How Levels Habit Loops help you reach your health goals
The new Habit Loops feature keeps you accountable to those key practices that meaningfully impact your metabolic health
Improving your health is ultimately just a matter of building new habits, one by one, until they are a regular part of your life. Whether that’s eating a savory breakfast, walking after meals or going to bed an hour earlier.
At its core, Levels is about giving you data that helps you a) understand which habits to change and b) to see the impact of those behavior changes. Our new feature, Habit Loops, enforces that habit building by giving you simple, clear goals to aim for and track.
First, you need data. That’s why we have features like real-time glucose tracking, Levels Labs blood tests, exercise and sleep import, and macro-logging. Using Levels allows you to assemble in one place a comprehensive data set about what you do and eat. It helps you uncover patterns in your behavior to optimize your metabolic machinery.
The tricky part is making use of all that data to build sustainable habits that will improve your health over the long term. Most of us know the core pillars of health—diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management—but sticking with those daily and weekly practices that give us great results is challenging for a million reasons. That’s where our new feature, Habit Loops, comes in.
Habit Loops are a basic visual accountability tool that lets you 1) set custom goals around the nutrition, exercise, and wellness habits you want to prioritize and 2) quickly see how you’re tracking toward those goals on a daily and weekly basis, including how many days you’ve hit your goals in a row.
“Closing the loop” is a key part of our culture here at Levels, and “closed loop feedback” is the concept behind real-time glucose monitoring, so using a loop visual that you close is both familiar (especially for iOS users) and on brand.
Here’s how Habit Loops work and how anybody can use them to hit your goals, whether you’re just getting started, or if you’re optimizing an established daily practice.
[LEFT] You can choose three habits to focus on at any given time, across exercise, nutrition and lifestyle. [CENTER] The app will suggest a goal for you, but you can also customize for your specific targets. [RIGHT] Every day, you can track progress toward your goals and see your streaks across days.
What you can track with Habit Loops
Habit Loops is a new feature, and we’ll be adding new habits to track continually. In the current version, you can set custom goals around 9 key habits that contribute to optimal metabolic health.
- 👣 Step Count: Frequent movement throughout the day—especially after meals—is foundational to stable glucose and longevity. This simple Habit Loop imports data from Apple Health or Google Fit to track steps. Use it to motivate yourself to get up and get moving.
- 🏋️♀️ Workout Time: Any type of exercise improves insulin sensitivity and overall health. Use this habit loop to make sure you’re doing some kind of activity every day, even at low intensity. This Loop imports data from Apple Health or Google Fit but you can also add workout logs manually.
- 🛏️ Sleep Duration: Low or poor-quality sleep impacts glucose the next day, and can increase cravings and stress. Use this Habit Loop to strive for 7-8 hours of good sleep a night. Data is imported from Apple Health or Google Fit, including from sleep trackers.
- 🍗 Protein: Getting enough protein is vital for boosting satiety, stabilizing blood sugar, and supporting metabolic health. Use our new Macro Logging feature to automatically tally your daily protein, and use this Loop to hit your daily quota.
- 🥗 Fiber: Fiber plays a key role in gut health and blood sugar, and most of us are not getting enough. Data for this Loop also comes from Macro meal logging.
- 📈 Spike-free days (weekly loop): Avoiding sharp rises and falls in blood sugar is the best way to build optimal metabolic health. If you’re wearing a CGM to track your blood sugar, the Levels app will track how many glucose spikes you have in a day. This Loop helps you maintain stable blood sugar.
- 💪Strenuous workouts (weekly loop): Workouts that push your heart rate, like HIIT and CrossFit, have unique metabolic benefits. You can import workouts or mark them as strenuous yourself in the app. Start adding more into your routine and track towards a weekly target.
- 🧘Mindful Minutes: Minimizing stress is vital for optimal metabolic health, so this goal tracks how much time you’ve spent doing something mindful, like breathing exercises or meditation.
- 🚰Water Intake: You can’t be healthy if you’re not hydrated, so this simple goal tracks how much water you’ve consumed in a day.
How to use Habit Loops
If you have historical data for a given Loop, Levels will automatically recommend a target for you based on existing data. For example, your protein target will be set based on your weight.
However, you can customize your target based on your personal health goals. For example, if you’re an active weightlifter, you may want to increase your daily protein target to optimize muscle gain.
Habit Loops are visible on the main Today page of the app. The first time you use Levels, you’ll be prompted to pick three goals. (We currently limit tracking to three goals as we believe sustainable habit building requires focus, but you can change the Habits anytime you want. But don’t worry, we’re still tracking all the data you’ve chosen to share in the background, visible in the My Data section of the app.)
See your daily progress right on your Today page, and view your historical data, including streaks, by clicking on the calendar at the top.
Conclusion
Habit Loops is built for everyone, with the goal of helping you get closer to optimal health. Whether you are a metabolic health expert, looking to keep yourself accountable to new habits you’re looking to build, or you are new to metabolic health and learning more about which habits you should focus on, Habit Loops can help you make progress.
Learn what to eat, build better habits
The best way to understand your metabolic health is with a continuous glucose monitor and an app like Levels to help you interpret the data. Levels members get access to the most advanced CGMs and personalized guidance to build healthy, sustainable habits. Click here to learn more about Levels.
