#32 – Levels Member Story: Curiosity led Natalie Lumpkin down a path of monitoring her glucose and making life changes | Ben Grynol & Natalie Lumpkin

Our bodies are not the same today as they were 10 years ago, and that includes how we metabolize certain foods. What worked yesterday may not work today and vice versa. That’s why Levels member Natalie Lumpkin has found using a CGM so useful. She sat down to talk to Levels Head of Growth Ben Grynol about how Levels has impacted her health journey over the past year and how important it is to have information about our internal state. She also talks about using a CGM in tandem with her 83-year-old father and the accessbility of this type of health tech.

06:36 – From curiosity to dedication

Natalie set out to use a CGM for a month, but then she quickly started relying on having the instant feedback.

It literally has opened this world for me that we can talk about, but I’m deep into the gadgets, and the things, and the learning, but it was really out of curiosity, more than anything first and foremost. What is this thing? What is my blood sugar? I can check it now. I can watch how food and stress and exercise affect me metabolically. And then check again and see if I’ve changed anything. And I don’t really think I ever had, I’m going to do it for a month or six months or three months. I’m like, “I’m just going to do it until I don’t want to do it anymore.” And I’ve taken a break, but it wasn’t for very long, because I think I miss the confirmation of, oh, this is how I feel. Swipe. Oh yeah, that’s how you feel. I miss that feedback of being able to understand this is how you feel. Go do something about it.

09:06 – Our bodies are always changing

What worked for you yesterday, may not today, and vice versa. It’s important to keep checking on things as time goes on.

Well, and I think that because we’re constantly changing as bodies and humans, it really is a lifetime thing. This is something that’s as a learner in the world, it’s great for me, because I will continue to always learn. In the very beginning, oatmeal to the moon for me. Now, I have figured out… I did a challenge with Austin, and I haven’t had oatmeal in a year, and you want me to eat oatmeal, but okay, I’ll do it. Blueberries and almond butter. And I didn’t spike at all. And I tried it again yesterday just with maple syrup and butter, and I didn’t spike at all. And I’m like, okay, so what, now I can eat oatmeal? But you’re right, it’s not just the food. It’s like, how well did I sleep? And I just rode. There’s all these other things that go into it. So it’s never that you can have food, see what the result is, and know, okay, so I’m good with that forever, because you could have it again and get a totally different result.

14:37 – Understand what’s happening inside your body

You are your body’s owner. Having access to data about it just makes sense.

I’ve got the Leaf. I’ve got the Oura. I’ve got my watch. I’ve got my CGM. I’ve done all of these micronutrient scans or blood work, so I understand what’s happening in my blood, what’s happening intercellularly. I did a gut biome test. I’m biologically 45-years-old. I did that test to just understand what my age is in that way. I’m just super interested in… It’s like all of this information is available and it’s my information. It’s about me. I can make adjustments to it. Why wouldn’t I want to understand what’s happening inside my body?

17:56 – Learn what’s healthy for you

Even if you have a healthy lifestyle, there are still things to learn about how you process certain foods.

That was kind of a big aha for me. I’d been vegetarian/vegan/pescatarian. I just don’t eat meat. Fish every once in a while. And that’s been 10, 15 years that I’ve been somewhere in that realm. Always organic. So I consider myself a pretty healthy eater. But when I could see what the choices in that realm were doing, I was like, so maybe not a banana in my smoothie the first thing in the morning. And actually, I feel better all day long. I have more energy all day long. It’s also helped me eat meals more regularly. I was notorious for cup of coffee or a smoothie in the morning, and then a handful of something during the day, and no food again until evening. And that food might have been chips and salsa. I could run on not eating, and wasn’t feeling great, but didn’t actually realize it.

23:57 – Have control over your health

Having access to your health data without having to go to a doctor gives people a bit of control over their health before things go wrong.

We don’t think about the inside until something goes wrong. And then we have to go to someone who we have to put all of our trust into to do the right tests, to interpret the tests the right way, to explain it to us in a way that we understand. Again, it’s back to the having control of it in my own hands. Love that I have a naturopathic doctor who’s fully in to all these things that I’m doing and helps me interpret things. But it feels like it’s always when something is wrong, that’s when what’s going on on the inside becomes important. I love the fact that you guys have put the sleep results into the app. And some of these other wearables that I’m doing can alert me if I’m starting to look like I’m getting a cold or feel sick. I’ve heard people have been alerted to the fact that maybe they have COVID before a test even is positive. These things can tell you things about what’s actually going on inside your body. You don’t need to go to a doctor for it.

30:29 – Share the journey with family members

Natalie’s dad was prescribed a CGM for his diabetes, but he hadn’t started using it. By using one at the same time, she was able to help him get over that first hurdle.

And so I was like, “Dad, if you order yours and you put mine on, I’ll tell you if it hurts. And you order yours, and then we’ll put yours on. If mine doesn’t hurt, I’ll put yours on.” He goes, “Okay. I’ll do that.” So they figured out how to order one for him. I went back up the next weekend and he applied my very first one, because I was terrified. It didn’t hurt at all. And he was like, “It didn’t hurt.” And I’m like, “No.” I said, “So let’s do yours right now.” And he’s like, “Okay.” So we did his, and he has been either waiting for me. I don’t know why he does this. He either waits for me to come and reapply his every two weeks, or he’s been reapplying. I mean, he’s been wearing a CGM now for a year. And scanning it…and understanding what his readings mean. I think early on, there was a little bit of a shift in behavior, but my dad’s about to be 83 next week, and so his routine and patterns are locked in. And I think we got him off of white rice to cauliflower rice, and that’s probably the biggest move that we’re going to make as far as a change in food. But he understands. He is eating and scanning.

32:59 – Community could help accountability

Being able to share data with others in a community could help people to learn new ways of improving their health and stay accountable with healthy habits.

I think that was another part when we were talking about Austin earlier, that’s another part of this, that just in the last three to four months, that this is another level of Levels that I’m beginning to really love is the community that I’m starting to build around other people who are using it. So I think if I could see, like you said, a really tight group of people who we had all given consent and we were all in it to help each other, not nag on each other, not shame each other, but to help each other, I think that that would be amazing. I think if I could see my dad’s stuff, I can know, okay, so it looks like we have a pattern at 10 o’clock at night, you’re eating M&Ms in bed. We need to take the M&Ms out of your room. You know what I mean? You could start to see things. And people definitely would have to be on board with like a parent with wanting that help. Otherwise, I become the nagging daughter.

42:17 – Great design goes a long way

Natalie has worked for Starbucks and now works for Apple. She’s drawn to companies that place importance on design and Levels is no exception.

I write things periodically, and I just wrote something in my blog about design, that I’ve always been attracted to really good design, design of all kinds of things, a table scape, interiors, web, luxury handbags because of the handcrafted meticulousness, the quality that goes into things like that, and Apple, for sure. I think it’s why I worked at Starbucks. There’s a lot of thoughtfulness and intention that go into products for the companies that I’ve worked for, and that’s why I’m attracted to them. And I think it’s the same reason why I’m attracted to Levels is it feels very intentional, it feels very thoughtful. It’s clean and easy. I am at the forefront as the customer, as a member. Service is amazing. I can email anybody anytime and I get a response, and I love that.

44:21 – Add on more measurements and integrations

Like the iPhone allowed us to have many devices in one, moving toward a health monitoring device that measures many things at once would be ideal.

It’s funny, because I remember I was just having this conversation with somebody. And so before I started at Apple, I think I was traveling for work at Starbucks, and I was in an airport, and I had my phone, I had my iPod, I was thinking about getting a PalmPilot. And I was like, “God, I just want one thing. I just want one thing. Why do I have to carry around all of these things?” And I literally was complaining. And then we have iPhone now. We have smartphones that we only need one thing. It is my computer in my hand. So it takes time. You do that stuff slowly. You add something, you learn and then you add something, you learn. But I think being able to identify all the things potentially that can affect somebody’s metabolic health, and slowly start incorporating those in the very same intentional, thoughtful, beautifully designed way that you guys are working, yeah, I think it would be great.

47:29 – Education will help with accessibility

There are two main things that will make CGMs more accessible to more people: cost and education. But the education has to come first.

I think the cost piece of it is big. I think the education is first. I think helping these groups of people have insight into how they’re currently making choices and the effect of those choices. And like we were talking about with my dad, offering them an alternative with the understanding of what that alternative does for them. That’s first and foremost, getting that understanding. And then here’s how, right? First, we have to talk about what’s going on and what the alternative looks like, what all the alternatives look like. There isn’t just one path, of course, but here’s how, in a very affordable way, someday, hopefully. Because you’re right, health should not be a luxury item situation, it shouldn’t.

Natalie (00:06):

I’ve got the aura. I’ve got my watch. I’ve got my CGM. I’ve done all of these micronutrient scans or blood work, so I understand what’s happening in my blood, what’s happening intercellularly. I did a gut biome test. I’m biologically 45-years-old. I did that test to just understand what my age is. It’s like, all of this information is available and it’s my information. It’s about me. I can make adjustments to it. Why wouldn’t I want to understand what’s happening inside my body?

Ben Grynol (00:45):

I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health. And this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is a whole new level.

Ben Grynol (01:11):

Communities unfold in interesting ways. People’s lives are threaded a lot more than we often know. Well, that was the case for Natalie Lumpkin. Natalie is also a member of our community. And recently, she and I sat down and we discussed her backstory. We discussed some of the things that have brought her to Levels. Well, I learned that Natalie Vanderpump, whom we also did an episode with recently and whom has been a very active community member, she and Natalie Lumpkin, Natalie L., Natalie V., the two of them have been friends for many years. And when Natalie Vanderpump started using Levels early last year in 2021, well, she let Natalie Lumpkin know that she was using this new product. She started talking about the way that it had impacted her journey in health and wellness.

Ben Grynol (02:00):

So Natalie Lumpkin and I will leave Natalie Vanderpump out of this one. There’s a lot of Natalies. We sat down and we discussed her backstory, the way that Levels has impacted her health journey over the past year, and the way that even people like her father, who’s 83-years-old, the way that he uses a CGM, not Levels, a CGM to monitor his glucose in real time. And so the two of them have a shared experience over this idea of glucose monitoring. It’s helped bring them together and it’s helped bring more insight into what they can consider when they think about the inputs and the outputs.

Ben Grynol (02:36):

And so we went deep into this idea of why do we not have that much information about our internal state, everything that’s going on on a molecular level in our body. It’s one of those things that we’ll start to uncover more insight as things get developed in this tech space. But it’s really interesting, and it’s something that Natalie is interested in, really taking ownership over as she describes it as owning her data, owning her personalized insight about the way that food affects her health.

Ben Grynol (03:05):

It was a great conversation. It was really fun to dig in with Natalie and take it to all these different paths. And mostly, it’s always fun connecting with people in the community because everybody has such a different thread and a different backstory. And the fact that Levels has brought them together through this interconnected state, well, that’s pretty special in itself. So here’s the conversation with Natalie. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.

Natalie (03:36):

Well, yeah. Thanks for asking. I had to circle back with Natalie, because I had listened to hers and you know, she and I are friends. We’re pretty close friends. And I was like, “I reached out to Ben to just say, congratulations, and then now I’m doing a podcast. I hope that’s okay with you. I’m not trying to step on you at all.”

Ben Grynol (03:56):

Yeah. So I had no idea. Where did that happen?

Natalie (03:58):

We worked together at Starbucks. I was at Starbucks 2006 to 2011. So we’ve been friends probably since around then. And she was at Starbucks as well. I left Starbucks and went to Apple. And I don’t know what brought us back together, but something did. And literally, she’s the one who introduced me to Levels, for sure. And then literally through the pandemic, I’m single and was in Austin alone. And she’s up here in Seattle. I’m back in Seattle now, but she’s up here in Seattle and in her condo alone. And like, we were joined at the hip, checking in on each other every day, every single day through 2020. I wouldn’t have made it through without her, so yeah.

Ben Grynol (04:44):

Interesting. I had no idea. So you both started Levels around the same time, I guess.

Natalie (04:49):

She started before me, for sure. And I don’t know if you remember when we did the interview, the five questions, I had it for probably two or three months before I even opened the box. I had gone through the process and I got it, but I was moving. And so I think that I probably got it in February, but didn’t start until March or April. And I think she had been on for a good six months maybe before that.

Ben Grynol (05:19):

I think she started, I think it was February, if I remember correctly, or something like that. So she started with the intent of like, “Hey, I’m going to do this for one month.” And then she was like, “Then I’ll do it for two.” And then setting these longer term goals. So it’s cool to hear that. I had no idea that the two of you were friends and close, and went through this interesting life experience together, and both had a different outlook on it, from what I know as far as the way that it wove through other threads of your life, just from the conversations we’ve had, so very interesting to hear that.

Natalie (05:56):

Yeah. I think my coming to it was really curiosity more than anything. My A1C was something that just came in a slew of information from annual checkups with doctors, and it was never anything I really paid attention to. But when I heard about her using it and how she was using it, I was like, “Yeah. I’ll do that.” I am super techy. I am every gadget, every pair of headphones, every everything, I have, because I just want to play with things and see how they work. And so I’m like, “Sure. I would love to understand how my body reacts to things.” We can do that, that’s cool.

Natalie (06:36):

And then it literally has opened this world for me that we can talk about, but I’m deep into the gadgets, and the things, and the learning, but it was really out of curiosity, more than anything first and foremost. What is this thing? What is my blood sugar? I can check it now. I can watch how food and stress and exercise affect me metabolically. And then check again and see if I’ve changed anything. And I don’t really think I ever had, I’m going to do it for a month or six months or three months. I’m like, “I’m just going to do it until I don’t want to do it anymore.” And I’ve taken a break, but it wasn’t for very long, because I think I miss the confirmation of, oh, this is how I feel. Swipe. Oh yeah, that’s how you feel. I miss that feedback of being able to understand this is how you feel. Go do something about it.

Ben Grynol (07:34):

It’s so funny that even after a year or so, I’ve been doing it for just over a year, and you think you sort of have it figured out. Generally, you have a heuristic of you know certain things. Again, everyone’s different, but personally, if I eat potatoes to the moon, just it’s not happening, and I think that’s relatively thematic for most people, even if you put fat protein, fiber paired with it, everyone’s going to have a different response. For me, it’s just, yeah, that’s not good. So you’ve got that heuristic.

Ben Grynol (08:08):

But seeing day-to-day when I look, and I’m still trying to unlock certain things, I’m like, why am I sitting higher as far as my variability might not be high, but I’m like, geez. And I started finger pricking and doing all these things. And you look, and you’re like, “Geez, I have to lower that. I’m being disciplined. What are the other factors?” Because if you know, it’s not stress. Is it that there’s less physical activity than there should be? Is it because my sleep is off? And it’s like, the answer is yes to all of these things, but trying to figure out which lever. And it’s not about gamification, but it’s about optimization.

Ben Grynol (08:46):

Once you figure out that feeling of feeling good, that’s what you’re trying to drive towards. So it’s wild to think that it’s like… You really realize after a year that you’re like, wow, this is an ongoing life thing. This isn’t something you just snap your fingers and you fix it. You take your car to the mechanic shop and it’s fixed until the next time it breaks.

Natalie (09:06):

Yeah. Well, and I think that because we’re constantly changing as bodies and humans, it really is a lifetime thing. This is something that’s as a learner in the world, it’s great for me, because I will continue to always learn. In the very beginning, oatmeal to the moon for me. Now, I have figured out… I did a challenge with Austin, and I haven’t had oatmeal in a year, and you want me to eat oatmeal, but okay, I’ll do it. Blueberries and almond butter. And I didn’t spike at all. And I tried it again yesterday just with maple syrup and butter, and I didn’t spike at all. And I’m like, okay, so what, now I can eat oatmeal? But you’re right, it’s not just the food. It’s like, how well did I sleep? And I just rode. There’s all these other things, but go into it. So it’s never that you can have food, see what the result is, and know, okay, so I’m good with that forever, because you could have it again and get a totally different result.

Natalie (10:11):

So it is factoring in all of these other things, but are just life. And the fact that we’re changing, and my metabolism is slowing down, and there’s things that I can do to change that or help, but I’m still aging. So it’ll always be learning.

Ben Grynol (10:27):

Totally. We have to digress for a second into Austin. I was laughing. I think I texted him when he was doing that oatmeal challenge. Austin McGuffy, if anybody isn’t familiar, he did an oatmeal challenge. Probably, gosh, it could have been a month ago and it could have been six months ago. And I can’t remember the timeline, but he was trying different things. So oatmeal on its own was his personal response, and then all these pairings. One of them was like, I ate smoked salmon with it or before. And I was like, “Man, what are you doing?” I was like, “I’m aware of the experiment.” I’m like, “There might be other protein, maybe other fats, or might be other things that you can put in there.” The smoked salmon is an interesting choice, but I support you.

Natalie (11:10):

Austin just might like oatmeal and smoked salmon, so let’s not hate on him for that.

Ben Grynol (11:15):

No. I loved it. I loved it. But back to what you’re saying about as we age, the interesting thing, and especially what we’re finding from our data set and then from our members is that the more people are getting different senses of value, like the jobs to be done, right? Like what is the value prop for… That’s what becomes hard as an analog. Who is the iPhone for? And you’re like, “Kind of everyone.” There’s not a persona for the iPhone. And that’s what we find, it’s like, there’s not a persona for health.

Natalie (11:49):

We’re all human.

Ben Grynol (11:53):

Yeah. But there’s different value props for different personas. Like the biohacker cares about different things. And people, we call them the health concern persona is again concerned about understanding and learning about their health as opposed to optimizing it. And then what we’re finding is that the most engaged group of members is women who are between 45 and 65. And what they’re finding is, because hormonally, the body changes so much over that period of time that your metabolic response, your metabolic function changes as life changes.

Ben Grynol (12:31):

Dr. Sarah Gottfried talks about it a lot in many of per books, but it’s just so important to understand the way we are when we’re 20 versus the way we are when we’re 60 is going to be different. Our metabolic function will change. And then when you take into account things like hormonal differences, that comes into account too. So it’s very interesting to hear how everyone gets different value out of the product.

Natalie (12:55):

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what persona I fall into. I feel a little biohackery.

Ben Grynol (13:01):

You totally are. Yeah.

Natalie (13:03):

But I also feel like I’m not 100% in the trying to optimize it. I’m just really, really curious into learning about it and making adjustments, but not meal planning. My CGM can end, and I can buy a loaf of brioche cinnamons roll bread, and have that for a couple of days while I’m not wearing my CGM so that I don’t see what’s happening. And then put it back on and know that, okay, I’m done with that.

Ben Grynol (13:35):

It reminded me, before we redid our personas, which was May, we’re always updating them, but we bucketed it into six personas, and you are, I apologize, you’re not the biohacker. You would fall into the tech obsessed people, who are… And again, there’s overlap, there’s differences. Biohacker is a little bit deeper. We used to call it biohacker/tech obsessed. Then when we went deeper into it, we realized, we’re like, biohacker is the type of person who wants a CGM 24/7, because they’re always trying to optimize every minute detail of their inputs. And the tech obsessed is somebody who is so interested in gadgets, but also cares about their health. And so it’s somebody who might lean a little bit deeper into other things like Whoop or Oura or what have you. And they’ll have a bunch of these things, and they’re integrated into their life as opposed to I have all six of them going at one time.

Natalie (14:32):

Yep. That’s me. That’s me.

Ben Grynol (14:34):

That is absolutely you.

Natalie (14:37):

I’ve got the Leaf. I’ve got the Oura. I’ve got my watch. I’ve got my CGM. I’ve done all of these micronutrient scans or blood work, so I understand what’s happening in my blood, what’s happening intercellularly. I did a gut biome test. I’m biologically 45-years-old. I did that test to just understand what my age is in that way. I’m just super interested in… It’s like all of this information is available and it’s my information. It’s about me. I can make adjustments to it. Why wouldn’t I want to understand what’s happening inside my body?

Ben Grynol (15:16):

Yeah. Have you done the panel yet?

Natalie (15:19):

Yeah. I did the Levels panel, but I did that first. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (15:23):

Yeah. So interesting, because… and that’s one thing, again, it comes back to constant education that we’re trying to inform people, whether or not people use Levels as a product. The most important thing is this foundation of education. As in Mike Innis’ words, metabolic health is a thing. It matters. You can do something about it. And the more that we can put out, I know Heney loves hearing that said back. But it’s good to have that as our mission as far as education goes, because ultimately, if we’re on a mission to help make people healthier, help people understand how food affects their health, then our goal starts with education. We’re not concerned if people don’t use a product. If they’re a member and they aren’t using it, that’s a different story.

Ben Grynol (16:14):

But if somebody said, “Hey, I read this blog post and it made me think differently about getting wonder bread versus something else,” that’s a meaningful starting point, because it’s not snap your fingers and all of a sudden, like, “Hey, I went from average societal lifestyle.” There’s a lot of conditions that have been created around us that drive us towards making decisions that we don’t even know, like again, eating a lot of the ‘energy bars’ don’t really have good energy, right? If people can start to understand some of these choices, so that, even that…

Ben Grynol (16:54):

So Heney had written that article on Chipotle. You go to Chipotle, you make different choices, right? Doesn’t mean deprivation. It means understanding your choices. Ultimately, that’s what matters so that people can start down this path, because we just get sicker and sicker each year that we’re eating heavily processed things and the wrong things when we do think we’re eating healthy.

Ben Grynol (17:19):

Objectively, you know when you’re eating unhealthy, before having Levels, I think in general, people know eating a bag of sugar is not healthy. I think people generally know that, but then there are other things that they think are healthy, like, well, instead of eating sugar, I eat healthy, I eat brown rice with sweet potato and chicken. And all of a sudden you go, well, that’s also healthier than the bag of sugar. But what it’s doing to your body internally is not helping you for optimal health.

Natalie (17:53):

Right. And I think that was big at the beginning of Levels. That was kind of a big aha for me. I’d been vegetarian/vegan/pescatarian. I just don’t eat meat. Fish every once in a while. And that’s been 10, 15 years that I’ve been somewhere in that realm. Always organic. So I consider myself a pretty healthy eater. But when I could see what the choices in that realm were doing, I was like, so maybe not a banana in my smoothie the first thing in the morning. And actually, I feel better all day long. I have more energy all day long. It’s also helped me eat meals more regularly. I was notorious for cup of coffee or a smoothie in the morning, and then a handful of something during the day, and no food again until evening. And that food might have been chips and salsa. I could run on not eating, and wasn’t feeling great, but didn’t actually realize it.

Natalie (19:00):

Like you said, until you actually feel good and know, oh, this is how my brain is supposed to feel, this is how my body is… this is functioning optimally, or close to optimal, that’s what you’re always striving for. And so even if you’re in that, I work out, and I think that I eat really healthy. I still think there’s an opportunity to learn something about how your own body processes food.

Ben Grynol (19:25):

Without the data, without the feedback, the hard thing is that I think it’s natural. Like let’s give ourself a break on this one in the fact that if you haven’t seen data, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with people not understanding misattribution. So misattribution being like, I sit down at my keyboard in the morning and I’m nodding off. And then the misattribution is I haven’t had enough sleep. I need another cup of coffee. The sleep thing could be entirely true, but let’s make an assumption that somebody has good sleep hygiene, eight hours on average per night and good routine and all these things, and let’s assume that somebody isn’t stressed, and somebody exercises well, but they’re getting the head nod.

Ben Grynol (20:15):

And what the attribution is without the data without realizing, it’s oh, because you’re having a large bowl of oatmeal and a cup of orange juice, that’s what Sam found, was you’re having this in the morning and it’s like, oh, that’s what’s actually making you feel sleepy as you’re crashing. And then you get shaky because you’re hypoglycemic. And just without that data, it’s like you can’t ever really figure it out. So you go, “Oh, this is what I need in place.” You’re like-

Natalie (20:43):

I just need coffee.

Ben Grynol (20:46):

… go upstream. Stop the thing that caused that other thing, instead of trying to fix the downstream implication, which is not coffee or sleep.

Natalie (20:54):

Right. Right. Right. The big lunch in the middle of the day, and I can’t focus for the rest of the day at work.

Ben Grynol (21:01):

You wonder, how did we do it beforehand. Like when you’re like, “How did I work like that before? I thought I was productive before, but it just feels very different.

Natalie (21:12):

Yeah. Yeah. It does. It really does. And I think the thing about having done this for almost a year is I think the point in time that I’ve done this and what it’s opened up for me with all the other wearables, I was talking to a friend the other day about, “Do you think I’m overindexing? Have I dropped off the deep end with learning about myself through all of these waves?” And I think it’s kind of a indication of potentially for me, at least, where we are in the world with the pandemic and so many things being shut down and international travel for work being taken. There are so many things that were taken away. This was a point of something that I could control. I could go deep into all of these things and learn about my own health, and make improvements in places, and have some semblance of, okay, so I’m operating in my own little world here.

Natalie (22:12):

So it’s also been interesting from that aspect of point in time, space and time to be able to pay attention to my own health in this way, I think it’s been really great. But I just think that it’s interesting that this is the time in my life I fit perfectly into that demographic that you talked about and have had the space and the time to spend time doing this learning.

Ben Grynol (22:40):

Yeah. It’s neat because it’s yours. It is you and it’s personalized. It is yours and it is not going to look the exact same as somebody else’s, and nobody can take that away from you. Nobody can take away your data. Your data is just you, and that is meaningful. When you start to have something that gives you insight into you as a person, your overall being.

Ben Grynol (23:06):

And I mean not to get too philosophical about it, but there’s so much interconnectedness as far as all of these analytes, all of these pieces of biometric data that we get, and the molecules that we can measure in our blood. And it’s like, wow, there’s a lot going on inside this. We focus so much on the outside and not the inside as far as the mind and mindfulness and all these things. But just like the body is just this black box that is sort of a mystery on the inside. And we’re like, yeah, that’s okay. I mean, not really. Everything else in the world is measured from the inside. Everything has sensors. And it’s like, but us as beings, we just sort of accept that. If you take a step back and you think about it, you’re like, that’s weird.

Natalie (23:57):

We don’t think about the inside until something goes wrong. And then we have to go to someone who we have to put all of our trust into to do the right tests, to interpret the tests the right way, to explain it to us in a way that we understand. Again, it’s back to the having control of it in my own hands. Love that I have a naturopathic doctor who’s fully in to all these things that I’m doing and helps me interpret things. But it feels like it’s always when something is wrong, that’s when the inside, what’s going on on the inside becomes important.

Natalie (24:34):

I love the fact that I think you guys have put the sleep results into the app. And some of these other wearables that I’m doing can alert me if I’m starting to look like I’m getting a cold or feel sick. I’ve heard people have been alerted to the fact that maybe they have COVID before a test even is positive. These things can tell you things about what’s actually going on inside your body. You don’t need to go to a doctor for it.

Ben Grynol (25:03):

Yeah. I mean our mental model up until even today, in general, because it’s [inaudible 00:25:10], it’s going to take a long time to get there. But the mental model is fixed downstream once it’s broken, as opposed to mitigate upstream before anything happens. And it’s like-

Natalie (25:20):

Right. Proactive.

Ben Grynol (25:22):

If you think about that, this idea of proactive health and wellness, is it makes sense once you, I don’t want to say once you get, once you think about it, once you understand it. It really makes sense, where people are like, yeah, I see it. But until you actually take enough time to think about it, it’s one of those things where it’s harder to wrap one’s head around. You have to almost experience it, and then you go, “Oh, I get it.” And then maybe see some of the downstream implications have changed. So let’s use something that is very visible.

Ben Grynol (25:57):

Somebody has some type of skin irritation, right, a rash of some kind that is recurring. And they see that over time, they’ve changed their lifestyle habits, so their diet, and their sleep, and their fitness, and all these things, they’ve changed it drastically. And they’re like, “Wow, wait a minute. This thing that’s been here for 20 years, it’s cleared up, and now I don’t put cream, assume it’s cream, I don’t put cream on it, and it’s just sort of gone, it was that. And you’re like, “Yeah.”

Ben Grynol (26:24):

And so then people start to think, they’re like, “Wait, if that’s the rash that went away, what are all of the other things like. Is my sore knee, is there something going on with my sore knee, my sore back as it relates to these other things? And you start to think, and you go, “Oh wow, there’s a ton that we have to learn.” So it’s wild.

Natalie (26:43):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (26:44):

We should dive into this idea if you are comfortable going there of how glucose monitoring was really, really challenging. When we’ve talked previously, we talked about your dad and his experience where it was harder for you to help him monitor his glucose through finger pricking, through all these things, just because he just wasn’t that interested in it. And then eventually you got him to try Levels, I think, or a glucose monitor.

Natalie (27:16):

A glucose. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (27:18):

Maybe walk through that, because that was a really interesting story of how, what you learned helped somebody who generationally should be hesitant to try any technology products.

Natalie (27:32):

He was very hesitant. So a couple of weeks ago, like the end of January, 2021, my dad had a series of minor strokes. I was still in Austin when it happened, and that was kind of what expedited my coming back to Seattle. Once I got back here with the nurses, and he was fine, he came through that situation pretty well, some minor short-term memory loss that I think has come back, but he’s 83, so there’s memory issues there anyway. But in the early weeks, there were nurses doing home visits and we were understanding kind of his medication routine, what he was taking, when he was taking it, what he wasn’t taking. So I helped by putting, he calls it, the robot, a medicine dispenser in the house, in my parents’ house that dispenses his medicine at the time he’s supposed to get it. Mediated a lot of bickering between my mom and dad, because my mom was caretaking that. And I’m like, “Let’s take that off your plate. And then he doesn’t have to blame you for things being right or wrong or too much. The robot’s going to do the medicine.”

Natalie (28:46):

And then the next thing was his blood sugar. He is diabetic, and the nurses were like, “So what are your levels? What are your readings? And he’s like, “Oh, I don’t do them.” And they were like, “You have medication, but you also need to be eating better. And we need to be monitoring. You need to be doing your finger pricks so that we understand what your blood sugar looks like.” And this has been for years. He said that when he got diagnosed as diabetic, I don’t even know how many years ago that was, there was a 20, 30 minute talk that a nurse or someone in a doctor’s office gave him about, here’s how you take it. Here’s why you’re doing it. Go. Here’s a log. Go do it. And he never understood carbohydrates. He never understood protein and fat. And he never understood how to eat. None of that training was given to him. He was just given a diagnosis and told to stick his finger. He didn’t like sticking his finger, so he never did it.

Natalie (29:47):

So when I got Levels, I had come back, I was up there in the house with them pretty frequently in the beginning, I got Levels. I opened my Levels. Actually, I saw on his prescription sheet that he had a CGM that the doctor had ordered for him. And I was like, “How come you guys haven’t ordered this?” And there was something with the pharmacy not being able to get it, being too expensive, something. And I was like, “Okay. I’m doing this.” I brought my Levels up. I said, “And I think it’s the same thing. It looks like it’s the same thing. It’s a LibreLink.” I had open mind and looked at it, and been like, “I don’t think I can stick this in my arm.” This looks like a needle and I don’t think I could do it.

Natalie (30:29):

And so I was like, “Dad, if you order yours and you put yours on or you put mine on, I’ll tell you if it hurts. And you order yours, and then we’ll put yours on. If mine doesn’t hurt, I’ll put yours on.” He goes, “Okay. I’ll do that.” So they figured out how to order one for him. I went back up the next weekend and he applied my very first one, because I was terrified. It didn’t hurt at all. And he was like, “It didn’t hurt.” And I’m like, “No.” I said, “So let’s do yours right now.” And he’s like, “Okay.” So we did his, and he has been either waiting for me. I don’t know why he does this. He either waits for me to come and reapply his every two weeks, or he’s been reapplying. I mean, he’s been wearing a CGM now for a year. And scanning it-

Ben Grynol (31:13):

That’s so cool.

Natalie (31:15):

… and understanding what his readings mean. I think early on, there was a little bit of a shift in behavior, but my dad’s about to be 83 next week, and so his routine and patterns are locked in. And I think we got him off of white rice to cauliflower rice, and that’s probably the biggest move that we’re going to make as far as a change in food. But he understands. He is eating and scanning.

Natalie (31:44):

And I ask him, “So when you drink your,” I call it coffee syrup in the morning, because he puts so much sugar in his coffee, “when you drink that in the morning and you scan and you see the numbers really high, what do you do?” And he is like, “Nothing.” He goes, “I just know it’s really high and it shouldn’t be.” And I’m like, “How about you go for a walk. How about you go down and ride the stationary bike. How about you just do something that’s small, just move your body just a little bit, and then scan again and see if it comes down.” And that’s been over throughout the year a reminder, continuing to remind him that we get it. You’re not going to become vegetarian at 83. You’re not going to change your diet drastically, but how about we just add some movement.

Ben Grynol (32:28):

If you could have insight, if you could see… So assume people have to be okay with it, let’s assume because of your family, that your dad would be okay with it, but assume that he was like, “Yeah. You can see my data in real time. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m good with it.” Is that interesting? If you could see… And let’s say Natalie V’s data, people in a close circle, is that interesting where you can… would that help you? What would that do for your dad?

Natalie (32:59):

Yeah. I think that was another part when we were talking about Austin earlier, that’s another part of this, that just in the last three to four months, that this is another level of Levels that I’m beginning to really love is the community that I’m starting to build around other people who are using it. So I think if I could see, like you said, a really tight group of people who we had all given consent and we were all in it to help each other, not nag on each other, not shame each other, but to help each other, I think that that would be amazing. I think if I could see my dad’s stuff, I can know, okay, so it looks like we have a pattern at 10 o’clock at night, you’re eating M&Ms in bed. We need to take the M&Ms out of your room. You know what I mean? You could start to see things. And people definitely would have to be on board with like a parent with wanting that help. Otherwise, I become the nagging daughter.

Natalie (33:58):

But yeah, I think it just builds when it’s community, the couple of people that I’ve connected to on Instagram, that we have these chats in DM about how things are going. They post something and I’ll comment on their post, or I post something and they comment online, being able to see it in real time and build that community of support, I think that’d be awesome.

Ben Grynol (34:23):

Do you think your dad would change behavior if he felt that there was more support, not support in the sense that you don’t support him, but support, like, do you think he keeps putting sugar in his coffee because he’s like, “Well, I don’t know what the alternative is. I don’t really know what to do.” And granted behavior runs deep, it runs so deep in our habits and they’re really hard to undo bad habits and all these things and create new habits around them, but neither here nor there, this idea of, for you being able to see that, like, sure, that’s helpful to you because you can be like, “Dad, M&Ms in bed, what are you doing?” But do you think that he would feel more supported? Is that sort of a thing?

Ben Grynol (35:09):

I guess the question is like, would he feel more supported and then do something about it? He’s like, “Wow, Natalie can help me here where I just have no idea what to do. So I stick with this thing that…” When you said he sees it and he’s like, “Well, I know it’s high, but it’s just high.” What’s sort of your outlook on that?

Natalie (35:27):

Right. Right. Yeah. I definitely think so. I think that even the switch from white rice to cauliflower rice, he didn’t know that cauliflower rice was a thing and that he could still have something that looked and tasted like rice, but wasn’t going to send him through the roof. He didn’t know that that existed. So I do think it is the opportunity to see it, see what’s happening and provide support and pure some options. Try these options. If these options work, let’s stick to one of them. And again, like you’re saying, habits, one thing at a time. With my dad, it’s we couldn’t go all in on him, but we could look for patterns and start to shift things one thing at a time. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (36:18):

I’m going to make this up, and it might exist, it might not exist, but let’s assume that you drink almond milk in your coffee, your dad drinks oat milk. I assume no sugar or anything. You see that, and then you can be like, “Hey dad, if you just change to almond milk, your metabolic response is going to be completely different.” Like that thing that’s happening when you go up, that’s a result of the oat milk. And by you being able to sort of send him data, or he can see your data too, and he’s like, “Oh, I get it. You’re flat and I’m not flat. And then he actually tries that thing and he is like, “It tastes the exact same. I’m in.” Then the behavior change only becomes, assume it’s not for taste, it’s just out of habit, the only behavior change becomes grabbing the one carton of milk at the grocery store instead of the other. And then as soon as that’s ingrained, you’re off to the races. I mean, it’s one aspect of it.

Natalie (37:16):

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (37:18):

Yeah. It’s interesting. Yeah. It’s cool to hear. Oh, what has your mom been thinking about this? Has she sort of been a viewer of the process of you and your dad?

Natalie (37:31):

You know what, I don’t really know. I think that she’s lived with him for almost 60 years, and probably just feels tired because he could be a handful, and she’s been primary caretaker. And so I think any help that any of us, I’ve got three siblings, any help that any of us can provide, gives her a bit of relief. I don’t know what she thinks about him wearing the CGM. I think if anything, it’s more of, he hasn’t changed anything. He hasn’t changed how he’s doing anything. Yeah. He wears it, and he scans, but he still puts four teaspoons of sugar in this six ounce cup of coffee. So yeah, that’s [inaudible 00:38:20].

Ben Grynol (38:19):

Has she changed habits, sort of her behavioral habits or cooking habits or anything like that? Because you’ve been like, “Hey mom, this is what I see. This is what dad should not do.” Has that been a thing-

Natalie (38:33):

No.

Ben Grynol (38:33):

… where she… She hasn’t sort of changed her [crosstalk 00:38:36].

Natalie (38:36):

We haven’t had any kind of halo, uh-huh (affirmative), uh-huh (affirmative). There hasn’t been really a halo effect in that way. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (38:43):

Yeah. I wonder if it’s a case of wanting to be open to it, or if it’s a matter of, it’s just like, it’s really hard. And even, I think all parents, like my parents, again, they ‘eat healthy’ and I’m trying to steer them in a better direction, because type one is deep on both sides of my family and my parents don’t have it, but their parents did and parents’ parents. It runs relatively deep. So I’m always like, “Dad, that head nod thing that you do, the way you fall asleep, I’m pretty sure, you should wear a CGM, because I’m pretty sure it’s because you eat X, Y, and Z.” But trying to get them to change their habits, it’s hard, it’s really hard.

Natalie (39:27):

It is. It is. It is. My dad got an iPhone, first iPhone three years ago, two years ago, and now, hard to get him to it, to accept it, to use it, but now fully understands, loves it. Had an iPad before, so that may have been a little bit of a help. This 83rd birthday, he’s getting an Apple watch. I have no idea how that’s going to go. I am tech support. It’s with trepidation that I want him to get this. I want him to get it for the falling down. There’s just so many health things that I feel like it’s a good idea for him to have one. But technology with parents is tough. And as I am a parent of a 32-year-old, I’m like, “Is that going to be me? Are you guys going to hate me at some point?” Because I’m going to be the parent who’s like, “What are you guys talking about?” Love doing those crazy things.

Ben Grynol (40:24):

You’ve been surrounded by tech for a while though. So you’ve been at, is it 11 years at Apple? You’ve been there a long time.

Natalie (40:30):

Yeah. Yeah. Just celebrated 11. Yeah.

Ben Grynol (40:33):

Congrats on that. So you’ve been there a long time. You’ve seen a lot of change in the company as far as. I mean, the company continues to evolve and evolve and evolve. And it’s one of those things where it’s like, right, where is Apple going to be 11 years from now. It’s so hard to say because 11 years prior, it’s like, where will Apple be? But you’ve seen a lot of changes, and we now have four team members who have worked with Apple, four team members on our team now, so the roots are running deep there, which is very cool. But-

Natalie (41:08):

That’s amazing.

Ben Grynol (41:10):

… when you look at Levels as compared to what you saw with Apple, is there anything that sort of feels parallel? And I know it’s hard to compare. It’s like startup versus large, established tech company that’s been around since the late ’70s, is a Homebrew computer club, very different. Right now we are 1980, maybe ’79, we’ll call it that. We’re about ’79, from Homebrew started, I think, it was ’77. So we’re like ’79, so we’re nowhere near. But this idea of trying to build an entire ecosystem, are there things that you think about when you think, like, oh, where could Levels go based on… You’ve got a very interesting lens on tech from working with the, objectively, the world’s largest technology company, the world’s largest company, or technology company. Not quite. But what’s that look like?

Natalie (42:10):

I mean, parallels that I feel and sense into… I think it’s why I’m attracted to Levels. I write things periodically, and I just wrote something in my blog about design, that I’ve always been attracted to really good design, design of all kinds of things, a table scape, interiors, web, luxury handbags because of the handcrafted meticulousness, the quality that goes into things like that, and Apple, for sure. I think it’s why I worked at Starbucks. There’s a lot of thoughtfulness and intention that go into products for the companies that I’ve worked for, and that’s why I’m attracted to them. And I think it’s the same reason why I’m attracted to Levels is it feels very intentional, it feels very thoughtful. It’s clean and easy. I am at the forefront as the customer or the member. Service is amazing. I can email anybody anytime and I get a response, and I love that.

Natalie (43:25):

And I think I love where I’m seeing you guys going with offering the panel, putting the sleep numbers in. And I think as, like I said, I’m in this whirls market full force right now. I think in a slow way, don’t try to take it all over too fast, but expanding in a way that only continues to add and support to what we were talking about, all the features and factors that could go into why my level spiked or crashed, being able to understand kind of what Oura does for me, like what’s my score on sleep, and what was my HRV, and all of these other things. How much water have I had in the last 12 hours? All of these things that affect my blood sugar and my metabolism, being able to get a read into those things as well.

Natalie (44:21):

It’s funny, because I remember I was just having this conversation with somebody. And so before I started at Apple, I think I was traveling for work at Starbucks, and I was in an airport, and I had my phone, I had my iPod, I was thinking about getting a PalmPilot. And I was like, “God, I just want one thing. I just want one thing. Why do I have to carry around all of these things?” And I literally was complaining. And then we have iPhone now. We have smartphones that we only need one thing. It is my computer in my hand. So it takes time. You do that stuff slowly. You add something newer, and then you add something newer. But I think being able to identify all the things potentially that can affect somebody’s metabolic health, and slowly start incorporating those in the very same intentional, thoughtful, beautifully designed way that you guys are working, yeah, I think it would be great.

Natalie (45:22):

And then yeah, opening it up and offering shareability. We haven’t talked about accessibility. I think that’s the other big piece of it is like, how do you make this more accessible, and not have people who don’t need their insurance to pay for it to be able to learn about their own health? How do you get it out there to the masses of people, especially to the groups of people who need it the most, highly affected by diabetes? So yeah.

Ben Grynol (45:55):

Yeah. That’s something that we are working towards, because when you look at data and you look at people in the world that are most heavily impacted by metabolic syndrome, the price point is so inaccessible right now. I mean just on average for people, it’s the DVD player that was $20,000 when it came out, and now they’re 19.95 at Walmart or whatever they cost, but it’s going to take a while to get there. But the important thing is that, and this is something that we reiterate internally is health is not a privilege. Health should not be a privilege. It’s how do you-

Natalie (46:39):

[crosstalk 00:46:39].

Ben Grynol (46:39):

… how do you make it so that health is, maybe we should call it a choice, because essentially, everybody, again, maybe it’s being a little too philosophical, everybody has to make their own choices in life provided they’re… Let’s go one layer deeper, it’s like, provided somebody is a ‘adult’ by definition, meaning they’re 18 years or older and they make their own decisions, their own life decisions, maybe it’s 16, whatever it is. But this idea of people can make their own decisions, but there isn’t a barrier to choice. The choice becomes, I’m deciding what to do based on understanding the implications of what will happen, and that’s somewhere where we have to get to.

Natalie (47:29):

Yeah. I think the cost piece of it is big. I think the education is first. I think helping these groups of people have insight into how they’re currently making choices and the effect of those choices. And like we were talking about with my dad, offering them an alternative with the understanding of what that alternative does for them. That’s first and foremost, getting that understanding. And then here’s how, right? First, we have to talk about what’s going on and what the alternative looks like, what all the alternatives look like. There isn’t just one path, of course, but here’s how, in a very affordable way someday, hopefully, because you’re right, health should not be a luxury item situation, it shouldn’t.

Ben Grynol (48:25):

The good news about content is that it’s infinitely scalable and it’s relatively free. There’s a cost to everything, but it’s not a deep cost. It’s not the same. An iPhone has a hard cost to it. A piece of content, it’s a pretty soft cost because it is dispersing knowledge and sharing knowledge and spreading knowledge. And so that is infinitely scalable, and that’s absolutely the starting point is saying, let’s start with education. Let’s get people thinking differently and making their own decisions, and hopefully, changing behavior because they now have a new lens on something that they might not have before.

Natalie (49:12):

Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that 100%. I think the education, when the light bulbs really happen though, is when you can see your own, when it’s your information that you’re looking at. You’re telling me all these things. I can listen to this podcast, but until I scan and see, oh, that bowl of fruit loops probably wasn’t the best choice for this morning, and now two and a half hours later, I feel groggy and brain fog and tired, and I had no idea that that was why, yeah, that’s the type of education.

Ben Grynol (49:55):

Do you ever listen to Marc Maron?

Natalie (49:57):

Oh, no.

Ben Grynol (50:00):

He’s funny. I mean, he’s notorious for… He’s one of the oldest podcasters. He’s been doing it since 2006 or something like that. And so people come in because he does it out of his garage, and they’re like, “Okay. Sweet. When do you want to start?” And he’s like, “Man, we’ve been doing this for like 35 minutes. What do you mean start?” So it gets so funny, because I always call it the intimacy. There’s something intimate about two people just having a meaningful conversation is when it’s like, “Okay. We’re on now.” And you’re like, “Now it just got ruined.” Can you imagine going out for coffee with your friend and all of a sudden it’s like, “Hey, should we start?” And they’re like, “What do you mean? Should we turn on our fake voice now?” And so Natalie, how was your week? Doesn’t happen.

Natalie (50:47):

Yeah. No. That’s true. That’s very true.