Well with Arielle Lorre - 270: How to Optimize Foundational Health with Rachel Sanders of Rootine

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Rachel Sanders is the CEO and co-founder of Rootine, a health and wellness brand that helps you understand your through science-backed insights and provides smarter supplements to unlock your best health. She joins the show today to discuss why the future of health includes at home diagnostics, why supplements are not one size fits all and what we get wrong about our approach to wellness. She explains why precision nutrition is foundational when it comes to overall health, why genetic testing is essential in understanding our bodies, how stress affects every aspect of our lives and so much more.This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Visit rootine.co and Use code BLONDE at checkout for 15% off your first purchaseProduced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I think today's episode is really fascinating. I think you guys are going to find it really interesting, too, because I am talking to my guest kind of about the future of help and the future of diagnostics and how we are all going to be incorporating at-home diagnostics and precision analytics into our health care regimen and why it's so important. So I'm talking to Rachel Sanders. She is the CEO and co-founder of Routine. So Routine is a health and wellness brand that helps you understand your body through science-backed insights. And they provide smarter supplements to unlock your best health. And they basically have these custom nutrient solutions and at-home lab tests that are just designed to fit your unique needs. And we talk in this episode about why healthcare and supplementation and nutrition should all be unique because we are all bio-individual. And we talk about some really

fascinating things in this episode like different genetic variations that make it harder for your body to absorb certain supplements. So you may be taking vitamins that aren't even benefiting you. So we talk about that. And routine, all- also just really empowers you to take charge of your health like never before. So they harness the power of data and technology to empower you with the tools to start a smarter daily health routine that actually will transform your life and that you'll actually feel benefits from. So it's really heavily rooted in science and backed by experts and loved by so many people. So definitely check out routine. And I believe that.

I believe I have a code for you. You can visit Routine, R-O-O-O-T-I-N-E.co, and use the code blonde at checkout for 15% off your first purchase with routine. So again, routine.com, and the code is blonde for 15% off. So you guys can definitely take advantage of that after you listen to this episode. I'm sure you will want to. And a little bit more about routine. It was recognized in the 2023 Fast Company World Changing Idea Awards and raised a series A in 2022. In addition, my guest, Rachel Sanders, is the host of the Precision Health Pod, a venture partner at 2048 Ventures. She's an angel investor, and she's been featured across Forbes, entrepreneur, business insider,

and more. She has over 12 years of experience at the intersection of health and technology. Having started her career in investment banking, focused on health care. with additional experience in digital health product and strategies. So she really married all of these things. She received her BS from Vanderbilt and an NBA from Harvard Business School. She is very smart and she has a lot of insight when it comes to all of this. So again, we discuss at-home diagnostics. We talk about why supplements are not one-size-fits-all. We talk about what we get wrong about our general approach to wellness. She also explains why precision nutrition is foundational

when it comes to overall help. We talk about, like I said before, why genetic testing is actually essential in understanding our bodies. We talk about how stress affects every aspect of our lives and so much more. So again, if you want to check out Routine, go to Routine.co, use the code blonde for 15% off your first purchase. And please, enjoy Rachel Sanders. Welcome, Rachel. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. We were just talking before we started recording about what you do. And I think you've had a really interesting career and trajectory to what you're doing now. So maybe you can just give everybody a little bit of a background on who you are and what you do. And then we can dive into everything. Yeah, of course. So growing up,

my mom was always someone who tried to do natural first when it comes to health. So she was someone 30, 40 years ago using a naturopath. And so when it came to my young adult life, where I started to deal with stress, fatigue, burnout as an investment banking analyst. And then again, as an MBA student, I kind of looked at what I was doing across my health, across my nutrition, across my lifestyle. And supplements was always kind of a piece of that. But I didn't really know without my mom there what to do, how to get started. So I would walk into a store, get super overwhelmed from a supplementation perspective. I did the latest research. I looked at the trends, tried all the pills, the greens powders, doctor recommendations. But I didn't really know what was working, what wasn't. And this is something

that I think even today happens to so many people, right? And it's worse now. There's more brands. There's Amazon. There's more options. Just so much confusion. And at the same time, in my work, I was seeing all this innovation happening across technology, across data science, and seeing how people just have access to health data so much more than they used to. So when it comes to things like at-home lab testing, wearable data, all of this advanced technology, I said to myself, why can't we use this to help people figure out what they should be taking, what they should be doing across their nutrition, across their lifestyle, so that they can improve their health quickly, more conveniently and in a much smarter way. And that's really what we do at routine. So we founded routine to

help you make your daily health routine smarter. So we create smart nutrient solutions and personalized recommendations based on your biological data and your health profiles. And we really focus today on two health categories in daily health and in stress. On the daily health side, this is really for people looking for that foundational health where maybe they have suboptimal vitamin and mineral levels. Maybe they're dealing with fatigue. They want more immune support. And our core product there is the smart multivitamin. This is a custom dose product up to 20 based on your DNA, based on your vitamin levels, and your lifestyle. We use our advanced tech to figure out your perfect dose to start with, and then we dynamically

fine-tune that over time as we see what's working and what's not for your body. And on the stress side, this is really for people dealing with mood, dealing with irritability, anything related to cortisol imbalance. And it's a first-of-its-kind stress membership where it's an improvement plan. You get access to an at-home cortisol test, coaching with a clinical nutrition. as well as targeted supplementation for the physical and mental impact of stress and your personalized improvement plan for your lifestyle. And we're seeing great benefits across everything from sleep to mood, of course, but cortisol imbalance impacts your weight and can also impact

brain fog as well as athletic recovery. And hormones too as well, like reproductive hormones. Exactly. And we can get into all of that. But I am really interested in your approach to health and your lifestyle when you were younger because I think 30, 40 years ago, naturopaths were kind of few and far between, I would assume. And I'm curious what kind of things your mom had you guys doing, eating, if you were supplementing back then and how she knew what to give you guys, assuming that there wasn't kind of this precision-based nutrition and supplementation back then. Yeah, exactly. Back then, it was much more of a you kind of figure it out by yourself or with a doctor. My parents lived in Boulder for a number of years. So Boulder was a place back then where these kind of things were

happening. But I think back to when I was young and if I would get flu symptoms, I would get acesilocosidum, which is one of the more traditional homeopathic medications. I'd be taken to natural stores so that we would try to not only make sure I was getting a balanced diet, but I was moving, getting the nutrients I needed, trying to take less medication, and really taking control of our own health versus relying on what somebody else is telling us to do. And that even came out, I had some pretty significant gut health issues when I was young, middle school age, even going to a doctor, a gastroenterologist who told me that what I ate had nothing to do with my gut, which now today, 20 years later, we realize that's a very crazy statement.

But even at that point, I was like, all right, I actually have to take control of my own health. So my mom's helping me, but me, myself, changed my diet, add an additional supplementation there, and kind of fast forward through to early career where I'm 22 on my own, just graduating college, have very intense job having to figure out how to manage that, how to manage stress, and kind of leaned on that again, right? So I would take supplements. I would figure out what I could do for my sleep, even though as a banking analyst, you're not sleeping a lot. But what is it that I can change about my diet? What is it that I can do to add in kind of

activities, workouts, et cetera, to take control of my health and really push myself forward? And it was at that time as a banking analyst where of my life, on one hand, I'm doing this more naturopathic, holistic approach to health and the other. I'm very data driven, very kind of heavy into the numbers, into the weeds. And that's when the two kind of connected to saying you can apply everything that's happening in health, in data science, etc., to this more holistic approach to health. I feel like in that kind of industry and just working in banking or any career like that where it's super high stress, I almost feel like that would cancel out all of the lifestyle things

because I feel like you could do everything and support your body in all the ways. But if you're not sleeping, I just know for myself, like everything else unravels. and it's so hard to eat the right things and exercise and all of that when you are not able to get rest. How did you manage that? It's a willpower thing, right? I think it also applies to parents. So I now have two kids. I have a nine-month-old now.

And it was the second time in my life that I really wasn't sleeping. And it's so much harder because everything is messed up. When you wake up, when you don't sleep, you want to eat the processed foods. You want to sit in bed. But it's just about, all right, telling yourself, I know that if I, get up and go for a walk, my energy is actually going to be more. It's going to be better. I know that if I nourish myself, my like overall health is going to be better. I know that if I supplement and make sure I'm taking what I need from a foundational health perspective, my immune system is going to be supported. Are you

going to feel perfect? No, but are you going to feel better than if you didn't do those things? Yes. Do you think there's kind of an over emphasis on perfection now? I mean, we hear a lot about optimizing and optimal health, and I think that means different things for different people. So I'm curious what that means to you and how people cannot focus so much on perfection, but on just its foundational things. It's definitely a craze that's gone maybe too far. So this quantified self movement is amazing because it helps us think about, all right, how are we going to take control of our own health? How are we going to understand our bodies better? What are the tests we're going to do from lab testing, what are the wearables we're going to use? How are we going to track those?

And how are we going to adjust our products, our routines accordingly? But you can go too far on that. Even to creating mental health concerns where you're constantly optimizing, you're looking at your HRV on a day to day or like hour to hour basis. And so it's really about finding that balance. But I would say there's more people who are yet to even start looking at their metrics. And let's figure out a way to get them more invested. figure out how to help them understand their bodies better, meet them where they are today, versus the kind of over-optimizing. There's definitely people on that side, but there's a, there's a give and take. Yeah, I was just talking about this. I think on my solo episode that came out

Monday, but I was like, I think I'm okay at like a seven or an eight, like at all times. I don't need to be like at the 20. And again, like seven or eight for me is maybe somebody else's five or someone else's 10. I think it all depends on the individual. But I feel like nutrition is a really great place to start. And I heard you on another podcast. I think you said like over 700,000 deaths are related to improper nutrition per year in the U.S. And I think when it comes to processed food, it is a little bit of a sensitive thing because for so many people, that's all they have access to or it's all that they can afford. But being able to look at somebody's blood and see where they are deficient and, you know, be able to tailor things that way. I think it probably is so helpful for

so many people. So can you talk about why you decided to start there? On the nutrition side, yeah, as you said, inadequate nutrition is one of the leading causes of chronic diseases in the U.S. that can be linked to, as you said, 700,000 deaths per year, but it's also creating this overarching metabolic health crisis that there's a lot of different people and companies coming at in different ways. And as we think about kind of nutrition and supplementation specifically, as you look at your own data, there's a lot of research around, all right, this is what's going on in your genetics. This is what's going on in your blood levels. This is what's going on in your lifestyle to kind of say, this is what you need from a daily health and vitamin perspective,

starting first with our first product, which is our smart multivitamin. And that's really why we decided to start there because there is so much data around it, so much science related to what's going on in your body and what that means for what you need. And that's really where we went from that perspective. And then as we grew, as we got more members, we started to understand from hundreds of thousands of health profiles and typical member feedback, people are really stressed. Pandemic did not help with that. Kind of overall daily stressors were seeing so many more. And nutrition is such a core piece of that. But lifestyle also matters when it comes to stress and cortisol balance.

And so that's kind of how we moved on from that foundational product and daily health into the next category, which is top of mind for so many people and impacts so many different pieces of our health. Yes. And you guys test basically different categories for stress, right? Or the results fall into a number of different categories. I'm curious, I don't know if you would have this, you know, readily at hand. But is there anybody who tests and they're fine?

because I feel like nowadays, there are so many stressors, even like, I know for myself, even if I'm not working and I'm just hanging out at home and I'm on social media mindlessly, like that's a stressor. Like I can feel in my body if I'm on my phone too long. My brain starts to feel a little bit fried. I get that like fighter flight thing going on. So is anybody experiencing no stress? So many people are like you, right?

And even if you're on social media, you're all happy and you see. something that's sad or upsetting, you feel that in your body and your body's hormones feel that. But in terms of if anyone has tested optimally, the answer is no initially, but yes, after they've done the membership. And from a cortisol perspective, most people think of, so cortisol is the body's key stress hormone. And it can be either too high or too low. It's this rhythm. So you want it to be higher in the morning when you wake up to get your day started and then it gradually drops throughout the day, but some people, me, for example, my cortisol doesn't get high enough in the morning because I'm just overarching. I have a very stressful job. It's very hard. I'm still very fatigued in the

morning. In the afternoon, it's medium, but then at night, it's a little too high. So I get that mid-afternoon slump, but then also at 9 p.m. I'm like, all right, day starting again, I can work for another four hours and get a ton of stuff done. You're not supposed to be able to do that. And so for us, we've seen a lot of people in that kind of alarm imbalanced and even exhausted state. And the exhausted state is really your cortisol is just low all day. And that's someone who's been in fight or flight for years. And it's taken their body a very long time to get into that. And so it's going to take some time to get out of it.

I know that you guys test genetics, like you said. Are there some people? I don't know if there's like a gene that you can test for this where they are able to, you know, function or have higher cortisol throughout the night and have less sleep and or is everybody just universally supposed to have this rhythm where it's high in the morning at, you know, five, six, seven a.m. And then it slowly dips throughout the day. And then by like eight or nine, you're supposed to be resting or are there variations? Because I know some people who are total night owls and they're fine with that. You know, they really get going in the evening and they can stay up till 12 or 1 or 2 and then sleep until 9.00.

or 10 and that's their rhythm. There's definitely a component to your uniqueness around it. But what we did is we developed an optimal cortisol curve, which there's ranges, but based on 144,000 data points that we did in conjunction with clinicians and lab technicians to see what optimal really looked like. And yes, there's people that can stay up really, really late. But who knows what their cortisol is actually doing? And maybe it's not showing up for them from a mood problem or an irritability problem, but it could be showing up in fatigue in trouble with workout recovery. It could be showing up from a kind of acne or weight management problem. And so you never really know, even if those people seem to be functioning really well, which we've seen people, right? There's people with really, really high cortisol in the morning and they wake up, they're ready to go.

They're so happy. But maybe that's not optimal for their body. And over time, that could create other health concerns in the future. So does everybody start with nutrition and then they can add stress or can people start now with stress? Like what is the best way for somebody to work on their foundational health? We have both. So you can start with the daily health nutrition product and then layer on stress because we've built them to work together. Or you can start with stress, look at your cortisol balance, kind of work on that for a couple of months and then add on the daily nutrition afterwards. Can you talk about how cortisol can affect nutrition?

because I've heard you talk about this as well, and it can influence how your body metabolizes things. There's a cycle when it comes to cortisol imbalance and nutrients. So if your body's constantly in this fight or flight mode, you're stressed all the time, it uses certain nutrients faster. And that also creates more of a concern around stress and cortisol imbalance. So if your vitamins and minerals are suboptimal, as well as other nutrients, it can create this further in cortisol imbalance.

And when it comes to food specifically, when you are stressed, when you're in this fight or flight response, oftentimes people have cravings for the processed foods, the fats, the sugars, the salts. And those in turn don't help with cortisol imbalance. We can even make it worse. And so you get into this kind of food cycle too. Why is that? Why do we have those cravings? Because that definitely happens to me where if I'm more stressed, like I'm a stress eater. I can't relate to people who are like, yeah, I'm so.

stress like I forgot to eat like that is not me but if I'm super tired I know that's a stress around my body and the next day like I just want salt salty things and sugary things and or if I'm dealing with a stressful situation it's the same so is there a reason that our bodies crave that it's hormones it's that cortisol imbalance is really what what our body's doing and those kind of quick cravings give our bodies a dopamine hit and so we know all right we're stressed we want something salty something something fatty. And so that goes back to willpower that we were talking about before is how do you get out of that continuous cycle. So what are some ways because you not only look at data points and give

people these insights, but you also then give recommendations, right, on what to do. So with the nutrition piece of it, they get this individualized multivitamin. And then on the stress side of it, what kind of recommendations do you see people get depending on where they are on that scale? So we, from a lifestyle recommendation perspective, you got recommendations across sleep, across lifestyle changes, movement, and exercise specifically, as well as recommended the targeted supplements that we've created that impact specific symptoms related to stress. So that's an overarching cortisol imbalance, which is our stress support product, brain fog, mental clarity, which a lot of people see from a cortisol imbalance perspective,

that's our focus product. And then if you're having sleep or relaxation or you're extra anxious, this is our unwind powder, which is a fast acting relaxation blend, melatonin-free, that helps kind of body balance out, especially before sleep. I love it before sleep. On the lifestyle recommendation side, it depends on your stress type. But for me specifically, there's a couple of things. So one, when and how you work out really matters when it comes to balancing your cortisol.

So for me, doing a lot of high-intensity cardio would be not the best use of my time, but focusing more on strength training in the middle of the day during that energy dip, kind of two, three o'clock, and trying to get outside more. So if I'm going to take a walk, trying to walk outside versus on my walking desk, for example. And also things like protein really matters when it comes to cortisol balance and kind of hormonal balance in general. you often hear about a gram of protein per body weight. It's actually per ideal body weight. So if you're someone that's managing weight or trying to get to a different body weight, that's something to keep in mind as well. For me, as I mentioned, I had a baby nine months ago. Definitely something top of mine recently. And then blue light blocking glass is another one for me specifically. You can be on screens at night. It's just as a founder, it's something I often just do. I just put on blue light blockers

and it helps with sleep. There are a couple really interesting things there. So first, ideal body weight. That makes so much sense. And I've never heard anybody say that before. But it makes sense that if you're 20, 30 pounds over where you want to be, but you're eating that much protein. Yep.

How does that detrimentally affect whatever your goals are? So our clinical nutritionist, I did the nutrition one-on-one. I love having her on staff. She has so much information for us. But she basically was saying, I mean, protein, if your body isn't using it, it turns into sugar. And so you don't want to be overdoing your protein, especially if you're not, have strength training for that.

You want to be focusing on getting the protein for your ideal weight versus the weight you're at, especially if there's a gap, a big gap. The other interesting thing was that you work out when your cortisol is low. So I always thought your cortisol is supposed to be higher in the morning. so you utilize that for your workout. So it's a little bit counterintuitive. Do you do that to naturally raise your cortisol? I think it helps balance it out throughout the day. And also when I wake up, my cortisol isn't high enough for what it should be. And it also, for me, it also works with my kind of overarching circadian rhythm too. That's the time of day that my brain just kind of shut off.

If I'm at work or if I'm working, I'm staring at my computer. I'm not doing a lot. I'm doing very meaningless tasks. And so I get up for my desk and go. go work out. It gives me an energy boost. It helps balance cortisol overall. And it just makes me more productive throughout the day. You mentioned earlier, you know, this, not this specific place, but say like the supplement industry. It's so saturated. And people do not know where to start. I mean, I get so many messages, and I'm not an expert by any means in that area. But people want to know, like what multivitamin to take, what greens powder, like you said, what probiotic. And I've heard you talk about how certain minerals, vitamins, whatever, can be detrimental for some people, which I think people just don't assume.

I think there's an assumption that I can take this multivitamin and it has these things in it that maybe I'm deficient and that it can help me with. And then the rest of it, my body will just excrete. But actually some people have genetic mutations, right? And certain circumstances where some of these ingredients can actually be harmful. We're all unique. We all need different things. Our bodies process things differently. And this is where the genetic piece comes in. And you're right. It's for some people, maybe they're supplementing with something with a lot of iron, but they have genetic mutation where their body actually stores more iron than the average person. So this extra supplementation of iron can be harmful. KU10 is another example here. CoQ10 is used a lot in beauty products, beauty from within, but also on the skin. And there's people with genetic mutations that you can actually. use the co-cutence, you can take it, but it's completely useless. So if it's, your body's not able to use it, then you can make adjustments to take a more activated form or to take something else, put something else on your skin that will have a similar effect, but actually do something.

And vitamin D is another interesting one. Most people are deficient in vitamin D. A lot of people are. There's people that have a genetic variation on the VDR gene where your body doesn't process vitamin D the way that a normal genetic, person would. And that means you actually need even more vitamin D. So if you're deficient in blood and you have this BDR gene, then you need much, much more vitamin D than someone who either has even optimal levels or a normal kind of VDR gene. Are there any other vitamins or minerals that people, for the most part, are deficient? I'm sure there are people out there who, you know, have everything locked in and balanced. But I know, like, I don't remember.

the statistic, but so many Americans are deficient in something like magnesium. Vitamin D, like you mentioned, is there anything else that stands out? Yeah, in terms of what we test and how we've developed our at-home lab tests for the daily health and nutrition category is really around what are people most deficient in and what's really important to test. So we look at, for our vitamin test, we look at B vitamins and vitamin D, which are very often suboptimal. And we also look at some inflammation markers there as well. And then on the mineral test, magnesium is a big one. And zinc is something to test as well. And your right iron is a big one that can be too high or too low in people. How has your lifestyle

changed being a founder? Because you worked in investment baking. Obviously a very high stress job is being a founder more stressful or how does it compare? I've never had a not stressful job. So if people are listening to this and they're saying, oh, how could I be a founder or that kind of thing? It's stress at work has been my life since kind of day one of starting my career. I would say the differences as a founder. Honestly, there's more excitement there. There's maybe more stressors, but there's also more opportunity for joy, excitement. You get to build a team. You got to build a culture. You get to, especially in health, you get to impact people. So we get members writing in about how what we're doing is helping them improve their sleep. It's helping them not get sick. It's just

answering a lot of problems that they've had. And that's constantly energizing, whereas investment banking is less so. You're not having as many people saying, hey, your work is really impacting my day-to-day life. And so having that opportunity to not only grow the team, but impact people is something that's very, very different. And you were working in an area with chronic care, right? Previously, I was in, I touched everything from health care services and through to technology. And so I saw all sorts of different pieces of the health system, more on the traditional side. But everything from chronic care to diabetes to metabolic health to later in life stage rehab care, that kind of stuff prior to business school.

Mm-hmm. I'm sure that you don't have. like actual numbers for this, or maybe you do, but how many of these illnesses, diseases that people end up having chronic care for are related to lifestyle? When we look back at that kind of 700,000 number, where a lot of it's due to metabolic health, inadequate nutrition, and now we're talking more about longevity around health span. How can we not only live longer, but stay healthy and thrive longer? All of that is due to lifestyle choices. Yes, we do have some. genetic predisposition to things, but it's really good to understand what your genetics are saying, what's going on in your body now, and how can you continuously day after day set yourself off for

success later in life? Because we all want to be 90 years old and running around on a, I play tennis, so running around on a tennis court and making sure we're healthy throughout our lives. Do you feel like COVID kind of changed the landscape a little bit? Because I feel like everything shifted to telehealth. I mean, I can't remember the last time I went to my actual doctor because so much can be done virtually. And then so many companies with at-home wearables and, you know, supplement companies, everything, have cropped up. So do you think that we're really moving away from the traditional medical structure that we had before into something new? COVID was terrible for so many reasons. But on the positive side of it, I think it forced so many people to understand.

that they are the person that's going to take control of their health. They can't rely on other people. They can't rely on their doctors to tell them what to do all of time. They really have to figure it out by themselves. And this comes in the kind of rise of at-home testing. It comes in the rise of more holistic approaches to health. And as we look forward, I don't see that going away. Consumers have more access to health data than ever before. And that is just beginning. There's going to be so many more innovations. There's already stuff coming down the pipeline, continuous cortisol monitoring, non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, just so many ways that we can understand what's going on in our bodies. And technology is continuing to advance. We've got AI now where it's just going to be

so much even cheaper to take all that data, make sense of it, superpower the doctors, and help people take what they're doing in wellness into what they're doing in traditional care. And it's just going be a more integrative approach, more convenient, more health at home. Doctors are always going to be important. But as individuals who aren't doctors, how can we help superpower the people we do see into helping us be our best selves, helping us with our stress, our mood, our longevity, our health span? I didn't know about continuous cortisol monitors. I know a lot of people are doing the CGMs with the glucose, but cortisol, that's an interesting one. It's not there yet. There's just a lot of research around it. But glucose is a good example where that has absolutely blown up in the last

three years. And it's fascinating. I wear one about every six months. And it really shows you what does spike your glucose and what doesn't and kind of how to think about eating for better metabolic health, which when you start to think about, all right, how can I make it so that this meal doesn't spike my glucose? It creates this new mindset versus, all right, how can I eat so that I look better? If you think about it from a health standpoint, it's easier to be sustainable there. Do you have any tips on how somebody can do this testing and try to optimize their help, but also not fall into that obsessive place that we were talking about in the beginning? You were like saying about checking your HRV. And I mean, that was me. And I've worn an aura ring and

various other devices. And I like them. But sometimes I have to take a break because I do tend to fall into that obsessive category where I want to perfect everything. So how do you not fall into that yourself and do you have tips for other people? We recommend testing on our tests every three months. And so it's a quarterly check-in. So you're not constantly thinking about it. When you get into wearables, you can see it more like you can see it hourly if you really want to. Sometimes I do fall into it. I would say figure out what you need to get more intuitive about your body and understand what's working and what's not and use them as kind of pressure testing versus this like constant checking. And the thing that I think we're kind of where we're going from a wearable perspective is you

mentioned like you've had an aura, you've had this, you've had that. I sometimes wear my Apple Watch and a whoop at the same time. I just got an aura. People are doing all of that and sleeping on eight sleeps. There's all of this data. And so how do we make sense of it? How do we as founders, as innovators, turn it into actionable, easy to do steps so that you don't have to look at your data constantly, but you can say, all right, this is what's been going on from a trend perspective from my HRV. Here's Routines membership program and here's what I'm going to do on a day-to-day basis so that I know that I'm managing it versus, all right, I have to check it every hour. How do you as a founder differentiate your product and your company from the other ones out there

because it is becoming a saturated space, I would assume. When you look at supplementation, there's a lot of different options there. And when you look at kind of personalized health, there's fewer. And so what we are really focused on is building that smarter daily routine for our members and doing it in a way that isn't really complex, really expensive, really confusing, which there is also those solutions on the market. So we're not just building a supplement and saying, here, we're looking at what's going on in your body in whatever way makes the most sense for you.

We're providing products that are based on that unique biological data and unique health profile. And then we're helping you track if it's working or not over time and optimizing there. And so it's really taking some of the things that are happening in biohacking in the much kind of deeper into quantified self movement and bringing it into more people to make it more accessible and more attainable. You mentioned that you have a clinical nutritionist. Who else is helping to extrapolate that data and then give those personalized insights? My co-founder has a PhD in biotechnology. So he is the scientist behind a lot of what we do. He spent his whole career looking at how health data can be used to build better products for both providers and consumers. And so he's one of the other scientists behind it. We also have a clinical advisory board that includes medical. doctors, registered dietitians, pharmacists, farm ds, who can also help us as we look at new product

development, as we look at improving our current products to make sure we're looking at everything we need to from a science-backed perspective, from a research-backed perspective. So we talked about nutrition and stress. Is there another area that you guys are kind of looking ahead to that you can say, or is that like under wraps right now? We are looking into other categories. There'll be some new exciting. expansions in in 2024, but we're really looking at some of the top categories that matter to people, which a lot of which we talked about today. Yeah. So what do you consider to be optimal health? Like what do you define that as? If I think about what optimal health is, you kind of have

to think about what suboptimal health is. And a couple of things that I think about is, is I mentioned my gut health problems, but I was kind of bent over in pain when I was 12. I've had concerns related to stress or when you're kind of post-baby coming back and your body just doesn't work the way that it used to. Not only is it health, it's health, but it's also how you feel. You can feel everything from kind of overwhelmed to confused to frustrated. And the opposite of that means you have pride in what you're doing. You have joy. You're happy. You're thriving. And so that's really what optimal health is for us. It's how do we get you to a place where you're having good days. You're so excited to be with your family. You're getting to play with your kids. You're

getting to play with your grandkids. You're getting to do what you love to do on a daily basis. And we're just helping you get there. I love that. It's like the experience. I think so many people think of biohacking to get their numbers and their levels perfect and this and that. But like what does that really look like in real life? And I think so many people take for granted having the energy to do certain things and feeling good on a regular basis. And it seems like now more than ever people are struggling with that for so many reasons. Stress like we've been talking about sleep, nutrition, hormones, which I think hormones are kind of lower stream than these things.

You know, it's like the cortisol is off. The sleep is off and then that affects the hormones. And so many people just see that and try to treat that without addressing these other things. So I think it's really cool. Do you have any user testimonials that just like blew your mind? We get them pretty often. I think the best are when I hear about people, not only saying, all right, my sleep is massively improved, but we've had some people come in and say, I'm never going to stop your product

because it has absolutely transformed my life. Or we had another person right in. In other times, I would have been sitting in this meeting and completely blown up. But I've been on the stress program. I've been taking a product. and I was actually calm at a time when everyone else was sitting in there, just kind of like freaking out from a meeting perspective. And on the nutrient side,

we have people who said, I've been looking for this for forever. Finally, there's something that actually looks at what's going on in my body and gives me a dose that makes sense for me. And I just love that I'm taking care of myself. And so giving people that, like, joy, that pride, that they're investing in their health,

that they're doing something and they're getting the results versus, like what I did is, trying all these things, not really knowing, not getting the results. That's the best feeling as a founder when you're building something. Does your mom use it? She does. She uses most all the products. I got most of my family on it. Uh-huh. Amazing. And has she felt a difference? I would imagine she has. Yes. And she's done the testing. She's done the cortisol testing. She actually needs to redo the cortisol testing. So that's a good reminder to reach out for her. How long should people expect things to take to feel better? Is it just to

depend on, you know, their results with the testing and where they fall in that stress scale and all of that? It really depends on your body, right? If you're coming in and you have optimal levels, but you take a, you take your genetic test and like me have genetic variants. So I have a genetic variant on my GPX1 gene, which protects your body against free radicals. And so from that, I know I have to take more antioxidants every single day, you're not going to feel that as much as someone who's coming in with really low vitamin D levels or B levels and their energy can shoot up within a couple of weeks to a month. On the stress side, that also depends on your results. If you're in kind of the worst stress type, you're in the most exhausted stress type,

and you've been in fighter flight, chronic fight or flight for years. That's going to take longer. But we have people coming in, taking our stress support, taking our unwind. Unwind, you can feel it and sleep better that day. Stress support, you're seeing kind of overarching improvements within a couple of weeks to a month. And focus, it's more of a that day as well. But working together, you're showing up better. You're performing better at work.

You're performing better on your workouts. And you're more productive and less irritable, which everyone would like to be. That's really interesting about the genetic mutation. I think that is another area that people kind of. overlook. So they think, okay, I'll, I'll test my blood, I'll test my hormones, but something like that is so useful to know. Is that a common one? I think it's 20 to 30 percent of people have at least one variant. And then some people less percent have two. I'm one with two variants. Oh, what's your other one? No, it's there's two, you have two copies of the GPX1 gene and both of my copies are mutated.

Interesting. I wonder if that affects aging because three radicals like external aging. I mean, you look amazing. But that's a good question. I think I would say the the nutritionist. Yeah, I would, that's a good question. Something I'll have to look into. Well, now I want to get tested for that. Well, tell everybody where they can find more information about routine and how they can sign up and all of that. You can go to our website at routine, R-O-O-T-I-N-E dot co. And you can find us on socials at Routine underscore Co. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's 15% on. off with Code Blonde.

I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to areaallori.com. And I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Ariel Lurie.

Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.