Habits and Hustle - Episode 86: Josh Clemente – Founder of Levels, Metabolic Fitness Company to Maximize Diet & Exercise

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Josh Clemente is the Founder of Levels, Metabolic Fitness Company to Maximize Diet & Exercise. After working for Elon Musk at SpaceX straight out of school, it’s clear Josh is a person insistent on questioning taking things how they are and, instead, as how they should be. On a deep-diving quest to understand the parts of our chemistry and bodies that most are taking at face value, Josh topples our ideas of exercise, diet, stress, sleep, and even sugar, itself. Guiding Jen through his life as a crossfit instructor, Josh dawned a metering device literally made for diabetics, which he was not, and cracked the code to his own metabolic system-wide open making him realize his ideas on health were far from correct. Frustrated with friends or family dropping 20 lbs while you see no results from the same plan? Unable to find what works for you? Maybe you’re fit, you lift, and you seem healthy, but you have no energy or something feels off. Take a listen and see if Josh can’t clear some of that anxiety up, and get you back on track. Youtube Link to This Episode Level’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blazing deals, boundless options. It's Hot Grill Summer at Whole Foods Market from June 14 through July 4. Fire up the grill with quality cuts at the best prices. We're talking animal welfare certified meat. Check out the sales on Bone-In-Rib-I, Beef Cabobs, and New York Strip Steak. Round out your barbecue with plant-based proteins, slice cheese, soft buns, and all the condiments. Plus, sales on fresh strawberries, peaches, and more. Don't forget to pie, either.

Get grilling at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. When there's a penalty on the field, referees are there to sort it out. When there's an accident on the road, that's where USAA steps in. We help make the claims process easy, so drivers can get back on the road fast. Making the right calls. That's what we're made for. Membership eligibility and product restrictions apply in our subject to change. USAA means United Services Automobile Association and its affiliates.

San Antonio, Texas. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast. A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits, and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by habit nest. Now here's your host, Jennifer Cohen. I wanted you to come on the podcast because your background was extremely interesting and unique, right? You came from SpaceX as a lead engineer, right? And you were at Hyperloop. Yep. And you were working with, working right under Elon Musk, too, right?

So there are a few people in between us, but I was in a weekly meeting with Elon and definitely did a lot of, got to see the way his mind works and generally I think developing appreciation for tackling gigantic problems very quickly despite the impossibility. You know what, I think it'd be interesting just on like doing to do a whole other podcast on just that experience working with someone like Kent, right? Yeah. But, you know, I can only imagine, like, the, I guess, to kind of get, like, inside that guy's brain, that close-up and meetings, it must be quite interesting and fascinating on its own, right? Yeah, it was, I consider myself one of the luckiest people, you know, in my generation

for having the opportunity to, I mean, it was my first job out of school. I was able to land that and spend six years there. And I don't think you could find a better incubator for learning how to think and how to tackle problems like in a very principled way. You don't have to get caught up in all the complexity and bureaucracy that a lot of other organizations do. You can just kind of go right to the heart of the problem and just solve bite-sized chunks of it and get a really good team to do it with you and you can do incredible stuff. And so being able to get involved at that early age, I think, was so helpful and it just invaluable to being. I would love to figure out a way to replicate that environment somehow. I'm no Elon, but it's definitely just powerful for young

people trying to learn how to make a difference to have that hands-on experience and see that it's possible to pull off crazy stuff in short periods of time. Well, what I think is it's so remarkable is that you come from a figure, your background is all very much engineering and then you pivot it into a very, I think a kind of way, like a very forward thinking wellness company with levels, and what you're doing there, and it was metabolic health, and like how did you go from being an engineer with SpaceX and doing the hyperloop stuff and with that background, why did you even decide to even start levels and explain what metabolic health is and what that path was for you?

Yeah, so I originally had no idea what metabolism was. I'm not a medical professional. I don't have really any history of working in the sciences of biology and physiology, but the path to discovering specifically the tremendous sort of consequences of poor metabolic health was through my own experience, discovering that I had metabolic dysfunction by using this new technology called continuous glucose monitoring. So while I was at SpaceX, I led a team working on life support systems. So these were the systems that have since kept astronauts alive well or on orbit. And so this is like the breathing apparatus, the pressure controls that keep the atmosphere

inside the spacecraft at a certain pressure and temperature and oxygen ratio and things like this. And so I had an opportunity to read some of the research that NASA is producing with people like Dom Diagostino from the University of South Florida. And when you're thinking about keeping astronauts healthy long-term, imagine like multiple years without access to doctors. Well, you can either have doctors as astronauts or you can ensure that they are truly healthy. And so the way NASA's thinking about this

is very holistic. It's not waiting for symptoms to arrive. They're thinking about tracking data biomarkers specifically and managing lifestyle choices, which are diet, exercise, sleep, and stress. And so seeing this research completely kind of changed my perspective because I had always been a, like just a workout fiend,

you know, I'm a CrossFit trainer, a level two. I, I, is like, if you, if you're physically fit, if you can lift heavy weights and run fast, you're healthy. That was how I thought. And so I kind like, if you're physically fit, if you can lift heavy weights and run fast, you're healthy. That was how I thought. And so I kind of... I think I want to keep both things that, right? I think the perception is not always reality. And that's a perfect example of that. Or a lot of me too, right? People think this because you look the part that that means in the insights that you're on points. Right. And, you know, for many reasons, it's

won't kind of understandable because we don't have any closed loop feedback right now. I mean, traditionally, we've had no way of actually knowing what is happening under the hood. And so we go off of these aesthetic markers, like the way down the scale, how you look, musculature, and it's like, okay, those are the visual indicators of health, or at least that's what we use.

And so that's how I always was. And I have a crazy sweet tooth. I mean, I just like, because I never had a weight issue, I would eat whatever I wanted. And so I kind of got to this point where, you know, about five years into my time at SpaceX, I was physically and mentally burning out. My mood was really low. I was going through these crazy, like roller coasters of fatigue and just trying to drink enough coffee to get into the next meetings. Of course, it's a stressful environment, but I didn't really step

back and think, okay, what is this telling me? The fact that I feel so bad, yet I have this perception that I am physically healthy. There's some problem here. This is a juxtaposition that doesn't make sense. And so I started reading, okay, what does, given this NASA research that diet and overall wellness matter, what am I doing to understand whether I'm actually healthy? Because it frankly feels like I'm very unhealthy today. And so I started digging into the research and realized that basically the metabolic system, so the endocrine system, and I'll describe them in just a second, it breaks down first. It is basically one of the leading indicators of eventual morbidity.

So five out of the top 10 reasons that Americans die today and in most developing nations, is due to a condition associated with metabolic dysfunction. And these are things like stroke, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, all have metabolic underpinnings. And so realizing that, I decided, okay, I need to go and gather some quantitative data. Like I need to have objective information. It's telling me whether or not I'm making the right choices to set myself up for metabolic health.

One of the first things I did was start measuring blood sugar and you can prick your finger with these over-the-counter devices. As measuring blood sugar couldn't make much of it. Then I read about these devices called continuous glucose monitors, which you wear, and they continually monitor. And so I asked my doctor for one of these. He had no idea why I would need this. It's like, he basically took my line of reasoning and said, look, you're physically fit. You're one of the fittest people that comes in here.

So you don't need this. You know, this is for sick people. Right. And so... Diabetic, typically, right? Like usually, diabetics would be the people who would use those. That's what it was traditionally right. It was developed for.

So eventually I did get one. Within about two weeks, I had enough information that told me that I was either pre-diabetic or borderline depending on who you ask. This is with 8% body fat and basically eating home-prepared meals, brown rice, sweet potatoes, basically vegetables, what I thought were low glycemic carbs and proteins. And so this was a total screeching tire moment for me where I suddenly understood that what I was doing was not working for me.

And I then used the CGM data to completely renovate my own lifestyle and take a more conscientious approach to sleep, stress management at work, and out diet and, and exercise, so that I could bring my blood sugar and metabolic control into order, and that experience, and then the understanding of just how massive the epidemic of metabolic dysfunction is, is what caused me to start levels. And so to put a few points on that, and just basically describe what metabolism is real

quick. Basically metabolism is the set of processes in our bodies that takes food and environment and turns it into energy. So every cell and every tissue in our bodies requires energy to function, and that's our brains, our muscles, everything. And so these processes, they're basically driven by hormones and they take our food and they take the environment like sunlight and they transform it into energy. And so when those processes start to break down, we have severe consequences.

And those are those leading causes of death I touched on. And they also extended to more quality of life. So weight gain, PCOS or infertility, sexual dysfunction, everything all the way down to mood disorders and cognitive decline. And so those are all a result of energy dysfunction. And so that's why this like metabolism concept is what we call the underpinning the foundation of physical health and mental health. So yeah, I want to test on a lot of things that you talked about.

But one thing that I wanted to start with was someone like yourself because you're a great example, right? You were, you were, you looked physically, you were very physically fit, you were like your set of CrossFit level 2 trainer. You were doing all the things, you know, you're eating right. Before you went, even asked for that, before you went to the doctor and asked for the glucose monitoring system, right? What were some of the symptoms? Because what you said to me and what I am kind of, you know, your lifestyle because of your work environment was so chaotic and so stressful, like you would think that that in itself would be like,

okay, you know what, obviously you're like, you're breaking down your body because you're, you know, you're so stressed out. If you just eliminated that stress piece because you're let's say, like, you know, you're not like the normal person working at, you know, an office from nine to five, you're working at SpaceX with Elon and all these other people doing these crazy, extremely high profile projects, right?

Were there any symptoms beyond just feeling stress and fatigue from your crazy schedule that made you want to take a deeper dive into your glucose levels? So unfortunately the answer to that is no. The primary issues were these nebulous things like fatigue and mood disorder. So just generally having low mood, not feeling happy or fulfilled, and you know, kind of the things we all struggle with. And this is one of the complications with metabolism. Is that it, it is a very important job.

It could be a job, but I guess my point is, wasn't it? Could it just be that your job was just like crazy stressful and you just need to get a new job? You know what I mean? Exactly. Well, I think this is kind of the way most people go about it is they feel our way through it. And so we feel emotional about it.

And we think, well, I'm stressed because of work. And that's why I feel so bad day in and day out and why I kind of like I'm drinking so much coffee to try and keep my mood up because I just don't not enjoying it. And that could totally be true. Of course, we can all have, you know, there are qualitative things we can make choices about. But the numbers in terms of metabolic dysfunction are really telling. And so, you know, when you're looking at society today, we have 88% of American adults who are metabolically unhealthy, 71% of adults and 30% of children are overweight

or obese. 90% of people are pre-diabetic in the United States alone, and 90% of them don't know that they are pre-diabetic. So this dysfunction is failing silently. And the reason that these numbers are so out of control is because they're aren't typically overt symptoms, and they are a slow progression towards worse and worse outcomes. And that is the real problem,

and this is what we need to eliminate, is Is that it's not the case that when you make poor lifestyle choices, you immediately feel an acute pain or discomfort. Like there's no feedback loop. This stuff happens quietly behind the scenes. But when you have sort of the ability to bring real-time information to the front, you can start to see, oh wow, that choice I'm making daily.

Like whether it's sleeping five hours instead of the full eight hours or skipping that salad before my meal and going straight to the heavy carb-rich meal without any sort of balanced macronutrients, like these small things, which I've kind of heard, or I should eat better and exercise more, but that feels very abstract. Once you can see the effect of the good choice versus the bad choice with objective data, it all becomes very clear. And it stops being this like emotional experience and becomes an objective data-driven experience.

Yeah, and what I find so fascinating is I heard you talk about this before, is, let's just talk about even the glycemic index, the foods that they say are high on the glycemic index low. Because I find your research has proven that a lot of that is arbitrary. Everyone is very individual, but how I react to some food is very different than how you would react. The idea of brown rice versus white rice, that brown rice is the superior type of carbohydrate, well, maybe to some people, but to me or to you,

it really just increases that glucose level or your levels, your glucose level. So let's talk about that. I think that's really interesting because people are trying to biohack their way into all these ways to level up their life. And one thing that people really haven't really figured out until I guess your company knew is really about the tracking of that glucose to stabilize your blood sugar, right?

So how did you, yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, so glycemic index is really interesting. So for people that aren't super familiar, glucose is the primary energy molecule in the modern human, right? So we can basically produce energy from glucose, fat, and protein. Those are the three major macronutrients.

And for all of us, we have blood sugar. So that's the glucose in our blood. And that's the primary way that we produce energy. So it's important that we have it in our bodies, but we need to maintain a tight range. So our bodies want us to stay in a very specific range, and when glucose gets out of that range, bad things happen. So it's a very reactive molecule. It can start to damage tissues. If it's too high, we can have major consequences like up to and including passing out and or morbidity if it goes too low.

And so it's very important that it stays in a tight range. And so traditionally, there has been an effort for people to understand how their meals are affecting their glucose without being able to measure it. So one of the metrics that was produced is this thing called glycemic index. And what it does is it tries to tell you how a specific food compares to pure sugar in the way it affects your blood sugar control. So basically, it's like, you can imagine looking on the glycemic index, brown rice would have a lower glycemic index than white rice, which means that as compared to pure sugar, brown rice raises your blood sugar less than

white rice. And so that makes sense, right? It's a scale. The problem is that it's normalized to 100. And so what that means is it's basically averaging out all of the individuality. So it may be true that both you and I respond to brown rice with a lower blood sugar peak than pure sugar. The difference is I might go to 250 milligrams per desk

liter blood sugar when I eat pure sugar and 180 when I eat brown rice. And you might only go to 110 on pure sugar and 105 with brown rice. And so even though brown rice is less effective for both of us, the fact is I should avoid both pure sugar and brown rice because I'm so much more sensitive to you. And all of that nuance and individuality is completely blended out when you look at the

glycemic index. And so recent studies like the biggest one was out of Israel, the Weisman Institute in 2015 showed that two people who are not, they don't have diabetes can eat the exact same two foods and they can have equal and opposite blood sugar responses. So the specific example was a banana and a wheat cookie. And so two people, well they had 800 people eat these while wearing continuous glucose monitors. And they showed that one person can have a huge blood sugar spike on the banana. And their blood sugar remains flat on the cookie.

And the other person will have a huge blood sugar spike on the cookie, or remain flat on the banana. And so what this shows is not only is the glycemic index insufficient, it also is potentially just straight up not useful, because this now undermines the fact that there's so much variability that there may not be any one-size-fits-all scale of glucose sensitivity. So it's not useful for me to look at the glycemic index and say, oh, I should eat brown rice because it's lower than sugar. I need to know, am I sensitive to fruit sugars more than grain sugars? And the only way to do that is to have real time blood sugar information available.

So what is the CGM? Can you explain what that is actually? I mean, can we just go, what is the difference between going to the drugstore and doing what those diabetic people do, which is pricking your finger, right, and kind of getting a quick read on what your glucose levels are? So, basically, diabetes is a condition where, and there are two types, type one and type two. But basically the condition is that we've lost control of our blood sugar.

And so insulin, which is a hormone that helps us manage glucose, starts to fail. And so it does not, it, we no longer can keep our glucose in that tight range. And so in order to help monitor and maintain healthy glucose levels, people with diabetes have to measure them. And so for the longest time, they had to use these finger prick devices where you actually prick your finger and you bleed onto a little strip and then measure it. You get one data point. However, the medical device industry developed this really impressive technology called continuous

glucose monitoring. And so this is a little patch that you wear on the body full time. And it has a little sensing filament that you wear on the body full time. And it has a little sensing filament that is measuring blood sugar levels in the skin full time. And so now you no longer have to break your finger and you get a measurement every couple minutes continuously while you're sleeping, while you're exercising in between meals. And you can just look at your phone and see the full history of your blood sugar.

And you now not only have just one data point, but it can also tell you, this is where you are right now, this is where you were 15 minutes ago, and this is the direction you're heading. And so this, like completely changed the equation for people with diabetes, you can imagine how valuable that is when you're trying to understand your condition. Now, it's super valuable and it was developed for that condition, but now we've got

into the point where advances in the cost and accessibility and availability have made these devices more available for people without diabetes. So we're all, you know, we all have metabolism, we're all dealing with glucose levels day in and day out that are fluctuating. We all have hormones that drive those glucose levels. And so each of us, no matter where we are in the metabolic health spectrum, can learn from our blood sugar levels and improve. So we can always optimize no matter where we are, whether we're in a lead athlete

or someone who wants to lose a lot of weight for health reasons. And so this device, this little patch with the corresponding software, is going to completely change the game in terms of understanding the reactions that we're experiencing to the actions we're taking every day. Well, because also there's a correlation between weight gain, right? And your glucose and insulin levels, right?

So what is the impact? What is the impact? Why is it so? Like explain a little bit about that. So we've historically thought about weight gain as calories and calories out. And that's a very simplified way of understanding the way that our bodies produce energy. We consume energy and then some of it turns into energy for ourselves. That is somewhat useful.

But the problem is that our bodies are not like a clean stove where you put in wood and burn it and you get a certain amount of heat. We're basically a chemistry set where we have a bunch of hormones that are being released and those hormones are being released in response to the other molecules and chemicals that are in our bodies. So you can imagine if you eat a, you eat pure sugar, like consume two tablespoons of pure sugar. Our bodies have to release insulin to make sure that we take that pure sugar that's getting into the bloodstream very quickly

and get it out into the cells before damage starts to happen. That is a completely different process than, for example, eating a very fiber rich, let's say, we'll just say eating some heavy brand. So it has a lot of carbohydrates in it, but it's also packaged with fiber and maybe a little almond butter on top. And so you have like kind of a rich protein fat and glucose meal. That might have the same number of carbohydrates, but the rate that that sugar gets into the bloodstream is much slower. And so now our bodies don't have to release this massive spike of insulin in order to correspondingly

control blood sugar levels for that different meal. And so this is like kind of an example of how the hormonal response to the meals we eat is very contextual. It's not just the calories that matter. It's the hormonal effects that matter. And so this is all called the hormonal theory of weight balance, which basically says the context of our decisions will drive hormones, which will affect how our bodies manage the energy.

And so if you have a very large blood sugar spike, your body will release a very large insulin, released to correspond to it. And that insulin tells your body get this blood sugar out of the bloodstream and store it one way or another. And so it will store it as glycogen first. Once your glycogen reserves are full, it will then store it as fat. And so this kind of implicates a bit of a difference between our old theory of just calories or calories or calories and makes us come to terms with the fact that it's actually the calorie and the meal composition that in total will define the way we individually store our food as fat, or as we're used

it directly as energy. So if you don't want to spike your insulin, right, so how about things like high intensity exercise, right, like running things like that, right, that really kind of spike your cortisol levels? Does that kind of counterintuitive then? Is it not a great idea to do high-intense exercise according to what your research has shown? So it's a really good question.

So the effects of high-intensity interval training or any very strenuous exercise are that, like you said, it will release these hormones like cortisol and in some cases adrenaline, depending on how intense work that is. And those hormones basically tell the body, all right, look, we're in a very tough situation, we've got to make sure that there's energy available, and it inhibits the effects of insulin. So it prevents insulin from getting the sugar in our blood out into the cells to store

it as fat. It basically says, keep this sugar available for our muscles to burn for energy and or our brains. And so although that is true, it will allow our blood sugar levels to rise and inhibit insulin. The effects are physiologically very different from the response to a very sugary meal. So let's say drinking a frappuccino that's loaded up with syrup and sugar, and sitting on the bus or in the car commuting, our blood sugar will spike. However, the effects of insulin are not inhibited, and so all of that is being stored directly as fat. Whereas when I'm doing an intense workout, I might have a blood sugar spike, but that spike is caused by my liver producing new glucose from the stores on my body, from

my protein fat and glycogen, and releasing it from my muscles to power me through the workout. And the research that's been done on high intensity interval training has shown a very strong correlation between that intense exercise and actual insulin sensitivity, which means after the workouts, our bodies respond even more efficiently to the insulin levels in our bodies. So we need less insulin per unit of glucose to remove it from the bloodstream if that makes sense. And so that is the direction we want to improve.

We want to minimize insulin levels and improve the effect of insulin on our blood sugar management. And high-intensity interval training, in fact, all exercise has been shown to directly improve that. bobs and New York strip steak. Round out your barbecue with plant-based proteins, sliced cheese, soft buns, and all the condiments. Plus, sales on fresh strawberries, peaches, and more. Don't forget the pie, either. Get grilling at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear. The hit series returns with Jeremy Allen White and the Golden Globe-winning role of Karmie.

He and the team will transform their family sandwich shop into a next-level spot, all while being forced to come together in new ways as they confront their past and reckon with who they want to be in the future. FX is the bear, all episodes now streaming only on Hulu. So is there a particular exercise that you think is a better exercise? What are the best exercises to do to kind of manage the glucose, insulin, impact, and levels? To get the best results for weight gain rate loss? Well, there's two types of training I think that are really valuable. I think basically all types of exercise are going to be beneficial to the individual trying to maintain what's your control and

improve metabolic fitness. The two key ones are zone two training, which is it's basically training the threshold between fat oxidation and glucose oxidation. So when you're pushing very intensely, your body basically has to switch over to burning pure sugar. And this is called anaerobic exercise. When you're going sort of at a lower intensity, this is called anaerobic exercise. And this is where your body is getting most of its energy from fat stores. And so when you train at the high end of your aerobic threshold, and especially in a condition where you are fasting or eating a higher fat diet,

your body will be basically training its ability to increase fat oxidation, using the stores of fat on your body as opposed to using, let's say, sugar gels or a stored sugar or, you know, basically sugary drinks. And so this sort of zone to threshold training for long periods can really improve our metabolic flexibility, which is the ability of our bodies to switch between food energy and stored energy on the body. So that's one, I think, training that zone to region, it'll improve mitochondrial efficiency, and it will improve our ability to use the body fat stores, which is exactly what we want to generate energy daily. The other one is high intensity.

So does that mean I'm going to say, well, okay, so did you say that brisk would you say that brisk walking is more effective than running? So I think the zone two threshold specifically is around 70 to 80% of your maximum heart rate. So it's more intense than brisk walking, but specifically to managing blood sugar levels, I think any type of activity is really valuable. And so one of the things we've seen from our data set is that the effect that a meal will have on our blood sugar, if we eat that meal and then sit on a couch versus eating that same meal and getting up and taking a brisk walk around the neighborhood, is completely different.

And the reason for that is that no matter how sort of minimal the intensity level, if our muscles are working and contracting, they can pull sugar into the muscle and use it for energy immediately without insulin. So if you, let's say you have a personal pizza, you indulge a little bit at lunch, if you then go and get in your car and drive back to work or something like that, versus walking to that pizza place and then walking back, you'll have a completely different blood sugar response because your body is using that glucose in a real time and it will modify the amount of insulin you need to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. And so, yeah, basically any type of movement distributed throughout the day, I think is a

net benefit and everyone can start to implement this daily for better metabolic control. When it comes to training, I think zone two and high-intensity interval training are the two types that we should interest first to really ramp up insulin sensitivity specifically. But how often would you say do hip training? Like, because it's not a great thing to do every day, right? Because all the other, you know, there's, there's also like anything, everything in moderation. I'm not a very moderate person. I'll be honest with you because I'm much more of the high intensity person every day, but I will say you don't, you do plateau and you do break down your body much quicker, which

has a lot of other cons to it, right? So where is that happy medium for my research? It's a good question. I think it's something that we still need more data and we need to continue to interpret it to understand where the ideal balance is. But I think the biggest component of this is recovery. And so if we're going 110% every day, it's impossible for our bodies to adapt and recover to that. It's just, it's too much for us to ask him too much.

And so I agree, every day is not the right throughout cadence for intensity training. Now, where exactly that balance is, it is gonna definitely depend on the individual. I think people like, you know, who are doing some really good work around recovery are helping to highlight, you know, exactly how your body's responding to the training you're throwing at it.

And that connection between good recovery and specifically good sleep and metabolic control is really strong. And so, for example, we can show in our data set that if one person has five hours of sleep versus nine hours of sleep, they'll have a completely different day in terms of blood sugar control. And there have been studies that have showed that just six hours of sleep, so basically cutting off two hours from a normal eight- night of sleep, can increase your insulin levels by 40%.

And so for someone who's trying to improve insulin resistance, that acute stress of having short nights of sleep can continually compound and increase the negative effects of small decisions you make. So after a short night of sleep, you indulge in that same meal. It's going to have a much worse impact than two days ago when you had eight hours of sleep. And so this is one of the key things, especially if you're someone who's trying to train to lose weight

or to improve metabolic health. You don't want to be going 110% and not recovering, because that can have the same sort of stress effects on your body as a poor night of sleep, you're it's basically incomplete recovery. And so these things can stack on themselves and you might think you're doing something that's beneficial for you, but you could actually be working against your goals. I think sleep is so important. I think sleep is so underrated, people think, okay, if I sleep for five hours, that's good

enough. But I think what you said is so accurate. I know I just came back from a red, I did a red eye and I, you know, I didn't sleep for two days and I feel like really did it through and threw me off for a good six days after. Like it really did because number one, like you said, you do like even subconsciously, you don't even think you're doing it. Your decision making is much more lax in terms of your what you're eating. Right. You eat, you eat, you eat, you all eat, you'll end up eating more carbs, more back, more

sugary foods, these are back to you unintentionally. That's, that's just the first part. But then you're also saying what it does is also how your body actually responds to those foods. You're insulin is much more peaked. Exactly. Beyond just the bad decision making. Actually when you're actually eating the food is actually your levels are completely out of whack. Yep, the hormonal response is different. So

that you know it's really important to understand the context of our choices and so there are basically four big levers. You have diet, exercise, sleep, and stress and these are the choices we're making every single day. And it's really key we're starting to learn that when you're compromised on one of those sort of vectors. So let's say sleep my compromise because maybe you just had a baby and you're treating, you're not getting good sleep

or maybe you switch jobs or something like that. All of these things now will cascade down. And so when you're compromised on one of those four levers, it's even more important to be mindful and make better choices on the other three. So when sleep is compromised, diet, exercise, and stress, you should do what you can to improve mindfulness and get some movement in day after day and choose meals that are better for you. And it's, so we're starting to see with better data in real time.

We're starting to close these feedback loops and understand how much context matters. This is not something that, you know, you just do the same thing day in and day out, and you're getting the same results. And this is, I think, why for so many, the, you know, the traditional diet concepts have just failed. Because for someone who, you know, is living a very stressful life or has much worse sleep habit or hygiene perhaps they have sleep apnea or something like that, they might try the exact same lifestyle choices as someone else who lost 25 pounds effortlessly

and it doesn't work for them. Well, that's because they're in a more compromised situation. They're all individuals with different hormonal environments and so there is no one size fits all. We all have to have contextual information to drive our choices and it can feel overwhelming but the beauty is technology one size fits all. We all have to have contextual information to drive our choices. And it can feel overwhelming, but the beauty is technology's getting us there.

More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. So I just finished reading the book, Believe in People, which was not only just a great read with so much insightful information, but it gives you a different perspective. The solution to our country's biggest problems are closer than we think, and believe in people by Charles Koch and Brian Hux is the guidebook to uncovering them.

It's a look into the transformations that happen in society when we transform ourselves, from former gang leaders to peace brokers, to those who overcome poverty and are now inspiring thousands to do the same. There's a reason bestselling author and stoic advocate Ryan Holliday called it a provocative book for the moment. The stories inside detail the habits, principles, and evocions of true change makers. Pre-order the book today at believeinpeoplebook.com slash habits and gain access to bonus content ahead of its November 17th publication. And now to our next sponsor. Do you have an idea but not sure how to bring it to life? Well, you've got to try Canva Pro. It makes design simple, whether you think you're creative or not. Whether you want to create a stunning social media post or

make it for some marketing materials, professional presentations and videos, Canva Pro is jam pack with ways to simplify and speed up the design process. It's rare to find one platform that's got so much creative needs covered, but with Canva Pro, you really do have everything you need. You just choose from one of the thousands of designer-made templates before customizing and sharing it, all in just a few clicks. Guys, if I can do it, you can do it, because I'm the least creative person in the world, and it makes it so easy.

You can even do it as you go. There's an app. So start designing like a pro. Go to canva.me slash habits. Plus with my unique link canva.me slash habits, you get a 45 day extended trial. To start designing for free today, go to canva.me slash habits. That's canva.me slash habits. Note the URL has to be all in lowercase. Canva, design for everyone. So with your company levels, is it a wearable technology then? Is that really what you're doing during the continuous glucose monitoring for a wearable device?

So what we're doing is we're taking the continuous glucose monitors that were originally developed for diabetes management and we're bringing them to the world of health and wellness, general informational health and wellness. And to do that, we're building the platform, basically the behavior change software on top of these devices. And so now using levels, you log your diet exercise sleep and stress, and we use machine learning to interpret the raw blood sugar levels that are coming into the system, and then tell you how to make better choices.

So we just surface insights so that you can see that that effect of short sleep, or you can see the effect of a walk, or you can see the effect of a good streak of exercise on your blood sugar control, and then you can connect that to quality of life. So I can then see over time after making these little micro optimizations, I can see the receipts, is that how I like to describe it for those choices. And that might be better meal order, that might be more activity, it might be better sleep hygiene. But now I have the blood sugar data in real time

to close that feedback loop for me. So I can actually see the benefit and not just try and feel emotionally through it. Can you see, can you track your exercise, right? And if you can see if you're working out too intensely too often, you would see if can you tell if you're spiking way too high to come back down at a normal

or healthy pace? So, yeah, you can see some really interesting patterns with different types of exercise. So with those really intense workouts versus the zone 2 training I was describing. And so there's this awful effect where for me personally it's at about 85% of my maximum heart rate. So when I'm going more intense than 85% for at least 20 minutes, my blood sugar will skyrocket. And that's my body turning on cortisol, turning on adrenaline,

and basically unleashing a lot of blood sugar for me to fuel that workout. Whereas when I'm below that threshold, let's say I do a two hour bike ride at only 65% of my heart rate, my blood sugar will just decrease slowly over time. I will use that glucose that's available in my body, but store it in currently in my heart rate. My blood sugar will just decrease slowly over time. I will use that glucose that's available in my body, both stored and currently in my bloodstream, and it will just decrease monotonically, and it's a completely different effect from that high-intensity interval training. And so the valuable thing there is to understand, depending on the type of training I'm doing, I should fuel completely differently. And so a lot of people, they just approach, if I'm going to work out, I need to have a bagel in a banana before I go. And it doesn't matter whether it's jumping on the

bike for two hours or going to, for an intense crossfit workout. Well, when I see the data, you realize for that crossfit workout, my body's producing all the energy I need from the stores available on my body. The body fat I'm carrying, the glycogen in my body. So my liver will produce that glucose. I don't need to eat anything before the gym. Whereas if I'm jumping on the bike, that slow decrease in blood sugar, I will eventually run out and out, basically outpace my liver's ability to produce it. And so if I want to avoid bonking, which is that, you know, that infamous term of running into the wall and losing energy, I can time, I can time additional fuel perfectly because I can see it happening in real time and I can get additional calories

and if I need it before I hit the wall. So it's really valuable to see the delta between two different types of exercise. Is it complicated or is it pretty easy to use? I mean, it sounds like there's a lot of data and even the way you're vocabulary and talking and explaining things like for the layman's person, it can seem a little bit complicated,

maybe to really grasp and understand. Is there a way to kind of like dumb it down for people who are not normally used to being to do whatever, use this? Absolutely. So levels is, the entire goal is to develop sustainable behavior change. And so right now, although the concept sound complex, the entire level thesis is around

developing simple scores that show you the effects of choices you're making, both probably like whether positive or negative. And we combine all of this under the hood research and data science and concepts into simple scores. So for example, you eat a meal and you take a walk, and then you eat that same meal the next day and you don't take a walk. You're going to get two different meal scores for those events, and you're going to see a report which compares them. And so you can see without doing any research, without knowing anything about physiology,

you can see the benefit of that walk on the meal that you chose to eat twice. So you can now understand that my decisions stack together, and very simply, I get a report card that tells me, okay, I should optimize towards this type of pattern, not that one. And this happens for exercise. It happens for diet choices. It happens for sleep. In some cases, we can track stress. That one's a little bit trickier to really quantify, still to this point.

But we can start to do it where in ways like we can detect when your blood sugar starts to rise, but you're not working out and you didn't log a meal. And so if your blood sugar starts to rise in the absence of those two things, we can basically surface that insight and say, hey, are you really stressed out right now? Because you're not exercising and you're not eating. And if you might say, oh, yeah, I am actually, I'm preparing for this big meeting. I've been panicking all day. I've been rushing. And we can say, okay, well, this is this is the effect of this stress. And maybe take a few minutes to like practice some mindfulness, sit down, close your eyes, take some deep breaths. And you can see your blood sugar recover from that stress-related increase. And so it's all about just minimizing the cognitive overhead we call it.

So the amount of thinking and research you have to do in order to understand how to make better choices. So one thing we didn't touch upon yet, which I want to for sure, is the diet aspect, because that's a big one, right? And what do you think right now, I mean, especially, and there's so many fats, right? The keto diet, the paleo diet, the intermittent fasting, the other fastings, there's so many different diets, you know, vegan. Do you see a pattern?

What is your take on this? How do you, number one, and what do you see as kind of the best way to hear these ads? I'm really glad, yes, it's a question because it's actually key to levels that we do not adopt a specific dietary philosophy because the data shows us that there really isn't a one-size-fits-all. We've seen in our data set that people who eat completely differently on the, let's say, the dietary ideology spectrum can have really excellent blood sugar control. And so, for example, my co-founder, Dr. Casey Meens,

she's 100% plant-based, so she's fully vegan, she eats a lot of carbohydrates, and much of them, many of them are star-cheese, so kind of would traditionally think that this is gonna be a high blood sugar diet. And the reality is that she has some of the best blood sugar control in the entire data set. And then you've got people who are on the ketogenic and carnivore end of the spectrum who, you know, they basically avoid carbs at all costs.

And so the realization that both of these philosophies can be grounded in objective data is what we kind of gravitate towards. So we meet people wherever they are. If you have a dietary philosophy, you should embrace it, but it should be grounded in data. You shouldn't make an assumption that the choices you're making are objectively healthy for you unless you have some evidence of that.

Because again, every person is different. And so something that works for someone else may not work for you. So I myself, I'm extremely carbohydrate sensitive, essentially across the board. It doesn't matter really how high the glycemic index, if I eat carbohydrates without sort of eating them in a mixed meal with fat and protein to balance them, I will have a very extreme blood sugar spike, and it will last, I'll have these oscillations for hours.

And so I didn't know this, of course, until I started measuring my data in real time. And so it led me to kind of bias myself towards a high protein moderate fat, relatively low carb diet. I still eat carbohydrates, I eat a lot of nuts and seeds, I eat berries, I eat, you know, oftentimes with, specifically with mixed meals, I'll have chia seeds and oatmeal and things like this,

but in a very balanced context. So I'll never eat oatmeal unless I mix in some almond butter and have some berries in there and have maybe add some chia seeds. And all of that fiber and fat helps to modify my blood sugar response. And so, you know, again, this is all context and it's all individual. But what I know is that it's not necessary for us to leverage like everyone has to go ketogenic in order to be healthy. We don't truly believe that. We know that true health goes well beyond just blood sugar control. And although blood sugar control is really important, especially in modern society where

we have so much dysfunction, it's also something that can be achieved with many dietary philosophies. That's really a beautiful thing, I think. Well, it's interesting because I was going to ask you about fruit, right? Because there's such controversy around fruit, right? People are saying, oh, it's terrible to eat fruit, because the sugar content, other people say it's great to eat fruit, because it's an actual thing. People talk about the order of the food you eat it in, right? Like, does it matter if you eat your food, if you eat a protein first or a carb first,

or like, or eat them separate, like you said, we'll say, you shouldn't be eating your proteins. If you're going to be eating your protein, don't eat fruit with that because that would do all sorts of different things. Do you have any like data on those things too? Yeah, so fruit is a good thing. But you're in on fruit. I think it's it's a it's a very Again, it depends a lot of people have much better management of fruit than than others

And that's like that banana and cookie experience. Yeah, exactly. It's all individual That's what when I ask the question I kind of hesitated, but yeah, no But what I what I do think is important though is that The context again is is really, really valuable to understand. So let's say, you know, a lot of people think, okay, fruit is just healthy. So we should have as much of it as possible. And the way that we accomplish that is smoothies, press juices.

We take, you know, instead of eating an orange, we'll take 10 apples and we'll strip out the pulp and cream. So now we can see data So so for my personal data one of the biggest blood sugar spikes I've ever seen was I was in New York I just got enough a Train actually it was basically a red eye train and I was going to a meeting and I wanted to I was relatively new on this whole C. Jim thing and didn't really understand the effects of these different decisions So I went to an organic juice cart and I got what was called health drink.

And so this was green apple, carrot, and celery. It was a pressed juice. And that was it. There was no added sugar. I watched the woman press all of these fruits and vegetables into a cup and give it to me. And I drank this during the meeting, thinking I was making a healthy choice. My blood sugar was in the diabetic blood sugar range for about an hour after that.

It was well over 200. And anything over 140 is considered abnormal. And so that's that specific example. Downing straights and you can you can then go and eat those whole fruits. So instead of drinking the press juice, you eat the whole fruit, which has a lot of pulp and fiber in it and see exactly how much worse that press juice example is for you. If you want the vitamins and minerals of fruit Eat a whole fruit because the context matters and we have historically, you know throughout All of humankind's development. We have been foraging for foods and eating them in their whole form We haven't been pressing them into, you know, these sort of refined

Sort of essentially sugar bombs and stripping out all the fiber that is necessary for us to digest them effectively. And so that I think is one of the key lessons is that I don't think that fruit is bad. I just think that there's for all things there is a balance. And so we should be mindful of that. And I think eating the way that these foods were historically eaten. Well, I never understood the juice craze, to be honest with you, because it didn't...do you remember like John but juice and all those things. I never got it. Like, here you are, you're having like over a thousand calories in this in these juices. It is. It's sugar. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, you're taking out all the pulp and all the, I guess, all the fiber, right? And, you know, people think that they're doing themselves a service

because like you said, right? Like, if that they're doing themselves a service because like you said, right? Like if you think it's healthy, because fruit is healthy, you think we wanna have like, that having one orange, let's have like 36 of them and just, you know, put it all in the cup. Because, you know, because more is better. And it's a, it's a fallacy. And that was one thing I never got that juice thing.

Ever I still don't. People still do it like crazy and never makes much sense to me. I agree. I think we see that across all different dietary philosophies, which is that yeah, if someone's good, more must be better. We see this I think with the ketogenic craze, which is that, okay, we kind of have learned that fat is probably not as unhealthy as we thought back in the 80s and 90s. And so, yeah, I think fat, healthy fats should be consumed as a normal part of diet. It's a great calorie to consume.

But some people take that to the absolute extreme. And so, you know, you've got people who are going on heavy cream diets, who are just eating heavy cream and butter in everything. And I think, again, there are limitations on every end of the spectrum. And what's really important is that we realize that there should be balance across the spectrum. We need to have good data. We need to have a good understanding of the effects of our choices. So that we're not just kind of taking one data point and extrapolating it to everyone into infinity and just saying like, this is the golden standard of how everyone should eat. And so yeah, I think the press juice is one example, but it's not to say that fruit is bad for you. I just think that the way we eat it,

or at least the portion sizing of that press juice is really also important. So if you wanna have the press juice for a quick shot, or a small one rather than having like a 16 ounce drink, like I did, which can cause the same blood sugar effects having a milkshake or drinking a soda for some people. So when you say blood sugar, so when your blood sugar spikes like that and your insulin spikes, does that automatically mean that you are, it's like you're going to store it as fat or you're

going to store it as sugar and you will gain weight. So isn't that basic, though it isn't? That's why I was taught many years ago, right, within my space about having to stabilize your blood sugar. It's all about stabilizing your blood sugar. So I feel like what you've done is kind of like create a system where you basically, you figure out how to stabilize your blood sugar for optimum, not just for health, for weight, for weight, for like, how about for like mood and brain alertness and cognitive. Yeah.

Also, I mean, it's all very effective. Yeah, so the amount of variability in blood sugar is closely tied to a ton of downstream negative effects. And many of these are cognitive. So oftentimes when you see, when you have a very large blood sugar spike and then your blood sugar is coming crashing back down, that's when people feel the lowest mood, feel shaky, tired, hungry, all of those hanger-like effects. And that can often happen up to two hours after a meal.

So this is a delayed onset. And so for many of us like myself, you don't connect that directly to the meal. But that glucose variability is actually very inflammatory as well. So it introduces a lot of inflammatory cytokines, HSC reactive protein, IL-6, TNF-ALF, all these things that maybe hearing about that are very closely connected to our immune system are also triggered by large blood sugar elevations and specifically variability. So this is happening over time. It can lead to very long-term effects as well as that short-term sort of qualitative experience of unhappiness,

mood dysfunction, and fatigue. What we are really trying to control when we're saying blood sugar stability is not just that quality of life, sort of in the moment of managing blood sugar levels so that you don't have those ups and downs and feel the effects of them, but also insulin and insulin resistance. So if you're constantly spiking your blood sugar, you're actually also constantly spiking your insulin. And if insulin is constantly spiked up and down, it can create over time this numbing effect called insulin resistance. And when tissues in the body become insulin resistant, the consequences are pretty devastating.

And it is ultimately what introduces type 2 diabetes, pre-divise, heart disease, PCOS, all of those in the brain, Alzheimer's disease is now being called type 3 diabetes because it has these symptoms of brain insulin resistance. And so the insulin is really, I think, the kind of nebulous secondary effect that we want to control by controlling blood sugar. Well, how about, this is so fascinating to me, how about fasting in general when people are doing these, you know, three day fast, two day fasts, what is it doing? I mean, how is how these different black sugar

stays stabilized when you're doing that to your body? Well, it's pretty interesting. The fasting thing, so there's a lot of controversy about fasting as well. And actually, there's a paper published, I think, yesterday that showed that intermittent fasting did not have better effects than continuous eating for weight loss. But it was an intermittent fasting is you're still eating every day,

so it's not this extended fast. However, there are other things. The intermittent is so popular now. Every second person I meet, they're like, oh yeah, you intermittent fasting, and I feel like I'm the only person in LA who has not been part of this plan so far. Cause I like food too much.

And I do feel like you said, I kinda feel like I've been around the block a lot and enough to know that everything that has a backlash. People that are doing this for a while and then in 10 years it's gonna be like, oh actually intermittent fasting causes you to gain weight because it's causing starvation mode. Well, I think there's definitely, I think that the metabolic flexibility component of this is really key. So working out fasted, this doesn't mean that you have to fast every day,

but let's say working out in the condition of not having eaten yet requires your body to derive energy from somewhere. And so that energy is going to come from what's on our bodies. And so for the average human, we've got about 2,000 calories of stored sugar, which is called glycogen. We have about 80,000 calories of fat. And that's a person with about 15% body fat at around 160 pounds body weight. So that's a ton of fat energy. And this person is not even overweight, right? So imagine all of that energy should be available. However, most of us don't ever tap into it because we're constantly eating and running our energy mechanisms off of the food we eat.

So by doing exercise in the fasted state, you're teaching your body to tap into the energy stores that are on us already and available. So I think there's really something there in terms of metabolic flexibility and training ourselves to tap into those sources. For the longer term. To fit term right now. Yeah, it's a holiday. It is an ever-changing right now. Yeah, and definitely especially for athletes who want to do longer duration exercise. So you imagine if you're trying to run 100 mile race, you either have to carry all that food with you, or you can somehow figure out how to increase the efficiency of your

body, some tableism, and its ability to tap into those fat stores. So I think there's definitely something there in terms of fasting, like intermittent fasting may end up not being that valuable. But I think that the really interesting stuff is the longer duration fast. So what that does is if you're not consuming calories, you no longer are bringing in these like blood sugar spikes, you no longer are causing insulin elevations. And so that will allow your body to basically bring your insulin

levels down to the minimum. And then you don't have your like cleaning out the insulin background, so to speak, and allowing yourself to tap into your fat stores. And I think there's also the cellular background, so to speak, and allowing yourself to tap into your fat stores. And I think there's also the cellular mechanisms, which it's really hard to measure right now. There's one called autophagy.

You might have heard that one getting kicked around a lot. But basically, it's your body recycling cells that are not operating at their peak efficiency. So it basically triggers this mechanism that says, all right, this cell's not working very well. We've got to be very efficient right now. We're going to recycle that cell and use it for energy for the other cells. And this doesn't happen for an intermittent fast.

I think it only kicks in after like 30 or 36 hours of fasting. Again, there's not a ton of objective data on this yet. It's kind of conceptual. But it wouldn't surprise me if there is something like that where when food is not readily available, humans historically would have to become more efficient. And it could make it really bring some benefit. So I'm still optimistic that fasting could have someplace

in general health, but I don't wanna say that, everyone should do it every day. Well, also, I think to your point earlier in the podcast, you were saying that it's all individual, right? Again, so why should this be any different than anything else? Maybe fasting would work great for you, but it would do damage all individual, right? Again, so why should this be any different than anything else? Maybe fasting would work great for you, but it would do damage to me, right? It's not a one-size-fits-all type of situation.

Would you tell those things by doing this CGM? Yeah, so- To those people? There are some people like Dr. Jason Fung. It is one, he wrote the obesity code and diabetes code and he really goes into the effects of insulin, the hormonal theory of weight gain and how fast thing can really be beneficial for people who specifically need to reverse some metabolic dysfunction. And I think this is exactly what you were just saying and it's all individual.

If you're someone who has rampant insulin resistance and is struggling every day with weight balance and energy and fatigue, it could be one of the best mechanisms to, again, clear allow your body to clear out your insulin background, reduce the blood sugar spikes you're causing and your metabolic rollercoaster thereafter, and really start to tap into those energy stores and train your body to use them effectively, and basically even out your hormones. And this seems to be really evident in Dr. Jason Fung's work and at his obesity clinic where he uses fasting primarily. So I think when you have a specific reason

to need to get metabolic control quickly, it's a really promising mechanism. For everyone else who's looking for longevity or to like kind of sharpen the point on their health, I think it's a little bit to be determined if that's a really strong mechanism. I have experimented with it myself, but yeah, I totally agree. It's very individual. And what happened? Okay, so the paper, the journal that you were talking about yesterday, you're reading what intermittent fasting, what did it say? Did it just say that there's not necessarily the benefits that people think it is, basically? So I think what they did is they had two different, they had an intermittent fasting group and

they had a control group, which was a group of people who did not, basically the intermittent fasting group could only eat in an eight hour window every day. So basically they were fasting for 16 hours and then they were allowed to eat, I think, ad libido, which means as much as they want in that eight-hour window. And then the other group was, they were supposed to eat just three square meals every day, distributed throughout the entire day. And so, what the study showed is that although the Intrament and Fasting group lost very slightly more weight as a whole, it was not significant.

Meaning it was within the sort of noise of the study. And that shows that there's really no significant benefit to use something like this 16 and 8 Intrament and Fasting over just like general calorie control with distributed meals. And so I think it was, it's interesting. I don't think it kind of kills intermittent fasting as a concept. There are a bunch of different things you could do, like maybe add exercise in or different macronutrient ratios, or maybe like if the intermittent fasting is done with specific meal content.

I might have a difference, but overall, yeah, definitely something that like, again, with all this stuff, when new data becomes available, it's really important to take it into account and not be dogmatic and say, oh, no, like, I'm going to ignore that because it doesn't tell my story. And we just have to constantly update with new information. Right. Are there any ways that you found that are ways to,

like hacks to kind of level out your glucose? Like I've heard cinnamon's really good for this apple cider vinegar. I've heard it was very good to stabilize your blood sugar. What do you think of those and give any other ones? Well, to me, the biggest hack is more exercise. So it doesn't have to be intense. It's more movement, allowing your body to use your muscles to maintain blood sugar control instead of just hormones like insulin.

And so it's really amazing to see how beneficial a simple walk is. It's not something that just clears your mind. It also clears out your blood sugar levels in real time. So that's the biggest one. Anytime you have an opportunity, take a five minute, 10 minute walk, even if you're pacing around in your living room, that's a huge benefit for metabolic control. A few other ones.

So I haven't seen much benefit from cinnamon personally. There is some research that says that it is valuable to help maintain glucose, but this might be another individualization effect. Vinegar does have a lot of benefit I've seen. So I like to put vinaigrettes on everything. I actually have like kind of a strange personal love of vinegar. I just really love it.

And so it's interesting to see that it also seems to have a positive effect on like my post meal blood sugar levels. So I tend to put it on a lot of things and I have like that is also one that's been studied quite quite a bit and and also shows a significant benefit in in these research trials. Beyond that, you know, I think sleep is really powerful and then because of that alcohol control. So even if you don't like, you know, drink every day, it only takes one day of having alcohol late at night to completely obliterate your sleep and essentially introduce that vicious cycle that we talked about earlier where that poor sleep introduces acute insulin resistance and every decision

you make, every meal you eat for the next day, two days, sometimes even up to a couple days until you've restored that sleep that can be much worse for you. And so especially for people that need to improve metabolic dysfunction or want to lose weight, alcohol, especially in the evening, is really damaging to sleep, and that has all these downstream effects on electric control and weight management. So those are the three big ones for me. So no two, even hearing, so look at what weight for vinegar. Does it matter what kind of vinegar?

Is it apple cider vinegar? I mean, it doesn't matter. I can just sound like vinegar, white vinegar. So it's a good question. I don't have a ton of data on like specific different vinaigres. I'll put a vinaigrette on basically every salad I eat. And oftentimes, just like in other meals.

And I do know that apple cider vinegar specifically is the one I've tried this with, but having a shot of vinegar before you eat kind of an indulgent meal seems to have a completely different blood sugar effect. So I don't do this very often, but I have tried it once or twice, where I know that I'm gonna eat something like pizza

or pasta, I'll experiment by having a shot of apple cider vinegar beforehand and comparing it to times in the past when I haven't. And so again, I don't have like enough data to say that this is a really powerful effect, but I've only done that with the cider vinegar because it's one of the most sort of like palatable if you're taking a straight shot of white vinegar,

might be too much for most people. So. Oh, I think apple cider vinegar is gross too, but that's the fact of white. And did you see it? It's definitely not delicious. It's not delicious. Let's put it that way. Did you see a huge difference in your glucose then and your levels when you did it when you...

I saw a significant difference, meaning it was like I wouldn't say that I had no blood sugar response. It was just that the it was more stable. So slower and the peak of the blood sugar spike was much lower. And it's a similar effect to the, what we see when you have a mixed meal instead of having a carbohydrate by itself. So for example, like that oatmeal example, where a lot of people who eat it on its own, and you don't even add brown sugar, and your blood sugar will go something like 70% of people in the levels data set,

their blood sugar goes into the pre-diabetic, oftentimes diabetic blood sugar zone after plain oatmeal. Many people have then modified that by adding almond butter and some chia seeds and that fat and fiber. It takes that sharp spike and turns it into a slow, steady increase in recovery. That again is introducing a different hormonal response. So even though the amount of carbohydrates may be very close to the same, because the rate of increase in your blood is much lower,

you don't have to produce as much insulin as quickly and that will sort of prevent that hormonal like spike in crash effect where you're just feeling what as your blood sugar is crashing, you're feeling very uncomfortable and often times hungry again. And so, really? Yeah, so that mixed meal effect is very similar to the vinegar effect where it just changes the shape of the blood sugar response and the time. So it doesn't matter, okay, I'm sorry, I have like, I'll wrap it up in like two minutes. So I just want to add a couple other questions

about the oatmeal thing. Like you're saying when you add the fat and when you add the fruit to that, everything else, people's first thing is, oh my god, that's gonna be so calorie dense, right? But if it does stabilize your blood sugar, does it impact your weight gain or weight loss or is it actually, will you lose weight

because it is that stabilization factor, even if you're having more calories? Well, this is the million dollar question, I think. And so for certain people, again, the calories, the calorie balance does matter. Calories are a unit of energy. And so, you know, you can't, we do need to maintain effectively energy and balance versus that, the energy we're expanding. The problem is, again, that the hormonal environment really will affect how our bodies distribute that energy.

So if I'm causing a blood sugar spike, my body has to produce that insulin spike to keep my blood sugar in a comfortable zone. And so that insulin spike will just punt that glucose into my fat stores. And that is the situation for people who want to maintain energy or sorry, weight loss. for people who want to maintain energy or sorry weight loss, that's the situation where a more balanced meal will help control that insulin response. Now, to your point about adding additional macronutrients that is more calories and those have to go somewhere, right? So I think the best result here is due both.

So rather than just taking a portion of, for example, oatmeal and adding in almond butter and protein and fiber, let's instead kind of reduce the portion of carbohydrates and turn it into a balanced meal by then adding the fats and proteins and fibers. And so don't just like, take a portion and add a whole bunch of calories, I think, compensate for it. And that's probably the best approach is it's respecting the thermodynamics of energy balance and like calories do matter, but it's also respecting the hormonal effect

of the meals we're eating. Do you have, so, and one other for the tumor, does nothing you can see anything on tumor, or? I haven't, I haven't done much tumor, I usually turn around in a, like a career, or a stew that typically is higher in protein, it doesn't have many carbohydrates anyway. And so I haven't really seen much there, but that's a really good question. I'm not sure I'd

have to look into that one. And that okay, so I'm very curious. So how do people try this? They go to the web, the web, the website, what's the process for someone like me? I've never tried this. I'd like to try it myself. So I love to have you. I want to try it. Yeah, we'll definitely get you connected. We can basically produce a link. So right now, we're still in what we're calling beta mode. So we're in this early access phase where we're rapidly developing the app and introducing new features all the time. And so we don't currently, because we're so interested in getting maximum feedback from everyone who's using it, you can't currently go on the website and just order it today.

It's invitation only, essentially. That being said, I'd love to get you a link that you can use in your entire listenership and also use to sign up if they like to try. The Early Access Program will be continuing for a few more months, and then we'll be rolling out the full program, where you can basically just order this online, and it'll come straight to your door. So as of right now we do have a limited number of slots per month for this, this early access

program and I'm looking forward to rolling this out again very soon. Wow, so how many people have actually done this with your program? Thousands, hundreds? About 2,000 people have gone through the program thus far. And we have many, many more on a wait list who we're very eager to get them their chance to join. And we've been opening up these invitation only slots and just learning as much as we can from each person. So, we'll oftentimes do phone calls and interviews to understand how the features are helping them make better choices in the moment because that's the only metric for success.

You know, it's not just getting people to purchase the product, is this creating sustainable behavior change? And what have you seen in a 2,000 people so far? Like more or less? We've seen really positive benefits and the biggest thing is just redefining the relationship to food and lifestyle choices. So people, they really feel like they were flying blind before, and now they have a closed loop feedback, you know, where I make a choice, I sit down, I'm going to eat lunch, what am I going to eat, and why? I now know what I'm going to eat with confidence because I have data from my own body telling me this food works well for me, and that one doesn't. And so that experience of just having your body speak back to you and kind of tell you what to do, and when

is really powerful. And traditionally, we've only had like the bathroom scale or the mirror to tell us if we're making good choices. And now it can be 10, 15 minutes after a meal, you have that response. Right. Wow. So where do people go? Can you give us some information where to find you and levels and yeah, so levelself.com.

That's the website. I definitely recommend the blog So you'll see that right on the homepage and on the blog we write a lot about metabolic health metabolic fitness which I'll describe in just a second here But all of the concepts that bring together these these sort of new theories of hormonal weight weight management Energy management and specifically how it affects each person and definitely. I was listening to your TED talk and you talked about boldness and how boldness a lot of people think it's something you either have or you don't have and that's not the case, it's

something that you have to work towards. Well, yeah, metabolic fitness is the same. So a lot of people think, I'm either metabolic, be healthy or I'm not, nothing I can do about it. And the reality is it's very much like physical fitness, where you don't have it, you have to build it. That takes focus, effort, and repetition. Real-time data can show you whether the effects of your choices

are positive or negative in which direction you're adding. I love the fact that you hear me or no. Oh, you hear me or no. I was just saying that I love the fact that you actually listen to my TED talk and I appreciate that. So basically you're saying that you're going to practice anything and if you're not good at something,

that's not a good enough reason, just not to do it. You just need to get good at it. And there's no other way to get good at it, except just like doing it over and over and over again, repetition. Right. And so, and having, you know, a data stream to tell you the positive or negative effects of the choices you're making makes that possible. It can show you, again, those receipts for the little micro optimizations you're making

and give you that feedback that says like, that might have been a very small choice to get up and take a walk after that meal, but it made a significant difference in how your body responded. And if you keep that up, you're going to see long-term benefit. And many of our early customers have lost upwards of 20 pounds since starting this just by having the feedback loop. They haven't adopted some crazy new diet. It's just main eating and living for metabolic control. And it's producing this metabolic fitness. I also think it's all for you, said just tweaking your lifestyle just a little bit every day

You know just little habits change You know a little habits make big change overall It doesn't have to be something fast and overwhelming like I'm gonna fast for five days and go on a water diet It could be something of just right it could be like just looking at your lifestyle and just making a little moderate tweaks It goes a long way Well, thank you Josh, this has been very very informative. I love this and I wish you guys something like a lot. You know it doesn't tell you any of us that you guys are the wait lists for crying out loud

to even use it. I don't even know. Will you please allow me to even try the program? Well absolutely get you in. Yeah just I don't know that I mentioned it but for anyone who wants to at least follow along like please check us out on Instagram and Twitter at levels. That's our handle and then again, levelself.com and Jennifer, we definitely want to get you the link. We'll get you signed up as AP and we'll also get one that your listeners can use if they'd like to join the Early Access program.

That's great. Thank you so much, Josh. I so appreciate you being here. And hopefully next time we can do it on a treadmill. Wherever you're entitled. And if you ever come to LA after you figure out Josh, I still appreciate you being here and hopefully next time we can do it out on a treadmill. Yeah, wherever you can. If you ever come to LA after you stick around, where you're gonna live. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number

one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I wanna tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you. Don't believe me, I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners.

I have been a long longtime fan of Heather's, no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched and I love her go getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence

and reach that next level. Thank you. I recently got to anyone looking to elevate their confidence and reach that next level. Thank you! I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes, and I immediately subscribed to this podcast. It has not disappointed, and I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can as quick as I can. Thank you, Heather, for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now.

and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now.