Eating With Insights With Josh Clemente on All Things Sport Podcast

In many ways, our bodies are like cars. Most cars look the same – they have four wheels and need fuel to run. But some cars need diesel fuel, while others need premium gasoline. The human body is the same way. Identical fuel sources, such as a banana, may enable one person’s body to run well but may not work the same way for another person. That’s why Josh Clemente founded Levels, the company that’s aiming to keep our metabolic systems on target by providing custom bio-feedback to every individual. Continuous glucose monitoring in the form of a simple, wearable device may be the answer to fueling your body properly –  through workouts and beyond.

• Check out Levels
• Follow Levels on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Connect with Josh Clemente on LinkedIn or Twitter
• Check out All Things Sport
• Connect with Alexander Preece on LinkedIn or Twitter

1:38 – Our body is an organic machine

Think of your body as an organic machine, if you understand it and maintain it well, it will help you live a long and healthy life.

“Basically SpaceX was launching satellites, and then they wanted to launch people. And that’s as you can imagine a big undertaking, and the company has to essentially redesign their strategies and processes from the ground up. And so I worked on that program. The specific vehicle I was working on flew Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the international space station in May, and they came back in August. And so that program was a really meaningful part of my path from being very interested in the machinery of inorganic systems – so lots of traditional machines – to thinking more about the human body as a machine and the way that it functions and the complexities therein, and how I can optimize my approach to lifestyle to increase my health span and make sure I’m functional and independent and generally not reliant on medications and external care late in my life.”

4:19 – Custom biofeedback is the key

Levels helps you make better decisions about food and fitness by continuously monitoring your glucose and giving you real-time feedback.

“The way I would frame Levels is that Levels answers the question of ‘what should I eat and why’ with objective data from your body. We use this technology specifically called continuous glucose monitoring, which measures molecules like sugar in your body in real-time. And then through our software, we close the loop between the actions you take and the reactions your body experiences. So we can show you specifically how, sleep, stress, diet, and exercise are affecting your metabolic control, your blood sugar levels in real-time, so that you can make better decisions on how to structure meals, how to time exercise, what specific exercise to approach, how sleep affects your metabolic control. So you can structure a truly personalized approach to living that is biasing you towards reducing inflammation and setting you up for a long lifetime of health.”

7:47 – Metabolic health affects everything

A large number of diseases can trace their roots back to bad metabolic health.

“So metabolism is the set of cellular mechanisms that produce energy from our food and environment. So every cell in the body and every tissue, brain, muscle, fat tissue, et cetera, all of them need energy to operate. And that energy is produced through these chemical processes, which are together metabolism. When metabolic health starts to break down you start to get a lot of byproducts, a lot of energy issues that are inflammatory. You start to bias towards weight gain or weight loss unexpectedly. And this metabolic dysfunction means that there is energy dysfunction in the body. And that can manifest as brain dysfunctions, cognitive health, Alzheimer’s diseases, being called type-three diabetes because of this connection. Cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, sexual health – everything down to skin disorders, like aggressive acne and wrinkling, PCOS, which is a leading cause of infertility in young women. So the metabolic dysfunctions are super widespread.”

17:26 – There’s no silver bullet approach to diet

There is no universal “good” or “bad” food. It’s about what works best for each person. With continuous glucose monitoring, each person is empowered to see what works best.

“What we’ve always tried to do in nutrition specifically is cram everything into a few sentences, like smash all of the nuance of individuality into the ‘eat better, work out more, eat these things, don’t eat those things.’ We’ve been looking for that silver bullet approach and it just truly doesn’t exist. And what’s been frustrating for people is when they try to follow the standard advice and it doesn’t work for them, they assume, oh, it’s all nonsense. And they give up. Well, now I think we’re shining a light and the beauty of it is that each individual can now just do what works best for them. It can be very frustrating. You can think if there’s no one-size-fits-all, then that’ll never work. Like it’s broken, that’s too large of a problem. But actually, if you just tell each person here’s your information, make choices that work for you, and then just have a lot of people doing that, you get a social change without anyone having to worry about what someone else is doing.”

22:54 – Fasting before exercise

When you are in a good metabolic state, your body naturally releases glucose in your bloodstream from stored fat in your body. This means you can work out in a fasted state without carb-loading.

“If you completely eliminate, which I’ve done with CGM now, any fueling at all, and instead wake up in a fasted state and go do that exact same workout, my body responds to the stress of the workout by releasing cortisol and in some cases adrenaline, depending on how intense the workout is. And I will actually see my blood sugar increase without any calories. And the reason for that is that it’s a fight or flight scenario. My body is actually quite a well-tuned system and it knows how to preserve energy for a scenario in which you’re working hard. And so this is a totally natural process, no bananas, no bagels, no granola bars needed. Your body will make sure that enough energy is being produced through your liver and through your available stores from your body fat, and the glycogen stores you’ve already got, to power any workout.”

28:43 – Metabolic flexibility is critical for an athlete

An average athlete can run out of glucose in 90 minutes, so they need to be able to switch to a different energy source quickly.

“If you want to be an elite athlete who is going to run, let’s say 100-mile races or compete in an Ironman competition, you need to be able to switch between the fuel sources that you have available. To give some quick numbers here, the average human, like a 150-pound person with 20% body fat, they have about 2,000 calories of glycogen. So that’s the stored glucose available in the body. But they have over 80,000 calories of fat available in their body. And so to only be able to tap into that glycogen effectively and not be able to switch over to you to your fat stores is really bad. You’re not solving the energy equation very effectively. You’re going to run out of 2,000 calories of glucose in about 90 minutes. And if you can’t switch to your body fat stores, it’s going to be a really challenging process. So optimizing that metabolic flexibility so you can switch effortlessly between food that you bring in and your body fat and glycogen stores without a hormonal breakdown is I think going to be just a really huge positive outcome from specifically CGM and then other real-time tracking measures like ketones.”

34:12 – Gain control over your energy

Having accurate information about what you are eating, how you are sleeping, how you are working out, and the patterns that result can help you get control over your energy levels.

“A classic example of this is being able to identify the difference between a banana that you eat then you sit on the couch, or a banana that you eat and then you take a walk…This is where you can start to see how five hours of sleep changes your metabolic control versus nine hours of sleep. And you can see that eating the exact same meal without sleep and due to the elevated cortisol in your system because you’re so stressed from poor recovery, can completely change how your body responds. We are identifying, using the software, and using machine learning, that we can do all of that cognitive overhead work and instead just show you in simple terms that are easy to understand these scores that you can use to game-ify so that you are just setting yourself up for success and don’t need to dig into the primary literature and get a masters in physiology.”

35:42 – Continuous feedback can replace internal motivation

When you get continuous and real-time feedback for everything you do, it becomes much easier to make better choices without needing to rely on internal motivation.

“It’s just having that closed-loop data so you do something and you see the response, it completely changes your mentality around what was once discipline is now data. And there doesn’t have to be this internal self-motivation thing. I know that I’m going to see this data. It’s like having a coach that’s just watching you all the time that you’re going to make the better choice. And you’re doing it because it’s your own body speaking to you. It’s not somebody else. And so I think that’s key, the accountability element is huge. But also the lessons are so innumerable. I mean the way that my metabolism is so critical to overall health and it’s so embedded in everything that we do, it’s powerful to have in real-time.”

38:33 – Metabolic system is a dynamic system

Our metabolic system changes with changes in our life, sleep, diet, and age. Therefore, it needs to be closely monitored for holistic long-term health.

“There’s actually strong evidence that shows that aging alone changes the hormonal system of the endocrine system. So basically how your body responds to insulin which is the molecule that pulls glucose into the cells for energy, that changes as you age. Body composition has a really strong effect, the microbiome may be involved, and certainly stress, like I mentioned. So even just changing jobs, having a different shift schedule, gaining a little weight, having kids, which change your schedule a lot, all of this can affect your metabolic control or how metabolically fit you are. And so it’s pretty important to recognize that this is something that’s dynamic, and we should check in regularly and really be on top of this. Because it’s not just about goal-setting and losing some weight or optimizing for that workout in the gym. It’s for holistic long-term health and you want to make sure that you’re steering in the right direction.”

41:49 – It’s not about data, it’s about context

We have been collecting data on fitness for a long time now, but as long as there is no context and feedback it doesn’t help.

“We didn’t see obesity drop after Fitbit came out. We have yet to see the return on the investment of paying attention to data. And I think it’s because we’re figuring out how to use it effectively. Like you can’t just give someone their blood or their heart rate and say, go get healthier right? There’s a whole lot of context that has to be involved there, where you have guidance, you have goals, and then you have outcomes that you can see and perceive, right? So what all these companies are doing really well is they’re connecting the dots between actions and reactions. And I think the beauty of it is we’re tightening those feedback loops closer and closer to the point of action. So rather than measuring your success with a bathroom scale two weeks or three weeks later, you can measure your success 10 minutes after you eat something.”

Alex Preece: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, Alex here. And welcome back to another episode of the All Things Sport podcast. Before we enter this week’s episode, I just wanted to remind everyone that every Monday I publish a free newsletter where I focus on the world of sports marketing. It covers the latest news, trends, fresh work and athlete deals, and you can sign up for our AllThingsSport.com. Okay. So back to today’s episode. So today we’re talking all about metabolic fitness and how tracking your glucose levels can affect not only your athletic performance, but also your everyday health. Joining me on the show today is Josh Clemente, who is the founder of Levels, a health and fitness startup. Levels uses data and continuous glucose monitors to track your blood glucose in real time,

so you can take actions based on this information to maximize your diet and exercise. Josh is also a level two CrossFit instructor, and previous to founding Levels, he worked at SpaceX with Elon Musk. As we know the shares in the world of digital fitness, blow up with new companies entering the space, and investment coming in the billions.

Therefore, it’s great to chat with Josh about the future of tech in health and fitness, and how a brand like Levels can, and in my opinion will change the game, not just for athletes, but for everyone trying to be healthier. This chat has totally blown my mind on how much we just don’t know about the impact food is having on our bodies. So sit back, enjoy the episode, and I’ll hand over to Josh as he introduces himself.

Josh Clemente: [00:01:16] My background is aerospace engineering. I have a mechanical engineering degree, but I worked at SpaceX for about six years, um, after school. Developing, uh, structural systems for rockets and spacecraft, and then moved into the life support systems development. So basically SpaceX was launching satellites, and then they wanted to launch people, and that’s, as you can imagine, a big undertaking, and the company has to essentially redesign their, their strategies and processes from the ground up.

And so I worked on that program. Uh, the specific vehicle I was working on flew Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station in May, and they came back in August. And so that, that program was a really meaningful part of my path from being very interested in the machinery, uh, of inorganic systems.

So lots of, you know, traditional machines to, uh, thinking more about the human body as a machine, and the way that it functions and the complexities therein, and how I can optimize my approach to lifestyle to, yeah, to, to increase my health span and make sure I’m functional and independent and, and generally not reliant on, you know, medications and, and external care late in my life.

And so that was kind of, uh, just being exposed to the human performance NASA approach to, um, prepping astronauts for long duration missions, is how I first started thinking about this. But I’m a, I’m a CrossFit level two trainer as well. And so always cared a lot about fitness and sports and, uh, just really

generally appreciate athleticism as kind of the key marker of health, um, until I started, you know, in, at SpaceX, learning more about the physiology, nutrition, holistic approach, to all the other facets of life, you know, how we’re sleeping, how we’re recovering, et cetera. And so that led me to a fascination with metabolism specifically, because

that tends to be what breaks down first for people, uh, in, in the modern era, uh. It’s, it’s related to five of the top 10 causes of death here in the United States, and it’s, it’s kind of rampant globally. And, um, so I’m now, uh, fully passionate and, and started a company called Levels, which is attempting to give everyone, uh, the tools that they need to make better choices in the moment to extend, um, their health span.

Alex Preece: [00:03:25] Amazing. And you’ve mentioned Levels there. And I think if we kind of go on to kind of talk about Levels a little bit about the company, but more about the space. So you’ve talked about like nutrition and healthy lifestyles. It seems to be over the last six months, obviously COVID has made big impact on that space as well.

Um, How it’s kind of, uh, you know, something at the center of everyone’s conversation now where, before it was maybe just around athletes, uh, and from a sporting point of view, not everybody’s kind of on a mission or hopefully on a mission to be healthier. So talk about what Levels is, because then we can get into the space, and I think that’ll be really interesting to discuss.

Josh Clemente: [00:04:03] Absolutely. So, um, the way I would frame Levels is, Levels answers the question of what should I eat and why, with objective data from your body. So, uh, we use this technology specifically called continuous glucose monitoring, which measures molecules like sugar in your body in real time. And then through our software, we close the loop between the actions you take and the reactions your body experiences.

So we can show you specifically how sleep, stress, diet and exercise are affecting your metabolic control, your blood sugar levels in real time, so that you can make better decisions, how to structure meals, how to time exercise, what specific exercise to approach, how sleep affects your metabolic control.

So you can structure a truly personalized approach to living that is biasing you towards reducing inflammation and setting you up for a long life lifetime of, of health.

Alex Preece: [00:04:54] Which is amazing because I think a lot of people listening will be aware from a wearables point of view. You know, everyone’s either got, you know, the garment on their Fitbit.

Obviously there’s other products out there that people can use. Right. That’s everyone’s now probably. And it’s been an area I’ve been quite fascinated with, um, from a personal journey and fitness point of view, how two, three years ago, a lot of people wouldn’t have been aware of their heart rate. And now if you asked anybody in the street, they’d be like, Yeah, my heart rate, you know, average 72, now I’m at 52, whatever.

And people are now starting to track that. And I think that’s obviously covered that through wearables. Um, and then you’ve got, I suppose the recovery side of it with the likes of Eight coming up from a sleep point of view. There’s so much data out there, isn’t there in terms of, um, I suppose feeding back to us. But what you guys are, I suppose looking to kind of open up here is kind of,

the reaction to food, the incident and the real time, which for me, it’s kind of the first I’ve heard about it. I’ve heard about from, I suppose, the prick of the finger to kind of test for diabetes. So it’d be great to hear about how, how you got to the idea in this space and you know, your journey towards it.

Josh Clemente: [00:06:00] Definitely.

Yeah. Um, so we’re, so you mentioned a lot of great companies there. You know, the, the, Whoops, the Polars, the garments, the Eight Sleeps, and they are able to bring in heart rate, heart rate variability, step count, and give you a good idea of how these, uh, these metrics related to cardiovascular health, or at least cardiovascular function, um, affect you and or, and you can start to make connections.

Right. Um, so we are focusing in the bio wearable section. So this is, uh, a wearable device that you have on your body that is measuring a molecule electrochemically. Right. So heart rate monitors, they’ll have a little light. It’s an optical sensor. It’s looking through the skin and it can do that quite well for pulse, but you can’t measure molecules like sugar or like insulin, or like, uh, lipids, cholesterol in your blood.

Now the, the wearables we’re working with can. So they have a little filament in them that is sensing the levels of these molecules in your skin, and that can then be wirelessly transferred to your phone. So this new technology, which was developed originally for the management of diabetes, which you touched on, is incredibly powerful because

the underlying concept is metabolic health, metabolic function. And we all have glucose coursing through our bodies. This is sugar. Uh, it’s the primary energy molecule in the modern human. So everyone from an elite athlete to someone who’s, who’s very overweight and trying to change, you know, their, their health approach are all running on glucose to some extent.

And so being able to measure that is not just relevant to the person who has diabetes, but it’s also relevant to everyone else on the entire metabolic spectrum. And just to circle back and kind of put a point on what metabolism is, um, just, just for the listeners. So metabolism is the cellular, it’s the set of cellular mechanisms that produce energy from our food and environment.

So every cell in the body  in every tissue, brain, muscle, fat tissue, et cetera, all of them need energy to operate. And that energy is produced through these, these chemical processes, which are, you know, we call them altogether metabolism. Um, and so,  when metabolic health starts to break down, um, you start to get a lot of byproducts, a lot of energy issues, um, that that are inflammatory.

Um, you start to bias towards weight gain or weight loss unexpectedly, um. And, and this metabolic dysfunction, it basically means that there is energy dysfunction in the body. And so that can, that can manifest as brain dysfunctions, cognitive health, Alzheimer’s, diseases being called type three diabetes because of this connection, um, cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, sexual health, uh. Everything down to skin, skin disorders, like, um, aggressive acne and wrinkling, uh, PCOS, which is a leading cause of infertility in young women.

So the, the metabolic dysfunctions are super widespread, and we often call them by different names, but the underlying problems are typically hormonal imbalances, like hormones, insulin, cortisol, and a dysregulation of blood sugar control. And so, um, you know, people typically think of diabetes as the metabolic breakdown issue and it totally is.

It is a, a leading cause of metabolic dysfunction or a leading, sorry,  dysfunction. But, um, we also need to start considering the whole range of metabolic breakdown, and how we, rather than waiting until these things break, we can be making intentional decisions day after day to instead optimize our approach and optimize our metabolic health. And whether we’re athletes or just trying to better perform at work every day, or as a spouse or a parent, uh, we can, we can be making choices that are sort of these micro optimizations that set us up for metabolic function.

Alex Preece: [00:09:28] Yeah,

I think it’s absolutely fascinating to kind of go. It’s crazy. It’s only just coming along now as well in terms of you guys taking it out to the marketplace. Um, how can it then help, I suppose,  an individual and we’ll kind of narrow it down to sports in a second. But I suppose the individual, how can having a CGM help that individual in their, I suppose, on their, on their journey to a healthier life.

Josh Clemente: [00:09:54] That’s a, it’s a great question. I’m glad you asked. So, uh, there are, there are four key pillars. So we talked about metabolism, and people often think about physical health and they think about mental health. And  this is kind of what we think about in society. It’s like, do you look good? Are you physically fit?

And then do you feel good? Are you mentally fit? And really, what’s underlying that because of our talk just recently about, uh, about energy, right? What your brain and your muscle needs energy to be allocated effectively. It needs to be readily available in order to become physically fit or mentally fit.

That means that beneath those two pillars is metabolic fitness. So you cannot be physically fit and or mentally fit to that, at least not optimally, unless you are metabolically healthy and your body can produce energy effectively, and it’s not allocating it unnecessarily to weight gain or using it unnecessarily for, uh, for example, hormonal imbalances, trying to

rein in a completely dysregulated, uh, system. So, uh, this is where, you know, those are, that’s the concept is that we’re, we’re bringing control into the metabolic system, such that we can optimize physical and mental health. The specific ways we do that are four key levers. And so that’s diet, exercise, sleep, stress.

So these will all, they are all essentially manipulating hormonal processes in our bodies. They’re our way of trying to, uh, elicit some change. And, um, sleep and diet are the ones that we have to do every day. Um, exercise and stress, those are kind of context dependent. And so, uh, specifically the way that our users are taking continuous glucose monitor and making changes,

are by discovering the foods that they are currently eating in their diets that, um, they currently have, they really have no reason, no rationale for eating them, other than maybe they heard that they were healthy or a friend recommended it or the internet recommended it. And so you can now put data there.

And so, and say, does this food specifically work for me, do I have an unnecessary blood sugar elevation that causes a downstream increase in insulin, which causes a massive crash in my blood sugar, additional hunger, this vicious cycle, and also leads to additional weight gain that is unnecessary, general instability, that hunger issue of, uh, of a hormonal rollercoaster,

of an unsteady blood, blood sugar. Um, so tailoring our diets specifically to how our bodies metabolize specific foods. And then, uh, additionally doing very simple things like adjusting the timing of meals, adjusting the order of meals. So for example, uh, having carbohydrates, protein and vegetables, or, um,  we’ll just say like a balanced meal of fat, protein, carbohydrate, and a vegetable.

Uh, you can eat that same meal in different order. So starting with the vegetables, then eating the protein, then eating the carbohydrates, or you can have the carbohydrate upfront, and then the protein and the vegetable. And your body will respond completely differently to those different scenarios.

Alex Preece: [00:12:48] Right. It’s like, yes, it is scientific but it’s kind of like.

It’s crazy because it goes against everything we’ve been taught.

Josh Clemente: [00:12:55] Yeah, exactly.

Alex Preece: [00:12:56] No, there’s no pointing of fingers here about education systems or anything like that. It’s just, you know, where we’re at in the world at the moment, but you’re kind of getting at that is crazy to think I have the same things on my plate, but the order of that I kind of consume that is going to have an immediate or a different reaction in my body.

Josh Clemente: [00:13:11] Right.

Yeah. And so that’s, we call that the macronutrient order, right. And then, and then there’s macronutrient composition. So oftentimes, you know, you’ll look online, just Google the healthiest breakfast, right. And, and oatmeal or oats, uh, will typically come up as the top three. Now oatmeal is usually just

pure carbohydrates, and they’re typically processed. So you’re taking the oat . They’re rolling it out, removing the, the, the shell or the husk from it. And it’s now just essentially a processed, almost a flour. And so, uh, when you eat this by itself, it’s, it’s essentially pure carbohydrates, and there’s no fat or protein

to balance that meal. And so typically, about 75% of our users have found that oatmeal causes a massive blood sugar elevation, and then a corresponding crash. And they’re hungry shortly thereafter. They feel a little shaky, a little unhappy. They’re looking for coffee or something to balance their energy.

And this is happening day after day. And they’re doing it because they look at the, at the packaging and it says Heart Healthier. It says that, you know, some sort of marketing that, that they’re going after. Now, if we’re trying to balance our energy levels and eat something that is truly setting us up for a long day of, of balanced energy, seeing that, uh, how that, that specific carbohydrate is affecting us and then realizing that, Well, what if I add a little almond butter and, and basically add protein and fat,

fill myself up, balance the meal, well, that completely modifies the way that, that, that oatmeal affects that person. And so now you’re making a rich meal with a slower, longer energy release, no up and down rollercoaster. And this is the macronutrient balancing, or macronutrient composition element. And then it goes even further.

So if you decide that you want to indulge in a food that causes large blood sugar elevations for you, right. It’s just the food that you enjoy, uh. You know, we all want to indulge here and there and especially desserts. I have a crazy sweet tooth. So now you can see with the CGM, the benefits of exercise.

So this isn’t just  aggressive exercise, even just a simple walk, just a few minutes after an indulgent meal with a lot of carbohydrates will completely modify the way your body metabolizes those, because your muscles are able to contribute to the process of the sugar, like entering the bloodstream, and it can help

you know, take that giant peak out. And so people are now learning that, uh, not only macronutrient order, composition, but also exercise timing. They can just simply walk right after a meal, get up, take a stroll around the neighborhood and completely modified how their bodies are taking that sugar. And they’re either going to allocate it to weight gain, turning that into fat, or it’s going to power your walk around the neighborhood.

And so these are the simple hacks and I can continue down. There’s few more.

Alex Preece: [00:15:47] It’s fascinating because it’s simple education. Like you talked there about walking after a meal. Again, I’m thinking personally, I think a lot of times you kind of have me in there, and I’m like, I’m on the sofa and that’s me for half an hour, because I’m too tired or the order of food. I heard in one of your, the interviews you gave about the smoothie and about having, I think it was the fruit you talked about, having the fruits, just kind of, as you’d normally eat fruit versus put it in, in a blender.

Totally different results. So kind of, there’s a huge part of education here that we just don’t know about. Right. Which is amazing.

Josh Clemente: [00:16:23] Absolutely.

Yeah. You know, the, the beauty of it is the nutrition intuition that it produces in you about yourself. And so. Um, some of the fascinating stuff that I’ll just quickly touch on from the science is,

um, these devices are very new. So they’ve come to market to help the diabetes community, and they’ve done a great job of that. But, uh, because they’re now more readily available, uh, researchers, starting in 2015, started doing science with them to understand, uh, people without diabetes and how their bodies respond to, to the foods they’re eating,

their lifestyles. And one fascinating study, which was, uh, uh, at the Weitzman Institute in Israel, they took 800 people without diabetes, put CGMs on them. And they found that two people can eat the exact same two foods, in this case, it was a banana and a cookie made with wheat flour, and they can have equal and opposite blood sugar responses.

So one person has a large elevation from the banana and it’s no response to the cookie. The other person has the opposite response. So this kind of flips the table over of there’s a one size fits all approach. And what we’ve always tried to do in nutrition specifically is, cram everything into a few sentences, like smash all of the nuance of individuality into the eat better, work out more, eat these things, don’t eat those things.

And we’ve been looking for that silver bullet approach, and it just truly doesn’t exist. And, and what’s been frustrating for people is when they try to follow the standard advice and it doesn’t work for them, they assume, Oh, it’s all nonsense. And they give up. Well, now I think we’re, we’re shining a light, and the beauty of it is that each individual can now just do what works best for them.

You know, it’s, it can, it can be very frustrating. You can think like, Oh no, if it’s, if there’s no one size fits all, then this’ll never work. Like it’s broken, it’s too large of a problem. But actually, if you just tell each person, here’s your information, make choices that work for you. Uh, and then just have a lot of people doing that,

you get a social change without anyone having to worry about what someone else is doing.

Alex Preece: [00:18:16] Yeah, it’s crazy. Isn’t it? It’s really putting the audience at the heart of it rather than, you know, the brand, go and do this, do this, do this because it’s healthy for you. I think it, um, it really makes me think about how we are gamifying our bodies as well, you know, in terms of.

Because you’ve talked about, um, I think, um, on another interview and it kind of leads as nicely I suppose into sports and kind of athletes, whether they’re at the elite level, um, and the everyday athlete. So the CrossFit person, who’s there three, four times a week. I’ve run a few marathons in my time. Um, not many,

not many.

Josh Clemente: [00:18:53] More than I.

Alex Preece: [00:18:54] I’ve run three, I

think three marathons at the time. With the education. And again, I’ve been involved in sports for a number of years through high school and all the way through. Drink this energy drink, eat this banana. And actually I’ve got no idea if that’s had a positive reaction or negative reaction

on me. I’ve just done that because, it’s, I’ve been told to do it. So from a sports point of view, this is what I’m fascinated, because the experience I’ve had with some people I’ve interviewed,  there is probably a lack of knowledge that goes beyond the, the everyday individual person who doesn’t understand maybe their health and what they’re eating, to some kind of elite athletes as well, that potentially haven’t got nutritional plans around them and things like that.

And you know, some people have nutritionists and people don’t, they just eat when they feel like eating. For me this could be a huge game changer in athlete performance. Like it could be the difference between a gold and silver. How could this, I suppose, impact the athlete. And again, I suppose let’s concentrate on the, you know, the top of that pyramid more the elite

side of sports.

Josh Clemente: [00:20:01] Yeah, so, so honestly, the. It’s really hard to predict the degree to which this technology and real-time bio-monitoring is going to change the world of athletics. It is going to be, um, an absolutely different. It’s going to be an absolutely different strategy altogether as whether or not you’re using your own body’s information in real time is going to set  apart,

you know, the next level of personal records, people breaking the two hour marathon record, et cetera. It’s going to come down to you, how people are, are fueling. And so you touched a lot on exactly the issues that we, that, that this technology can help with, which are how are you fueling? And are you taking into account

your body’s personal metabolic function, the way that you respond to the fuel that you are putting inside your body, and specifically the timing and, uh, fueling for the training you’re accomplishing. So, um, you know, when I was first starting in CGM, I was training at least four times, five times a week, and pushing pretty hard in the gym and, uh, you know, doing a lot of high intensity stuff.

And my approach there was, well, I know that I want glycogen, right? I want my glycogen storage replenished, which is the stored sugar. And I want to carb load because that’s how you build muscle. That’s about the extent to which, you know, nutritional facts had entered my brain. And this is like, I I’ve done quite a bit of studying on this stuff.

And so I would, I would just make sure that no matter what, I’m going into the gym, I’ve had a banana, I’ve had a granola bar, maybe I’ve had a bagel. Um, afterwards I’m having pasta, I’m having sweet potatoes. You know, these are healthy glycemic index foods that are going to work for me. Um, or at least that’s what the internet said.

And in fact, what I was doing is I was eating that banana an hour before my workout. My blood sugar was spiking. It would then come crashing down as I’m walking in to start lifting weights for the first time. I’m yawning, I’m throwing that coffee, trying to get my energy levels back up artificially. I I’m actually sluggish throughout the entire workout and just kind of trying to push myself through it, haveno motivation to be there. And the process repeats itself.

Then I get out of the gym. I’ve now, uh, sort of somehow made it through. I start immediately cramming more food and, and, and to replenish, you know, glycogen because that’s the thing that we have to do. Right. And so I’m doing that with sweet potatoes and brown rice, which I, you know, I assume are low-glycemic, but they’re just causing another massive blood sugar spike.

So now I’m on my way to work for the day. And my blood sugar has been elevated for the second time that day. It’s now coming crashing down, right as I’m walking into my first meeting of the day. And it’s like, all right, what? Now, where’s the coffee? Where’s coffee number four. And, and so this like process of constantly kicking the system over and over and over again to what end, right?

I’m not, I personally am not out there putting in enough uh, gym time that I would, could ever consume those, those carbohydrates. And in fact, if you completely eliminate, which I’ve done with CGM now, eliminate any fueling at all, and instead wake up in a fasted state and go do that exact same workout, my body responds to the stress of the workout by releasing cortisol and in some cases, adrenaline, depending on how intense the workout is, and I will actually see my blood sugar increase

without any calories. And the reason for that is that it’s a fight or flight scenario. My body is actually quite a well-attuned, uh, system and it knows how to preserve energy for a scenario in which you’re, you’re working hard. And so this is a totally natural process. No bananas, no bagels, no granola bars needed.

Your body will make sure that enough energy is being produced through your liver and through your available storage on your, on your, from your body fat, and, uh, and the glycogen storage you’ve already got, to power any, essentially any workout. And of course there are limits. If you’re doing a long endurance run, two hours plus, you’ll start to run out of stored glycogen.

Your blood sugar will start to deplete. But the point is just that, that’s the context we need. We need to know, is it necessary for me to be cramming in all of this exogenous food, which is actually putting stress in my digestive system, right as I’m trying to go perform in the gym or perform on that run.

Or can we instead take a timed approach to this in the context of our workout? So if I am on that two-hour run and I do have real-time information about my blood sugar, I can watch and start to see the trend begin to decrease. And at that point I can start to take on, whether it’s a drink, an energy gel, something like that, or something a bit more balanced that is biased towards fat and protein.

Um, I can do that at the appropriate time, so I’m not over fueling. And this is where I think all of the nuance is going to start to come out, is specifically which carbohydrates do you, as an athlete respond well to, build your fueling plan around that, and then time it according to your actual training schedule.

So if you’re doing a short day, a light day, you don’t, you may not need any fuel at all. If you’re doing a more intense, longer duration day, you can time it perfectly for how your body, when your body needs it. And, uh, I think those are like the big walls we’re going to break soon.

Alex Preece:Alex Preece: [00:24:51] Well,

I think, I think again, I think it’s absolutely amazing because I think of athletes, and a lot of them, um, will probably have similar routines in terms of, you know, get up, have breakfast at this time, go train. And, and it’s probably, they probably can’t see the effect of the food is in a positive or negative way, because they just haven’t got their reinforcement from a data point of view to be able to make that call.

They could be fueling their body perfectly, or they could be fueling it in a way where they could add, you know, X mark percentage to their performance. Um, so I think it’s, yeah, I think it’s really, really interesting. When you talk about sports, do you think it’s, it’s gonna apply to every type of athlete or do you think there’s some sports that will benefit more or yeah.

Where do you think?

Josh Clemente: [00:25:36] So, um, I think that the biggest, the biggest breakthroughs are going to come kind of as a combination of the. Well, there are certain things that are going to apply across the board, which is, you know, athletes, especially in the off season, but even during training or during the on season, uh, they have to stay in shape and they have to avoid inflammation and recover well.

And, uh, the thing is, is that blood sugar spikes, large blood sugar spikes are very detrimental to the body. And the body has a lot of systems set up and they use hormones like insulin to control your blood sugar in a very tight range. Any elevations outside of that are quite inflammatory because glucose is a very reactive molecule and it can, it can damage tissues.

This is actually why diabetes is so damaging in the long-term is because of the sustained high glucose. So anytime your blood sugar is elevated, your body’s releasing inflammatory cytokines that’s basically reacting to this as a, as an attack event. And so for athletes in particular, let’s say that, you know, you’re, you’re planning a late evening game,

uh, no matter what sport you’re in. And you then get out, you’re hungry, you cram a ton of food in because you want to be replenished for the, you know, the double header the next day or something. Um, and all night long, you’re in a sustained glucose scenario. Your, um, your body is in an inflammatory environment.

Uh, you’re releasing a ton of IL-6, TNF alpha all of these inflammatory cytokines, which are preventing recovery, and they’re damaging sleep. And I take sleep data. I have CGM data in real time. I see the connection between the quality of my sleep and glucose oscillation. So this variability is all through the night and it’s, it’s a really fascinating correlation.

It’s one that we need to get more data on, but I think there’s a strong association there. And so recovery and tailoring diet, especially in the, in the on-season, that’s going to be across the board. I think every athlete will do, uh, will be able to benefit from seeing and, and tailoring their nutrition plan, according to how their bodies respond.

Now, the in, the in-event, um, sort of fueling, this is going to really bias, I think, towards the endurance athletes. And the, the concept of metabolic flexibility specifically is going to be just absolutely huge. Um, and so metabolic flexibility is essentially the body’s ability to switch between fuel sources efficiently.

Um, so if anyone who’s listening to this has ever tried ketosis, right? Which is where you eat a high fat diet. And, um, the attempt, basically you’re setting yourself up to start burning ketones, which are a, uh, a fat, fat molecule instead of glucose. And so, um, during this process, a lot of people experience what is called the keto flu.

And this is when essentially you’re, you have been running on glucose exclusively for decades. And you’re then asking your body to produce this new molecule, ketones, um, and do it right now, and also to set yourself up hormonally, to be able to use those ketones. And it can be a really tricky process. It can take it for some, in some cases like it causes like flu-like symptoms for weeks in certain people.

And that is, uh, an example of metabolic inflexibility. So your body is not able to switch between the food supply and your body fat supply effectively. Now, if you want to be an elite athlete who is going to run, let’s say a hundred mile races or, um, or compete in an Ironman competition, uh, you need to be able to switch between the fuel sources that you have available. And to give some quick numbers here, the average human let’s say the average, like 150 pound person with, I think something like 20% body fat, they have about 2000 calories of glycogen.

So that’s the stored glucose available on the body. Um, but they have over 80,000 calories of fat available on their body. And so to only be able to tap into that glycogen effectively and not be able to switch over to you to your fat stores is really, you’re not solving the energy equation very effectively.

You’re going to run out of 2000 calories of glucose in about 90 minutes. And if you can’t switch to your body fat stores, it’s going to be a really challenging process. And so optimizing that metabolic flexibility so you can switch effortlessly between food that you bring in and your body fat and glycogen stores without a hormonal breakdown, is I think going to be just a really huge and, uh, positive outcome from specifically CGM and then other real-time tracking measures like ketones.

And, uh, and so right now we have some, some athletes like Anthony Kunkel, who he’s been doing long duration running for, for decades now. And he’s using CGM in real time to tailor it to even further optimize his, his metabolic flexibility and bias towards fat burning. So I think that’s going to be just a pretty amazing thing to follow.

Alex Preece: [00:30:05] Yeah, I can, I can see a lot of athletes are going to be reaching out to you guys very quickly to be the secret sauce. Talking about that. You know, some, some athletes, again, whether it’s elite or the everyday, um, some can maybe read data better than others and maybe have people around them to kind of, uh, I suppose, translate that data for them.

So just, I suppose talking a little bit, maybe going a little bit more back to Levels. So how does the data work when it comes through and, you know, for, can I easily kind of understand it myself. And I’m presuming that’s where the name Levels comes from, because early on you talked about the spikes and I suppose we’re trying to get rid of them spikes and kind of have a bit more of a level of approach.

Josh Clemente: [00:30:50] Right.

So, uh, the backstory is, when I was at SpaceX, I started to experience, essentially I’d been there about six years, pushing pretty hard, putting myself through a stressful work environment, not sleeping great. And I essentially started burning out physically and mentally. And like I said, I was CrossFit trainer, like definitely hitting the gym regularly, but, um, I thought, I thought that I was healthy, given

that I was working out and I was physically fit. So as I started reading more of the research related to metabolic health, I discovered that, you know, this, this breaks down first for people and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t happening to me. So I started pricking my finger to measure blood sugar. And, um, this was before I knew about CGM.

Alex Preece: [00:31:32] Sorry to interrupt. Were you there, were you aware then of kind of diabetes and that’s how their testing diabetes and things like that, or you’ve been tested yourself or.

Josh Clemente: [00:31:39] So, I, I knew that, uh, so my, my doctor would take like every year they, they use a measure called A1C or fasting glucose to, to kind of make sure you’re not, uh, you’re not fully diabetic.

But those metrics take a very long time to respond. Um, and so they’re not, uh, they are, uh, uh, what we, what you would call a lagging indicator of dysfunction, where a leading indicator is, how are you metabolizing food? Um, and so I didn’t know much about this at the time. I just knew that metabolic breakdown, endocrine dysfunction comes first. And I felt really bad.

My energy levels were terrible. And so I was like, I just need to check this, this molecule, maybe something’s going on here. And, um, it didn’t make much sense to me. It was just a bunch of random numbers. I knew nothing about how to interpret it. And so for a long time, I just kind of ignored it. But then I heard about continuous glucose monitoring.

And so I thought, Oh, well know, that’s pretty impressive because you have a full time data stream. And, uh, this’ll be much more useful to understand how my body is actually working in the moment, rather than just taking these little point measurements along the way. And so I asked for a CGM, my physician didn’t,

didn’t think it was a good idea given that I wasn’t diabetic. Anyway, long story short, I tried one and the data was fascinating, but I needed to, like, I basically had to spend about 12 months deep in the research to understand how to use this, to make better choices. Along the way, I discovered that I was forcibly putting myself into the pre-diabetic blood sugar zone

for most of every single day. So all those gym sessions I was, I was, you know, replenishing beforehand, carbo-loading afterward. All of that was causing destruction to my blood sugar control. And I was heading towards if I wasn’t already a pre-diabetic, some doctors think I was, I was heading there fast.

And from there, the transition time is five to 10 years to type two diabetes. And so having no idea of this and having a body fat percentage of around 8% and being generally what people would consider to be healthy looking, this was happening under the hood. So the, the process of having to learn, you know, a year’s worth of physiology information, to know how to use this data is what led me to, uh, understand the need for a company like Levels.

So that’s what we exist to do, is we take that raw data stream from the CGM, and we turn it into a lifestyle guidance machine. So this is a behavior change system where raw data comes in, and we give you scores on how you’re structuring your meals, your diet, exercise, sleep, and stress, um, and how you’re stringing all those together to either achieve metabolic control or, or to identify areas where you can improve.

And, um, you know, a classic example of this is being able to identify the difference between, uh, a banana that you eat, and then you sit on the couch, or a banana that you eat, and then you take a walk. Uh, or a personal pizza that you know, that you, that you have a salad beforehand for that macronutrient uh, sort of, uh, order.

Um, this is where you can start to see how five hours of sleep change your metabolic control versus nine hours of sleep. And you can see that eating the exact same meal without sleep and due to the elevated cortisol in your system, because you’re so stressed from poor recovery, can completely change how your body responds.

And so we are identifying, using the software and using machine learning, we can do all of that cognitive overhead work. And instead, just show you in simple terms that are easy to understand these scores that you can, yeah, to somewhat, game-ify such that you are just setting yourself up for success and don’t need to dig a, dig into the primary literature and get a master’s in physiology.

Yeah.

Alex Preece: [00:35:03] It makes it a lot easier. Um, and just talking about the product itself, how long do you need to wear it for,

you know?

Josh Clemente: [00:35:12] Um, so I, I’m going to wear one for forever basically. It’s a, it’s completely changed my life and it’s also now really fascinatingly, it’s become a primary source of accountability for me.

So I told you previously, I have a crazy sweet tooth,like when I was younger.

Alex Preece: [00:35:28] And you put it on me, like, I’m going to be good. I’m going to take it off for the weekend

when I’m.

Josh Clemente: [00:35:37] Sorry. It’s just having that closed loop data. So you do something and you see the response, it completely changes your mentality around, you know, what, what was once discipline is now data, and you don’t need. There

doesn’t have to be this like internal self motivation thing. It’s just, I know that I’m going to see this data. It’s like having a coach. That’s just watching you all the time that you’re going to make the better choice. And you’re doing it because you’re, it’s your own body speaking to you. It’s not somebody else.

And so I think that’s key and the accountability element is huge, but also the lessons are so innumerable. I mean, this, the way that  metabolism is so critical to overall health and it’s so embedded in everything that we do, it’s powerful to have in real time. And I think, you know, I’m still learning lessons, two and a half years in, I’m learning lessons weekly.

Um, and so the program we’ve built specifically, however, is it’s a 28 day program. It includes a consultation with a licensed physician. Uh, these devices are regulated as prescription only today. And, uh, so there’s a consultation. You get the sensors in the Levels kit. Uh, we have performance covers that help to adhere them in an athletic environment.

And, uh, you go through 28 days. Basically the first week you don’t really change anything. You just kind of see how your body’s responding to the decisions you’re making today. Weeks two and three, you start to explore. So you start to test various, uh, approaches like the macronutrient composition, you experiment with different carbohydrates to see how sensitive you are to each of them.

Um, you, the effects of exercise, meal timing, et cetera. And so you’re, you’re kind of learning and probing the boundaries. And then week four, the goal is to, to optimize. You bring all of this together, take all the lessons learned and attempt to get, you know, a perfect metabolic score, which would, um, which would be strongly correlated with metabolic control.

And so, um, that program, we have subscription options that go on for multiple months thereafter, but really it’s just about come into the program, whoever you are, whatever your goals are, you’ll learn a huge amount. And then you can choose how often you want to continue with the program. You know, how long you want to wear the patch, et cetera, et cetera.

And most people honestly, uh, they prefer to do this multiple times per year, but, uh, there is the, the individual like myself or, or individuals that have goals that they really want to adhere to. And they’ll just wear it continuously.

Alex Preece: [00:37:45] Yeah.

I think it’s amazing. And obviously it’s going to help you guys out as you go forward to have the different end points and the different options.

So it’s kind of not one size fits all. Because I can start to see it because you know, once you, once you I suppose, um, do that first 28 days, you then move on, I would want to. Personally, I’d want it to kind of continue with it because um, like obviously I’m not going to eat the same food for the next 28 days repeatedly.

So I want to know what that food does to me or that food. And I think it becomes really interesting. You start to go also for somebody who’s just preparing for their first marathon. Again, I’m going to wear it for the six-month period because that’s my goal. So I do think it is very, very, very interesting.

Josh Clemente: [00:38:23] It’s a very dynamic system, you know, the, so like you said, you’re not gonna eat the same foods, but you’re also not going to be the same person. So there’s actually strong, uh, evidence that shows that aging alone changes the hormonal system of the, of the endocrine system. So basically how your body responds to insulin, which is, which is the molecule that pulls glucose into the cells for energy,

that changes as you age. Body composition has a really strong effect. Uh, the microbiome may be involved. And certainly stress, like I mentioned. So even just changing jobs, having a different shift schedule, uh, gaining a little weight, having kids, uh, which change your schedule a lot, all of this can affect the way that your metabolic control or how metabolically fit you are.

And so it’s pretty important to recognize that this is something that’s dynamic, and we should check in regularly and really be on top of this, because it’s not just about goal-setting and losing some weight or optimizing for, for that workout in the gym. It’s for holistic long-term health. And you want to make sure that you’re,

you know, you’re steering in the right direction.

Alex Preece: [00:39:19] It’s a

lifestyle choice, isn’t it? I think there’s the, obviously there’s the benefits from a sporting performance point of view, but, uh, I, as high as a lifestyle products. And I think, um, we want to grow great. We want to grow old gracefully rather than just kind of get to a point and be like, Oh, we’re all downhill now.

Take it away. Um, so. Kind of, I suppose, broaden out from Levels, over the last couple of weeks, the, the industry around wearables and data, um, has kind of blown up from the investment side of things, you know, with $450 million in total, 110 million, Amazon launching their Halo. They’ve launched a partnership with the bike company today, Peloton, flying out, Whoop having loads

of success. It’s a real hot bed of place at the moment. Well, where do you think it’s all going to go? Because you know, there’s kind of, I suppose, the future of digital fitness stroke wearable kind of wrap it all together.

Josh Clemente: [00:40:16] Yeah, no, no. It’s,

uh, it’s amazing to see the attention to, um, decentralizing, I think the health and wellness problem. It’s, uh, you know, a lot of people look at it as like I have to put on my gym clothes, get in the car, drive to the gym and put in 90 minutes every day, otherwise I’m never going to be healthy. And we’re starting to realize, no, it’s, it’s, everything is context. It’s making sure that you can structure a lifestyle that works for you, that fits your schedule and that lets you get in the activity level and the nutritional value that you need to be healthier.

And this is like, it’s the culmination of all of our choices. And that’s why you’re seeing such a broad range of companies that are excelling, is they’re each biting off a piece of this problem, and helping people better understand your step count, your sleep quality, better understanding how you, you know, you don’t need to go to the gym.

You can jump on a Peloton bike and crank out a workout in 25 minutes. And, and so this is like, I think really. It’s amazing. It’s going to change industries. Like obviously the, the traditional fitness, uh, gym enterprise, I think, is going to be facing some, some challenges here. Obviously COVID, isn’t helping, but we are seeing this really, I think, beneficial outcome where people are taking a daily,

and, um, I think more intentional approach to their wellness. And I think data is going to be really powerful here. Uh, we, you know, Fitbit came on the horizon and everyone thought, Okay, the game has changed forever. And I think we, we did see the game change dramatically, but it took a little bit longer.

Like we didn’t see obesity drop after Fitbit came out. Um, we have yet to see the return on the investment of paying attention to data. And I think it’s because we’re figuring out how to use it effectively. Like you can’t just give someone their blood or their, their heart rate and say, go get healthier.

Right? There’s a whole lot of context that has to be involved there, where you have guidance, you have goals, and then you have a really, outcomes that you can see and perceive, right? So this is what all these companies are doing really well, is they’re connecting the dots between actions and reactions.

And I think the, the, the beauty of it is we’re tightening those feedback loops closer and closer to the, the point of action. So rather than measuring your success with a bathroom scale two weeks or three weeks later, uh, you can measure your success 10 minutes after you eat something.

Alex Preece: [00:42:29] Yeah, I think, um, it’s a very, very interesting space and you can start to see, um, over time, it’s hopefully going to benefit, you know, not just athletes, but the wider world in terms of making us all healthy, I think, you know?

Um, so then I suppose just moving on in terms of, you referenced, um, and apologies, I missed the gentleman’s name, an athlete who’d been using, uh, uh, Levels. Yeah. And he’d kind of, uh, seen some kind of benefits with it. Are you working with many other athletes in kind of, um, because are you guys in beta stage at the moment?

Is that kind of where you’re at or?

Josh Clemente: [00:43:04] Yeah. So we’re in a, an invite only beta stage right now where we’re still developing the product. We have a huge amount of interest from, from athletes across literally every sport. I think we have, I mean, maybe there are a few out there that we don’t get interest from, but, um, yeah, there are pros currently working in, in all the major leagues using this. And, uh, it’s not yet something that we’re even pushing or marketing.

Uh, like I said, it’s, uh, it’s still closed beta and we have limited supply availability. So, uh, we’ll be ratcheting that up dramatically in the coming months as we go to market and, and ensuring that, um, you know, these athletes can, uh, can effectively get into the program and that we have enough supply to, to, to meet the demand.

And, um, it’s really promising, like it, it’s amazing. We’ve got superstar level interest already. And this is before we have a really a marketing strategy to speak of. So it’s been quite promising. More to come.

Alex Preece: [00:43:56] It doesn’t surprise me one bit. I think it’s fascinating. I think you’ve talked about there about how health and wellness and fitness has been unbundled by the raft of different companies we’ve talked about.

And I think we’re in a, an age now where, you know, a certain demographic are very interested in their own data. One question I had actually. Personal trainers in this, in this space. I kind of think, you know, we’ve talked about COVID and obviously that’s hit a lot of personal trainers and a lot of them were either online or have moved online with their offering.

I kind of feel that, you know, when we’re getting more data or me as an individual athlete, getting more data, the role of the personal trainer for me becomes quite interesting. Um, I just wonder if you had any, like thoughts on where that may go. And if you were to kind of tell a personal trainer, this is the advice, in five years’ time,

this is where you guys should be at, I

think.

Josh Clemente: [00:44:49] So. I think the best analogy here is, um, financial data. So if you think about the way you use your financial data, you’ve got your bank accounts, you’re looking at withdrawals and deposits daily. You’re projecting out into the future. You’re making big plans for retirement, et cetera, but right now you don’t know whether you’re going to be healthy enough to, to be there, to take advantage of that retirement.

Yeah. So, uh, for the, for the money side, you talk to experts, you got investment professionals, you have somebody manage your portfolio, something like that. And you opt into that relationship, and they can make better decisions. Like  rather than them giving you a one size fits all approach to investing,

they make a nuanced one based on your income level and your current demands. That’s how we should be working with our health data and with nutritionists, coaches, et cetera, performance. Okay. Any performance relationship should be in the context of you, the individual. And it shouldn’t just be a meet and greet.

It should be, you should have biological information for them to make better decisions based off of it, give better advice off. And so I think this is if anything, a massive, massive benefit, because the individual will, will be in the loop. They will be able to take into, every single day they’ll be making data-driven decisions and learning more about themselves.

But, you know, we don’t all have the time to be professional trainers and to, to find every nuance in the details. And so you can opt into a relationship with an exceptional coach, who’s really giving you personalized information for the first time, essentially. And this, I think it’s going to unlock a whole new generation of data-driven coaching, which we have not yet gotten to.

Alex Preece: [00:46:14] Yeah. Which I think is, it’s really, really exciting. I think you start to see then how people can be tweaking, yes, not just the elite level, but kind of, you know, the everyday person as well. I think it’s brilliant. So just kind of a last couple of questions. And what does the next six months look like for you guys? Very busy.

Josh Clemente: [00:46:33] Yeah. Uh, we’ll have to do. So  we are really actively rolling out, um, something in the product that I’m extremely excited about, which is called our Insights Framework. So right now we’ve been pulling data in and we’ve been presenting scores, but the next phase is to surface insights for you that go beyond just a score.

So they tell you how you respond to specific, um, we’ll call them inputs, and that could be sleep, diet, exercise, stress. Um, it can be how you respond to relative to yourself. It can also be how you respond relative to the Levels dataset. And even though we’re still in a closed beta, we still have the largest data set of non-diabetic glucose information ever,

uh, because this is such an understudied area. And, uh, and so that Insights Framework is our big launch. That’s going to, you know, we’ll be running some, some final development work, but we are heading towards launch in the next, uh, well, um, I’m optimistic for, for early 2021, will be available. And at that point, you know, it’s all about, uh, really raising awareness and educating, you know, people who otherwise wouldn’t think twice about metabolism and why this is relevant to them, both in their qualitative day-to-day experience and in their quantitative, you know, long-term risk, and how you can marry these two together by just making decisions driven by your own data.

So that growth processes , we’re currently thinking quite a bit about it. Um, we’re, we’re looking to build out our, our marketing and go to market strategy right now. You know, we have some very strong traction and it’s time to double down on that. And then also continuing to grow the team and, uh, and really push this thing live and to the point where it’s readily available to anyone who wants to use it.

And, um, and then we’ve got a lot of programs that we’re, we’re actually considering which again, they go into the world of athletics, they go into, um, well, many, many different industries, I think there there’s potential here. So we’re trying to like lay out the groundwork for how to yeah, how to navigate.

Alex Preece: [00:48:24] Yeah. I can, you can see the ambition of where this could totally go. I think it’s just kind of one step at a time. Isn’t it, not burning. That that was absolutely fascinating.