President
Reality Meets Science® Inc
Birmingham, Michigan, United States
Dr. Tom Rifai MD FACP DipABLM, President and CEO of Reality Meets Science Inc., a population and executive health transformation consulting company, is the architect of The Flex5 Lifestyle™ methodology. The Flex5 has proven itself in the Henry Ford Health System, Harvard’s online Lifestyle Medicine CME/MOC program for professionals and Magna International (North America's largest auto supplier and mobility technology company), where he was Medical and Well-being Director. At Magna he provided elite executive health coaching to the C-suite as well as developing health and well-being programming to their manufacturing sites.
Dr. Tom currently serves as Chair of the Employer Subcommittee for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s Clinical Practice and Quality Committee and is a diplomate of both American Boards of Internal and Lifestyle Medicine and past president of the American Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists and serves on the True Health Initiative Board of Directors.
As referred above, Dr. Tom was the co-course director for Harvard University’s most popular online Lifestyle Medicine continuing medical education program for over a decade – Nutrition and the Metabolic Syndrome – which integrated his 5 Keys to Optimal Wellness system and which was taken by approximately 4000 healthcare professionals, mostly physicians and nurses, worldwide.
Dr. Tom’s Flex5 Lifestyle is comprised of critical skills and knowledge needed in five keys areas to, like a mixed martial artistry of health and longevity, achieve successful, long term, transformational, lifestyle change.
The Flex5 are: psychology (“mind matters”), nutrition, activity, (food, social and physical) environments and accountability.
The Flex5 is rooted in an advanced understanding of Flexitarianism and inspired by Dr. Tom’s unique combination of medical and lifestyle modification training, blended with his own personal binge eating disorder experiences, a disorder to which he lost his youngest brother, Basil.
The Flex5 inspired the central theme for the 2019 Harvard Institute of Lifestyle Medicine International Conference and inspired his invitation to speak at the National Institutes of Health, Endocrinology Division. Previously known as “The 5 Keys to Optimal Health”, The Flex5 was chosen in 2021 by Henry Ford Health’s Metabolic Health program leaders as their unifying patient education curriculum of choice for all of Henry Ford’s Metabolic Health and Weight Management programs throughout Metro Detroit.
Dr. Rifai is the co-host of the True Health Revealed (THR) podcast (Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google podcasts), along with award-winning dietitian Kathleen Zelman MPH, RDN, LD.
Dr. Rifai served as Associate Medical Director of the renown Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, Florida, and spent over a decade on Pritikin’s science advisory committee. He continues to serve as lead video educator on dietary fats and weight control for the Medicare-approved Pritikin Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, which is now running in over 100 hospital cardiac rehabilitation programs throughout the USA, as well as ACLM president-elect Dr. Padmaja Patel's primary care based ICR program.
Dr. Tom is married to Angela, who have two beautiful young children (Liliana and Antonio) whom – especially being in his mid 50’s – Rifai considers his primary “WHYs” regarding his passion for staying healthy via lifestyle as medicine.
Pre-Conference In-Person Workshop: Sleep Pillar Clinical Skills
Saturday, October 28, 2023
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM MST