop being unhealthy and unfulfilled. I want this to be transformative. I want them to see how easy it is for their lives to be better.’
