Josh Clemente: Revolutionizing Metabolic Health With CGM | MMP #285
Download MP3Josh, thanks for joining me, man. Super excited to be here, Brett. Dude, I'm so pumped. I think, I think we even first met at the arena hall event, which was great. It was a little panel on metabolic health.
Speaker 1:That's how you and I got to meet. Then we ran into each other at the collective where a lot of good conversations and connections happen. Of course. And we've, you know, we've been a huge fan of what you guys are doing at levels for a really long time, and I've personally wanted to have you on the show. So appreciate you doing this, and I think there's a lot of good stuff that we're gonna dig into today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. Well, I'm excited to be in the same city and able to do these sorts of things, live and in person.
Speaker 1:Dude, the in person connections of being in Austin, particularly in the health and wellness space, is unbelievable. I don't think there's another city that's like it. It's what I
Speaker 2:was hoping for when coming here, and I have not been disappointed.
Speaker 1:Seriously. It's like a health and wellness renaissance almost for lack of a better term. There you go.
Speaker 2:I love that term. Yeah. I also hope to to see it become, like, a bit of a new industrial revolution too. Mhmm. There's a lot of lot of, technology.
Speaker 2:I hope to see more deep tech coming here and just like creators.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah, man. We're here and now, we're really pumped to sit down and talk with you because we are huge fans of what you guys are doing at levels, really, like, revolutionizing the metabolic health space, I would say. And CGMs, continuous glucose monitors, we've both had amazing experiences with them. It taught me a ton about just like my relationship with food, what carbs was I responsive to, what carbohydrates did not sit well in my stomach at all.
Speaker 1:So having people like you out there that are really trying to push this mission forward and make CGM super accessible for people really fun, really enjoyable. I mean, I think the work that you guys are doing is so valuable, but I also know that you had a very interesting experience with your own health that actually led you to build this company. And I think that people's health journeys and their own personal experiences are very relatable because I think it shows that you kind of took this negative situation and it ended up turning out to be this ultimate blessing because it led to you starting this business. But I think that would be a a great starting point to dig into the conversation. Just tell us a little bit where you were prior to 2019 starting starting levels.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It it's, somehow, it's been 5 years, but It's amazing. It goes a few years prior to that where, you know, growing up, I was I was in sports. I was always relatively healthy from the outside looking in. And, really enjoyed being active when I yeah.
Speaker 2:I played a bunch of sports, played club rugby in school, played ice hockey, played lacrosse, all the stuff. Mhmm. Stayed active. And then getting out and being a professional was kind of an adjustment because there isn't really that outlet built in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I started getting into CrossFit and found a lot of, like, competitive, a sort of fitness driven motivation there. I've I've done some bodybuilding stuff. And overall, just have really enjoyed, you know well, I should say, I've really relied on having fit physical fitness as an outlet and a means of keeping me mentally healthy as well. So I've I've just always had that even if I wasn't intentionally pursuing it for that reason. But along the way, you know, I I had no real grounding.
Speaker 2:So I was not educated in metabolic health, metabolic sciences, medicine in any way. And so I was doing it for, you know, the competitive benefit and and and all of that. But I picked up a lot of hacks and sort of gym science Yeah. That I really relied on. So carb loading, hearing that those words, you know, say no more.
Speaker 2:For me, I am somebody with a sweet tooth that that runs from from head to toe. And I just kind of developed a a real, a nutritional philosophy that was all calories are the same. It's, you know, Skittles, broccoli, same, just different quantities. Yep. And I really you know, that that was music to my ears to hear that because I I loved, all types of sweet savory foods.
Speaker 2:And and so I I had absolutely no nutritional guidelines or boundaries growing up, and I I I didn't gain weight. You know, I was, again, very active. So I wasn't gaining weight. There was no outside indicator that anything was going wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And in fact, the palatability, like, the delicious feedback I'm getting from my body is that this is exceptionally high quality calories. Definitely. Lean in. You know, I'm somebody who would eat candy for dinner literally in college. Serious.
Speaker 2:Joke. Like, you can ask my roommates. We would eat candy for dinner numerous times a week. I mean, obviously, that's crazy. But I had late labs, and I'd come home and I just crush, like, a bag from the c store that was nearby.
Speaker 2:And and that didn't carry any consequences for me until I got to a certain age. And when I was I was working at SpaceX, in the engineering world, you know, you're or at least in in in that company in particular, it is highly competitive. Like, people are are working to outperform each other inside of the same organization. And so it it adds, like, stress on top of the you know, the just the standard stress of of being a professional. And I was, I was highly competitive at work.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I I basically I would bring sleep in rather than push deadlines out. Yep. And that's how I live my life for a while. And I would work out at 9 PM, 10 PM, 5 in the morning, whatever it took to to get a workout in. And I was eating the way I just described.
Speaker 2:And all of this caught up me at at one point, sometime I think I was probably around 26, 27, when suddenly I just had this moment where I realized I feel sick. I feel unhealthy, like, all the time. This is not, like, right now. This is I don't remember the last time I felt good. No energy.
Speaker 2:Mood was was absolute garbage. I was generally a, pessimistic outlook. Suddenly, when I had always thought of myself as a fairly optimistic person, I needed to take physical breaks in the middle of a of an office workday. Like, literally sit down and just catch my breath. And, like, I would have cold sweat and this tingling and sort of an itchy sensation all over.
Speaker 2:And, so this stuff had had been happening and happening. And, you know, at one point, I actually went to to the medical clinic and, I asked this doctor to help me figure out whether I have a terminal illness because I have these symptoms that feel like unexplainable otherwise. They're, like, systemic.
Speaker 1:And there
Speaker 2:are some things that I'm not even mentioning here that I haven't really talked about publicly, but, like, it was affecting every part of my life. Let's just put it that way. And, it was I couldn't ignore it anymore. And and so I I had no I had no means of understanding this or or without that sort of background, without having a functional medicine or or a nutrition platform to to really lean on, I was completely without explanation. Like, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm I'm just eating food. I mean, you know, it didn't even cross my mind that something like this could be nutrition focused. Long story short, I talked to a friend who happened to to be roommates with an endocrinologist in training, and he said, you know what? It sounds like you might be having blood sugar issues. Like, what you're describing, there's, like, breaks where you're shaking and cold sweat and all that.
Speaker 2:Math sounds like you might be hypoglycemic. Have you have you checked your blood sugar? And I you know, I was like, no one's ever said anything diabetes related. No doctors ever mentioned that. Long you know, to to cut to the chase, I I went and got a glucometer, a finger sick, which you can get from a CVS.
Speaker 2:And I checked my blood sugar a couple times a day. And I was just getting these scatter points. They're all over the place. Didn't really tell me anything. But there were some points that were way off the charts or or well below what I would expect.
Speaker 2:I was waking up and I would get a finger stick that would be like 113. And that's well above the, you know, that's well into the prediabetes Yeah. Sort of space. I read a book called Wired to Eat by Rob Wolf, which came out that year. And in that, he basically describes a blood sugar based protocol.
Speaker 2:It's, like, calibrating against foods that you eat. And then he he mentions the CGM at the back, as a new technology that is allowing you to do this without the finger stick and on a continuous basis. And that was just the intuitive thing that seemed like, of course, like, that's you know, if there's anything related to blood sugar happening with me, that would be what I would want. And and so I went and asked my doctor, same doctor, can can I get a CGM? He had, by the way, run a bunch of blood tests and come back empty.
Speaker 2:Nothing to tell me. And at that moment, he, you know, he basically I won't say condemned, but he everything short of condemned my ask, as, as objectively a privileged request and something that, you know, only a hypochondriac would ask for. I was clearly healthy. There's nothing wrong with me. The only thing that's wrong is that I'm asking to use a technology that is for people that are sick.
Speaker 2:And so I'll try to wrap this up. But, basically, my response to him in the moment was, I think I think you're very wrong about this. Like, I don't know that there's something broken about my blood sugar control. But I can tell you that if your approach is to wait until something fails to start measuring it, then you you are incorrect and and and this whole system is is backwards because my job is systems engineering, and I measure things to make sure they don't fail. It sounds like you're waiting until they do and then doing forensics, and that's a different thing.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he loved that response.
Speaker 2:He did not. I walked out of there without a CGM. Let's put it that way. Okay. So, eventually, I did get a CGM.
Speaker 2:I actually had to smuggle one in from Australia because, they they are prescription controlled here in the US. In Australia, they're over the counter. You can go walk in, buy them just like that glucometer I got. I put one on, and it that was when, kinda, everything changed for me. My blood sugar over the next 2 weeks, I was monitoring 247, and, everything I did was wrong.
Speaker 2:Like, every every meal I ate that I was confident was gonna be a nice smooth controlled blood sugar response, I ended up going, you know, through the roof. And this is because I was doing things like loading 300 grams of sweet potatoes Yeah. Straight to the face because I had a workout later that day. Or glycogen replenishing with a big smoothie with bran flakes and banana and, you know, protein powder that is that, you know, for mass gain that has a ton of sugar in it. And so I would be you know, my blood sugar would be elevated in the 180, 200 range for hours.
Speaker 2:And that that is clearly a dysfunctional, metabolic health metabolic system there. Like, there's insulin resistance involved for you to be able to sustain blood sugar levels like that for that amount of time. And, and yet, I didn't have an an overweight issue. I didn't have a bunch of extra body fat. I I weighed about as much, maybe a little little more muscle than I have now, and, you know, maybe a few pounds heavier.
Speaker 2:But there is no outside indicator that that would make me think I'm at risk for blood sugar issues. Yeah. And this was confusing because anytime you Google, blood sugar control, specifically hyperglycemia, it's always related back to obesity for some reason. And and so that was really confusing for me, and I was trying to make make heads or tails. But what I could rely on is this CGM is just giving me data, and I can look at the I can find my own journal articles that tell me risk categories based on blood sugar levels, and I can iterate through trial and error with different foods, different portion sizes, different meal timing.
Speaker 2:And as I did so, I started to improve those blood sugar spikes. And and that was kind of the patient zero experience for me, where I sort of realized this this technology is nascent. It's really hard to get, and it's unbelievably powerful. Like, the fact that I'm able to just sit down, eat lunch, and see how that affects my body within 30 minutes, that's an entirely new paradigm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Fast forward, that was that was the idea. Like, we need to enable this for more people.
Speaker 1:Got it. It's such a powerful story, and I think it's a testament to to, like, you truly were your own guinea pig. Like, levels wasn't just this idea of, wow, this would be like a great business model. It was, no, I couldn't get answers. I felt terrible.
Speaker 1:My life was not going in the direction that I wanted it to, and I was finally able to access this amazing piece of technology. Extremely difficult, but you were able to do it, and it completely transformed your life. And, I think that's a a super powerful case study to what you guys are doing. And, also, I also read wire wired to eat, by the way. I think it's one of the most underrated books around nutrition and understanding your metabolic health that's out there because he breaks the science down so succinctly and gives you recipes, and that CGM test in the back is really worth its weight in gold.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. I mean, that that book I credit that book with really starting off for me. That was I I I don't exactly I think what happened is I just searched, you know, blood sugar after talking to that friend Mhmm. And, and and food or something to that effect, and it just popped up. It just so happened that it was it was recent, at at the moment.
Speaker 2:But I'm so grateful I found it because it was so clear and so synced. And it it was what caused me to take more seriously that friend's input Mhmm. Was that this this cogent article or or argument was laid out along with just a very practical approach to testing for myself, which is why I bought the book. And Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So Rob Rob and I communicate now, and it's kind of a out of body experience every time. That's so cool. Because at the moment, when I was reading that and I read the CGM article and I and or, snippet and this was all coming together. I was just like, you know, this guy might have saved my life in some in some long term sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I mean, it's it's really the compounding effect of these small decisions over time frames that are decades long, not minutes long, that that amount to a health outcome. And I think this is what we fail to to think about in our daily lives. It's, like, we like to think about every morning being a fresh start. Mhmm. Unfortunately, that's not true.
Speaker 2:Like, everything I do today will affect my health in small ways that will affect tomorrow and on and on and on for decades. And that's how I end up somewhere that I can't explain. Like, how did I suddenly end up with this health diagnosis? Well, not typically, with chronic illness, it's not sudden. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah. I have to credit Rob with potentially intervening for me and and hopefully, that cascades.
Speaker 1:Dude, a 100%. And I and I think that's such a good point where, what's the cliche quote? It's Rome wasn't built in a day, but Rome also didn't decay in a day. And it's like thousands and thousands of the wrong reps and iterations that compound over time. And I also think a really impactful part of your story is your willingness to actually push back against your doctor too, because I think so many people, they just they're they're afraid to push back to their doctor where they, you know, dot average doctor patient relationship is they say this is what's wrong.
Speaker 1:They give you prescription. You blanket follow it to a t. You don't deviate from it at all versus what you're talking about. And even with me with my ulcerative colitis of really taking that autonomy and that ownership of having that mindset of I am the CEO of my own health. I don't think something is right, and if you're not gonna give me those answers, I'm gonna go seek them elsewhere too.
Speaker 1:Like, who knows where you would have been if you didn't actually do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, I I don't have a a good explanation other than I had, enough personal experience with with systems to be able to to just, in the moment, feel an intuitive problem with what he was saying. Like, you know and and there was another element to it, which I think is super important. And that's the I'm a pretty strong individualist. I think there are people who have a degree of sovereignty and ownership.
Speaker 2:And when it extends into my body, like, I I strictly own what is happening inside my body. Definitely. I don't believe that my doctor is responsible for owning my health data. And I think that was a there's a bit of a violation in his ability to deny me deny me access to my own health info. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I felt in that moment that it should be backwards, like, he should be requesting access to my blood sugar data, and I decide whether I trust him enough to give him that access. But it was very, disempowering and strange to be asking and and to be able to get a flat out denial. I'm trying to pay cash for a technology, a tool. They can only tell me information. It can do nothing more.
Speaker 2:How is it that this can be prevented? And and so there was an element of that which, I think it just struck me in all the wrong ways in that moment. But I really encourage people to to think about it. Let's just switch the paradigm to financial information. Okay?
Speaker 2:Imagine you have a financial, you know, accountant or expert, CPA, somebody who is very good at the the fundamentals of monetary theory and finance, personal wealth management, whatever you wanna say. Is there any circumstance that you would follow their their demands or recommendations strictly without ever questioning under any circumstances? And and if so, then, okay, you must have the best person out there. But I think most of us would say, no. I, like, I always second guess, and I'm always doing my own research to make sure that what I'm getting from this person aligns with my own objectives, goals, and that, you know, fundamentally, it's built on a foundation I can trust.
Speaker 2:And that's the paradigm that we need to be approaching health with. In finance, we know we're fundamentally, we are responsible for not ending up bankrupt. Yeah. And so we check our bank account balance. We make sure we're not overdrawing.
Speaker 2:We're not, you know more withdrawals than than deposits is gonna end up in a bad place. We understand that. How is it then that we allow our health to be a black box, offshore it to a physician, and say, well, they're they're the ones that are keeping me healthy. So until they tell me that I'm unhealthy, like, I'm just gonna keep you know, I'm just doing my thing with my head in the sand. And, and when the reality is that it's our own actions, our daily withdrawals and deposits that we're making decisions around that are leading to that health outcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That person has no leverage over whether I end up sick or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's such a good analogy. I would equate a doctor not get not even allowing you to purchase a CGM through them. That would be the equivalent of a financial adviser not even showing you how, like, a mutual fund is performing that you invested through them too. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And I would I would go a step further and say it's it's literally, like, you know, take that bankruptcy analogy and just say, don't go bankrupt. I'm not gonna show you your bank account balance. Like, as basic as that, you're not allowed to see the fundamentals of what's going on behind the scenes. Mhmm. I mean, in general, you'll get a blood panel once a year or something like that, and that that's your sort of, like, exposure to the accounts, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's a snapshot in time. It shows you nothing about whether or not the, like, the model behind it is operating properly. Are you, like, going like this, or are you going like that? And I think we just we're far too willing.
Speaker 2:I don't know how we got here. I'm not unfortunately, I don't have enough perspective over time to understand how the system got to the point where people feel individually like they aren't responsible for their own health in the same way that we're responsible for our own financial outcome. Yes. But the world needs to shift to a world to to one where, yeah, in the same way that we're planning and focusing in, you know, daily on a retirement plan that we will be able to financially prosper for decades after we get to a certain age, we should also be confident that we're gonna be healthy enough to enjoy it. Definitely.
Speaker 2:And why are those not treated similarly?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a it's such a good point. Yeah. These these things that we're talking about, they they really are, you know, holistic assets. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's it's such a it's such a good story. It even reminds me of my own my own experience with ulcerative colitis where I was pushing my GI to get me off of the biologic drugs that I was on because I had this in I started developing this really bad cystic acne from it. So, like, these drugs are treating one thing, and then they're causing all these other side effects. And I was really confident that it was this drug that I was taking that was causing me to break out. And I also just felt like my inflammation and my micro inflammation was gone because I was so strict carnivore.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking to myself, why am I continuing to stay on this drug that has all these deleterious side effects? And I just kept pushing him and pushing him, and finally, he was willing to take me off the drugs. But if I wasn't so insistent, he would have had me on the drugs for the rest of my life because that's what traditional medicine tells you about biologics is you have to stay on these things forever because there's no cure for autoimmune diseases. But if I didn't have that same mindset that you had, I would still be on those drugs right now Be susceptible to whatever side effects would come in the future.
Speaker 2:You know, my my cofounder, Casey, always talks about this flaw in the system, which is that through our approach, probably going back many decades where the body was so complicated and we didn't know anything about it, that we had to compartmentalize it and slice it into subsystems. So you have the you, like, arbitrarily, you know, you got head and neck surgeons, or you have, like, people focused on neurology. You you have cardiologists. You have all these individual specialists. And it's necessary.
Speaker 2:These are super complex Yeah. Systems. And so we had to, like, I think, develop schools of thought around them. The problem is that when you project that out, now you have all of these different subspecialties that only look at their at optimizing their one system. And there's a thing called local optimization, which is that you've improved one thing at the expense of others.
Speaker 2:It is not the true optimum. It's just the the optimum for that one subset. And that's what we do is we go to a GP who isn't capable of identifying the specific issue. They send you to a specialist. The specialist can, but they they don't care about cascading effects.
Speaker 2:They're just focusing on, okay, we're gonna improve x. And in your case, you know, that that's exactly what you were experiencing is at the expense of other side effects that, you know, they're not a dermatologist. They're not gonna care about cystic axe acne. So what Casey is really ardent about is systems biology, which is that everything is connected and shares underpinnings. One of which is all the cells in our bodies need energy.
Speaker 2:They need to be able to produce it without, deleterious byproducts. We have mitochondria in each of our cells that are generate they're the little powerhouses generating our energy. And if we are, creating cascading mitochondrial issues, we're affecting certain tissues in a certain way through an intervention that are damaging those those cells, that's the next ship to fall. Like, you may be able to prop this one up, but you're gonna be taking another pill for this other one shortly thereafter. And this the systems biology concept merges all this together and takes a zoomed out view and tries the best of our ability to understand the root cause.
Speaker 2:What is causing the system to have a an emerging consequence in one subsystem over here? Like, whether it's the heart or whether it's the lungs or what what what have you. And, it's really surprising to me that this is considered still fringe. Like, this is considered a fringe perspective. I mean, to me, it's, like, it's objectively true.
Speaker 2:Yes. There's no arguing about that. It's just whether or not I I think people are are willing to accept what interventions come from that that is that is maybe controversial. But, you know, because it would it would really it would transform a lot of our positions even on these illnesses like diabetes, where, you know so the treatment for diabetes let's talk about type 2 diabetes, which is the the chronic illness, typically lifestyle related, is to once you get insulin resistant enough to begin injecting insulin to control your blood sugar levels. The problem is type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance.
Speaker 2:So more insulin leads to more insulin resistance to manage the same glucose load. There is no doctor out there, no endocrinologist that will tell you that exogenous insulin injections will fix diabetes at all. But that is the treatment. That's the intervention, is to get on a lifetime of additional insulin, making you more insulin resistant over time to the point where that fails and ultimately a system whether your heart or your brain, dies, and and you go with it. And, unfortunately, that's that's just the paradigm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Now if you instead look at it not as the, you know, not as that zeroed in, like, glucose is high, therefore, we have to control it. If you instead think why is glucose high, you'll come to a different conclusion. And you will not, in any in any circumstance or in most circumstances, start injecting the thing that's causing the problem,
Speaker 1:which is insulin resistance. It's that's crazy to think about. It's mind boggling to think about. And I also just wonder, do you have a sense of how much the US spends on insulin a year for type 2 diabetics? I've heard it's a I forget what this I know it's an
Speaker 2:astronomical number. It's one of the I mean, it is a literally a congressional topic constantly is the cost of insulin. Yeah. Well, because I mean, there's many reasons for that. There's other, like, incentives there where, you know, insulin was get a gift to the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The the patent owners open sourced it. And now we, like, we make all these complicated modifications to the molecules so we can patent those and and keep prices high. That said, you know, the fact that we have I mean, you have companies like Virta who are showing the what is well known, which is that well known, but was previously questioned until Virta showed it once again, which is that using strictly diet and lifestyle intervention, you can reverse type 2 diabetes. You can become non you know, that you're not manifesting the condition of diabetes through diet and and lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And the CDC and, the NIH, you know, the World Health Organization, all of them agree that diabetes is also preventable through through lifestyle and and diet modifications. So type 2 in particular. So I don't know what we're disagreeing about when, you know, when we say that it is inherently a lifestyle condition, and the medication in insulin doesn't solve it. So why are we turning to that as the standard of care? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like somewhere along the way, we sort of we we sort of break down the the model sort of, you know, skips, and it's like, you know and then insulin. And I just, you know, I still can't explain it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Have you ever seen the documentary fat fiction?
Speaker 2:I don't think so.
Speaker 1:It's free on YouTube. I think it came out in, like, 2020. And one of the most striking parts of that documentary because they're just debunking all the myths around saturated fat and why animal products and saturated fat are actually really good for you and how we've kind of unjustly blamed saturated fat for what processed carbs and sugar have been doing to us over the last 50 years. But one of the best parts of that whole documentary is they show this endocrinologist in San Diego, doctor Brian Lenskis, who he I think he's been an endocrinologist for close to 20 years, did all the, you know, standard treatments like you're talking about prescribing insulin, had never gotten a single type 2 patient off of insulin before. He he found himself close to a £100 overweight, went low carb slash carnivore, lost a £100, started getting his type 2 diabetic patients on it.
Speaker 1:He said within the 1st year, I think he got, like, a dozen patients off insulin. And so I'm watching this, and I'm like, this is unbelievable. But there was still kind of part of my brain that was skeptical. I ended up connecting with him when I lived out in San Diego and went to one of his, low carb meetups. And I met, like, 10 women, all women, which was really interesting, that all told me that they followed the same low carb protocol and got off insulin for the first time in their lives.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. It's so cool. Yeah. I mean, that's you know, Virta, I don't think goes, goes carnivore, but it is, I I think, a ketogenic pro protocol. But, you know, the point being, type 2 diabetes is because of the insulin resistance.
Speaker 2:It is a it is a carb intolerance. You you you just it's it's not to say that carbohydrates are inherently bad or that no one should eat them. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying if you are severely insulin resistant, it is obvious. It is just inherently true that you cannot metabolize carbohydrates effectively and that they are complicating the problem by raising blood sugar levels because you can't bring them down, and that is causing cascading damage.
Speaker 2:Your tissues are being destroyed as your blood sugar rises over and over over time. And so, you know, instead of solving that root problem, which we as we see and this is now you know, we we now are several years past the Virta result, and now there are many programs that are doing the same thing, replicating results. If you remove that insult, the body can heal. Like, you can become more insulin sensitive. I have seen this.
Speaker 2:My blood sugar control I've introduced so many more carbs than I did 5 years ago into my daily routine, and I feel great. I train well. I keep them under control. I make sure that my blood sugar, you know, if it does elevate, it's gonna be for a high fiber, you know, blueberries, for example. I'll have a spike from blueberries, but they're high fiber, and my blood sugar comes straight back down into into range where I used to spend all this time out of range for hours and hours, and then I would, you know, I would crash.
Speaker 2:And so, anyway, there's all these these important nuances about, you know, whether or not for an individual, a certain dietary protocol makes sense. And and frankly, like, people just think that they had that there is some inherent truth that you should be able to eat any food. Otherwise, you need medicine. Yeah. And I I disagree.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, obviously, for you, the CGM was a massive catalyst for really getting your metabolic health under control, and I really appreciated the nuance you brought to the carbohydrate question. And that's that's actually that was what I wanted to ask you is just what is your just general philosophy that you think people should understand about carbs in general? Because, you know, it's it's very tough to understand now what diet should we be going on because you're hearing, you know, you're hearing carnivore, you're hearing paleo. People that were carnivore are now going animal based where they're drinking a ton of raw milk and a lot of fruit to the point where I'm like, if I'm taking someone £30 overweight, I don't know if I would be putting them on an animal animal based diet, but I do know there can be benefits to carbs.
Speaker 1:So maybe how do you think about working carbohydrates in your diet, and maybe that could be a template for other people to follow too? Yeah. Well, firstly, I'll I'll I'll start with
Speaker 2:I I think there's a massive amount of diversity in how people respond to the same foods. Yes. And I don't just think that, like, I I know that to be true. It's in our dataset. There is a published trial, from 2015, the Weizmann Institute.
Speaker 2:They took 800 people without diabetes, gave them all CGMs, and fed them standardized meals. And they showed that 2 people can eat the exact same 2 food items and have equal and opposite blood sugar responses. Mhmm. So banana cookie, one person has a huge spike on the cookie and dead flat on the banana, and the other person had the exact opposite response. That's insane.
Speaker 2:So this is this is in the data. It it is true. What I think is happening here is we we all have a context, genetic, microbiome, body composition, how well slept are we, how trained are we, how stressed are we. I've seen the impacts of all of these things on my own body and my own response to a specific meal item. And, unfortunately, like, we're afraid of that amount of nuance.
Speaker 2:We don't want that. We wanna say, no. Beans are good. Yes. Eat beans or don't eat beans.
Speaker 2:And and, unfortunately or fortunately, because now we have the technologies to be able to tell the difference, I think it's a contextual decision. You know, when I'm when I'm in training mode and I am burning a ton of carbohydrates, unless I'm planning to stay in a ketogenic state where I'm gonna have a low appetite but I'm gonna have a lot of readily available energy, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be adding carbohydrates to my to my diet. Yeah. Because that's how I feel best. I'm not going to overdo it.
Speaker 2:I don't believe in the whole glycogen replenishment, you know, instantaneously with 100 of grams of pasta anymore. That doesn't work for me. That's gonna make me sick. Nor do I think that I need to be, carb loading the way that Olympic athletes are because I'm not an Olympic athlete. You know?
Speaker 2:Right? So so I need to be taking in the right amount of carbs that I feel good. They're glycemically friendly for me, which means high high fiber and consumed with high protein, and not more. And if I eat more, then I start this roller coaster of blood sugar spikes and crashes, hunger, and I spiral out of control. And so I I think my point is that, we know there's a a very diverse set of responses.
Speaker 2:People need to to have some intuition and and ideally, you know, some tool to to be able to tell whether they're whether they are properly metabolizing the carbohydrates that they do eat. And, and then I'll just say, if I'm gonna give any generic recommendations again, I'm, you know, I I'm not a medical professional, but any generic recommendations, it's gonna be replace most of the other stuff with protein and fiber. And that's a pretty good start. So, you know, I I am not I don't vilify fat. I I personally, have a probably a high protein, moderate fat, low carb approach to to living.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And, certainly, low carb relative to to a standard American diet. But I will cycle, some higher carbs depending on training volume, and sometimes, some lower carbs if I'm gonna be more sedentary. And I know that I'm at risk for over snacking for me. The carbohydrates are the ones that I will I will just over indulge in.
Speaker 2:So I I have to have more discipline around those.
Speaker 1:Are there any carbs that you found through rigorous testing that sit particularly well with you? And were there any carbs that actually surprised you that they didn't do super well with your blood sugar levels? Yeah. I mean, basically, all of
Speaker 2:the carbohydrates that if you Google, glycemic load or glycemicly friendly carbs or I mean, things have improved a bit because we've gotten some more of this, like, real, you know, education out there. But, you know, the the ones that I would have previously thought were gonna be great for me would be brown rice, sweet potatoes, oatmeal. So the the sort of, like, staples that people recommend whole grains, you know, sourdough bread. 0 of those are compatible with my with my system. For some reason, I, you know, I think most of those are relatively highly processed with the brown rice, I consider to be a processed food.
Speaker 2:Not so for, for sweet potatoes, but, you know, I I actually have those. That's the one I eat most frequently, but I'll have smaller portion sizes. But, I mean, some of the worst one one of the worst foods in in the dataset is is oatmeal for us. Mhmm. Just a highly processed.
Speaker 2:It basically breaks down, before you even get it into your system. It's it's almost predigested. It's cooked down. It's been, you know, ground up. It's it's just it's a very fast acting, high glycemic response carbohydrate.
Speaker 2:The ones that I would say I currently depend on and and work super well for me are, really berries. Yeah. Super high fiber, delicious in my opinion. So good. You know, I I default to blueberries, strawberries, raspberries.
Speaker 2:Can't get enough. I actually the I love, some of the more exotic fruits that my my cofounder has, exposed me to. One of them is called Langan berries. They're they're, like, nicknamed dragon eyes. Delicious.
Speaker 2:Little more work. You get less, like,
Speaker 1:less fruit for the for the peeling you got. But they're delicious, though.
Speaker 2:They're great. Yeah. So so I really default to, like, make sure the carbohydrate carbohydrate has a a lot of fiber, in its matrix and
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, not eating many bananas, I would say.
Speaker 1:How about white rice? I could eat a you know,
Speaker 2:in the words of Peter Tia, a bathtub full of white rice Yeah. But I I don't. So I that's one of the foods that I'm I you know, probably the worst blood sugar responses I've had is, is straight white rice or a rice bowl or something. So Yeah. You know, the the brown rice, I thought was, you know, I thought that's the that's the answer, you know, all the traditional nutrition advice.
Speaker 2:So it's a it's a more glycemic friendly version of rice. No difference for me. Yeah. So if I'm gonna eat rice, it's gonna be white rice. Basmati in particular is really damn good.
Speaker 1:Delicious. So delicious. Yeah. Like, I could eat steak and rice every single day. I 100 I wish I could, but similar to you, it's that's why tools like Levels are so effective is because you actually get the data and can understand, is this good for me or not?
Speaker 1:And my blood sugar just spikes so much. Because you see a lot of these bodybuilding guys that are in incredible shape that swear by, you know, ground beef and rice and things like that. And every time I try and do it, I just can I can see my blood sugar spike? And I also I just have those wide wasted white guy genetics where I just kinda, like, blow up when I eat a lot of white rice.
Speaker 2:I I I get very similar very similar facts. I mean, you know, I'm much more in tune with my body, I would say, now. This is one of the interesting benefits of, you know, not just CGM. I for for sure, CGM has taught me more about interoception or, like, being able to connect a sensation to something that's happening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But also, you know, wrist worn wearables, heart rate. I'm much more in tune with my pulse, my blood pressure, and blood sugar, based on sensation now. And I can almost I can essentially guess where my blood sugar is without needing to check my CGM at this point because of, you know, years of using it. But along with that has come, like, a real intuition around some of these, you know, these effects of foods that I used to eat constantly. And I was just constantly in the state of experiencing that Yeah.
Speaker 2:Symptom. And I and I and therefore, I didn't think of it as a symptom. That's just my existence, Yeah. Which is why I thought I was terminally ill. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a it's really crazy to think back on and be like, that that is the water I was swimming in. And and now, you know, I know when I have steak and rice versus steak and broccoli, like, I know the difference. And yeah. I mean, one of them works well.
Speaker 1:It's cool to think that, like, 7 years ago, you were the guy that was eating Skittles for dinner, and now you you're the guy that can basically predict your blood sugar levels based on what you eat. That's how that's how much intuition you've built up over time by really caring about this and investing in it.
Speaker 2:It it's funny. My, my family initially didn't take too well to that. Yeah. As you can imagine, you know, it's it's it's hard not you know, it's funny because I I really I have to take the l on it. I I was I was just a complete nutritional disaster.
Speaker 2:And, you know, along the way, I definitely was giving bad advice to people and scoffing at a lot of people who who really took seriously nutrition, and I feel really bad about it. But I had to learn the hard way. And I think there's a certain degree of, like, immortality at a young age. Mhmm. Like, you just haven't yet come to face to face with your own mortality.
Speaker 2:You haven't experienced something that tells you that you can't tolerate eating, drinking, not sleeping, forever. That's gonna catch up at some point. And I just you know, I was one of those people that felt invincible for a long time and therefore didn't have to think about it. And I think a lot of the unfortunately, this is, like, one of the major challenges is a lot of these health issues become super ingrained and set in stone at a at a younger age. You know, especially as we as we have more processed foods that we call kids foods and and rely on, you you just get really that becomes your comfort food.
Speaker 2:You you love it. You identify it with it. And, and then by the time you become an adult, you start to experience consequences, like, you don't even you don't even consider. In fact, you turn to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And part of the issue too to your to your point is that your metabolic baseline is just so consistently low because all you know is this processed food that you don't even have that comparison of what real food, how that could actually make you feel, and the fact that you're fundamentally transforming who you are as a person. Right? I I I'm similar to you going through college, just binge drinking ton of processed foods.
Speaker 1:Like, my my baseline level was so low. And then when I finally went carnivore, it wasn't even necessarily carnivore. It was more of just, taking the autonomy of the food I was putting in my system and cooking my meals. I felt so damn good that I remember thinking to myself, there's no way I'm ever going back to that. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But most people don't have. They've never created that comparison, so they don't understand that there's all this potential that you're missing out on because they've never tried that before.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I I I think well, I hope I hope as these these ideas become more accessible and and the tools to make them really easy and, one one thing is, I think, actually really important to to say is I do not feel like I'm in a state of discipline or, like, I'm for some in some way lacking indulgence at all. I I mean, I you can ask my wife, love the food that I eat. Yes. I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 2:Like, I I taste it in new ways and appreciate it in new ways now than I ever did before. I used to pursue, like, the most rich indulgent, like, combination of sugar and fat and whatever Oh, yeah. At one time possible to chase that high almost. And I I mean, I really it really was, like, unhealthy behavior when I think about it because I I mean, that was just that was what I was seeking. And now I'm seeking something that is that is nourishing me at a basic level, and that also because of its simplicity and its preparation and my involvement in selecting it and pursuing good ingredients, I I just appreciate it as, like, almost as a creative process and also the effects, which are that I feel great.
Speaker 2:I feel amazing after my my meals. I feel energized. I'm able to do the things I wanna do. I don't have any of those consequences or side effects that I used to have because of the food that I'm that I'm also tasting and finding delicious. I mean, it's just it's, like, too good to be true almost.
Speaker 1:It's such an important mindset too because I think there are people that are afraid that once you go down this lifestyle, you're missing out on, you know, this the the pleasures of food. And it always makes me think back to that book, the Dorito effect. Did you ever read that book by Mark Schatzker? I don't know. I just love it because you've talked about hyperpalability a few times.
Speaker 1:He's this this, investigative journalist that goes into the flavor houses of these big food companies
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And interviews a bunch of the food scientists and basically dissects how these companies create these hyperpalatable combinations and seasonings and things that are artificial where you put your hand into a bag of Doritos, you're eating the entire thing no matter how bad you know it is for you. Yep. And it talks about, the ability to actually rewire your taste buds or when you're eating real foods, you're rewiring your taste buds where you're, like, appreciating the incredible flavor of the fat of a rib eye or the saltiness of a rib eye, and it'll take you a few weeks once you're switching from the ultra processed garbage to real food. But once you get through that transition, like you said, your appreciation for food and taste, it it's the best. And there there does live this world where you can truly love every single bite of food that you have and also get into incredible shape from it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, that's the best part about it. Like, you can eat your way to healthier a healthier life. Yeah. That yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I I just wouldn't have thought thought that possible or even, like it it they were the crazy part is at a younger age, I thought those were 2 entirely separate things. Mhmm. You know, it's like physical fitness was health. Yeah. And food was what you used to fuel your physical fitness.
Speaker 2:And Yeah. So yeah. I mean, it's it's amazing. I'm I'm very appreciative of having that that insight and being able to access the information so early in life because I I think there's an opportunity to really extend, obviously, health span as a function of all these benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You also have this really cool combination of this, like, engineering skill set where you're really into the data, and you also seem like someone that you you you're able to have this intuition and enjoy your life as well. What do you think is, like, the right mindset behind CGM and wearables where you're getting the valuable information, you're getting everything you need from levels, but you're not letting the data overconsume you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Very good question. I mean, this one's tricky because there are different personalities at stake. You know, for me, the benefits that I get from CGM now are are a lot different than they were in the beginning. In the beginning, it was a mind blowing realization constantly.
Speaker 2:It's just, like, every day, I was coming across some unintuitive realization that, oh, that's, you know so when my blood sugar is crashing from 180, that's when I needed to get another coffee or when I would literally feel like I needed to have a nap. Or that sensation I would feel when I would fuel up for a run and then run out the door was my muscles over consuming glucose in combination with a huge blood sugar spike that insulin has been released in my system is also bringing down, and I bonk. And that's what that effect is and when why my run times are so different on a Monday after I, you know, when I run-in the morning right after that shake versus in the evening. All these intuitive and counterintuitive things coming together is like a magic moment powerhouse for me. Now, I've learned many of those lessons.
Speaker 2:I'm rarely surprised by something that happens, but it's an accountability mechanism. Yeah. So I'm much more likely to act the way I want to act when I know that the data is there, and I'm going to look at it, and I'm gonna see it. And it's the same reason that I've, for all intents and purposes, stopped drinking, and certainly stopped drinking later in the evening because, you know, my my Carmen would show me my sleep quality the next day, my HRV, my heart rate, and they would just be destroyed by by a single glass of wine at 9 PM or something. And it just isn't worth it to me because it doesn't align with my objectives.
Speaker 2:And, of course, like, that said, I don't live in a single mode all the time. And so I indulge and I when I when I know I'm gonna be on holidays with my family or when I'm cooking a a a celebratory meal with my my wife or what or even if I've just, like, been really good for a week or a couple weeks, and I I just wanna get some ice cream. Like, I do that. Yes. And at the same time, I don't ignore that.
Speaker 2:There's, like, a learn a lesson to be learned there. Like, I I will typically indulge in something that again, I said ice cream or a cheesecake or something that is more of a rich meal that I find is delicious, but is gonna actually have a slightly better impact on me than just literally eating pure granulated sugar like I used to in the form of, of candy. Know, so so it's like it's made its way into even my sort of cheat meals. But I I don't, I don't I I I don't recommend anybody use this as a disciplinary tool. It's it's just telling you what's already happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right? And I think that's maybe the most important realization is, there is no external party disciplining you. Mhmm. This is a connection between your what's happening in your body and your brain, so you can actually see it.
Speaker 2:It it's exposing the the reality in a in a useful way, in an awareness way. And I think that awareness is always useful, always important. And if it's starting to feel disciplinary, it might be some time a good time to to sort of take a break. But even for those folks that feel it's it's overly disciplinary, it's also important to recognize that it evolves over time. So, you know, as age sets in, as your context in life changes, you have a baby, you're not sleeping well, change jobs, get in better shape, get in worse shape, all that affects how you'll respond to the to the foods you're eating.
Speaker 2:So it's always useful, I think, to check-in with awareness tools like this to just see where things are, even if you don't need to wear it continuously.
Speaker 1:Definitely. No. I think that's an amazing answer. And I don't know if this is the right or the wrong way to wear Levels, but when I've used the CGM, I'll I actually try and be decently disciplinary when I'm when I'm with it, and my thought process is, you know, I have skin in the game. I've paid money for this thing.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm gonna wear it for, like, 30 to 60 days. I love pairing it with a food journal. I mean, obviously, you guys have the app so you can pop in everything and understand what foods and the timing and how that relates to your blood sugar. But I love keeping a food journal and just saying, like, look. I'm wearing this thing for 60 days.
Speaker 1:Let me see how disciplined and dialed in I can be. And I'm not saying this is gonna be my normal for 12 months out of the year, but I think there's, like, I don't know. There's, like, this mental and spiritual component that I love of just, like, trying to just be firing on all all cylinders, and I feel like a a CGM is such a cool catalyst to get all these different buckets in your life and your health together too.
Speaker 2:I I love that approach too, and there's a lot of people that use it in that context. And I I think it makes total sense. It's sort of like a Yeah. You know, a bit of a whole 30 sprint or like, there, you know, there are other approaches that tend to focus on this, like, get a get a a reset going, get back on track, something like that. It's super useful tool for that.
Speaker 2:And the feedback is so powerful when you I particularly like recommending to people, you know, if your plan is to start a CGM or start levels January 1st or January 2nd, maybe start actually December 20th and capture some of that reality. Right? Just capture. But don't don't don't overinvest in in in it. You're gonna start on January 2nd.
Speaker 2:But the powerful thing is the relative change. And so going from the the chaos of holidays into a a bit of a ritual or a habit, changing all of those those factors, food, sleep, exercise, and seeing things just, like, snap into order is a beautiful thing for me. It is I love seeing that. You know, it's it can be a little bit stressful for people who are who are hypercompetitive and just, like, can't tolerate the fact that blood sugar is going crazy. Like, maybe don't wear it over the holidays.
Speaker 2:But but, for a lot of folks, I I think it's it's one of the most amazing realizations is that because there's a there's a slight risk of when you put the CGM on when everything is dialed, you you kind of lose some of the learning. Because some of the learning is actually those those realizations that, oh, you know, although that that frosted cookie wasn't great, like, that cheesecake was basically flat. Like, that that's a realization in of itself. Or or, you know, the impact of alcohol, like, is hyper counterintuitive for most people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's such an interest I I I'm gonna have to do that next year then where it's, like, just strap it on for a week. Almost pretend like it doesn't even exist and then just kinda monitor the data before you make those changes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Treat it as observational instead of interventional. Definitely. And the thing I
Speaker 1:love about levels too is, I think a lot of people get caught up in the sake of wearing wearables for the sake of wearing it, and they love the data. But it's like we need the data to develop intuition, which is what you've talked about, where I'm sure you'll continue to put levels on, but you've gotten to the point where you have this amazing intuition around like, okay. I'm eating this. This is probably spiking my blood sugar. I'm in tune with how I feel.
Speaker 1:This makes me feel good. This makes me feel really bad. And I think that's ultimately the goal with all this technology is don't just get caught up in the data for the sake of that. Like, use it to actually develop that amazing intuition so you can go live an incredible life. Perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I think that's absolutely true. This is it's an awareness tool. That's that's how we talk about it is this is drawing attention to what's really happening and and showing you again. You know, with a lot of the hyperpalatable foods, there is no obvious consequence.
Speaker 2:And and the way we make decisions as humans is, like, we we seek optimization. We seek improvement in some in some, direction. And when you when you only have the feedback of flavor because, you know, we we evolved as humans in an environment where every calorie was a life saving calorie, and so we were our our hardwiring didn't keep up with the industrial revolution where in a single meal, I can eat more processed sugar than I could access in a lifetime not long ago. Right? So I you know, we just simply don't have the tools to keep up with that.
Speaker 2:We don't have the 6th sense vector to tell what's going on inside. We just have taste. Yeah. And, and so without an ability to expose what's happening on the inside, which I think we need to use technology to help us do, we'll never develop that 6th sense. But what's really crazy is this introception thing, it is almost like an evolving phantom sensation.
Speaker 2:Like, something I don't know why I can I can now tell my blood sugar? It's subtle hints. It's like, maybe it's a pulse rate. Maybe it's a body temperature thing, a flushing in my face, small little hints. But together, I've now synthesized the ability to tell something about my internal condition that I couldn't previously tell, and it's only because technology existed, not technology to measure blood sugar because measuring it once a year doesn't give me that.
Speaker 2:Measuring it continuously in the real world as I'm responding to the things that I'm doing, the choices I'm making, is how I evolved that. And I think that's a really important and instructive lesson is that the tools to help people understand their health state and improve over time have to be dynamic and continuous. They have to be, like, you know, I can't wait until the scale increases by £10 to start wondering, how did I get here? Like, what should I eat for lunch tomorrow? What's what's better is to understand in the moment when I eat for eat something for lunch, how that affected me as as immediately as possible.
Speaker 2:And that's how my behaviors will able to update, and I'll be able to connect the the dots between the reaction my body is experiencing and sensation inside.
Speaker 1:That's super interesting. So it's not so you're not even looking for one trigger in particular. There's just kind of this, like, general intuition that you've developed over years where you're like, I know my blood sugar spiked.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't have I can point to some a a few subtle things. Yeah. Like, if if we were to go for a run after I eat a a sugary meal, like, this happens like clockwork. I'm going to bonk.
Speaker 2:And, which for many people, they they'll eat a, you know, a bagel right before a run or something like that. I I can't do it. And there's something about my insulin release, that's, I think, a little bit delayed. So I'll have a huge blood sugar spike. My body will then flood me with with insulin, and that will couple with my my muscles absorbing more glucose, and I'll overcompensate and crash.
Speaker 2:And when that's happening, I mean, it's a confluence of things. I get a pit in my stomach. I get shaky legs. I get a cold sweat. My pulse rate quick.
Speaker 2:And so, like, at a certain pace, the the first indication is that my heart rate will be slightly higher for that pace than it usually is. That's my first indicator. Then the next one is I'll start to get that pit in the stomach and then the the cold, like, skin sensation. And so I can call those things out as they're happening on a run Yeah. And know that, okay, this is you know, I'm gonna crash here.
Speaker 2:Like, that was a bad meal timing. But, but in in the more subtle, like, experiences, for example, when my blood sugar is, you know, relatively stable in in range, I can't quite tell you what it is. But, you know, I think a lot of it has to actually do with body temperature. Body temperature. Which is maybe, like, yeah.
Speaker 2:I I'd I'd have to I'd have to make some guesses and then go do some some studies on it to be able to really know. But all that to say, something's happening in the background that is processing these things.
Speaker 1:Got it. As you're talking, I keep thinking back to one of the points you made earlier, when you really felt like things were starting to go wrong while you were working at SpaceX, and you said that, like, you weren't excited about the work you were doing. I think maybe you might use the term miserable or you just weren't happy. And it makes me think about like, I wish people understood that the things that we're talking about, metabolic health, the food that you put into your body, it's not just being healthy for the sake of healthy. Like, if you get your health under control, it's truly a gateway to have, like, the best mindset that you've ever had and fundamentally become a different person.
Speaker 1:And I think about I mean, SpaceX was probably a dream job for you. You're working with the highest level highest caliber people you could possibly work with, and you're still miserable. And, like, that's what happens when you don't have metabolic health. We there's a company that we work pretty closely with blokes. It's like a male, telemedicine company, hormone health company.
Speaker 1:And he says that the founder says that the the people that thank them the most aren't actually the male patients. It's the wives of the male patients because they're directly seeing the changes in their husbands or boyfriends or whoever. And I wish people understood that fact that, like, wearing levels is not just to get your blood sugar in in line for the sake of being healthy. It will fundamentally transform who you are as a person mentally, physically, etcetera. It it's, you know, I I think again, in
Speaker 2:the words of of my cofounder, Casey, food is information. It's telling yourselves what to do. Your cells then take that information and turn you into a new version of yourself. You turn over all the cells in your body effectively. I mean, not entirely, but most of the cells in your body on the order of months.
Speaker 2:And so we're we're entirely transforming the the building blocks of who we are, body, brain, all all at you know, altogether. And and what we expose those tissues to is I mean, it's it's self evident that it's important to bathe those tissues in the right information if we want them to function properly. And, you know, it's important to say the connection between metabolic dysfunction and suicidal ideation, mental disorders, that range the spectrum from breaks to depression, depressive episodes, mania, the correlations are always there. So across all of those conditions, there is a you're already higher likelihood if you have a diagnosed condition like diabetes than without. Alzheimer's disease is being taught.
Speaker 2:So my wife's a registered nurse. When she was going through nursing school, she sent me a presentation deck from her curriculum titled Alzheimer's colon type 3 diabetes. So it is it's being taught that way because in Alzheimer's disease, the brain becomes insulin resistant in the same way that peripheral tissues become insulin resistant in in type 2 diabetes. And, you know, the direction of causality is not entirely understood, but the point is is that we have no reason to to think that, like, something that can affect our, you know, our bodies in such a profound way that it can it can literally glygate the tissues, stick stick to proteins, break down the function of our cells, ruin our nerves, our nerve endings, cause heart disease, stroke, that it couldn't somehow affect the brain, and and we know, in fact, it does. You know, I think one of the things that was really interesting recently is, there there was a lot of, you know, certainly on my Twitter bubble, a lot of discussion about how a recent study showed that SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, may not actually function the way we thought that the the reuptake of serotonin may actually not be the axis that they're working on.
Speaker 2:And I thought it was really interesting because it shows how little we can understand about the things we think we understand. And when people roll their eyes at the idea that a different nutrition philosophy can change your your predisposition to depression, I kinda have to, like, roll my eyes right back because, it's an unfounded, skepticism. And as somebody who can look at lifestyle related conditions driving directly the rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and Alzheimer's disease or potentially Alzheimer's disease, I should say, I have to wonder why why we would not connect those dots.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Like, the hubris to just think that food has nothing to do with your your mindset or your mental health is insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it really is, and it's it's a shame because there's, you know, I I understand there's a lot of emotion wrapped up in food. I mean, trust me, I I love eating food. Yes. I see it deeply as you can tell.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to give that up. And I think that's why people feel really, really threatened by the idea that there has to be some, some, you know, challenge their eating habits or some change. I have I empathize, but at the same time, like, you know, it's no reason to to hold back on what is actually going on and and and challenging the existing status quo, which is a food system that is that is making people sick mentally and physically. Well, one
Speaker 1:of the things that gets me extremely excited about what you're doing is I think back to my own experience going carnivore being so desperate to just try and get my gut health under control, get this inflammation out of my body. Still to this day, the biggest DM request that I get are people that are struggling with Crohn's, colitis, IBS, autoimmune, etcetera, that are just so desperate to get answers. And I think about all the people that are, like, deprived of this information from their doctor because something like carnivore or paleo is just labeled as being purely anecdotal. When what gets me excited is for companies like you that are effectively have are gonna have these massive pools of data of people that have tried these alternative diets that are able to improve their blood sugar and potentially, you know, get off these drugs and things like that. I feel like technology like yours will actually legitimize some of these alternative health movements because you'll actually have the data to support that these different diets and modalities are effective and working.
Speaker 1:We have the data to back
Speaker 2:that up. Absolutely. I mean, I think the future what what's really amazing is because we've had this technology revolution, miniaturized electronics, now, like, you know, more power dense batteries, optical, systems, like, that are getting smaller and smaller and and supercomputers in our pockets, we have the ability now to totally change the approach to medical research and to health care, where right now the, like, the gold standard is a randomized clinically controlled double blinded trial, where you take, you know, some handful of people as as big as the study power requires, and you take a few data points on them. You know, so this might be a large group of people with a few data points because that's all you can get in a short time period. And then you sort of, like, run some analysis on that, average the numbers in interesting ways, and then make that the the findings.
Speaker 2:So this is the average of the findings for this large group of people on which we took a few data points. Yeah. That's our current gold standard, and I think that has to go away entirely, and and we need to go to an n of 1 single individual and maximum number of data points possible. And we have the compute tech the the compute capability and the technology now to actually make that possible. So we can do, you know, we can do massive data collection for an individual that is constantly monitoring one's health state.
Speaker 2:And when somebody gets a has a a health finding, it's based on them. You know, it's model based on what we know about the systems underlying it, but it's based on only your data. So this finding isn't an average of people who have nothing in common with you. And and for women in particular right now, so many of the health findings that we are basing best practice on are are strictly derived from male only studies. You know, this is just a fact.
Speaker 2:And, and, you know, that's not even getting into other demographics and backgrounds, like, you know, do we have the same racial representation in all of our studies? No. Of course not. So, you know, right now, we're using poor data because we are just constrained in the way that we approach it. And, anyway, to to make a long story short, I I'm I'm super excited because, yes, these tools are going going to be able to give, not only some legitimacy to what were otherwise, like, these sort of fringe ideas, not just diets and and movements around nutrition, but also, like, functional medicine and systems biology.
Speaker 2:And and it will change, I think, in the long term the way that we conduct research, the way we think about health care in general. It's gonna be on a very individual basis, and that's gonna be a luxury, and that that I think will be very accessible in the same way that iPhones are very accessible.
Speaker 1:It's I mean, if that doesn't make you encouraged to to to understand that people are thinking about these highly personalized experiences to really help you address the root causes of what's going on. I don't know what could possibly make you more excited because I just think back I just think about all the the the people that are just banging their heads against the wall, just hoping that they had some type of a doctor that's covered by insurance that would talk to them about some of these different modalities, and they're just not getting the answers that they look for. But now that there there's companies like you and some of these other emerging brands that, like, really wanna put the power back into the patient, and allow you to maybe be your own doctor in a sense and be able to give people the guardrails that they really need.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, absolutely. We need to we need to scale that ability. We need to put people back in the driver's seat of their of their health and make them feel not just responsible, but empowered to be able to do something about that responsibility. And, right now, the system is not structured for that incentive.
Speaker 2:It's gonna change. It's gonna change typically out I think outside of the traditional health care systems where it's gonna start. You know, a lot of consumer tools, a lot of, real grassroots education like this podcast Yeah. Getting people thinking and getting them searching and seeking. And then it will be kind of like, you know, I I think, for example, this AI revolution that's happening is making complexity more approachable.
Speaker 2:So you can ask simple questions about complex topics and and get a really compelling answer, regardless of your, like, familiarity with it. And so all this, I think, is gonna merge together into a new system, not not a revision of the current one because I I just don't know that you can renovate what what exists right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. This is probably a dumb question, but why would a CGM not be covered by insurance for a nondiabetic patient? Because I the and the reason and just preface that, I just think through myself and, like, the experience I had with the CGM, and I'm like, how much money could these insurance companies be saving if they just covered these very basic CGMs? And I'm sure you get asked this question literally every single day, but it still boggles my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I I have to smile because I I I asked the same question and Yeah. The reality is that, still, we do not have a widely accepted understanding or let's just say a shared opinion about what is driving the epidemic of diabetes. Even though the CDC's website right now, you can go to the diabetes prevention program Yeah. Website, and you can see that if you're prediabetic or at risk for diabetes based on genetic history, you can change these certain things about your lifestyle and improve your likelihood of avoiding that condition.
Speaker 2:So they say that, and they believe that. But for some reason, it is controversial to say that eating habits, and in particular, eating certain types of heavily processed carb laden, refined foods, directly is driving that, and thus, wearing a CGM and modifying behaviors away from those decisions will improve your likelihood. So that that is somehow, we haven't made that leap. And, yes. So what it's gonna take is moving the needle with with hard evidence, and that's what we're we're we're working on.
Speaker 2:We have the largest, IRB approved study ever for general population CGM use. So we are collecting massive amounts of data on the real world use cases of CGM, covering, you know, long time frames as people use CGM in their in their real in their, you know, real lives and eat different types of foods and and how their their sort of health markers progress. And I think it's gonna be datasets like that that are gonna show concretely that this does have an impact. And then it then you'll see, like, a real clamoring for insurance companies to be like, oh, oh, wow. This is like a huge realization.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. We need to if we can if we can even move the needle on on diabetes by, you know, a per a single percentage point, that's gonna be a massive hit increment to our bottom line. And and then it will, like, flip all at once, I think.
Speaker 1:Any what one percentage point would be 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars saved. Right?
Speaker 2:We're on we're on track by 2030 to type 2 diabetes alone is is on track to cost $600,000,000,000 to the to the US GDP. And, you know, so it's you're on the order of, like, 20% ish of of health care expenses overall are driven by, basically, diabetes. And, of course, that includes some of the the side effects. You know, heart heart disease is frequently driven by the the condition of diabetes. But the point is is, like, again, this is systems biology.
Speaker 2:Like, I think I think that's probably underselling the amount that we would that we would, improve GDP if you had if you were able to eliminate type 2 diabetes as a as a concern for our population.
Speaker 1:Are you encouraged at all by the response that Levels has like, how has Levels been received by traditional western medicine? Are you encouraged by that, or is there part of you that's, like, we're just gonna have to build an entirely new system?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm I'm actually more encouraged recently than I was at the beginning. Starting out with levels, it was not encouraging at all. Frequently got very unhappy interactions with with the sort of traditional system and and folks inside of it who felt that this was a toy, and that would tell you useless information. It took a little bit of time, but but having more evidence from people, you know, like Betsy on our website who shared her story and, you know, just by using a CGM after decades of struggling, she lost £80 over the course of a few months. And and I was just using her CGM data every day to refine her decisions.
Speaker 2:So once once you have, you know, incontrovertible case studies like that, people start to pay attention. So it's it's been improving. But I think what's really interesting is I'm most optimistic about the sort of next generation that's going through medical school now. Because I I think there's so much of this in the conversation, through podcasts, through, you know, tools like Levels that are out there and in the consumer conscience, that people who are entering medical school or who are who are going through it, they are technologists, you know, by and large. And, you know, they've they've grown up with technology, and they think about these things differently.
Speaker 2:And and I think that's where we're resonating the most is we're we're really getting a ton of really exciting outreach. And many people who are in medical school today who who are using our product and stoked about it and, you know, Casey, teaches a course at at Stanford and, you know, she's just getting overwhelming positive response. There isn't this paternalistic, reaction, which maybe is a bit gatekeeper y, which is, like, this is medical information that, you know, the practitioner should own, which is kind of the the classic approach versus now where people are thinking about this as truly, like, decentralized individual health info that can just help you build a better diet. And, and so I think that's that's really encouraging. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, it's I'll just add in a note that even though, I think these tools would be available widely and much more affordably in the next few years. Today, anything that's part of the health record this is an interesting just anecdote, is not like, in 49 states and DC, the patient does not own their own health record their own medical record. The doctor or the hospital system owns it. The only the only exemption is is New Hampshire, and that's because they're, like, hardcore individuals as well. So, that's just an interesting thing is that the system today is set up such that the the person whose data is whose health is defined by the data does not own it, and therefore, can't make any claim to it.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why you end up with systems like this where there there could even be a challenge to whether someone could have access to this or not. You know, it's important to say, there there is a risk for people with type 1 diabetes who are life and death dependent on on insulin to on the correct insulin dose, to manage their blood sugar. That's life and death. And so CGM has to perform properly, and these tools are, for that reason, prescription controlled and rightfully so and well regulated. But for the use case that we're describing, the the barriers will will improve because it's obvious that that is a different use case than than for type 1.
Speaker 2:And so we'll we'll be seeing changes to the landscape of of tools that are available. And I think all of this pushback that, you know, for the few 1st few years we were getting in and honestly still is is quite common, is going to start to fade. And in particular, I think, as we branch from being able to measure one thing about the body, which I should say, it is possible to locally optimize just around CGM data, just around glucose. We will see many markers being available in a similar form factor, in a similar platform. And I think that's gonna really change the perception of, you know, this is just a fun toy to this is the future of how we're gonna tell what's going on in the body at all.
Speaker 2:And medical science and and medical schools are gonna be built on the same technology. They're going to be learning about the human body in the way that individuals today are are are using it.
Speaker 1:That's so well said. I my prediction is that I think companies like you are gonna make the alternative health movement just the health movement because for so long, you know, people like me, you know, eating a ton of red meat, a ton of animal products, curing this incurable autoimmune disease that's just being cast off as just, oh, that's anecdotal.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And now you're actually able to give me the data to prove that this stuff is quantifiable. It actually does work. So it's no longer this fringe crazy alternative alternative movement. No. It's just health.
Speaker 1:These are just principles. Like, the fact that we've eaten meat for 2,500,000 years and it helps you regulate your blood sugar and all that stuff. Like, you're quantifying these things that should be quantified. I I couldn't agree more. I I, you know,
Speaker 2:be being able to apply the scientific method, does not have to be only done in population scale. And, in fact, I would argue that it's probably the worst way to do it. It's the way we had to do it because it's the tools we had available. But you can still run the scientific method on an individual. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that is still science. Yes. That is gold standard science when we get to the point where the technology is really good. That's what I'm looking forward to. It's, like, it it's going to massively expand our conception of, like, the possible health conditions that some that that exist and and what causes them and and who's susceptible to them.
Speaker 2:And that's a good thing. It's gonna it's gonna first blow up the the space, the problem space, and it will feel intractable. But guess what? Like, that's where we are today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why we don't have that's why most drugs have no effect. This is this is why most people don't get cured when they get a condition. It's because we don't understand actually, like, what's driving it for that individual. So or at least that's my opinion. And and so I think when we get to the point where we have much finer detail on the individual level, we'll be able to develop tailor made solutions for an individual.
Speaker 2:And some of that will be in the pharmaceutical space, I'm sure. But a lot of it is gonna be just in the inputs that are driving that output. Like, why am I why was I experiencing insulin resistance? Because I was eating my way to it. I was I was living a lifestyle that was that can only lead to insulin resistance.
Speaker 2:I was sleeping poorly. I was I was making sure to disrupt my sleep with as much exercise and alcohol as close to bed as possible, and I was stressing myself out with, you know, an an insane work schedule while consuming massive in intolerable quantities of carbohydrates that I just was not metabolizing effectively. Mhmm. Like, there's no mystery there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. As you're speaking, I'm just thinking about just your background as an engineer, and I would imagine it's probably a superpower a lot of ways. And I feel like the people that are having some of the most impactful voices in the health space right now actually are outsiders. Like, I think about your engineering background. I think about Dave Feldman's engineering background, what he's doing with this whole, like, lean mass hyper responder theory and all the great work he's publishing.
Speaker 1:And then even people like, you know, Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz, they're investigative journalists that are really teaching people about nutrition in a way that we've never learned about it before. So I'm just curious. Do you view your engineering background kind of as like a superpower though in terms of the way that you approach the health space and the wellness space? I, because I feel like you have a very particular way of how you view problems and problem solve and things like that.
Speaker 2:Maybe. I mean, you know, it's interesting because I I my background is in mechanical, which is, like, one of the one of the more primitive engineering disciplines. But, you know, I I really like to build stuff, and I like to think about how machines work. And, I'm definitely yeah. I'm I'm maybe a little bit disturbed as somebody who who likes to understand really what's going on.
Speaker 2:And I'm used to deterministic problems, meaning, like, you know, when a machine stops breaking, there's a cause. And it's deterministic. You can find it. I'm a bit I think I think maybe the thing that that initially intrigued me so much about this was that it seemed like the whole health system was so comfortable not actually understanding what's going on in inside the human body, and and not even trying to build the tools and make them accessible to allow them to understand that. That's the thing that's bothered that bothers me maybe the most.
Speaker 2:And, you know, when I look at parked outside the parking lot, I have a 2002 Toyota Tundra. And plugged into that, I have a little Bluetooth dongle that plugs into the OBD 2 port, which basically allows me to access the the onboard computer. And that can tell me about 50 channels of live data about my 2002 Tundra, because there are sensors in the engine, mass airflow rate, fuel injection timing, all this stuff. That's a 2002 Toyota Tundra. That is, like, over the course of the life of that vehicle, probably 10,000,000,000 times more data than I will have about my body when I die at the current rate.
Speaker 2:And that's just ridiculous. Yeah. You know, you get an Airbus a 350 passenger airplane collects 2 and a half terabytes of data on every flight about essentially infinite sensors that are all over that vehicle. They have strain gauges on the wings showing how much they're flexing. They have every parameter of the engine's performance.
Speaker 2:All that stuff is stored in a recorder because it is both you used to understand performance of the vehicle and to prevent an unacceptable failure Mhmm. As well as to do forensics. But its main purpose is to maintain the function of that life or death aircraft. Human health is also life or death, and I I just simply like, my brain doesn't understand why we haven't approached it in that same way. Like, we should be instrumenting our bodies in the way that we instrument our machines to understand what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And to prevent failure. So I think I have just, you know, that's that's really not how health textbooks are written, and I understand that there is quite a bit of simplification there. I'm oversimplifying the problem. I understand that.
Speaker 2:But sometimes that's what you have to do with hard problems. It's just like, what's the smallest bite? You know, just, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So that's how I approach it.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's such a that's an unbelievable mental model. I've never thought about it from that perspective before that this truly, like, having access to these biomarkers and these data points truly is a matter of life or death. And then you imagine the things that you would be able to prevent just by having the right data and how many people live their lives without knowing the most basic but fundamental biomarkers that actually predict whether you're gonna be healthy long term or not. It's crazy. Like, how out of out of out of every 10 Americans, like, how many of those Americans could tell you, you know, their their blood sugar levels, their heart rate, you know, waist size, just very basic things that we know because we've put in the 10000 hours, and we've kinda needed to out of necessity.
Speaker 1:But I don't know. Maybe 9 out of 10 Americans probably couldn't tell you that data is my guess. Right?
Speaker 2:No doubt. And, you know, right now, 88% of Americans have at least one symptom of metabolic dysfunction. You got a 100,000,000, roughly, Americans with prediabetes or diabetes. 70% of them at least will get type 2 if they don't intervene. 80% of them don't know they have it.
Speaker 2:80% of people with prediabetes, of which there are 90,000,000, do not know that they are prediabetic. I mean, that is the most basic information about your your health state. And so yeah. I mean, absolutely, 9 out of 10 people would not know. And the problem is we have this confusion about what numbers we do know actually mean.
Speaker 2:So in a world where we get one blood panel per year at most, most people don't are not getting health check out checkups once a year. Those that are, you get one one data point. You get your blood panel at your checkup, and that gives you a number. Triglycerides, 105. Your triglycerides will double after a meal.
Speaker 2:That's well known. Like, the rate at which your triglycerides change is extremely dynamic. Wow. So you're you are not you don't have a triglyceride level of 105. You had that at that moment that you got your blood checked.
Speaker 2:And we have this confusion. So, like, often you know, literally often. And I I personally used to, like, throw numbers like that around because I thought they were sort of immutable characteristics. Like, my triglycerides are 105. And we just don't understand that these things change constantly.
Speaker 2:We are a we are literally a wet chemistry set. Mhmm. We are putting chemicals in, and new chemicals have to be synthesized to address those chemicals, break them down, make them into new chemicals, and that's happening constantly in reaction to the sunlight, in reaction to the food that we're eating, the sleep we're getting, our our current health state, on and on and on. And I think we just we are so confused because we've used these tools that, you know, where where the system tells you that getting your blood measured once a year is understanding your health state and understanding your triglycerides. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that is that is not what's happening. You they are changing constantly. It's it looks like this. It doesn't look like this. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? And and so, yeah. Laboring the point, but I think we we are actually not only do people are not people not connected with anything about their their their internal health state and the numbers that define it, but the numbers they are familiar with are, like, not useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't think you're belaboring the point at all. It's it's, I'm just I'm kinda blown away just thinking about the fact that you think about all the people that, you know, these the variables, the way that things can change from one day to the next with your blood work. You do one thing wrong, it pops a totally different score. And then you're going all these medication, these prescriptions when it's like, the future is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:It probably, like, hyper personalized to the point where it's so convenient where you can actually test all the time. We are not overly obsessed with it, but you have, like, real you have readings almost every single day of, like, how these biomarkers are changing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, think 10 years in the future and looking back. I mean, is it likely that we're going to be able to tell the real time health state of okay. Let me just say this. 10 years from now, for sure, I will be able to tell the real time health state of my body unquestionably. Like, it just seems obvious.
Speaker 2:Like, we'll have some technology will allow me to know the state of my body in a comprehensive way instead of having to do these, like, discrete tests when there's a risk that I have, you know, incurable illnesses. Like, yeah, that doesn't seem like the right way. So the right way will probably happen 10 years from now. Like, that's typically how we do things in life. We're like, yeah, we'll have flying cars in 10 years.
Speaker 2:The the problem is, like, I think we we have these we believe these things, that the future will deliver us a solution. But then in the moment, we sort of deny the assumptions that would go into believing that. Definitely. If you think that, then that means that you think you can measure the things that that define your health. And I agree with you.
Speaker 2:But why then are we not working on that technology? Why do why do people roll their eyes at the idea that we can, in, you know, in real time, understand the state of the human body? You know, it's it it I can both understand how we got here and also get really frustrated by it because, you know, it's a it's a situation where we we need to bring in different different perspectives, as you said. And we need to really let loose technology to do the thing that it's supposed to do. But we should do it in a very similar way to what we do in other industries.
Speaker 2:This is not yeah. I mean, maybe what's happening is we need to build the foundation layer of tools that will even allow us to to understand the complexity that is the human body. Because I I think what I'm doing in this conversation is maybe making light of how complex the issue really is. It really is very complex and and challenging. And I I oftentimes, like, even with my own body, I'm I'm pretty amazed at how little we know Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how little I know for sure. So that will continue for a long time, but that doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands and say, like, you know, only in established, you know, health centers can we do science. I think it's actually let's get as much information decentralized to individuals as possible so they they can at least get started on understanding what's going on, and let's improve that technology as fast as possible.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. Prior to us hitting record, you were you you were very fondly speaking about one of your cofounders, doctor Casey Means, who's incredible, and her her brother Cali is incredible too. And you you said about her that she has a warriors mentality. And I feel like you have a warriors mentality too.
Speaker 1:And I think that in this space with, like, everything that we're trying to battle against, you really do need that warriors mentality to push you forward. And, like, you know, there it's such a backwards industry in so many ways. But with that warriors mentality, I think it gives you hope that, like, you know, through conversations like this, we can compound and build on this thing and kinda write the direction of the ship over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Totally. And, you know, my cofounder, Sam, same. Like, it's a sort of a run through brick walls team, and I I think it's definitely necessary. It's such a it can be an overwhelming problem, and and I'm sure you experienced this when you're just thinking about the scope of what what you're trying to put out into the world and how many barriers there there are.
Speaker 2:You know, it can it can be overwhelming. But the it's little things, you know. I think Casey does a really good job of of helping people understand that this is not that complicated. Mhmm. You know, she there are very small and delightful rituals you can build into your life that will compound into a fundamentally different health outcome.
Speaker 2:And same with the technology we're trying to develop, you know, and and levels and, you know, it's it's software. We can we can do we can do a lot with software, but, you know, gotta start somewhere. And it can be difficult to think about, like, how are we gonna make the the world's best biological observability platform and help all these people of various backgrounds and technology abilities improve their lives. But, you know, the the fun part is just starting somewhere and then getting feedback, and that's been just incredibly gratifying is being able to work on this with people who are as motivated about it and talk to people like yourself who are sharing that, like, energy. And then to have people actually use it and and it will work, you know, to some extent in in their lives.
Speaker 2:Pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I feel like once you're able to have that mental reframe of the fact that, like, the fact that your mission is so difficult is actually a sign that it's really meaningful. Like, when you embrace that, it's like, you know, you're in an amazing spot. Yeah. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like, I would not want an extremely difficult mission that does not somehow feel like it intuitively must exist Yeah. Or should should exist. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, when you're getting like, I because I know that, like, the day to day of what you guys are trying to do is so difficult, and you probably have that feeling of there's just no way that I can possibly accomplish everything I need to do every 24 hours. But when you get testimonials of a woman losing £80 from your technology, it's like, how does that not just compel you to just wanna keep running through a brick wall and spreading these spreading this message as far and as wide as possible?
Speaker 2:It totally does. Yeah. Yeah. It totally does.
Speaker 1:Well, what's the best way for people to either connect with you, get access to a level CGM? I'm sure people are gonna wanna get some of that goodness on their arm. So what's the best way for them to sign up? Yeah. Well, we'd we'd love
Speaker 2:to have people come and join levels levels health dot com. It's website. You can follow us at levels on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at joshuasforest on Twitter. I I'm not super active, but I I share I share my thoughts here and there.
Speaker 2:And, and, generally, I I would also highly recommend following Casey at doctor Casey's Kitchen on on Instagram. She she does some really amazing work, has a great book coming out, good energy, which we we talked a little bit about her and her brother, Cali. But, really goes to the underpinnings of that systems biology, metabolic health foundation that affects every tissue, every reason that that, something can go wrong. Metabolic health underlies that. So, I think that's those are the starting points.
Speaker 2:And all always check out
Speaker 1:our blog, levelsoft.dot com forward slash blog. There's so much good information on there too. But, brother, I appreciate it so much, man. Conversations like this are really what give us hope for the future, and I really do believe that we can pull back from the brink because of people like you and companies like Level. So just so appreciative of everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you having this conversation, and, can't wait to do it again soon.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, man. This was awesome. And, shout out to the Levels team. They're they're the ones doing the hard work.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks, brother. Cool.
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