Dr. Ian Smith, author of The Truth About Men: The Secret Side of the Opposite Sex finally answers the pressing questions every woman is asking: “What is going on inside his head?” Dr. Ian is notorious for helping women lose weight with the help of his other books The Fat Smash Diet, The 4 Day Diet as well as, Extreme Fat Smash. Dr. Ian took a moment out to speak to TheCelebrityCafe.com to give insight to his new book about men, and also let us in on his current projects.
TheCelebrityCafe: Tell me what was your inspiration in creating this book?
Dr. Ian Smith: There are several inspirations, actually. The first inspiration is that a lot of my female friends who are very funny, intelligent, successful and attractive from around the country would complain to me all of the time that they could not find a good guy or find ‘Mr. Right’ or they’re having a hard time understanding while they’re trying to date. I had been giving them advice for a years and some of them said that my answers made sense to them and these are the answers they had been seeking for a very long time.
There are other women out there that have these similar basic questions that they want answered and it would be smart of me and helpful if I put them into a book so others could really try to better understand the minds of men and why men do what they do.
TCC: How many years of experimentation and polling did it take to collaborate the book?
IS: Interestingly, the advice really started several years ago when I started helping women lose weight and amidst the dispensing weight loss advice I also found myself dispensing relationship advice because a lot of these women, the reason for their weight gain or weight issues were emotionally involved and had to do with men. So would they ask me questions about me, “Why is it that he texts me all of the time instead of calling me,” “Why has he not gotten back to me, he’s been back from vacation for 3 days now?” So, I found myself dispensing all of this information, beyond my own advice that I had been giving to women, I also do a lot of research and surveys throughout the book that dispel a lot of misconceptions about the way men think and why they make certain choices.
TCC: What is the biggest misconception in the sexual/dating world of men and women?
IS: That men don’t want to settle down. Because it is a largely held belief that men only want to sow their wild oats and live this great swinging bachelor lifestyle and just is not true. There is a big survey in the book that asks thousands and thousands of men what they consider to be the number one male status symbol, and they do not say a car, or a pretty woman. They say settle down and having a family. So men really do want commitment and look forward to commitment. The issue is that men arrive at that place at a different speed and in a different way, but that should not be misconstrued as men not wanting to commit.
TCC: I imagine your target audience is mainly women, so what type of reaction have you received from men? Are they praising you for finally putting this out?
IS: The men are overjoyed. I mean, hundreds of men who have purchased the book are saying basically, these are things they’ve been wanting to say and for some reason they haven’t been able to figure out how to say it to their significant other, or these are the things they have been saying, but they haven’t said it in the right way or it hasn’t had any impact and so they’re buying the book as a way to be a conversation starter in their relationships. This isn’t just for single men and women, but for married people. Married people also find this book very helpful because it’s explaining from a third party point of view so of the issue that may be going on in their own relationship.
TCC: Do you have any nay-sayers; the ones that don’t believe in your methods? What do you say to them?
IS: It’s interesting, it’s not that people are going against the book, people are going against the thoughts that men have in the book and my point is, is this is not a book that is ‘politically’ correct, this is not a book that says men are right or wrong or women are right or wrong, or preaching to women on what they need to do -- this is not that kind of book. This book simply says if you want to understand men better this is what men are thinking. This is why men are doing certain things. Whether those things are irrational, and insensitive and ‘tickish’, absolutely, men are all of those things at times. People who get upset at the book, they’re getting upset at the wrong thing. You are allowed to get upset that men may have double standards; I’m just delivering the message that this is how guys think and why they do what they do. So, there hasn’t been much discontent, but some of the discontent directed at the book is really misdirected because the book only says this is why guys think-what-they-think. You can have an issue with, well, guys shouldn’t think that, absolutely, but don’t blame the book if that’s why guys think.
TCC: You based the studies off of online polls, but did you actually go out and poll people off the street? How did you go about collecting your information?
IS: The surveys and the studies are not mine. The surveys and the studies are available to the open world. Some are scientific studies, some are surveys, and they’re all footnoted in the book so they are not my surveys. This is the research that I have found and drew some of the information off of.
TCC: Is there a target age group for this book? I only ask that because in part of the book you talk about “third-wheeling,” bringing your friends along on a date. That appears to be something you would do in high-school, so are there women in their 20s and 30s bringing their friends along on dates?
IS: 100% people in their 20s, this is marked for people in their early 20s all the way up into people who are married, but, yeah there are people who are 23, 24, 25 years-old feel “third wheeled” and it’s very frustrating. The age range, and what I have found in my response from those who have purchased the book or read the book, the age range is extremely wide and everyone seems to find a message or a part of the book that really applies to their particular life.
TCC: Of all of the topics discussed in the book, what is the number one deal breaker in your opinion?
IS: I think ultimatums. Ultimatums just don’t work in relationships. Relationships are partnerships and it’s about arriving at a conclusion that is mutually agreed upon, but in a civil manner, and to leverage or to make an ultimatum to a guy is not the way to get what you want. You may get it in the short term, but in the long term it’s not going to be very successful.
TCC: What happens when the coin is flipped and the women have the stronger libido than the man, do the rules in the sexual manner change?
IS: I don’t think the rules change I think what’s interesting is that, because men and women see the physical intimacy from a different standpoint, I think that whereas a women if she’s on the short side of the stick when it comes to libido issue, I think from her standpoint, the idea to be involved physically despite not wanting to be involved, the mechanical nature of that from a woman’s perspective is very off putting. However, from a guy’s perspective, because guys compartmentalize their emotions and how their emotions are related to sexual intimacy, I think a guy who may be on the short end of the libido stick who ends up needing to be more involved in the physical intimacy is not put off by and can accept maybe the mechanical natures of it.
TCC: Book aside, I see that you were appointed by President Obama to the President Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition… tell me about that experience?
IS: Wonderful. As a kid growing up, I grew up with the president’s challenge when you were in grade school to pass certain types of exercise and stamina tests and to actually get older and be acknowledged by my work in the field of nutrition and exercise and have the president appoint me is phenomenal. I think any presidential appointee, regardless of your politics, I think is an honor for the recipient. Not only is it an honor, but I think that the work that we’ve been doing with the First Lady and the “Let’s Move” campaign, and by the way they added the nutrition component to committee it was usually fitness and sports, now with the nutrition component and I think that we have a revamped presence of council and we’re out there and we really are changing lives.
TCC: What projects are you currently working on?
IS: Speaking of the President's Council, I like to take part in the nutrition aspect of the council and so I actually just agreed to write a series of children’s books that will talk about nutrition and get kids excited about eating smarter and making better choices and understanding what they’re eating so that’s my big project, just agreed to it and I hope to use that as part of our message with the President’s Council and we do an activity lifestyle award that we want to do. We got a million people involved in it last year, I think that working with the council and working with this new kid’s series it’s going to be great!
TCC: When you went into college and began studying health and fitness, did you have a target area? A lot of your books are about weight loss, i.e.The Fat Smash Diet, and you’ve helped a lot of women, did you have a specific direction or did you just kind of fall into this?
IS: I had a very specific direction. My whole life I wanted to be a neurosurgeon since I was a little boy. I had no knowledge or desire to be in the weight loss industry. I really arrived into weight loss by accident. I was a columnist for TIME magazine and as I was writing my columns I found in a lot of the reading that the readers were sending me e-mails about nutrition and supplements and weight loss and I didn’t know anything about it. Even though I was a physician I didn’t know anything about it because physicians don’t learn in medical school about these particular weight loss issues. So I found myself having to basically go back to school and learn about nutrition so that I felt responsible to my readers who looked up to me and looked to me for advice and for answers I could provide them. I basically had to get invested into the whole nutritional field so I could supply them with answers and that should kind of took my whole career on a whole different path.
TCC: I see you’ve also working on Celebrity Fit Club…
IS: Yes I did six seasons and that’s where a lot of people recognize me from. It was a great experience, we didn’t just change the lives of these celebrities but we changed the lives of people. In fact, my book The Fat Smash Diet became extremely popular I created for the show for the celebrities on the show, they had lost so much weight during one of the seasons on the show that The Fat Smash Diet, I wasn’t going to publish the diet but the viewers saw it and asked “Where is it, where is it?!” So we kind of rapidly published the book because there was such a demand for the book and it became a runaway best seller but that’s largely in part to the show and how well celebrities did and how easy it is to follow.