This episode is sponsored by InsideTracker.
And what makes me smile is before I even started my podcast seven years ago,
when listening to other wellness conversations, InsideTracker
was always the company they recommended for comprehensive blood work.
Well, now in 2024, they have begun to offer a brand new first responder panel,
which will cover nine biomarkers hitting several of the pillars of health
that affect us in uniform.
Stress, heart health, metabolism and gut health.
Now, after a very simple intake form, a blood draw,
you will get the results sent to your computer, smartwatch, phone,
not only detailing where you are on the scale from poor to optimized,
but also tips on how you can improve each of these markers.
Now, this panel is usually three hundred and ten dollars,
but they are also offering first responders 30 percent off
any of their blood panels.
So that brings this specific panel down to only two hundred and seventeen dollars.
Now, I myself went through their ultimate, which is their comprehensive blood work,
which also includes micronutrients, hormones and other areas of overall health.
And I have to say, I was absolutely amazed at firstly, how easy it was.
But secondly, the comprehensive information I got
and the actionable information on how to improve each of my own biomarkers.
Now, as with all my sponsors, if you want to hear more
about inside tracker, you can hear my conversation with senior sales
executive Jonathan Levitt on episode eight hundred and eighty seven
of the Behind the Shield podcast.
So to sign up or simply learn more, go to inside tracker dot com.
And for the first responder panel, the easiest way is to Google
inside tracker first responder panel.
This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade,
and that is five eleven.
I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California,
and I've used their products ever since.
From their incredibly strong, yet light footwear to their cut uniforms
for both male and female responders.
I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything
and I travel a lot, and they are also now sponsoring the seven X team
as we embark around the world on the human performance project.
We have Murph coming up in May.
And again, I bought their plate carrier.
I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates.
And that has been my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.
But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship
spots is their brick and mortar element.
They were predominantly an online company up till more recently,
but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the U.S.
My local store is here in Gainesville, Florida,
and I've been multiple times.
And the discounts you see online are applied also in the stores.
So as I mentioned, 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make.
But I do want to say more often than not, they have an even deeper discount,
especially around holiday times.
But if you use the code SHIELD15, that's S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5,
you will get 15% off your order or in the stores
every time you make a purchase.
And if you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them,
listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 Regional Director Will Ayers.
This episode is brought to you by Thorn, and I have some incredible news
for any of you that are in the military, first responder or medical professions.
In an effort to give back, Thorn is now offering you an ongoing
35% off each and every one of your purchases of their incredible nutritional solutions.
Now, Thorn is the official supplement of CrossFit, the UFC, the Mayo Clinic,
the Human Performance Project and multiple special operations organizations.
I myself have used them for several years, and that is why I brought them on as a sponsor.
Some of my favorite products they have are their Multivitamin Elite, their Whey Protein,
the Super EPA and then most recently, Cynaquil.
As a firefighter, a stuntman and a martial artist,
I've had my share of brain trauma and sleep deprivation,
and Cynaquil is their latest brain health supplement.
Now, to qualify for the 35% off, go to thorn.com, T-H-O-R-N-E.com.
Click on sign in and then create a new account.
You will see the opportunity to register as a first responder or member of military.
When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.
You'll simply choose a profession, provide one piece of documentation
and then you are verified for life.
From that point onwards, you will continue to receive 35% off through Thorn.
Now, for those of you who don't qualify, there is still the 10% off using the code BTS10,
behind the shield 10, for a one time purchase.
Now, to learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the behind the shield podcast
with Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett.
Welcome to the behind the shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week is my absolute honor to welcome on the show
athlete, podcaster and the senior sales executive from inside tracker, Jonathan Levitt.
So in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from the world of youth athletics,
his role as a camp counselor, the importance of blood work, optimization versus disease,
their brand new first responder blood panel, the importance of sleep, wearables, hormones,
and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Jonathan Levitt.
Enjoy.
Music.
Well, John, I want to start by saying firstly, I want to thank you for reaching out.
I mean, this this relationship came from you approaching me.
And the reason why I was so blown away is I knew full well the company that you were representing.
So I want to thank you for reaching out initially.
And also welcome.
Excuse me.
I want to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah, James, I appreciate it.
I'm excited to chat.
I'm excited.
We've been able to connect.
Thank you for everything you've done in your 14 year career as a firefighter and everything you've done since then.
For me, as a regular citizen who sits on my computer and sends emails for a living,
my girlfriend is a nurse and seeing the work that first responders do and people in the medical and
police and fire space, just a selfless, I imagine somewhat thankless job.
So thank you for everything you've done and all the listeners.
I imagine you're also similar.
You guys are amazing.
And yeah, I can't wait to dive into this conversation with you.
Yeah.
Well, the transition from wearing the uniform to not involve the wellness of our first responders.
So I'm excited to hear your thoughts, your knowledge, and then obviously we'll
present some of the tools that are available to them now.
I want to start at the very beginning, though.
So very firstly, where are we finding you on planet Earth today?
Where are we finding me on planet Earth?
It's ironically in there or surprisingly in the same place where my furniture lives,
which is Boulder, Colorado.
I am staring at mountains and it is a wonderful place for health and wellness
with just a culture of the outdoors and taking advantage of the space we have around us.
I know Boulder is not a tiny little town, but I know it's not huge as well.
Have you ever come across the Movement Collective or Matthew Bernstein?
I haven't, no.
OK, so he studied Ido Portal's movement practice.
He was a firefighter, had a fall, ended up having a TBI
and found these movement practices really helped kind of get his movement back.
Basically, he stayed out the fire service, but he ultimately became a movement teacher
and now has a studio in Boulder.
He had an old one.
I think he's moved to a new one now, but it's an amazing guy.
OptiConnect.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Well, then start at the beginning of your actual life journey.
Tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings.
Yeah, so I was born outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
I have a younger sister named Rachel.
She's two and a half years younger and my parents are both entrepreneurs
in various capacities that's been handed down to me as a genetic trait or flaw,
however you choose to interpret.
And my dad in particular has been, has always been into health and wellness.
He was riding a bike and playing hockey almost before he could walk.
And he's 63 now and he's been a cyclist for, I don't know,
60 years and just got into running about five years ago.
And yeah, so just the dynamic has been health and nutrition.
You know, we ate a lot of meals together at home growing up and that was always,
it was always important to our family.
And as years went on, I saw my dad riding bikes and I got into it and,
yeah, I got into baseball and hockey and fitness at a young age.
With your dad going to a higher impact sport like running, how are his joints fared?
And the reason I asked that, I had an athlete on Ken Rideout who's a world renowned ultra runner
and I mean, just an insane human being, but he got into running very, very late
and he made an interesting observation.
He said, I don't have decades of wear and tear on my legs.
I don't have decades of wear and tear on my joints.
So as a master's athlete, I feel like I'm able to grind it out a lot more than some of my peers.
What has been your father's perspective being in his 60s now?
Yeah, well, first, Ken is a fascinating athlete, 52 years old with a 228 marathon
or 228 marathon is impressive if you're 23, let alone 52.
He has this tenacity of, I don't have any traits besides the ability to work harder
than anybody else as I'm sure you talked about in that conversation.
I had him on my podcast as well and we had a wonderful chat about why does he do this,
that kind of stuff.
My dad's been great.
He's not had injuries.
He's for the most part, he's got almost six decades of cycling behind him.
My parents lived like a quarter mile from 50 miles of conservation land trails on Cape Cod.
He spends most of his time out in the woods running around doing three to eight miles at a time
in these Cape Cod trails, which are mostly just flat single track and stunning in the spring,
summer and fall and full of leaves in the winter.
But yeah, he hasn't really had challenges with joints or whatnot.
Beautiful.
Now, what about you when you were school age?
What were you playing and doing then?
Baseball and hockey.
So like a good New Englander, I grew up playing hockey and so I never got into skiing,
which bothers people out here in Colorado quite a lot.
I wasn't very good at baseball and I started playing hockey in like fifth or sixth grade,
which is really late.
A lot of people started in kindergarten or first grade or even before.
And so my experience as a youth athlete was a distractible outfielder or somebody who was just
constantly skating up and down the rink, but never getting the puck.
What about career aspirations?
What were you dreaming of becoming back then?
I thought I wanted to work for a professional sports team.
And my sophomore year, going into junior year of college, I interned for the Boston Bruins and that
told me I didn't want to work for a sports team.
It was a great experience.
The Bruins won the Stanley Cup that summer or that spring summer.
And the Stanley Cup was in the office quite a bit.
Sometimes it had beer in it.
Sometimes that beer found its way onto the computers of the interns.
But it was an interesting experience.
And I learned that I wanted to work on in sports, but not with a sports property or not with a team.
The hours were long and we'd work a day or two a week.
We'd work nine to five and then there'd be an event.
And so we'd be there until 10 p.m.
And I was like, this isn't the balance I'm looking for.
So it was a good experience.
I was there for a few months that summer, but I learned pretty quickly that that wasn't
where I wanted to go.
After I graduated what was community college back then, I went to a major in sports.
I went to college back then, I went to America for six summers doing summer camps.
So I was a camp counselor and ultimately a water sport, excuse me, waterfront director.
So I was teaching martial arts, doing water sports and overseeing all the lifeguards.
Amazing, life changing part of my life.
I noticed looking at your LinkedIn that you were a counselor too.
Talk to me about that experience.
Yeah.
So I went to camp also on the later side.
I was a camper for two years and then I went on our CIT counselor and training program,
which was six weeks in Israel over the summer.
And then we came back and we were counselors and training for two and a half weeks.
And then the following two or three, maybe four summers, I was a counselor.
And so I had the youngest kids for two years and then I had the oldest kids for two years.
So I guess it was four years of being a counselor.
And it was really cool.
It was like a fun way to be in it and be immersed in this community.
With the younger kids, it was, okay, let's not stick our fingers in the outlets.
Okay, you peed your bed last night.
We've got to fix this.
That kind of stuff.
And with the older kids, I was only four years older than them.
So it was a fun dynamic.
And I was actually my cousin's counselor for that last summer,
which was really cool.
And he just got married two weekends ago.
And I'm like, Josh, I still remember when you were a camper and I was your counselor.
And that was, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago.
The math is off, but it was a while ago.
And it's crazy how time flies, but that was a really fun period of life
in between college summers.
Just really like, I mean, I was in the athletics department,
so I was getting into running.
I was doing basketball and yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Really great memories and relationships from that.
Yeah.
I mean, I still am in contact with kids that I taught the very first year,
which was 1994.
We're going back a long way.
And that point I was 20 because I remember coming from the UK being allowed to drink
for several years and then getting carded in a beer in a bar.
In a beer, in a pub.
But it was also a Jewish camp and it was quite a lot of wealthy people.
I think one of the Ralph Loren family members was a camper there.
I think after I left, Bruce Willis's kids went there.
So it wasn't like devout Judaism.
I mean, we had bacon served in the morning, for example.
So clearly there was some part-time elements going on there.
But it was an interesting perspective because coming from southwest of England,
I wasn't really exposed to the Jewish culture.
So it kind of really immersed me in that.
Is the camp in America something that a lot of Jewish communities do send their kids to then?
Yeah, definitely.
We were part of three camps, part of the Cohen Camp Foundation.
So two of them were in New Hampshire and one was in Massachusetts towards the Cape.
And yeah, it's like most of my Jewish friends went to summer camp growing up.
I don't know why it was a Jewish thing.
Jewish people love community and congregating.
And I think it's a great excuse for that.
And then, yeah, we had that leadership program where we spent six weeks in Israel,
which was a really cool experience.
And yeah, we were a little more on the...
We didn't have bacon on a regular basis at camp, but we certainly went to Wendy's around the corner
when we were let off at night.
And that was the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger was the treat for the campers.
And don't tell my boss at the time,
but we purchased a lot of Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers for the kids over the years.
The good kids.
What was cool about this one, it was a performing arts camp.
And there was some phenomenal musicians and singers and dancers that were there,
mixed amongst kids that were doing it for the first time.
But I had the, like I said, the water sports and I taught like a karate lesson
and they used to make fun of the way I said karate.
But it was really, it was an amazing kind of place for them to decompress
because they had all these rehearsals on lines and they were very proud of their performances.
At times they were really on these kids so they could come down the waterfront
and just kind of be kids and learn how to water ski or be in the back of a jet ski or something.
So it was kind of cool being one of the cool kids in this camp
where they would kind of sneak off and decompress too a little bit.
Yeah.
It's like the fun aspect of play.
Was the camp in California?
Where was it?
No, this was upstate New York, almost to the Canadian borders,
deep in upstate New York, out of Rolex.
Yeah.
What was the name of it?
It was called Long Lake Camp for the Arts.
I'm meaning to take my son there one day just to show him before he was too old.
But I mean, it's just grown and grown and grown.
They did circus.
I did trapeze there and one of the circus guys got hurt one time.
So I ended up in a leotard helping hand balancing a kid on a performance.
So it was amazing.
I mean, truly transition from boy to man, being a mentor and being forced to be, as you know,
everything from big brother to parent to coach to counselor,
mental health counselor, all the things.
So it's a really unique perspective.
Yeah, it's cool stuff.
It's such a unique thing.
I talk about it now and people are like, you did what?
Growing up?
I slept in a cabin with 20 other people in the summer.
Yeah.
An interesting getting young boys, because I had the,
mine were eight to 10 most of the years until I went to the management position,
and introducing them to housework and teamwork when they have maids at home.
You know what I mean?
Because these were wealthy kids.
So yeah, but then again, you know, these parents had all these money.
A lot of them, I don't know if you've observed this,
a lot of them had their children later in life.
So some of these children, they would be in a boarding school
and then they'd go to summer camp.
And so they had all the money in the world and have care packages every day,
but there was an absence of presence from their actual parents.
You know what I mean?
So you got to see that the inner city kids and their struggles and some of these rich kids,
the struggles were actually the same.
The homes may look different, but the struggles were the same.
Yeah.
We had a bit of a different dynamic.
It was, I mean, summer camp in and of itself is not cheap.
I think it was like five grand a month or 10 grand for the summer or something like that.
So not accessible to everyone, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't outrageous.
I don't think at least certainly a nice break for many of the parents.
I think they both loved it and hated it at the same time.
But yeah, a lot.
I mean, there in anything like that, there were a handful of like,
oh, you got that that kid like they tip well and you know,
you knew you were going to get $250 cash or $500 cash at the end of the month
from that from that parent.
But yeah, that was fairly, fairly normal as as I guess, as normal as it could be.
Our camp, the whole time I was there all six years,
they basically said to the parents, you are not allowed to tip
and we were not allowed to receive tips.
And I remember now, now in retrospect, you know, someone brings you a pizza
that you pay a pizza delivery for and they expect a tip.
Someone makes you a coffee and they expect a tip,
but someone raises their children for nine weeks and you tell them home tip.
Like, come on, bro.
Yeah.
Well, it's like I saw a meme that was like,
tipping culture is so out of control these days that pilots land planes and you get a,
you know, would you like to tip 20, 30, 40 percent on the on the screen?
I saw one.
I see it was an EMT, you know, paramedic, you know, just on the medical report.
Then they turn it around.
You know, I just saved your life.
20 percent.
What's it worth?
All right.
So you get, you know, you go through the camp, the counseling element, camp counselor,
kind of walk me through how you get back into the kind of entrepreneurial space yourself.
Yeah.
So throughout my years in college, I was running a baseball league
because I was just wanting to play baseball and I was a sport management and marketing major.
And so I thought that running a baseball league with a couple of friends
would not only enable me to play baseball, but also have some really cool life experiences
that might be useful one day on a resume or whatnot.
Turns out that was true.
And so we brokered a sponsorship with the local burrito shop.
The burrito shop was called Buena Rizano, good and good and healthy, I believe is what that means.
And we called it Buena Ball.
And so we had this league where it was being bankrolled by a burrito shop.
And so my entrepreneurial, actually, that wasn't the start of my entrepreneurial tendencies.
Freshman year, I got connected with this guy who sells t-shirts.
And so I would buy t-shirts for $5 and sell them for $10.
And I made a lot of money, you know, just like going door to door in the dorms of UMass.
And so some of the dorms that UMass are like 25 story towers.
So I would take my backpack and, you know, 30 shirts and I'd sell them.
And I'd make $150 in 25, 30 minutes.
And it was awesome.
And it paid for beer for college.
And so that's really where it started.
And then leaving college, I joined a company that was selling spirulina and chlorella algae
positioned as a health product or an energy related product.
At the time, it was probably 10 years too early.
Right now, it's just becoming a trendy thing to consume.
But it set me up to basically, I grew a brain ambassador program there
before brain ambassador programs were like a thing.
And that was in 2012 and 2013.
Then I landed, then I found myself at an event called Executive Athletes that my dad invited me to.
He still says to this day, that's the best $20 he's ever spent.
And I met the founder and CEO of InsideTracker at that event.
And two weeks later, I had myself a new job.
And I was the first business hire in 2014 outside of CEO.
And that was nine, almost 10 years ago.
And so ever since then, entrepreneurship has been an aspect of my life
in varying capacities to be, I'm in sales, and sales is risky and entrepreneurship driven.
And then five years ago, I launched a podcast.
And now I have six people that work on that podcast with me
in a variety of different aspects of content creation and event partnership
and basically doing all the execution of brand partnerships and whatnot.
But I really just like to talk to people and whether it's in sales related to InsideTracker
or on a podcast with you or with my own podcast.
I'm a curious person and I like helping other people.
And that's why I think it's been, I've followed the path that I've been on the last 10, 20, 30 years.
Amazing.
Well, when I first got into podcasts, I was listening to Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss,
who obviously is very ingrained, not only in the business side, but the wellness side as well.
There was the original Barbell Shrugged.
I don't know if you remember those guys.
And then there was another one, actually, I'll give a shout out to him, Squadroom, Garrett Slaughter,
who's a police podcast.
And over and over again, I remember when people talked about Bloodwork,
it was InsideTracker, InsideTracker.
So like I said, it's amazing that we're having this conversation now years later.
Talk to me about the origin story of InsideTracker.
I know it's quite a unique and powerful story.
So Dr. Gail Blander, the founder of InsideTracker, had a death in the family when he was nine years old.
And he said, I don't like that.
I want to live forever.
And he said, I'm going to do everything I possibly can to live as long as I possibly can.
And so he devoted his life to the anti-aging process.
And he's 147 years old, so he's doing great.
So fast forward a few years, he finds himself in a couple of the best research labs in the world,
the Weisman Institute of Israel and MIT's anti-aging research labs in Cambridge, Mass, again, at MIT.
And he's like, OK, well, I could publish some papers that a bunch of scientists will see
and have an impact on science, or I could create a company that has the ability to impact
hundreds of millions and potentially billions of people.
And so when I joined the company, I said to Gail, what's your goal?
What's your end game?
And he said, I want to improve the life of every single human on this planet.
And as time has gone on, I am realizing that that wasn't hyperbole.
And that's like, yeah, he's fully believing that that's going to be what happens.
But that is what will happen.
And as time has gone on, I'm like, OK, yeah, actually, I believe you.
This is, I see the path to making that happen, whether it's influencing the food we eat and the
cattle, like the animals we consume and their diet, or whether it's impacting health insurers
and how they influence people to improve their health or whether it's working with whoever it is.
It's really going to happen and it's happening.
And the pandemic did more for the ability to speak to a human and say,
you should probably control your health than any smart marketing person could.
The psyche or the way people think about health today is totally different than
how we thought about it in 2019.
There's this concept that you can actually control the outcome of your own health.
And whether it's through people like Andrew Huberman or Peter Atiyah or just like the
the hundreds and hundreds of health focused podcasts, people's minds have been
turned into having the belief that self agency and improvement is possible.
And so, like I said, we've been around since 2009, launched commercially in 2013.
I've been with the company since 2014.
We were growing steadily for the first handful of years.
It was very slow.
And then it was this like, here we are, InstaTracker is now everywhere
because everybody is thinking this way.
And I say everybody is thinking this way.
It's a bit of an echo chamber in the health and fitness space.
But at the same time, I'm hearing conversations from people I would never have expected it
from these days.
And I'm talking to police captains and fire chiefs who have been in service for 20, 30, 40 years.
And they're like, yeah, it's time to make a change.
And we're done doing things the way that things have been done for the last 100 years,
just because that's how they've been done.
And so it's becoming like popular and trendy to think about your health.
And so we're sitting here with a 10 year head start on everybody else who's jumping on this trend.
We've got 100,000 customers and our ability to drive better health outcomes is second to none.
Right?
If our data is very strong, we have, like I said, 100,000 users.
Many of them have done baseline follow-up and repeat follow-up tests that suggest that if you do this,
you improve.
And the more you do this, the more you improve.
And we've worked in pro sports.
We've worked in the military.
We've worked with special forces.
Getting into corporate wellness.
And the piece that's been the most interesting surprise, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised,
is the work that's being done in the first responder space.
And so we have departments of a thousand, two thousand plus officers or linemen who their chief is thinking about,
okay, it costs my department more than half a million dollars.
If somebody has a heart attack and that's just the financial impact.
What about the human?
What about the family and all this stuff?
And so if we have the ability to influence people, so we started in endurance sport or we started in pro sports with the Red Sox.
They won the world series that year.
It was a great story.
And I joined and I was like, oh, runners could probably use this.
So we got our started running.
And then as time has gone on, we've got to get started.
And as time has gone on, it's been become a little bit more mainstream.
And now it's not just for people who are running three hour marathons.
It's for anybody who wants to feel better.
But along that road, the concept of health span has come about.
So lifespan is 79 years, the average American.
And health span is the duration at which you are living to your potential or living in a way that is enjoyable.
Right.
63 years.
So what happens in that almost 20 year gap between the end of health span and the beginning and end of life?
16, 17, 18 years, depending on what metrics you look at.
Our goal is to delay that as long as possible.
And for those listening who have either read or listened to Outlive by Peter Atiyah or listen to Huberman talk about this, the goal is instead of this long and steady decline, it's delaying the decline as long as possible and then falling off a cliff, basically.
Not literally, but like you decline and then that's it versus a decline over 20 years.
I watched both of my grandfather's decline due to Parkinson's and it was horrible and it lasted almost five years for both of them.
And so to watch somebody who used to carry me along, carry me around on their shoulders or play sports with me or ride bikes, not be able to swallow and eat food and talk.
My grandfather was this hotshot lawyer who worked with presidents on the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court and he was representing countries and like all this, he used his mouth and he used his brain for decades, many decades.
He couldn't talk and he couldn't use words and he couldn't eat and it was horrible.
And so our mission is to delay that.
And so when I saw him decline again, this is a second grandfather and I watched do this exact same thing, but in a spectacularly different and longer way than the first one.
I was like, this is the epitome of why InsideTracker exists and why this concept of healthspan has to permeate society.
And we have to think this way because it's disgusting that a human gets trapped in their own body.
And it's horrible to think that.
I mean, when he died, our family was relieved because he had just not been living.
And that's that exact example of, well, he was 80 something years old, but the last five years didn't really count.
Because all he was living for was when we'd walk in the door and just sitting and listening to us talk, he couldn't even participate.
And so again, the goal is to delay that as long as possible and to give yourself the best chance to live healthier longer and do what you love for longer, whether it's running, whether it's playing hockey, whether it's karate or however you pronounce it.
Karate.
Exactly.
That's it. That's what it's all about. Right.
Absolutely. And it's a conversation that I think is, as you said, is becoming more prevalent.
And even it's funny, I was listening to a lecture on Parkinson's literally two days ago.
I've got a guy from UF that I want to get on. He's written several books on it.
Because, again, when they present, whether it's Alzheimer's and you hear that it's now being referred to as type three diabetes or Parkinson's, they're focusing a lot on the chemicals in our air and our food.
These are preventable elements.
But he had a chart and I want to ask him about it because what I've had some people tell me on the show is they look back, oh, we're only living to 40, 150 years ago.
But actually, if I'm understanding it right, the infant mortality death was skewing the statistics and pulling the median down lower than it actually should have been.
So people that made it through childhood were actually living older than that.
But it's the quality of life.
And I had a great video I shared on Instagram a few months ago, and it was a guy from Haiti, 83, I think he was.
Could easily have been on the front cover of Muscle Fitness.
This guy was jacked and he was talking about he could retire, but he didn't want to be a burden on his grandparent, his grandchildren, excuse me.
That is a health span.
That man has lived up to 83 years old as a paramedic.
And a lot of people listening when we visit these people, if they haven't already died in our arms at 50 something years old, they're in these homes.
You know, they're having to carry around oxygen tanks and they're in motorized wheelchairs.
And it's heartbreaking.
It's absolutely heartbreaking because you, when you come from the exercise physiology world, the coaching world, you know the potential of the human body and the fact that that's been normalized to be overweight, to have your spine completely deformed, to have osteoporosis, you know, and have your brain degenerating.
That is, I mean, it's completely unethical that we've allowed that to be a normality.
And then, oh, by the way, we've got all kinds of drugs for you to treat that.
Just, you know, send your money our way.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And now that there's so much evidence that you can delay this or you can avoid this, you can't avoid it forever, but you can delay it.
And we've had these conversations with states and cities and they're like literally running out of money because diabetes is so expensive for us.
The state of Delaware has a million residents and they spend $1.1 billion on diabetes alone.
And that increases by $50 million every year.
Oh, you didn't solve this problem this year?
It's $100 million next year.
Oh, you didn't solve it again?
It's 150 million.
Now it's 200 million.
Now it's a quarter million after five years.
So something needs to happen.
Like, we're at a breaking point.
And so I'm incredibly excited because we have so much data that shows if you do this, then it works.
So ApoB is the best indicator of heart health and future heart health risk predictor.
47% of our population who tests with elevated ApoB in their first test is able to improve.
Half of the people are able to reduce their risk related to heart health.
And so insurance companies are coming to us and saying, we have a problem.
I don't know how to fix it.
It seems like you guys might.
What should we do?
And so like we have conversations with these life insurance companies and these health insurance companies
who are literally running out of money because people are getting sick and living longer.
And their calculation is people get sick and then they die, or they don't get sick and they die.
And so it's a problem for them that people are getting sick and living longer.
And they become a bigger, I don't want to say burden, but line item on the aggregated line item for these insurance companies.
And if they don't fix it, what's interesting is that they're going to fix it out of financial and fiduciary necessity.
And it's a shame that that's what it's going to take to create a solution.
But I don't care, right?
If it forces somebody to make a change, it's the same way that we talked to the fire departments
where we say, it would be nice for you to spend $1,000 per alignment to help them improve their health
and make sure they're more cardiovascularly fit so when they're carrying all this gear and doing all this stuff
and they sleep better and all this stuff.
But the reality is they're looking at the cost of a heart attack.
And if they can reduce the cost, reduce the likelihood of a heart attack happening,
they're going to spend every penny.
I spoke with the police department that has 3,500 or 2,000 officers.
I don't remember what the exact number is.
But they're like, yeah, we'll spend to improve the life and health of our officers
because we're having a problem with retention.
And we need to help retain and recruit.
And we want to establish that our department is healthier than XYZ.
And if we can do that, then we can recruit and we can avoid sending more people through
the academy and spending all this money on the training of new people,
just have them become a normal citizen and leave the service.
And so they're looking at it as, well, it's really expensive to onboard a new officer.
Let's do things to retain them and keep them healthier and keep them in the game for longer.
And so I saw the statistic that said that a law enforcement officer is 25 times more likely to end
their career due to heart disease than bullets. That's nuts.
That's saying something considering the number of shootings that we have.
If you think about it, I mean, we already lose a lot to bullets.
So that says how many we lose to cardiac issues.
25 times.
And I was talking with one of our performance experts who I need to connect you with to have
off the record or on the record conversation, but talking about all of the different risks
related to firefighters and cardiac events and all of the places where the stress of adrenaline
and going from zero to 60 and 60 to zero, zero to 60 places on them.
And I don't remember the statistics, but I was like, are you kidding me?
This is nuts.
And so the ability to reduce that risk and ultimately reduce the spend from an agency
is how we're having these conversations.
But I don't necessarily care about the path to the end zone.
I just want to get to the end zone and the end zone is improved health.
The end zone is reduction in risk.
The end zone is picking up your kids or your grandkids when you're 80.
And as our CEO says, wiping your butt and having sex when you're 85 years old.
Not at the same time.
And if that's what you're into, whatever, close the door.
No, but it's funny because you're literally echoing.
Parts of this podcast are literally like I'm building a case, like your grandfather's work,
simply because I'm coming just to underline what you said a second.
I'm coming from a humanitarian point of view.
I hate seeing people suffer.
I hate going to funerals, especially of my brothers and sisters in uniform.
That's what started this podcast.
That's the origin story.
But then when you dive deeper and you realize that there is no downside,
when you invest in your people, not only are you doing what should be ethically done anyway,
but you're actually saving money.
Wellness programs, what we're talking about here, whether it's screening or optimizing performance,
but even in the work week, most of the country works 56-hour work weeks.
That's three days a week.
They're awake 24 hours, awake or half awake, waiting to have the shit scared out of them from a call.
We've devolved.
That's what we did a long time ago when we were literally waiting just for fires in a station,
playing cards, petting the Dalmatian, but that was before EMS and modern society bloomed.
Now, that's the thing that I'm fighting for is to get them more rest and recovery,
so an extra 24 hours in between.
Again, it's not the empathy and compassion from these leaders that's driving it forward.
They're seeing the brass tacks.
They're seeing the financial element, the overtime, and you hit the nail on the head, the retention.
I think Marion County, they said to me it was like $14,000 or $16,000 per firefighter recruit.
If you're in a department where people don't stay, you train them,
you give them all your money, and then they leave at the back door.
Then they leave the experience if you've got more tenured people that are leaving.
Again, it makes sense in all these different areas, but I couldn't agree with you more.
The compassionate of us want to do it from the human side,
but even if it's coming from a financial side and that's how you got to sell it to your city or your county,
you still get to the end zone.
Yeah, so I'm in sales.
My job is to get things done and put numbers on the board.
I have been on the consumer side of IntiTracker for eight years.
We grew to a point where I was not able to create relationships with our customers
because we're having so many customers, which is a fantastic problem to have.
Back in March, I finally got the role I'd been asking for for a couple of years.
In that role, I just started seeing what would stick.
Where are the places where we can have a little bit of a conversation?
I think the first thing is to have a low friction, high impact opportunity.
Pro sports, extremely high friction, decently high impact, really hard to get stuff done.
It's really hard to keep people satisfied.
Military, incredibly bureaucratic, huge contracts and really strong ability to have impact.
Corporate wellness and police and fire, the desire is there, the budget is there,
low friction and people are satisfied pretty easily because the product works.
If you open your app and you get an action plan, it's going to tell you do these three things.
If you do those three things, you'll improve.
It's not rocket science.
It's doing the things that your body needs.
The reason I started this little ramble is because in today's society,
the way you get things done is by motivate people in the right way.
I am motivated to get shit done and I'm chasing results.
I am motivated because I'm sitting here having reviewed the data of this specific population
to say way less healthy at baseline, way healthier and improves faster than the general population.
I have a responsibility to share this with the people who can benefit from it the most.
I am motivated to execute against making it happen, which is wonderful.
The feedback loop is great because every time I have a conversation with the department,
they're like, yeah, this makes sense. This is great.
You're presenting it well.
Let's send up a pilot or let's talk to me about what it's like for a thousand people.
We have this feedback loop of people are interested, they're able to do it,
and they're doing it and then they're improving.
I've had conversations with people that are at the IFF and all these very large organizations
where they're like, yeah, our job is to help people improve.
We are responsible for finding stuff like this that is truly impactful and beneficial.
Again, the stated mission of Insight Tracker is help people live healthier longer.
Everything we do is in the facilitation of that.
I think it's pretty essential that our first responders live healthier longer
because it's a bit of a selfish thing. If I have a problem, I know that the firefighters down the
street are using Insight Tracker and that they're ready and that they're good and this and that.
It feels good. It feels impactful. It feels important to share this with people who it's going
to transform their life. Again, it's not hyperbole. It's truly going to do that.
The data shows that it works. It's not just me sitting up waxing poetic,
but it's remarkable what this data is. Maybe we can link to the white paper we shared
on first responder data, but it's fascinating. Then it's like we have an opportunity to create
an impact and legacy and truly change how health is discussed.
One of the departments we talked with said, pretty crazy that the all-call system rings in every room
after 7 a.m. It doesn't seem essential. What about the guys who came back from a call at 4 a.m. and
want to sleep past 7? Shouldn't they sleep past 7 and not be woken up for nuisances?
To evaluate a change like that from an objective biochemical assessment of testosterone and
stress levels and show that it improves and that it works, that should be stamped and repeated
everywhere. For some reason, stasis is so hard to overcome. Making an initial change, small or
large, is really hard for a lot of people. A lot of people don't want to be the first one to do it,
but then they see something like that and it works. Maybe we should bring that up and discuss it and
do it. Now you're talking about adding the 24 hours in between shifts. That's a great change.
What's the impact on testosterone levels? Probably 10 to 20% improvement. That improves readiness.
That means that those firefighters are going to perform better in their job. It also means that
their stress levels are going to be lower. It means that they can probably do their job for longer.
It means that they can probably be a better husband, wife, spouse, or husband.
Wife, spouse, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. It's not just done in isolation with
any of this stuff. If we improve their ability to bust into a room and save somebody's life,
it's not just that moment that's improved. It's every other interaction that they have.
This is happening at scale. We're super excited to be able to be in the room and having these
conversations because it is so potentially impactful, particularly when done at scale.
Absolutely. I think the challenge in the fire service, if you came across that, is it's very
fragmented. We have certain organizations, unions, etc. that are supposed to be unification.
I would just say that that's not always the case. What's beautiful is conversations like this can
be listened to by anyone. They can all access this conversation for free.
I want to talk to you about when you first were diving into just blood work in general,
your average physician, and we can even talk about physicians that were working with first responders
specifically, what was the average panel? Then contrast that with the first responder panel and
then the comprehensive panel that you offer. Meaning, what was the first panel in terms of
what we offered or what people are normally getting? When you first created these, what was
the average person getting from their GP, their regular physician, when they were going in?
I mean, to this day, it's like glucose, cholesterol, and if you're older than 35,
maybe your PSA is getting checked. What happens is unless your glucose is above 100
and your A1C is above whatever the threshold for pre-diabetes is, they're going to say,
yeah, you're fine. Come back next year. If you have a glucose level of 98, you're
like within a margin of error of being pre-diabetic, but a traditional doctor would flag that as not an
issue. Maybe keep an eye on it. Come back next year if you're still alive.
What we do is we say, we're going to create optimal ranges based on each individual. We're
not interested in you're not sick today. We're interested in creating optimal humans and people
who can live healthier longer. An A1C of – I don't remember what the threshold is for
pre-diabetic, but let's say you're 0.1% below it, it's not going to flag any issue.
But if you're a margin of error on that blood test higher, they'll say you're pre-diabetic.
That's like a remarkably flawed system. We began testing 13 biomarkers in 2013. Then we're at 48 now.
Men get 46. Women get progesterone and estradiol as two extra female hormones.
That ranges from A1C, micronutrients like magnesium, vitamin D, you get inflammation levels,
you got liver enzymes, iron panel, pretty substantial panel when it comes to overall health
and wellness. Your ability to make changes based on that, I think it's like 90% of our users have
five or more values or 80% of our users have five or more values to improve on in their first test.
Just about everybody has room to improve in that comprehensive panel. What happened with
the first responder panel was a police officer heard us on Andrew Huberman or heard Andrew
Huberman talking about us, called in and said, I must have this, but I can't spend $6.99 per
officer. Make me something that helps with heart health. I went to our science team and I said,
what are the metrics? We offer a 30% discount via IDME verification to first responders and
veterans and active duty. I knew that we had some number of those types of answers.
I was like, can we look at that subset of users and see what their most common problem areas are?
It's heart health, stress, inflammation, and metabolism. You should not be surprised
anybody listening to this podcast who knows what has been in this space. I asked the science team
to create a panel that covers those biomarkers at a cost that is low enough that this police
department could do it for 1,100 officers and not spend all of their city's money on it.
We came up with this panel. It retails for $3.10 and with that 30% discount, it's $2.17.
It's nine biomarkers that again, covers heart health, metabolism, inflammation, and stress.
We looked at our data and the hypothesis was that first responders are less healthy at baseline
with those metrics and they improve faster than the general population. Both of those hypotheses
were true with the exception of cortisol and A1C. Cortisol and A1C are, so all seven of the nine
metrics improve faster than the general population from a statistically significant manner. What that
means is that first responders who use InsideTracker and test baseline and follow up,
improve faster than our general population. Probably because they have more room to improve
and a stronger incentive to improve because they're starting from more room to improve. Anyway,
cortisol is your stress hormone and A1C is potentially influenced by sleep and nutrition
and lack of activity. Those are two of the biomarkers that unless there's structural change
you as an individual probably don't have much influence as a firefighter or police officer.
So what I say to departments who are talking about this is this is our data and this is a huge
opportunity to create structural change around again, shift at 24 hours in between shifts or
do X, Y, Z or experiment with more days off or I don't know. There's something that
can be improved in the way that the process is right now and the way that the job is right now.
Whoever figures that out is going to be a blueprint for everybody else to copy.
So if you're listening to this and you want to be a guinea pig in that, let's supply data science
and creating an experience to test and evaluate. But anyway, we create this panel and now police
and fire departments are buying it. We have unions that call in. They're like, yeah, 217, great,
sign me up. And they're providing it for their members. And we're speaking with cities about
providing this for a thousand people twice annually because at 500 bucks a pop, the ability to
flag issues at scale for $500 a pop is phenomenal. Now I'm not saying that this is an enough
to be all situation. There are plenty of other like CT screens, plaque, et cetera. All these things
should be done in tandem with something like Insight Tracker, but Insight Tracker is going to be
extremely actionable from a health and wellness and nutrition and lifestyle standpoint. For fire,
we can add a couple of biomarkers and facilitate the NFPA 1582 requirement at roughly the same
cost that it would be to get it done while also adding an app on top of it, an app and guidance
and a connection to a wearable and insights around sleep and a team of experts that is constantly
putting out content related to this type of information. All of our content is produced by
dietitians or experts in the space. And then with some of the departments, we're bringing our
dietitians in and we're bringing our performance experts in and we're providing them with resources
around how do you improve sleep quality without improving changing the time on your time, your
clock or your alarm clock. We're in this place where we don't have like a 100% dialed structure
and everything is, you know, the last 20% of every deal is custom. And we want to co-create
programs with departments in order to create better outcomes. And we are doing this and we won't be
satisfied until everybody's doing it. And that's going to happen because it simply has to like the
the fact that, you know, the average lifespan of a firefighter is 57 compared to 79 like that's,
that's crazy. And that's got it. That's got to change. And we have to help make that happen.
100% what's so scary and a lot of us, when we look at talk about, you know, the actual lifespan,
for example, people will ask me, Oh, could you send me the research on, for example, the benefits of
adding a 24 between shifts, which is lunacy, because it's just common sense to me, but anyway,
but there are almost no studies when it comes to firefighter health, firefighter cancer gets some
attention. There's discussions more so kind of philosophically on the peer support mental health
side. But there's a lot of you know, what kind of nozzle is best, what kind of ventilation, they'll
spend all kinds of money on that, but we're dying in droves. And there's no real research into the
shifts and sleep deprivation, because if they know exactly what's going to happen when they find out,
yes, you're going to get exactly so or demand change. So what's interesting is there's there's
a chief I just had on from Boynton Beach here in Florida, they just went to the new shift 24 or
72, which is extra 24 off, which is still a 42 hour workweek is what most of the country works.
But there's another one I just had on one of the union guys from Pasco County in Florida,
who's going to them in two years and the city of Gainesville, which is a big city,
which is a big city for men and women. And then the other one is, you know,
they're going to the same place they went to two years and the city of Gainesville here near where
I am. They I don't know what the timeline is, but they're going. So those to me are the ones that
we need to really kind of, you know, hone in on as far as the studies, where are your guys now,
men and women, when you're working this 56 hour workweek, and then let's see, let's observe them,
Yeah, totally. I mean, it would be wonderful if we saw change, and it would be even more wonderful
if we quantified change, because if we quantify the change, then it's staring you in the face,
and you'd be crazy to say, no, you know, it's not worth $1,000 per person or $500 a person per year
times 100 or times 500 or whatever. The calculus is so like, we had this conversation with the
state of Delaware, for example, and hoping to be able to do something there. But they were like,
we're spending X amount on diabetes per resident every year. If we drew that down, we could send
them a wellness allowance, right? You spend that money on food or gym membership or running shoes
or whatever. Like, if if you spend 1000, and you save 1001, at scale, it's worth it. If you save
2000, it's worth it. If you save 5000, it's even more worth it. So like, we have to establish the
case study that says if you do this, then that we're starting to see it in corporate wellness.
We have much easier conversations there because you can like look at a single person and see that
they're, you know, their, their single headcount is contributing $500,000 a year to the company,
or $10 million to the company. And if this person is sick, they can't do that. Or if they leave,
they can't do that. And so it's, it's an easier cost justification from an entity that is much
more familiar with numbers and data. But I feel like we're gonna, you know, fast forward 12 to 18
months, and we're gonna have three to five case studies like that from major municipalities
in California, in Virginia, hopefully Florida, and Massachusetts, where they did this, and this
is what happened. And this is the result. We did a pilot with, we're doing a pilot with a with a gym.
And the president of the gym discovered something that was impactful for him. He's like, this is
in our contact was like, this is great, because he's going to be a huge advocate, because he
learned something through blood testing that he wouldn't have known otherwise. And now he's going
to improve. And it, you know, he learned about it 10 years before it became a problem. We had a, we
had a guy who works at a tech company do the exact same thing. Like, the CEO of the company
emailed me was like, our guy learned about something that he feels, say, 10 years of his life,
and, and, you know, address the, he's able to address a problem with his doctor today,
that could have been a much bigger discussion, a much bigger problem in 10 to 15 years.
And so this is happening. It's not like we're just like shooting in the dark, and there's no,
there's no results. I just can't wait to see what that study looks like, and what we're able to prove.
But like, the trains left the station, and it's, it's happening. And we're just, we just don't have
enough runway to say, this is exactly what is going to happen. But like, it's science, like,
it's data, it's predictable, in that, you know, we look at our population, and that number I
referenced 47% of those who test high with elevated A to B. So look at, let's say there are 100
firefighters, 10 of them have elevated A to B, five of them improve their elevated A to B.
That's five people who potentially, you know, have gone to their physician and addressed
like a medical challenge. And so again, we're not saying that in isolation,
inside tracker is going to save the world. We're saying we're going to give you the tools to
identify when problems may exist, and what avenues to focus on. I had a fire chief say,
we're in the business of reacting to events. Our, one of our captains had a heart attack
and died in the hospital. We must respond to that event with better health and better health
programming. And he's right. It's like, it's sad that it takes an event like that, in order to make
a change. But again, as I said earlier, stasis is the enemy. It's so easy to just keep doing what
you're doing until it punches you in the face and you can't continue any longer.
Well, you were kind enough to put me through the inside or inner age, inside age, and then
the comprehensive one as well. So I just pulled up my results. I'll kind of walk you through the
experience. Firstly, we just did the on-ramp, you know, the form about my medical history.
Immediately, there was an opportunity to book a blood draw quest diagnostics. I want to make a
shout out for quest in Southwest Ocala. They're awesome. Every time I go there, had the blood
draw and it was only you were surprised how quickly I got my blood results back. But, you know,
looking at me, you know, I'm almost 50 now, I'm still lean, I'm still active at Jiu-Jitsu today and
still coach strength and conditioning at a CrossFit gym in town. But my cortisol was high. And the
very end of last year, right before I had this done was a lot of family issues going on. So from
the inside looking out, okay, there's a marker. My iron is high. I'm actually on peptides from
Transcend at the moment. Just not TRT, just peptides to help boost, you know, some of the
natural hormones, but my testosterone was high and I want to titrate to minimal dose. So again,
and they're going to do blood work next week, but that was interesting. Cholesterol, not so worried
about very borderline high, but then everything else was normal or, you know, excellent, optimized.
So I can look at this, especially with, you know, with my background being in this space somewhat,
and then think about performance. I'm not dying from anything, but that's not the point. How do I
get my inflammation down in my old injuries? How do I, you know, get rid of some of the brain fog?
How do I just perform better on the mat or, you know, in the gym? So I mean, just from a personal
testimony, I mean, it's absolutely incredible and it was flawless. And then as you said, then I've
got hit action plan and now we're talking about nutrition, about sleep, you know, some other
things like that. So a firefighter, whether they're in the middle of New York city or out in, you know,
the boonies somewhere can have this done and have this at their fingertips. So I thought that was
phenomenal, but shifting from risk factors and disease in the fire service, let's talk about
performance now, because we are tactical athletes and, you know, if, you know, a goalkeeper misses
a save on the ice, then they're down a point. If we miss something in a, you know, searching in a
fire or trying to cut someone out of a car, people die. So, you know, we downplay the importance of
performance in this profession or our professions in general, but it's extremely important. So talk
to me about how people listening can optimize, be the very best version of themselves.
Yeah. So, every time we sign one of these big contracts, we ask why, so why are you doing this?
We're in the process of contracting. We asked that, we asked that to SOCOM, some special forces,
and they're like, when you're fit and ready, you're harder to kill. And that's the epitome of it,
right? Like when you put yourself in the best position possible, you're in the best position
possible. So, I'm going to parallel it with professional sports, and then I'll land a plane
related to fire. So, looking at a pitcher in baseball, they have an increased risk, and we're
actually working on proving this. The hypothesis is they have an increased risk of biomechanical
breakdown leading to injury if their iron and endurance markers are suboptimal. So, if a
pitcher is able to optimize their endurance potential, they are potentially likely to have
less injuries. I said potential and hypothetical so many times because this isn't proven, and we're
looking to prove this with a baseball team this year and a platform that measures the biomechanical
efficiency. Then maybe some wins and more games or, you know, don't get injured, you know,
don't get injured and whatnot. As you said, it impacts them in their career, but nobody's going
to die if a pitcher has a, you know, Tommy John surgery or whatnot. If a firefighter is able to
optimize their vitamin D, if a firefighter is able to improve their testosterone levels and their
magnesium is higher, so their sleep is better and their cortisol is, you know, optimal, so they're
not racing, their mind is not racing, and they're able to achieve better mindfulness. Like, when you
enter that room, you're more calm and you're putting yourself in a better position or you're able to
exit and do the essential components of the job and not be worried about physically breaking down
and not be worried that, like, you're not going to be able to perform. And so some of it is the
mental performance around, like, I just know I'm in better shape. And so for me as a runner,
I know that when I have the optimal iron markers and testosterone and vitamin D and whatnot, like,
I have a better chance of having a good long run. I can't speak for a firefighter entering a burning
room, but I have to imagine psychologically if you know that you're in a better position
metabolically and physically, whether it's because you're physically stronger and you've done the
training or you've looked at blood work and your testosterone is 900, whatever it is, like, there's
some aspect of ownership and control that truly leads to cognitive improvement and physical
performance benefit. And that can't be understated. And so the ability to, like, have the confidence
in yourself, but think about your team. Think about the people around you and the fact that,
you know, your life is in somebody else's hands in theory, right? You want all those other people
to be in the best physical shape and mental shape possible if they need to save you or if they need
to save grandma or whoever the person is in the room. And so to me, there's like some of the
psychological of like knowing that your team is your tactical athlete team is prepared and in the
best position possible. You know, you think about military use. We have some contracts with military
and the focus right now with the military is not performance, it's recovery. And it's making sure
that the guys and men and women who come back from deployment recover so that they can do it again.
And they're not just burnt out. And then, you know, I think it's like a million dollars to train a
soldier or whatever the amount is. They need to retain those people. They need those people to be
ready to do it again. And so again, they're the focus is recovery and preparedness. And so the
metrics that we test for are directly related to recovery and preparedness and cognition and
strength and endurance and athletic performance. And so again, we got our start in professional
athletics. And it's been cool to see Stanley Cup winners and World Series champions and
the trickle down is sometimes that individuals like to emulate what's going on in pro sports.
What I like about pro sports is that it's a learning environment where money is often not
an object and the desire is peak efficiency. So let's say you have 100 million dollars to do
whatever you want on athletic performance and recovery. Everyone's blood testing. Every single
person is going to do it if you're thinking about performance. And we have, you know, these 10, 20,
50 million dollar athletes who are customers of InstaTracker and they're testing quarterly.
And they're doing all of these things and that's the foundation of what they do next. And so again,
it's a fascinating case study because again, if money is not an object, what would you do?
And these guys focus on nutrition, sleep, and supplementation. They're already exercising,
potentially too much. And so they are using it to see like what type of expert should I
enlist to help me? Is it do I need to dial in the strength and conditioning? Is it nutrition or am
I wasting my time taking all these supplements and I should really take XYZ instead of ABC?
Speaking of supplementation, I've used Thorn for several years now. I think they're phenomenal.
They actually sponsor the podcast as well. But that being said, I'm always open to other companies
if people are behind them as well. Do you recommend specific brands or do you just
normally recommend a supplement supplementation of a certain compound? So we do recommend certain
brands. So that's located within the app. So we'll make a branded recommendation based on
quality and effectiveness. And yeah, that was a request from a lot of our users and we added
that in. So it's based on third party independent testing. Beautiful. All right. The other question
I had, you have the first responder blood panel, but then you have the comprehensive one that I did.
There are going to be people out there, especially when you talked about a 30% discount,
they're going to say, you know what, I'm going to invest in myself. I want to do the full panel.
And I think one of the lesser known areas is the hormonal testing. You've got testosterone,
as you said, estradiol and progesterone for our female tactical athletes as well.
That is a huge indicator, not only just for the levels and where they should be,
but also when it comes to mental health. I've got a lot of friends who have been struggling and when
they actually figured it out and went on, for example, TRT, if it was the right fit for that
individual and hopefully they had addressed lifestyle changes first, that was actually
game changing for them. So for the people out there that maybe have gratitude that their
department is going to put them through a panel, but want to actually take their own health into
their own hands, take advantage of this, talk to me about the hormonal testing for people in my
professions. Yeah. So first we do have an option where if you already have data, you can upload
that. It's $149 a year. It's called blood results upload. On the hormonal testing side of things,
we look at testosterone and cortisol and TSH and for women, progesterone and estradiol.
The female hormone testing is interesting because we added it prior to the data
and guidance being strong enough to say definitively, like, if you do this, then that.
The feedback we got from a lot of women was, I must have these things tested. And in the process,
we're building a better ability to drive personalized guidance by association of other biomarkers.
And if you do this, then what happens? So those are values that we still suggest working alongside
a physician potentially. But for a lot of women, it's important to have those tested,
particularly pre-menopausal women so that you have a baseline and you know where you're at.
And many of those values, there's not a lot of research. And so we said, instead of waiting for
research to happen, we want to help create some of that research and enable women to make educated
and informed decisions of, should I speak with a physician? Is this a problem or is it not a
problem? On the men's hormone side of things, testosterone and pre-testosterone are fairly
common and very straightforward in the ability to influence. We work with athletes all the time who
have low testosterone. And my favorite story is a baseball player we worked with in 2015 or 2016,
his T was super low and he said he was just playing video games every other night up till 2 a.m. So
similar to shift work essentially, where every other night his sleep was horrible.
And he stopped doing that and his testosterone doubled and he advanced like three or four levels
from single A to high triple A that season. Not saying it's because he did inside tracker, but
his testosterone doubled. And so a lot of other things are probably impacted as a result.
So yeah, it's cool to see what can be done when you have that data and when you see what works
for you. Well, going from the performance lens, focusing on the hormone element, what I learned
from Doc Parsley and some of the other sleep experts have been on for several years now,
was the original scale that your physician would look at if you happen to have even had a testosterone
blood test, which you probably wouldn't have back then. But if you did, it was like the 250 to 950.
Yeah. And so, and that was, you know, I learned that in near one of the Ivy League schools where
this research was done, one of the towns, they took the eight year old sedentary dude and the 18
year old football player, and that is your scale. So now you have a 35 year old firefighter and his
blood, you know, his T is 300 and they're like, Oh, you're fine. You're within normal limits.
Well, you're not, you know, and this is the problem. You know, you probably should be 700
at that age, especially arguably, you're probably one of the more resilient athletic members of your
community. So this is what's nice again, looking at that performance side of this is really
understanding. No, you're not where you should be. You know, this is, this is the range that would
probably be optimal for you. And even then, like I said, with what I'm doing now, you're going to,
you know, titrate to effect. Each one of us is different, but if your doctor tells you that
you're fine, or conversely, you go to a men's clinic and they draw blood and they're like, Oh,
you need TRT and you're only 35. And he hasn't talked about sleep hygiene and exercise and
strength training. That's also the other side of the spectrum.
Totally. Yeah. So that normal range is based on 95% of the healthy population. So exactly like
what you said, 80 year old sedentary person and 30 year old athlete. It doesn't make any sense to
me, but we create optimal zones based on the demographics of that individual.
Absolutely. Well, I have got an envelope sitting on my kitchen table and waiting to be mailed out
tomorrow, which is the DNA test. So while we're talking about all the things that you offer,
let's finish with that. What can I expect when those come back? Yeah. So the DNA test is
fascinating. That product has evolved over the years. My favorite assessment in there. So
genetics are your, the card you're dealt and the blood work is how you play the hand. So
there's a predictor called grip strength, or there's a metric called grip strength potential.
So grip strength is your ability to squeeze something hard and it's rated in pounds.
So grip strength is a pretty strong indicator of health span and lifespan because it's used
as a proxy to understand, like, let's say you fall, are you able to hold that railing or are
you going to fall and break your hip and then die in the hospital 30 days later at 80 years old?
Or whatever. And so it's not to say, okay, people who have a stronger grip are able to hold into
life longer, but they're able to avoid the things that are proven to put people in a bad place. And
so you can see if you have an elevated risk of declining grip strength. So if that's the case,
the best thing you can do for your health and longevity, farmers carries or carrying things or,
you know, things like that. And so it's putting the ownership into the individual through
understanding risk. And if it's not a risk, then maybe you're not going to pay super close attention
to it and you'll focus on cholesterol and ApoB or, you know, you're a morning person, so focus there.
That one's fascinating and that product is evolving. And we've finally gotten to a place where
it's really impactful and it's just getting better from there. And it doesn't involve getting poked
in the arm. No, which I don't mind. I did it to lots of people. So if I feel like it's payback
every time I get blood drawn. Yeah. My girlfriend's a nurse and she always tells me, oh, you've got
great veins. I could stick a needle in you real easy. I'm like, that's where you're into. But
I've got good veins too, but I'm from England and the blood is really good. And so I'm like,
I'm going to get a shot of that. And then the blood banks won't take English blood because of
mad cow disease. So I disappoint people on a daily basis when they're waiting outside my grocery
store here. All right. Well then I want to kind of just get to the closing questions before we do.
You mentioned earlier a podcast. So the wrong, excuse me, the long run podcast. Talk to me about
that and some of the people you've had on. Yeah. For the long run podcast is aimed at exploring
the ways people run long, strong and stay motivated. And I was having a lot of conversations
with excellent athletes. So Olympic gold medalists and people winning marathons and
whatnot. And just been curious about what enables them to be successful over the long run or for
the long run. And I just published 301, episode 301 last week. And yeah, it's just like a clinic
of excellence and relatability and understanding how to create a sustainable path towards growth
and progress. And it's been a really like personally really fulfilling in that I've
learned a lot from it and have helped seemingly helped a lot of other people learn a lot from it.
And just a really cool way to connect. I love this platform. I love this medium. I started the
podcast in 2019 and at the beginning of pandemic, I was living alone in a fourth floor walk-up
apartment and I recorded 14 episodes in the first seven days of lockdown. Cause I was like so
bored and craving connection. And I think people love that human connection and getting to know
an elite athlete and what makes them tick beyond just the numbers and times on their watch,
which is not very relatable, but the other aspects of them as humans is incredibly relatable,
even if they're running paces that people could not imagine for a 10th of the distance.
Well, you mentioned there being a paradigm shift after the pandemic. I think there is an echo
chamber and we all exist in it, but what really broke my heart and it was funny because I was
already doing two episodes a week when I saw the misinformation starts to get put out, the
politicization, the removal of autonomy. I'm like, right, well, I'm going to put an extra one out
every week so that people can have this for free, you know, nutritionists and strength and
conditioning and all the other things. But we had a beautiful captive audience. Whatever you think
about the way it was handled, you know, people were glued to their television and a beautiful
opportunity to really educate people on nutrition and exercise on sleep and all the things. And it
was completely disregarded and I found that absolutely heartbreaking. So it kind of warms
my heart that there is now you're seeing a kind of yearning for health information. I think, you
know, for people to start controlling those, there's a little more because I think a lot of
their doctors that they supposedly trusted implicitly were probably telling them the wrong
things as we look back now. So, I mean, I remember the the poo pooing of underlying, you know, health
conditions contributing to the deaths. I mean, that was a completely unethical statement. You're
telling me that a morbidly obese person with diabetes died from COVID. No, you know, it's a
real virus, but it's opportunistic. So, you know, I'm hoping that there is a paradigm shift and
people are really starting to open their eyes now about the incredible healing ability of the body
and how so many of these diseases are actually preventable, if not reversible.
Totally agree. Yeah, people are empowered and information is available in ways that never has
been before. The challenge is that, you know, the people who say I did my own research while it's
observation bias, it's hard to argue that proper movement, proper nutrition, proper sleep, and
proper wellness of the body and mind isn't going to help, right? It's going to help. It's going to
help everything. And so we're proud to be purveyors of like a platform to suggest that this is what
you need to do. And this is what the result is when you do it. Absolutely. Well, I want to throw a
quick few quick closing questions at you. The very first one, is there a book or other books that you
love to recommend? It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Yeah, anything Brad Stulberg writes. Brad literally wrote the book on excellence and
sustainable excellence. I've read most of what he does. Alex Hutchinson's Endure is fascinating.
I read that one for the first time when I was chasing a mile time trial. And the ability to,
basically one of the principles was like, when you think things are hard, you're only at 30
percent. And reading that line right before running a mile, which if people listening haven't
raced a mile at full tilt, like it hurts from the beginning and it hurts even more at the end,
and then it's over. And so, yeah, I could talk for another hour about racing a mile.
What's your mile time? My son's a track athlete in high school and he runs a mile.
Five flat, like 500.9. I think unofficially,
one of the practices he broke it, but I think his official one is 5.01. So he's battling,
I think a little plantar fasciitis at the moment, which is messing him up.
Yeah, so I get to witness what you're talking about in his face. He looks miserable from beginning
to end. Yeah, I ran a race here in Boulder. So it's at altitude, of course. And our first lap was
at a 434 pace. We went out way too fast and I ran 5.22 in that race. So pretty brutal finish. I was
like, why is this so hard? And then later that week, I ran 500.9, which is like painfully close.
The goal was breaking five and it was like one second off. Beautiful. Well, good luck. Thanks.
Do it again this summer. Excellent. So what about films and documentaries? Any of those that you
love? Top Gun. Love the Top Gun movies. And I heard that there's Top Gun 3 coming out. Oh, really?
Talk about ageless. Tom Cruise looks the same in this version than he did in, what was it,
in the 80s. Yeah, let's hope he doesn't have another singing at the piano scene. They kind of,
they could have done without that portion, I think. That would take my brother.
All right. Well, then the next question, is there a person that you'd recommend to come on this
podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
Yeah, I got to connect you with my colleague, Carl. Carl is a fascinating expert in all things
human performance related. He's worked with professional athletes, Olympic athletes.
He's working with fire departments now. He could speak for, we've been talking for an hour and 25
minutes. He could speak for an hour and 25 minutes straight through and it would be like people would
get value out of that. Brilliant. Yeah, but I'd love to get him on in some of the podcasts that
had a four hours long. So if we need to, then we'll create latitude for it. So yeah, if you can help
make that connection. Yeah. And I think you've spoken with Megan lots, right? Rescue RD. Oh,
yes, I have. Yeah. This is so sad that I know people by their Instagram handle more than their
real name. So sorry, Megan. Yep. You and me both. Absolutely. All right. Well, then the very last
question before we make sure where people can find you and of course, inside tracker, what do you do
to decompress? I go in the sauna and lay face down or face up, more so face up. I use the sauna three
or four times a week. I'm going to jump in there shortly. I got started doing that in like 2018,
2019. And when gyms closed in 2020, it was like the thing that I didn't realize that I missed the
most. And in 2021, I bought a sauna after buying a house and put it in my backyard. And it's the
single best thing I've ever done from a wellness standpoint, because the data on health benefits
of sauna are phenomenal. And the mental benefit of sauna is phenomenal. And you can't bring your
phone in there. So it's a forced decompression. What about the cold plungers? Do you do those as
well? I hate cold plunging. Yeah, I have one. I hate it. I have a little inflatable one, which we
haven't used for a while. It's got mold all over the top. So I got to clean it out. Yeah. Ours does
too. There's a lot of data that suggests that it's not advantageous for endurance athletes. And I
read one paper and that was enough for me to believe it. So the one that says it's okay to drink
wine is good for you. Talk about observation bias. But yeah, it reduces blood plasma volume,
as does the winter. So yeah, I avoid that. I like doing it in the summer in a mountain creek.
That's a different story. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I mean, when I grew up in England,
every trip to the seaside was cold plunge therapy, because there is no warm water in England. So
yeah. All right. Well, then for you specifically, where can people find you first on social media
or online? Yes, I'm JW Leavitt, L-E-V-I-T-T on Instagram. I like to tweet still. Pretty active
over on Twitter or X, whatever you call it. But active on Instagram as well. For the LR pod is the
podcast handle on both and inside tracker is at inside tracker or inside tracker.com.
Beautiful. If they used to call it tweeting when it was called Twitter, what do they call it now
when it's X? It's posting. It's boring, but it's still twitter.com. So that interesting. Yeah,
I've never had any luck with that. So I have an account. I will definitely make sure I follow you.
But yeah, it's just certain handles that seem to fit better than certain people. Yep. All right.
And then what about the app themselves? So the website and the app for inside tracker.
Yeah. Inside tracker.com. Our YouTube is full of information. We have our own podcast.
It's hosted by Gil, our founder, and Ashley, our lead nutrition scientist. And we have a different
guest who's an expert in the field on, and that's been a hit. It's been really cool to listen and
learn from that one. That's over on YouTube and also Apple and Spotify. Beautiful. Well, John,
I want to thank you so much. It's been an amazing conversation. You're bringing a very powerful tool
to our profession and I can attest having used it myself and at least having some semblance of
understanding coming from the background that I do that it is actionable information along,
as you pointed to, some lifestyle changes, some supplementation. So no matter where anyone is,
whether it's their department providing it for them or it's simply going out on their own,
another incredible opportunity for us to own our health a little bit more. So I want to thank you
so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah. And thank you for doing what you do. It's been cool to see the guests you've had and the
impact that you're having out there as well. And if you've made it this far in listening,
thanks for tuning in.