Dugal Bain, MBA: Unpacking the DNA of Lifelong Wellness - Sleep, Hormones, and Habit Shifts.

In this enlightening episode, I am thrilled to host Dugal Bain-Kim, a dynamic leader and innovator in the realm of health optimization. As the CEO and Co-Founder of Lifeforce, Dugal is pioneering a movement aimed at empowering individuals over 35 to enhance their mental acuity, physical vigor, and overall longevity. With a rich background spanning various roles and industries, Dugal brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to the forefront of proactive healthcare.

My conversation with Dugal unveils his inspiring journey from the financial sector to the forefront of health technology. He sheds light on the inception of Lifeforce, a company that is not just about extending lifespan but enriching the quality of life through tailored health strategies. Dugal's approach transcends conventional healthcare, focusing on individualized plans that integrate cutting-edge technology, personal biomarkers, and a holistic view of health. This episode delves into the core of Dugal's philosophy – the belief that optimal health is the cornerstone of a fulfilling life and the key to unlocking one's full potential.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to redefine their approach to health and wellness. Dugal shares invaluable insights on the importance of understanding and optimizing key health markers, the impact of lifestyle choices on overall well-being, and the transformative power of personalized healthcare. His journey is a testament to the profound impact of shifting one's focus from reactive to proactive health management. Whether you're navigating the complexities of midlife health, seeking to elevate your mental and physical performance, or simply looking for inspiration to embark on a health optimization journey, Dugal's expertise and vision offer a refreshing and empowering perspective. Tune in to this captivating dialogue and embark on a journey towards becoming your healthiest self.

Key Points From This Episode:

How Can Personalized Healthcare Transform Your Life after 35?
Is Proactive Health Management the Key to Longevity?
What Role Do Biomarkers Play in Personal Health?
Can Lifestyle Changes Impact Hormonal Balance?
Why Is Understanding Your Health Markers Crucial for Well-Being?
What Is the Impact of Tailored Health Strategies on Mental Clarity?
Navigating Midlife Health: What Strategies Are Most Effective?
The Journey to Lifeforce

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dugal Bain-Kim LinkedIn
Lifeforce
Dr. Vinita Tandon
Dr. Kurt Hong
James Clear

Transcript

Dugal Bain: Why do you want to optimize your health? Being a company that helps people live better lives, we just happen to do it by optimizing their health. The risk of not doing it started to feel more scary than the risk of doing it. It doesn't have to be, you know, one massive jump where you land exactly where you want to land, but you've just got to have an eye on what's the ultimate destination and almost like chart a path to getting there. My body wasn't responding in the way that it used to, to the things that I've always done in the past. You say you'd die for your family, but would you get healthy for them?
Andres Preschel: Dude, I just got goosebumps.

Andres Preschel: There is only one supplement that I think almost everyone on this planet should be taking and that's a full-spectrum and highly bioavailable magnesium supplement because, well, let's face it, ever since the industrial revolution, our soil has been depleted. of magnesium and therefore our food is depleted of magnesium and on top of that our modern environments which are inherently overstimulating and stressful are constantly depleting our body of magnesium and unlike other nutrients this is not something that your body can produce on its own it literally needs to get it from the diet, and one individual kind of magnesium alone is not enough. And so the folks at Bioptimizers have made it very easy and convenient to add back in what the modern world leaves out. They've created Magnesium Breakthrough. Now I've been taking this for the past two years and the biggest benefits that I've seen are related to my evening wind down sessions and my sleep. I tend to be pretty overactive in the evenings, just totally overthinking everything that I do. And this has helped me wind down and get more restorative, more efficient sleep. So I wake up feeling way more refreshed, more energized, more clear, more ready for the day. And the way that I see it, sleep is upstream of essentially every other health and wellness related habit and decision. Because if you're sleeping better, automatically you're going to have more regular cravings. You're going to have higher insulin sensitivity. You can derive more of all these inputs like fitness, right? You make more gains. You gain more muscle, you burn more calories, and you wake up feeling refreshed so that you can do it again and again and again. And then beyond the fitness, you have more energy to go for a walk, to do fun activities with friends, you are less stressed so you can socialize anxiety-free, and you're also going to be retaining, refreshing, and refining your skills and information much, much better so you won't forget any names. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, over 300 chemical processes that you're supporting with magnesium. Then sleep, I mean, wow. Better sleep is just a better life in general. So, I found it extremely helpful on a personal level, and I'm sure that you guys will find it helpful too. Your mind and body, and maybe even your spirit will thank you. So anyway, if you want to get a sweet little discount off of this amazing, amazing magnesium supplement from Bioptimizers, all you have to do is visit the show notes. So you scroll down right now, takes just a couple seconds and boom, you'll have access to all seven different kinds of magnesium that your body needs. All you have to do is hit the link and use code KYP from Know Your Physio. KYP. That's all. Enjoy 10 to 22% off depending on the package you choose, whether or not you subscribe. I'm obviously subscribed because I don't even want to think about whether or not I'm going to get this essential supplement in the mail. And yeah, hope you guys enjoy that awesome stuff. And that's all for now. I'll see you guys on the show. All right, you guys, here we are back on the Know Your Physio podcast. I'm here with Dougal Bain. And yeah, gonna have a little chat about life force and how he's accomplishing health and high performance for people all over the world, individuals and teams. It's great to have you on the show, man.

Dugal Bain: Thanks, Andrus. It's great to be here. I've listened to many episodes in the background while I'm working out, so it's fun to be chatting with you.

Andres Preschel: Awesome, man. For sure. So I'll tell you what, there's a lot of ground for us to cover here today. All the different ways that Lifeforce is serving people from all over the world. But before we jump into that, I, as you may have noticed listening to my podcast, always start with why. So can you tell us a little about why you do what you do and how that why evolved and why, you know, and how this makes sense, how your current scope of work makes sense. How do you, how are you honoring that intention?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. Rewinding a little bit, I come back to this period of my life in my late 20s. I was actually working in a totally different space. I was working in finance at the time and there was a lot to like about that. It was good training. It was sort of intellectually challenging and the pay was decent, but I felt this increasing anxiety around whether or not I was working on something I really cared about at a more intrinsic level. And so when I was about 27 or 28, I sort of, for the first time in my life, had to really sit in some of those deeper questions around what I want to spend my career on. And I sort of kept coming back to this idea of when I'm retired and you know, when I'm sitting around on my own in a, in a moment of reflection, am I, am I going to feel sort of proud of the thing that I was working on regardless of how, of how successful I was? So, you know, I sort of saw it as a, as a big risk to be working on something if it wasn't something that I was naturally interested in. And, um, I noticed people around me who found that energy and found that engagement from working in finance and, were reading all about it in their own time and that was awesome. But I couldn't say with honesty that I felt the same way. And I wanted to, but I didn't know what that area would be for me. So that kind of started me on a bit of a journey of exploration in my late twenties to really find a space that was motivating for me that I thought was net positive for society, where I felt like I had something to contribute to improving what was going on. And ultimately that led me to healthcare technology. I've got people close to me in my family who've really suffered from the limitations of the traditional healthcare system and that's had a real effect on the quality of their lives. So the idea of using technology to make it easier for people to access better quality healthcare was that thing that tapped into a deeper sense of motivation for me. And then, you know, from there I eventually found myself really chewing on this idea of proactive care and what would it be like to build a solution that makes it easy for millions of people, not just people with a lot of resources or connections, but millions of people to really understand what's happening inside their bodies and access the right experts and the right tools to make good decisions at the right time. And ultimately, I wanted that personally as a consumer. And it was something that I felt really deeply motivated by bringing into the world as an operator.

Andres Preschel: That's amazing, man. And you know, I think health is generally a selfish thing. I think optimal health is selfless, right? When you have the gift of being so healthy that all you want to do is spread it with people that you care about. And it just becomes this like, you know, contagious, like, I think that is optimal health when you when your well being plays a part in your community. And it's amazing that, you know, originally, you wanted to start that within your inner circles. And now you've branched out and you're helping Tens of thousands hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of people. I mean, I don't know if you guys are already there, but the point is You when you finally set this domino effect in place, you know The opportunities are endless to have this impact and my question for you is how did you actually make that pivot? How did you pivot? And let me ask this on behalf of the individuals that are tuning in right now who are working a job that maybe may, you know, helps them make ends meet and helps them put food on the table. But I know there's a lot of listeners right now that have a passion for health that have become healthier as, you know, listening through this podcast, and maybe they want to take similar steps as you did. So how did you pivot and how did you harness a kind of awareness that eventually became, you know, turn into action to make that pivot happen?

Dugal Bain: For sure, for sure. And I think it's important to acknowledge that it's also a privilege to be able to make pivots like this. Like you said, not everyone has the practical ability to switch careers and follow things they love to do. So I feel very grateful that I was able to do that. For me personally, it didn't all happen in one move and I think that's maybe one thing that is helpful for folks who might be considering a big change like this to realize. It was a little bit more a series of steps getting closer and closer and it was using the things that I could bring to the table at each step to then take the next step and get a little bit closer. So I was working in finance and then I went and did a bit more study to give me a little bit more skills and expertise on my side. And then I moved into a part of healthcare that I enjoyed, but still wasn't in the bullseye of what I really wanted to do. But then that let me credibly say that I was now a healthcare technology person. And then finally, I was able to really do what I wanted to do, which was start Lifeforce and be working on this particular problem. So I think maybe that lowers the pressure a little bit for people who are thinking about it, is to see it as a series of steps. It doesn't have to be, you know, one massive jump where you land exactly where you want to land, but you've just got to have an eye on what's the ultimate destination and almost like chart a path to getting there. The other thing I'd say that's more sort of, I guess, psychological and emotional was how to think about risk. And I think that risk or a fear of risk can definitely create a bit of paralysis for folks who are looking to change something up in their career. And I was definitely I was definitely suffering from that for a few years, but ultimately it came down to the risk of not doing it started to feel more scary than the risk of doing it. And that's why I think casting your mind into the future and trying to almost like imagine retrospectively how will you feel about certain decisions that you make or don't make can help free some of that fear of change and maybe help you see that the risk of not pursuing something or not trying something is actually something that'll cause you more pain in the long run.

Andres Preschel: And for the sake of maybe using more accessible language for people, let's talk about it. This has like a, like a side hustle for, for, for lack of a better term. Would you say that originally this was sort of a side hustle that, that had a kind of like a, like a snowballing effect? Is this kind of the approach that you took?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, it was. To the extent that, you know, I started going to meetups, I started educating myself in my own time around, you know, these areas of healthcare technology. I started getting friends to introduce me to people who I wanted to meet in the space. And, you know, all of that kind of gave me clues and helped me put myself on the radar, but helped me just refine what the idea was that I really wanted to be working on. So, I wasn't getting paid for any of that. It wasn't like I had a second job side hustle, but I was spending some of my life outside of my main job, accumulating connections or knowledge or experiences that ultimately did come in handy when I was ready to fully make the shift and fully to move into this space.

Andres Preschel: Right, so it was like a combination of like you had you flipped several switches to kind of ease into this exposure And and the the change eventually took place in your identity, you know, you were hanging around Hanging spending time around the the people that were in the space. You were doing it yourself. You were watching videos You're reading about it and it wasn't like a like a sudden, you know jump, uh, which is certainly, you know, terrifying for most people I think it's what keeps you from actually making the changes. They don't See it as a series of steps. They just see it as this massive jump and that's terrifying for anyone So that's that's amazing man. I think that that will really Make this more realistic for folks tuning in So so let me let me ask you a little more about Life force and how it kind of became this bullseye. How did that make? When did that finally click for you? And and how did it make perfect sense?

Dugal Bain: For sure. And it's probably an interesting way, I think, to bring this to life, just to talk about it in terms of the consumer journey that I went through that ended up being the catalyst for wanting to build this. But at the time I was 36, I just had my first child. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn't on top of my health in the way that I wanted to be. I'd always been pretty health motivated. frankly felt like I knew what I was doing and didn't need a lot of external support. I'd done enough in the space that I sort of felt like I understood enough to keep myself in good shape and functioning at my best. But now all of a sudden at 36 years old, sleep deprived, having put on some weight with a young child, my body wasn't responding in the way that it used to, to the things that I've always done in the past. So just tightening up my diet and working out a little bit more wasn't cutting it. And that was a pretty confronting experience, especially because now I had these other questions around I've got a family that's relying on me. I need to be performing at my best. It's a whole different level of responsibility. And so that pushed me to want to understand what was actually happening inside my body that had changed, that led me to feel not as good as I wanted to and not be functioning mentally and physically like I wanted to. And just to go out and get those answers of, you know, get the confidence that I knew what had changed and I knew what to do about it was really hard as a consumer. I was, you know, having multiple conversations with doctors. Not many of them were interested in talking about proactive health. It was more, you know, is anything broken? Are you sick? Okay, great. You're fine. See you again in a year. I was doing a bunch of at-home blood tests and trying to cobble it together myself to try and work out what was going on. And then obviously there's the whole wild west around supplements and other things like that, where you can spend a lot of money and never really know what you need and what you don't. So at the end of that, I just really craved one place to go that could stitch this all together. I wanted to work with one team using the right data and have a proper program that was personalized, not just to what my biomarkers were telling me, but you know, also what were my specific aspirations in life? What were my constraints in my lifestyle? Like I wanted that type of personalization and couldn't find it anywhere. So, you know, ultimately that was the light bulb of this needs to exist. I think there's a lot of people who would also want this and ended up connecting to a bunch of other awesome people who saw the same opportunity and became co-founders on Lifeforce. And that's how we were born.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, and I'd say this resonates closely with me because I have an almost identical origin story that I don't want to bore the listeners with the story for the, I don't know, they've probably heard it maybe 20 times. But I'm curious, what are some of the steps that you took early on that gave you this kind of introspection, intuition with your health and your body that really helped you upgrade tremendously that are still non-negotiables for you today? So what are some of the levers that you pulled early on that you went that that made you go, man, like, I have to make sure I do this every day, every week for the rest of my life.

Dugal Bain: Sure. So as I mentioned, when this was all happening, I just had my first daughter and that really hammered home the importance of sleep. It's a bit of a cliche to talk about new parents being tired, but what was really interesting was it allowed me to not only just experience the feeling of being tired, but to see in my blood work the effect that it actually has on everything from hormone balance to insulin resistance to other key biomarkers that drive quality of life and also how long you're likely to live in the future. So it was a really interesting time to be going through that experimentation. And for sure that stuck with me, that sleep hygiene and sleep discipline and really seeing that as the foundation for staying at the top of your game. That's not something I think that'll ever leave. I think it even gets more important as you get older and your natural sleep quality declines. I think the other thing that really was brought to life for me was the difference between being normal and being optimal in a few of these different areas. And many of your listeners have probably gone through this as well, but I'd had a conversation for most of my life with the traditional healthcare system where I was usually told that everything was normal and there was nothing that I needed to worry about. And I didn't really question that very much. But then as I started moving deeper into this space and talking to doctors who ultimately came on to work with us at Lifeforce, the idea that there's actually a sub area within the normal range, which is where people really do feel their best and where the optimal space to be is, that's now something that obviously is my default mindset when I'm thinking about any of this stuff. And that could be anything from hormone balance to vitamin D to pick your thing. But the idea that we should all strive for more than being normal with our health, and we should all demand a path to be optimal versus normal. That's still a North Star that I definitely think about in terms of how I manage my own body and my own health.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, absolutely. And I know that we might be flirting with the borders of controversy here, but from what I understand, the standards that are set and they're based on systematic reviews that look at the average population. And when it comes to optimal health, quite literally, you are an outlier. You're not part of this population. And so it would be my opinion It's silly to consider your optimal zone within this standard zone, right? And I imagine that you guys have some kind of process that standardizes what that optimal looks like and what it looks like specifically for an individual I imagine that you know, you're shooting darts in a moving target when you look at the differences in individuals is enough for your service so a couple questions for you is How do you how did you guys? Determine that standard and is it personalized if so, how?

Dugal Bain: For sure for sure You're right. The reference ranges or the normal ranges are usually based on a certain standard deviations from the mean for the whole of the population. If you think about the population, at least in the US, unfortunately, it's not a super healthy population. you're already sort of stuck in this contract where you're measuring yourself against a benchmark that you're seeking to exceed anyhow. So that's why it's important to go beyond that and think of optimal ranges. And you're right, we've got our own optimal ranges that we've set. We've done that by hiring a really experienced clinical advisory board from different disciplines of research and clinical practice to advise on that. We've also got our own clinical team led by our medical director, Dr. Vinita Tandon, who have a lot of empirical experience having worked in this field for decades around where do they see the best results in terms of people feeling great and getting good health outcomes. So we try and be extremely rigorous in setting those points of view around the optimal range. But then the other side of this is the end of one data, meaning you as an individual member, yes, we can set an optimal range, but then the other big piece of it is, what are we seeing and hearing from you at different places on these biomarkers? Even though I think the optimal range is a much more effective goal to get started, what we're then doing is working with you individually to talk to you around how are you feeling? What are your symptoms? What are we seeing? Then we can even tie trade and personalize things more tightly within that. You and I may both do the same life force diagnostic and just pick a biomarker, DHEA. We have our point of view on where's optimal DHEA. in the course of working with you over quarters, you can tell us how are you feeling? Are there things that you are experiencing getting better? Dial that in further and you and I may end up in a slightly different spot for these key biomarkers. That's what personalized medicine should be. It's narrowing the bullseye, but then using the actual lived experience of the individual member to work out where to be.

Andres Preschel: Right. So first of all, it's a matter of having the right team with the right experience to eliminate controversy when it comes to what is an optimal range and to discover what that bullseye looks like and where it is and how to shoot darts at it. And then in addition to that, it's up to the individual to run their own end of one clinical trial. But it would be a mistake to leave it up to the average person, even an outlier, to try and figure out how to get there. So it's a matter of running your own trial, but having the right supervision. And so what does that supervision look like with your service? If I am set up with you guys, can you sort of paint the picture of what the experience looks like on the user facing end?

Dugal Bain: Sure. And you're exactly right. I think there is a subset of people who are sort of Uber biohackers in this space who probably love doing a lot of this stuff themselves and want to be more experimental. And that's great. That's good for them. But that's not, I think, the biggest population and it's not the population that Lifeforce is really built to help. We're built to help people who want to be on the leading edge, but also, to your point, want expert guidance, want a partner that's really translating how to optimize your health the right way and safely and effectively. For us, what that looks like is having real clinical horsepower. quarterbacking someone's experience. So in practice, we're coming out to your house every three months, sending a phlebotomist there to do a full blood draw. We're testing over 40 different biomarkers. You're also telling us in a quarterly survey, how are you feeling? What are your goals at the moment? What's changed? What's your health history? All of that important context. And then the clinician, either a PA or a medical doctor on our team, is interpreting all of that information together, the biomarker results and everything you've told us about your life, and putting together a summary and a set of recommendations. You then jump onto a telehealth consult that's usually 30 to 45 minutes long, and you have a chance to really drill in line by line into what's happening and, in partnership with the doctor, choose your top couple of priorities for the next three months. We're very focused on simplifying and prioritizing because we find that drives better impact for people. And we think that it's really easy to get overwhelmed in this space, particularly if you're not one of those people who are out there biohacking as a passion. If you're just someone who has a lot going on in their life, wants to be functioning at their best and living a long time, if we can distill all this down to, hey, we've done the analysis and the legwork, here are the top two things we want to work with you on the next three months, that I think is a much better path to success. And then when those three months are up, we'll come back out, we do another blood draw, we review the results, and we can then start to show you, usually for the first time in most people's lives, okay, this was the goal, this is what we did, and here's the progress we've seen, and create a proper feedback loop with people that they are in fact able to improve these things and close these gaps. And if things are stubborn or they take longer to fix, which many things do, it allows us to learn about your body and how you respond over time. And you have that conversation with the clinician that's providing the right oversight to do that.

Andres Preschel: Right. And I'm under the impression that, um, I love that you guys are choosing just a couple of these like human KPIs to keep things practical and to keep people focused because there is an endless amount of information out there. And I feel like a lot of people, again, I'm under the assumption that a lot of people will kind of isolate these like health goals. They don't see how it's all like one living thing. It's them. It's like, like the right lifestyle. Will reward you with the best body composition with the best mood with lower stress, right? And it's like I think most people get so carried away trying to attack all these things individually So if you guys are choosing a couple of these key markers and then just helping them Create a lifestyle. It's like everything else is sort of like a byproduct to that narrowed focus, right? and my question is like outside of the uh, your service, like how do you guys, um, support the sustainability of this process? Like I, I know that you guys have, I imagine you guys have a way to retain clients longterm, but do you guys allow people to sort of graduate? Um, what kind of, you know, prioritization do you have with regards to that?

Dugal Bain: For sure. So, so we see, uh, We designed the membership to be an ongoing relationship with people so that when you reach a stage in your life where you start to think about your health in a different way, and often that's over the age of 30, although it doesn't have to be, but we find it's often early to mid-30s where people start to feel different and realize they need to be more proactive around their health. At that point in time, just like what I was describing in my own life at that age, I wanted to pick a partner that becomes my partner as my body continues to change over the next couple of decades. We've only been around a couple of years at this point, but we see really good retention As we move from this initial phase, which is more intensive work with someone on specific gaps we can close, to more of an active maintenance where we're continuing to provide the tracking on what's changing in your body because new things inevitably will arise. The aging process doesn't stop. Your body's a dynamic thing. And so now you have this sort of alerting system in your life that's drawing your attention to new things as they come up. But having said that, it's not like it's as intensive all the time, because typically we'll spend six or nine months with someone in this initial phase, and then hopefully get them into more of a cruising altitude. And then there's things that we'll continue to support. and actively maintain. And then down the road, something else will come up or we'll get a result back where maybe we've been tracking something and we've decided not to do anything about it until it hit a certain level. And now it's at that level, we could switch priority onto that. So we definitely see people with us for a couple of years, for example, who will then sort of move into more of a maintenance mode. And then when something else comes up, sort of switch back into something a little bit more active. And we're totally fine with that. We see it though, as a partnership that really is supporting you through your 30s, 40s and 50s and into your 60s.

Andres Preschel: Right. So I think what's what you're describing is that in the beginning, there is a paradigm shift within the individual. They see their health and wellness totally, you know, from a different scope. But there's also a paradigm shift that you guys are accomplishing in general, meaning, you know, most people understand they have to go visit the doctor a couple times a year for their entire life. You guys are providing the necessary. Well the the right type of monitoring so that people know if and when they need to look out for something early since you guys are looking at these optimal ranges so a small deviation can alert the system and then people are coming in as practically as possible and Whereas with standard medicine is typically very reactive. So it's a it's a two different paradise shifts one is specific to the individual and wanting to completely revamp their health and the other one is Paradigm shift in the way that we understand and approach medicine and let me ask you this when people Originally approach you how long does it take if I don't even know if you guys have I don't know how much attention you've given to this, but how long does it take typically? um for someone to have that kind of eureka moment Where like all the switches are turned on and they're like just going And the reason why I feel inspired to ask you that question is because you know when I see my clients Typically my clients approach me for the things that they want but not for the things that they need. Most people don't know what they need. And I tend to arrive at this aha moment typically in the first month. And to me, it's something that I hope every single person in health and health and wellness field can feel and come across because it is like, in my opinion, the biggest achievement as a healthcare professional. So with the nature of your program, what does this aha moment look like? What does it feel like? And typically when does it happen?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, I think you're hitting on something really, really, really important around working on the things that people care about as well as what they need. So if we look at what are the top reasons people say they want help with something when they come to us as new members. The top reason is actually mental function, which is interesting. The second is energy and vitality. The third is body composition. And the fourth is longevity. And by longevity, really what they mean is, you know, the peace of mind that they're going to live a long and full life. And so that's, it's really interesting because when we have these conversations and because it's a higher touch model and we have the space to talk to people around, what do you really care about? A lot of it comes back to, elements of quality of life, like the things that they want in their life to, to feel like they can live the way they want to live. And it's really important in our opinion, and certainly we build this into the model to, to honor that, not to dismiss it. You know, if someone comes in and they really want to work on brain fog and you know, we turn around and say, Oh, don't worry about that. That's this kind of nebulous thing. Let's, let's work on your cholesterol instead. We've just shut them down and we've really missed an opportunity to demonstrate our credibility and give them a quick win. So as much as possible, what we try and do is really meet them with acknowledgement and honoring of what do they care about most. And then in that same conversation, put things forward that we can see in their results that they should also care about, and then together choose the goals we want to work on in that next three or four month period. If we can do that the right way, then you end up being able to give people quick wins, which then builds our credibility as a partner. It also builds their confidence that they can actually fix things that maybe they've failed to fix before. And within three months, based on the data across all of the members that we've worked with, 85% of people have seen an improvement in at least one element of quality of life. And then there's all kinds of other health outcomes that sit underneath that. But that's great because if we can get in and within three months we could point to something in your dashboard and show you that it's gotten better, it sort of shows that your investment in being proactive is paying off. And from there, then we can dig into other things as we need to.

Andres Preschel: And that's that's wonderfully said man, and I think a lot of people and I hope this is an offending one the way I'm gonna say this but I think that a lot of people Their initial goals are relatively superficial to the things they actually need to accomplish to feel look and perform their best as a natural byproduct of a new way of life or a new way of thinking of their Health well-being and their their health status so Yeah, it's incredible to capture these like aha moments when you get beyond the habits and the systems, and you really get to the core of someone's identity, similar to what happened with you, right? Like you had, I imagine you had some quick wins when you were trying to take better care of yourself, being a father, and then you start to go, all right, like, let me hang around these people, let me start thinking this way, learning this material, and then boom, you know, something clicked. And before you know it, you're a totally new and upgraded person, you've upgraded your identity. That to me and I think this actually is a nice hats off to James clears book atomic habits That's the most beautiful thing that someone can accomplish, right? It's a it's a it's a level of changing their identity and I think that's in a way what you're doing That's that's something that starts to happen when you give people once you've gotten past those quick wins You've met people where they're at and you start to introduce the way of thinking that people actually need to adopt to change their life forever

Dugal Bain: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And you also, you touched on something that I think is really important around, you know, we think And one of the reasons why proactive health or preventative care sucks and hasn't been successful in the past is because it hasn't acknowledged the things that are important to people and blended those with other health outcomes. So the consumer is kind of left in this world where you've got the traditional healthcare system saying, do your colonoscopy because it's going to be good for your cancer screening profile in the next 20 years. On one hand, then you've got a hair loss clinic or maybe a DTC Viagra company somewhere else who's helping you with the things that actually you spend more time worrying about because they're important to you every day in your life. And so those things shouldn't be fragmented. Like if the goal is let's help you live the best life you can for as long as you can, you need to blend all of that together. Like if someone really cares about libido or if someone really cares about body composition, those are important things. They affect your quality of life, just like getting down your cancer risk, just like moderating your ApoB or your cholesterol levels. They're all important parts of this conversation around what it means to be proactive about your body. So bring it all together and then you're able to give people quick wins, you're able to give people you know, different sense of progress and earn the right to work on some of these other things that are going to be really important for how long they live in the future.

Andres Preschel: Absolutely amazing, man. And I actually want to shift gears real quick to a previous conversation we were having briefly, which is, you know, when you were a father, you know, you had your daughter and you had to capitalize on the sleep. So to feel good, but also to be the best fatherly figure that you can possibly be, right? I think this plays in nicely for most listeners because while most listeners tuning in right now don't have kids I imagine that they do have to at some point in their life either, you know mitigate the damage that An early sleeping schedule has or travel schedule or they have to wake up at night for something, right? Like how do you capitalize on sleep when you're anticipating? some kind of distraction or responsibility that can come up intermittently and How did you make the best of your sleep while you were, you know, in those early stages?

Dugal Bain: Okay. So tactically, tactically what worked for me?

Andres Preschel: What does it take to be a tactical dad?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, it's funny because I didn't really have an option for a while to actually sleep more hours. So it really came down to the quality of the sleep that I could get when I could get it. So I think this is a pretty well-known tactic at this point, but definitely temperature regulation was big for me. So I ended up bringing the temperature of my bed and my bedroom down by five degrees compared to where it was previously, and I found that helped a lot. I also started taking a sleep supplement, but one with very, very little melatonin. I'm not a fan of heavy melatonin sleep supplements, and the supplements that we have at LifeForce skew away from heavy melatonin supplementation, but there are other things that I think are effective, and at least they are effective for me to have- What were they by me asking?

Andres Preschel: What were some of the-

Dugal Bain: Yeah, so we have a supplement called Peak Rest, which is really effective. So if folks are curious, they can check that out. But the point was that, you know, there are some things out there that are, I think, you know, a nice bedtime ritual. And it's all, I think, part of conditioning yourself that there is a wind down routine. So not just steaming in from work emails or, you know, being on social media or whatever, and then just jumping into bed and expecting yourself to fall asleep soundly. It's got to be some sort of ritual that happens and probably at least 45 minutes before you go to bed. And if you can do that, at least for me, that helped a lot. Having a ritual, dropping the temperature, and I got myself back on track.

Andres Preschel: And what did some of that ritual, what did it look like? You know, were you lighting candles or were you having, sipping on some chamomile tea or wearing blue blockers or, you know, what did that look like?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, it was probably not as cutting edge as that. I just tried to shut my computer and get off my phone at least 45 minutes before bed, which is always harder than it sounds in this day and age. And then I'd have a cup of tea with a sleep supplement in there. I'd finish with a little bit of journaling just to try and take stock of the day and kind of reflect on how things went and almost clear the slate before I hopped into bed, clear the slate mentally. And then I'd hop into bed and try and think about something positive or something that I'm grateful for to kind of bring the cortisol down and connect me to a more positive physical state. And then that seemed to work.

Andres Preschel: And I know that, I mean, you've been a busy professional and you, you are a really busy professional nowadays. Um, what are some of the like non-negotiables when it comes to your health, fitness and performance that you. Make sure to, you know, take part in every single day, no matter how busy you are, um, as like the absolute bare minimum to maintain this like work-life integration and just, you know, fire on all cylinders all the time. What are some of the non-negotiables?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, so movement an hour a day, and movement's pretty broad. It's not that every day I can go out and throw a bunch of weight around or train super intensely, although hopefully I can do that a few times a week, but at least moving an hour a day. So a hike with a weighted vest or a movement and flexibility session, just treating that as sacred, which I think, again, is not always easy, but trying to see that as your phrase non-negotiable is the right way to think about it. Just seeing it as core and nothing, even an important work meeting or anything else can trump that. It's just like air and water. I think that's what I'm always striving for. I have been intermittent fasting Monday to Friday. So for me, that helps lose some weight and it's helped with my energy in the morning and my focus as well. So in general, that's definitely what I stick to. And then alcohol consumption, not that I wasn't drinking a lot, but you're cutting that down to maybe a glass of something one or two, maybe three times a week max and trying not to go over that. I just found that as I got older, the payoff wasn't quite there and I'd notice it in sleep quality and other things.

Andres Preschel: Right. And, uh, do you treat your health and wellness, say for example, your, your fitness, do you, do you put that in your calendar as if it's like any other commitment or do you kind of just, you know, stumble upon a free hour, half hour, or break this up until like fitness snacks throughout the day? Like, how do you make sure that that's part of your daily commitments every single day?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, I found that treating it as a sacred space on the calendar was more effective. I was trying to squeeze it in opportunistically around meetings and things like that, but that would slip through too much. So I think having a consistent slot for me, it was early morning, it was 5.45 to 6.45, that particular slot seemed to be the one that I could protect the best. Even though physically, if I had my choice and I had three days, I would probably prefer to train about one or two in the afternoon because physically I just feel like I'm in a bit of a stronger place. Having the early time that I knew was going to be protected and I'd be more likely to use was more important than waiting until later in the day when I physically felt my best. So that's what I found works for me. I think everyone's probably got a different bias there. The more the day got rolling and things started piling up, the harder it was to try and slip that in opportunistically. So that's why going early worked for me.

Andres Preschel: And what do you think are some things that you maybe have sometimes have trouble integrating into your life that you know is objectively healthy for you, if anything?

Dugal Bain: I'm sure there's plenty of stuff for sure. At the moment, I would say meditation. That's something that I've done in stages in the past, and I've found it really valuable for mental well-being, but also physically, I think it really helps regulate cortisol and other things like that. I would definitely like to get back into that practice and I think that it's a legitimate tool that would work for most people around how to optimize their health and performance, but I'm struggling to stick with that ritual at the moment. I haven't given up. I'd love to be doing 20 minutes a day, just have to find a routine to get that happening more regularly.

Andres Preschel: What do you think is the first step that you can take to get that back into your daily schedule?

Dugal Bain: I think in a similar way to experimentation around where the physical workout was best placed in my day, would be a similar thing around the meditation. Meaning, trying it in a few different places around my day and then seeing which one tends to be stickiest, which one do I tend to adhere to the best, is probably going to give me a good clue about how I make that a non-negotiable as well. you know, it could be a good thing to do it in the last 20 minutes of the day as the day's winding down and be a nice transition between work life and home life. So that's probably the next place I'm going to experiment with it, just to use it as a kind of a bridge, get me in the right headspace to spend time with my family in the evenings. And, you know, maybe that'll be the positioning that gets it happening more frequently.

Andres Preschel: Amazing. And you know, now that we're making conversation about some of these habits, I'm curious, and it seems like you're very well aware of exactly who you're targeting, and what their life looks like, what kind of help they need. I'm curious if this kind of like ideal client and this population If any of the general trends you've seen in them or any of the let's say a very high leverage habit systems Hacks have any of has studying the population Influenced your well-being in any way Have you learned things about the population that you've integrated into your personal life because you've seen it so successful on that kind of scale?

Dugal Bain: That's a really interesting question. So we see, um, based on, you know, running 30,000 blood tests at this point, uh, when people come to us for their first test as, as new life force members, about 25% of their biomarkers are out of the optimal range. So, you know, for folks listening to this, even if they, you know, skew a little bit younger in their twenties, uh, there's always plenty of opportunities to help people move themselves into the optimal range. One of the areas that comes up very frequently is around hormone balance. So this is really looking at the major hormones, estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, progesterone, et cetera. And we see over 80% of people with some hormone imbalance that's suboptimal there. And I think one learning for me from having watched that group of folks improve their hormone balance and work with our doctors and health coaches, is how much lifestyle factors affect hormones. And that's definitely something that I've incorporated myself. Because I think before seeing that data and watching the improvement, it was easy to kind of think about hormones, then hormone optimization, and almost see it more like a pharmaceutical thing. Whereas in reality, it's a The strategy for improving hormone balance is always multi-dimensional and it always includes a heavy lifestyle component. So I mentioned sleep, but sleep has an immediate effect on hormone balance. If you're sleeping poorly, literally on a week-to-week basis, we can see that come through. in your hormone balance, even in terms of what workout that you're doing in the gym. So, you know, when men come to us and they're on the low side on the testosterone levels, one of the things we always start with is start doing more lower body weights, specifically deadlifts and squats. So big muscle groups, particularly in the lower body, and… A lot of androgen receptors there. Exactly, exactly. And so I think that that's always a really, I think, rewarding education process with our members to help them understand the levers that they actually already have to pull in their lifestyle to help with hormone balance. And then for sure, we can combine the supplements or the pharmaceuticals to help with that as well. But I think for me, just with an eye on my own hormone balance, sleep hygiene, the sort of workouts I choose, even sort of diet strategies and things like that. And seeing those as big pieces of the puzzle has been a learning I got directly from our members.

Andres Preschel: Absolutely amazing, man. And I know that you guys whenever you work with someone, you know, you have this integrated approach to studying them. You know, you have a series of people on the team that are looking at an individual. How do you guys come up with, like, who's taking the lead? Let's say, for example, you have, I don't know, a medical doctor and then a health coach and a longevity expert, and they're at a Disagreement or they just can't come to a conclusion. You know, how do you how do you make a decision then? About what's best for the individual?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, so when people are working with us, they will have their life force clinician, usually a medical doctor, who I think of as the main architect of their program. So that's the person that our members are having a telehealth consult with every three months to choose the goals that are going to be the priority for the next three months. And then once those goals have been selected by the member and the doctor together, the health coach then steps in as the right hand support for the member, particularly on the lifestyle side. But you think of them as sort of the coach to help with the lifestyle adjustments, as well as the accountability and support partner just for getting the most out of the program in general. What this means in practice is usually, hopefully a great telehealth consult, and then the coach reaching out saying, hey Andres, I see that for the next three months we're working on your energy levels and we're going to try and get your ApoB down to help with your risk of heart attack. This is what we want to lean into on the lifestyle side. What area of this do you think you need help with specifically? Do you want to set up a Zoom call? Um, so that's how it, how it happens at the sort of care delivery level in terms of life forces position on different topics. Cause I think that's also part of what you're asking. And, you know, as new, new research comes out or, or, or as our members ask us about different things, uh, that's where we really lean on our medical director and our chief medical officer and the rest of the clinical advisory board. So, um, Dr. Kurt Hong is our chief medical officer. He's a professor of longevity and gerontology at USC and UCLA. And he's ultimately accountable for the clinical model overall and Lifeforce's point of view on different things. And I think that's important because this space is so dynamic. There's new research and new kind of pseudo research coming out all the time. And as a company, we have a responsibility to translate all of that and have some clear points of view for our members. And Dr. Hong is ultimately the person in charge of that and works with the rest of our clinical team to do it.

Andres Preschel: Absolutely amazing and and you know considering the emphasis on all the subjective data and evidence that Incentivizes change that leads you to make the right decision on behalf of the individual and their well-being How do you actually make the link between that and their subjective feelings? How do you show them that evidence-based decisions actually lead to? sensations things that they can feel you know and and let me just back up for a second before you answer that question and Know that a lot of these changes take place over the course of several months, right? And so sometimes because the change is so gradual People don't notice how far they've come when it comes to these subjective feelings But when they look at the data and they look at that snapshot they go. Wow things have changed. So what's how do you guys? Look at this. What kind of emphasis is there on the subjective emotions? And how do you measure that?

Dugal Bain: We really think of when you ask around what are the data sets that we're focused on, subjective outcomes are one of those key data sets for us as well. And I think that relates to what we were talking about before around acknowledging that quality of life is a huge and legitimate goal for a lot of people. So every three months, we're actually asking people to score themselves on different patient reported outcomes related to quality of life, energy, mental clarity, physical recovery, libido, body composition, all of these things that people care about day to day. We are collecting that data from them every three months. And at the same time, we're also measuring their biomarkers and collecting all of that objective information. So it allows us to connect the dots, basically, to say to someone, okay, you came in, you really wanted to work on mental clarity as an example. We saw that your homocysteine level was severely out of the optimal range. We've now brought that into the optimal range, and as we thought, you're now scoring yourself higher on mental clarity and memory and the things related to homocysteine levels. Drawing the through line is really important to us and I think it's pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting because it's really the first time that your mainstream consumers have been able to take these subjective things and make sense of them with the objective underlying information instead of putting up with these things that feel very kind of squishy and hard to pin down, we can now have this conversation where we can say, this is your subjective symptom. This is what we think is happening in biomarkers. Let's together implement this new strategy and then let's see if both of those things move at the same time.

Andres Preschel: And I think that that's a beautiful process because what you're doing is you're using data to build a backbone of intuition. And if someone can arrive at an intuitive process when it comes to their health, they're golden. And you alluded to something earlier, well, something personal to me, but a quote that I want to share with you, and that's that longevity is more about extending lifespan through the quality of the present moment than it is about extending lifespan for the sake of more moments. Right. If you arrive at quality of life, longevity is a byproduct. Longevity isn't like, Oh, I want to, I want to spend more time on this earth. Like you'll get there naturally just by living a better quality of life. And that starts in this moment. This is the only moment. Right. So I totally agree.

Dugal Bain: And yeah, we, you know, the first question we ask people, uh, is, is why do you want to optimize your health at, which sounds like a really dumb question initially. Cause you know, who wouldn't want to be healthy, but. when we really drill into that. And we do it on purpose because if people are connected to a deeper purpose for doing anything, they're more likely to be successful. There's a lot of research around that. And so if we can get people thinking at that deeper level of, okay, why is it that I'm about to sign up for this thing? Or why is it that I'm going to start being more proactive about my health? It's not just health for health's sake. It's health because I want to be around for my family, or I never want to be apart from my spouse, or I love nature so much I always want to be experiencing more of it. Everyone's got their own personal reason for why do you want to be in optimal health. To your point, I think that's really what lifespan is all about. It's being around for a long time because there's deeper things that are important to you. and really staying closely connected to that. Not just wanting to live to some incredible age, but never really having done that deeper introspection.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, and I think that that question, I think the people that think that that question is silly are just, maybe they're just stubborn because the nature of that question, it provokes introspection. And that introspection opens your mind to the possibility that maybe deep down you want this or you need this more than you think on paper, or at least more than Your previous impression was I love that question. I I'm curious if you're familiar with The Golden Circle concept by Simon Sinek, you know, he's the author of start with why he has that TED talk The Golden Circle is this is this something that uh You had seen previously that inspired you to start with that question

Dugal Bain: I am familiar with his work. I don't think this came directly out of that, but it definitely, you know, hits on some of the same themes as well. And, um, you know, I love the way he thinks about things. Um, I think this actually came originally through organically throughout coaches. We have a great health coach team and, you know, as we were chatting to them early days on how we want to build the coaching model. This is just one of the themes that they had seen time and time again, that if we can start the journey by anchoring someone in purpose, then they'll get better results. And so it turned into a more profound thing around almost like as a company being a bit of our North Star of, you know, really… Really sort of thinking ourselves, and I know this sounds maybe a little bit too grandiose, but just being a company that helps people live better lives, we just happen to do it by optimizing their health at the moment. That's kind of the North Star that we set for ourselves.

Andres Preschel: Well, can you recall any answers to that question that maybe really spoke to you? I'm sure all of them do to a capacity, but anything that stands out?

Dugal Bain: Yeah, I remember one gentleman and his answer was that, so I never have to be away from my wife. And there was a whole other conversation we'd had around that with his relationship and what his partnership with his wife meant to him, but just this sense that he was going to do the work and put in the time so that he could always be with his wife on this earth was, I don't know, that hit a chord for me at the time for sure.

Andres Preschel: Wow, man. And I'm sure it did for a lot of the people tuning in. I'm not yet married, but I definitely want to spend as much time with my girlfriend as I can, with my partner as I can.

Dugal Bain: There was one other fun one where someone basically just spoke to this deep sense of FOMO. They basically, I mean, it was someone who had a a fantastic positive attitude to life. And they were just talking about, because life is too much fun and I don't want to miss out. They just were the sort of person who just loved to experience life at its fullest. And they had this sense of FOMO where they'd be really disappointed if they got taken out prematurely by something they could have been proactive about. But sometimes I think of that person as just a great model for the right attitude towards life.

Andres Preschel: Amazing man, and I know that we're running well pretty much out of time. But I First of all, I can't thank you enough for the important work that you're doing It's been so much fun chatting with you. But I do have one more question actually before we sign off and that's If you could put a word Message phrase sentence on a billboard somewhere in the world. What would it say and where would you put it?

Dugal Bain: Oh, that's a good one. I would, right now at this moment, I would probably put up a quote that I heard a while ago that keeps kind of haunting and motivating me. And the quote is, you say you die for your family, but would you get healthy for them?

Andres Preschel: Dude, I just got goosebumps.

Dugal Bain: And I think, you know, that's not like, to be clear, that's not, uh, you know, that's not everyone's motivation, which is totally fine, but ultimately our goal is just to challenge people to think differently around their health. And, and I think having that up on, um, you know, maybe the, uh, the 10 in LA or maybe somewhere around Times Square would probably give us the best shot at affecting the most number of people, which is what we want to do.

Andres Preschel: Dude, i've asked that question Countless times and I think this is the best answer i've ever gotten that is that that shook me that honestly shook i've never I think i've that's something that i've always wanted to say to people that I care about who just haven't made flip that switch yet But that is such a practical way to propose the question um And again, you know inspiring that kind of introspection and That's that's wonderful wonderfully said man. Well dugal. It's been Absolute honor and a pleasure. I think that goes without saying. Thank you so much for your time and for joining us today, bro.

Dugal Bain: Thanks, Andres. It's great to chat with you.

Andres Preschel: And where can people find you?

Dugal Bain: Yes, you can find us at mylifeforce.com. So, you know, hopefully these conversations made people curious to understand what's happening inside their bodies and, you know, potentially get on the front foot a little bit more around health and performance. And if that's the case, then we're at mylifeforce.com and we'd love to chat to you.

Andres Preschel: Amazing. Thanks so much, man.

Dugal Bain: Thanks, man.

Andres Preschel: So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more, about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPeruchel.com, that's A-N-D-R-E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com, and go to podcasts. You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth. Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day.