Know Your Physio

Andrew Herr: Solving Jet Lag with Science, Inflammation, Sleep, and Smarter Travel

• Andrew Herr • Episode 147

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I sat down with Andrew Herr to unpack what flying really does to your body and how to fix it with simple, science-based steps. Andrew has coached fighter pilots, Navy SEALs, and busy executives, and he built a travel system that treats jet lag like a solvable problem, not a life sentence.

We break down why pressure changes and lower oxygen in the cabin drive inflammation, why that brain fog and puffy feeling show up even on short hops, and how circadian rhythm, light, and meal timing fit into the picture. We get into domestic versus international travel, when you only need a “mini” protocol, and when you need the full reset. You will hear exactly how to set up sleep the first night, when to use light or block it, how to time magnesium, omega-3s, and melatonin, why small protein-first meals beat grazing on junk, and why fasting can help some people but not everyone.

You will also learn how to read your own signals, why some frequent fliers think they are fine when they are not, and how to test whether something actually helps you. If you want to land clear-headed, sleep that first night, and feel like yourself again, this episode gives you a plan you can run on your very next trip.


Key topics

  • Why flights trigger inflammation, even on short routes
  • Circadian rhythm basics, light timing, and sleep setup
  • Domestic vs international playbook, what changes and why
  • Protein-first eating on travel days, hydration, and walking after meals
  • When fasting helps and when it backfires
  • Blue light blocking, battery-powered alarm clocks, and a bedroom setup after you land
  • How to test if a tool or supplement is working for you
  • Where Andrew’s timing protocol came from and how the app personalizes it without guesswork

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Resources mentioned

  • FlyKit travel protocols and refills: flykit.com
  • Blue light blocking glasses that block high percentages at night
  • Omega-3s with balanced EPA and DHA
  • Melatonin and magnesium timing for first-night sleep


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Andrew Herr:
The light we get at night is messing us up. The social media we are looking at on our phones, all that's being messed with. Taste. Caffeine and sugar is a potent anxiogenic combination, a potent anxiety-causing combination. Starbucks is basically selling anxiety in a cup. When people want to lower anxiety, the thing I tell them is like, look, you're probably not going to like this recommendation. And there's things we can do without doing this. But probably the biggest thing you could do would be stop drinking caffeine.

Andres Preschel: Before we jump in, quick shout out to today's sponsor, Timeline Nutrition. They've developed MitoPure gummies, the only clinically proven way to restore mitochondrial health and support healthy aging from the inside out. And my listeners get 20% off at timeline.com slash undress. That's timeline.com slash undress, A-N-D-R-E-S. Go try them, your cells will thank you. Andrew, welcome to the show. It's so good to be here. Yeah. So we have a lot of fun stuff. We want to dive into lots of physiology for our curious, uh, citizen scientists that are tuning in. But before we jump into all that, I want to hear, you know, why do you do what you do, man?

Andrew Herr: The goal is to help people. Jet lag is sort of one of these synchronicities, one of these things that just came out of my background. I spent a bunch of time working with the military. Based on work I was doing with Navy SEALs, we learned that the pressure changes in diving cause inflammation. Executives who I was coaching were asking me like, okay, great, but how do I solve jet lag? And then these fighter pilots were having these issues when they fly and having brain fog when they came down. And when you put this all together, I was able to figure out that the pressure changes in flight and the lower oxygen environment cause inflammation. And so what does that mean? Like, that means I got this insight into jet lag, and now we're helping people solve a problem they thought wasn't possible to solve, and helping them understand that when you fly, you get inflammation in your body, which explains why you don't feel good even on domestic flights. And so that's the point, is like, help people see, wow, there's things happening to me that I didn't even realize. And there's a way to solve them. And I think that, you know, if we can help people realize all the ways the modern world makes it harder to be healthy, you know, some places poisons us and some places helps us, then that's the real, the real goal is to help heal a lot of people. Because, you know, when you're less inflamed, when you're less stressed, when you feel better, I think people are more oriented, more oriented than to doing good in the world themselves.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, I mean, I wish the folks who are tuning into this and don't have the chance to see the video could see the smile on my face right now because I'm so amped up. I mean, this is what Know Your Physio is all about, knowing your physiology, discovering your science. And I mean, your product and your mission is absolutely so aligned with us. And, you know, there's a quote that I wanted to share with you that is by Buckminster Fuller. And it goes, don't try to teach anybody anything. Instead, give them a product, the use of which will inspire new ways of thinking. And I think that the fly kit is a perfect example, right? You use the fly kit and there are subjective and objective changes that you can feel and measure respectively. And it just opens up this world of curiosity as it pertains to the underlying physiology. And I mean, I'm speaking from personal experience. I mean, obviously, I'm a physiologist, so I'm naturally curious about these things and how they influence us. But all my clients that are on this are absolutely obsessed. And this is just such a huge problem. It's like it just had all these question marks around it for decades, since we started flying. And this has really been an amazing, amazing mission that you're accomplishing on a daily basis. I know I sound like a huge fanboy right now, but really, it's just that exciting to me. So can you take us through, I mean, the nerd in me wants to understand, can you take us through the kind of studies that you were performing and exactly what you were measuring and how it led you to creating the fly kit?

Andrew Herr: So the first big aha moment was sitting in an Office of Naval Research private review conference on their cutting-edge research and seeing this researcher out of the University of Maryland present data showing that Basically decompression sickness. You know, when you, when you're diving and you come up too quickly, people get the bends or decompression sickness, which can be a nuisance and people don't feel well. It can cause major joint pain. It can kill you if you do it wrong. Uh, if you do it too much or if you have too big a change. And seeing him show data strongly suggesting that this was an inflammatory condition and then following this rabbit hole and learning like. sometimes you can't find bubble. So the backup, the sort of like canonical, the accepted explanation for decompression sickness is that when you go down and dive deep, you get a lot of, the pressure allows more gas to be absorbed in your blood. And if you come up too quickly and the pressure is released and the gas bubbles out, just like when you open up a two liter bottle of soda and it like, you know, the carbon dioxide bubbles out. And those bubbles then get lodged in places and they can block blood flow, all these other things. But if we think about that and understand that one of the major symptoms of decompression sickness is joint pain. Like I got to ask, how are these little bubbles causing your giant knee joint to be in so much pain? I know I understand blocking blood flow and other things is always a serious thing, but this just never kind of, this model just never made sense once I started going deeper. But of course, then we look at this data on inflammation, this pathway hits like the same pathways as arthritis and other things. So you start to then suddenly see like, wow. Like maybe, maybe the bubbles play a role. Maybe there's a reaction surface that accelerates the inflammation. Maybe they play a role directly, but like this inflammation piece was really fascinating. And then fast forward. You know, what do we know about jet lag outside of this kind of insight? The answer is you're going to get less sleep by definition, because if you fly to Asia and you sleep eight hours at your normal time, you're going to wake up at like 8 p.m. and you're definitely not going to bed that night. So you have to have less sleep. You have to have at least one day of disruptive sleep. And what is the first order, the first kind of major negative effect of not getting enough sleep? Inflammation. And what do we know about studies? So there's some military studies that, you know, put people, they use, for example, Omega-3s or other things to try to manage inflammation. Like it helps people perform when they're not getting enough sleep. So anyways, I put together this protocol because a client came to me and was like, Hey, Andrew, I fly to Asia, there's a big business dinner that night, and I want to negotiate at 7 a.m. the next morning, like I'm getting like jet lags being used against me as a negotiating tool. So I put together this program, pulling all the research together, adding things that would help the inflammation, then using supplements and meal timing and light to shift the circadian rhythm, you know, the methylated B vitamins plus light shifted forward, melatonin backwards, magnesium to calm you down, all these like, you know, light at the right time, blue eyed blind glasses, everything together. And I got an email back from Korea a couple of days later being like, Andrew, what did you do? I just slept eight hours my first night. And then these, you know, I was talking to this fighter pilot. The other piece of this story is like, I was like, Hey, what, I know you don't feel great when you come down from flights, but what kind of flights kind of mission profile do you feel the worst on? And the guy's like, you know, you'd think high G's because that G forces put a lot of stress on your body and you have to like force the blood back in your head, all these things. It's like, you'd think it's that, but it's really when we go to high altitude. I was like, I knew it. This is where you're going to have the biggest pressure stuff, the lowest oxygen in the cabin, even though they're getting, you know, pressurized cabin. I was like, well, do you want to try something that might make you feel better? And so I gave him a protocol to block the inflammation. It came back down and he was like, I've never felt that clear headed after a flight. And so you have all these different pieces of data. And then of course, trying it on the, on my client was the experimental validation that this inflammation model, now that this circadian rhythm thing isn't important, it is, but my model is that the inflammation stops you from resetting your circadian rhythm. And then I kept testing it on people and we kept refining and refining and it kept working. And eventually you have to accept like we figured something special out.

Andres Preschel: I mean, I have so many, there's so many different ways that we can spin this, but for the folks that aren't familiar with circadian biology, can you give us your overwhelming impression of what everybody needs to know about it and how foundational it is for the rest of our physiology?

Andrew Herr: All of our cells, let alone our brain, work off of circadian or basically daily clocks. And each type of cell, each organ uses different inputs to tune that circadian clock. In our brain, the dominant one is light. And so we have receptors in our eyes that aren't for seeing, they're for detecting blue light, which is a signal that it's daytime. Evolutionarily, this makes a lot of sense because there's not much blue light in fire. I mean, maybe when you're cooking on the stove, you're using natural gas, but 10,000 years ago, they weren't cooking with natural gas. So there's some other reasons why blue makes sense when you're in evolution from the ocean, what lights will penetrate. But long story short, our eyes are tuned to use blue light as a signal that it's daytime. And if you're getting it when your brain thinks it's nighttime, then it'll start to shift based on that input. Other cells use things like insulin, which, you know, tends to be released when we eat, and other inputs. And so our body uses this to coordinate when we rest, when we're awake, when our metabolism is right, when our stress hormone levels are right. And so it's a foundational part of our biology, I would say.

Andres Preschel: And, you know, what do you think this has to say about our evolution or relationship with the sun? You know, how and how out of touch do you think that we are nowadays with the natural evolutionarily preserved mechanism?

Andrew Herr: Very. I mean, certainly it means that we evolved, we evolved with the sun. That's just sort of a straightforward answer.

Andres Preschel: Since we were a speck of algae in the ocean.

Andrew Herr: Right? Like everything, all the energy, you know, here. Well, there's some reasons that energy might be coming from the core of the earth too, but for the most part, we live off of energy from the sun. And I think it's funny, like in some ways our modern lifestyle has taken us not only away from the sun because we're inside, but then we work at night and we have these light bulbs that produce a lot of blue light, which then can mess with the circadian rhythm. I mean, this is a little off the jet lag thing, but, and he's going to put on blue light blocking glasses, great. Although the light in your room is clearly very blue right now.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, it's very blue.

Andrew Herr: But, you know, the other piece is, you know, everybody has been told that sun exposure is bad for your skin. And there's no doubt that it tends to age people more. But I think the evidence is quite strong. You can't really run a randomized controlled trial here. So it's really correlations. But the evidence is quite strong. The people who get very little sun exposure have much worse health. And there's some data out of Scandinavia where the differences are very large because we get almost no sun in the winter in Scandinavia. And the people in the top quartile, the top 25% of sun exposure versus the bottom 25%, the risk of dying is like smoking if not getting sun. And so I think getting sun on our skin is really valuable. I'm not saying get sunburned. That's a bad idea. But putting on sunscreen every day and getting no sun exposure is my guess is actually quite bad for us, especially if you don't get burned. And I think one of the reasons is, I'm sure listeners of your show have heard the concept of hormesis before, which is hormetic stressor is a stressor that causes your body to adapt and get stronger in a way that doesn't sort of damage it so much as cause that agitation. And I believe that sun is a hormetic stressor on the skin. And when we look around, what is one of the great maladies of our time? So many people have autoimmune or irritation or skin issues. From teenagers with terrible acne to eczema, rosacea, all these things are so much more prevalent than they used to. And I heard a comment that was passed on to me the other day. Someone was talking to an esthetician, a beauty salon, and this woman was telling my friend, hey, you know, what's so weird is that back where I'm from, in the Greek islands, People look older, but nobody has the redness and inflammation in their skin. And certainly diet and other things are different lifestyle, but I think some exposure is one of them.

Andres Preschel: Well said. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting relationship that we have with the sun nowadays, and I don't think people pay enough attention to how essential it is in order to elicit certain mechanisms that help us with so much more than, you know, vitamin D, which I think most people really, oh, sunlight, vitamin D, sure. But there's just so much more about the sun, you know. And, you know, it's interesting, I think if you look at those Scandinavian studies, right, where they're exposed to a pretty stark contrast throughout the times, you know, in terms of sunlight exposure throughout the year, you know, they are certainly outliers as far as the population. They're an outlier population, just like, you know, these Navy SEAL teams that you studied in. Obviously, most people tuning into this podcast, they wouldn't consider themselves outliers necessarily. However, it's by studying these outlier populations and these elite performers that we get to learn things about physiology that anyone can, you know, really derive powerful value from and insights into the world within them. So it's unbelievable how much we get to learn from these people. And I admire all the work that you've done and the realizations that you've come to because now, you know, the impact is widespread. Anyone can, you know, use something like the FlyKid and counteract all of the harm that they're exposed to. Anyway, moving forward, what I'd like to understand as well from you is the difference between international versus domestic flights. Outside of the circadian shift that happens, what are some of the most meaningful mechanisms that folks need to understand in order to protect themselves when they fly?

Andrew Herr: Yeah, so the pressure change in flight and the lower oxygen environment happen on a flight, no matter how long it is.

Andres Preschel: Even if it's like going to the Bahamas from Miami.

Andrew Herr: Like one hour LA to San Francisco, Bahamas to Miami, like you're getting that exposure. Now, the longer the exposure, the worse it seems to be. And so, but if you ask people, hey, when you take a one, two, three hour flight, do you feel worse when they get off? Almost everybody will tell you, yeah, I don't feel good. And we normally attributed this to the drier air or to the You know, some people talk about radiation in flights, other things. But from our work, this is the inflammation you're feeling. And it really tracks the symptoms, right? People will talk about bloating, they'll talk about brain fog, you know, their legs swell up. All these things match perfectly. And then on long flights where you're really for a long time, obviously there's a risk of deep vein thrombosis or blood clots in your legs. Blood clotting is an inflammatory process. And really, like, Medicine has no way to explain that other than like, oh, well, you know, you sit for a long time. Yeah, but people don't get blood clots when they sit at their couch for a long time. Don't get me wrong, your couch is more comfortable than an airplane seat. But again, this inflammatory process is happening. But if you're going from New York to Miami, there's no circadian shift. But most people also don't sleep as well that night. So what our model now is the key for domestic or shorter flights is block the inflammation, support the energy through the day and support sleep that first night. And that's enough.

SPEAKER_02: Right.

Andrew Herr: And then for the international flights, this more comprehensive protocol of managing inflammation the next day, resetting the circadian rhythm. And one of the things that I had to think through was how do you reset the circadian rhythm peripherally, not just in the brain, but in the body and the gut, the metabolism. I mentioned insulin signaling. So obviously, you might guess I'm not a huge fan of eating a lot of sugar. It's generally not great for us. But we're using a specifically dosed sugar plus methylated B vitamin drink mix at the right time to reset your circadian rhythm. for that long distance thing. And then we're using blue light, black and glass at the right time. So, you know, it's sort of like a baby version of the big protocol because the inflammation is the inflammation. The mechanism is the mechanism. But you need to really support your body for longer and more intensively on these longer flights. And so I think that's kind of how I think about it. And then all the adjunct things that we've heard about that are true, like hydrate a hundred percent. And just really focus on eating cleaner if you can. If we eat a bunch of fried food, that's gonna drive inflammation. And inflammation is an exponential process. So two hits or two inflammatory triggers is much worse than one. It's not double, it's four or maybe eight or 16 times as worse because these systems work in an exponentially amplifying way. And so all the other things people know are, are true, but, um, you know, and, you know, sort of. To know what we're doing. We obviously have a product for jet lag and we're launching probably by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have launched because it's coming out next week, beginning of September, we're launching a domestic product. It's a simpler protocol. So the lower price point, all, everything you need in a little pack, um, and the app or app still tells you what to do and when to make it easy, but, um, we're really excited to, you know, go beyond just the big international trips because people are traveling all the time domestically.

Andres Preschel: And I have a question about, you know, these like self-described non-responders, because all of this makes sense to me as a physiologist, right? Like I'm going to do this proactively, even if I feel healthy enough to like just make it through a flight. Sure. But there's a few people that I've gotten this in the hands of that have made up, I mean, their life flying across the world is just part of their lifestyle. And it's been that way sometimes for multiple decades. Like, I know I'm used to it. Yeah, whatever. Right. They kind of just like nudge this off. What is there to say about that?

Andrew Herr: So I think there's two things. One, I guess there could be two questions there. One, like if the flight kit protocol doesn't work for people, and the second question is for people who are like, no, no, I really don't experience jet lag. For the people who, starting with the people who say I really don't experience jet lag, that I find comes in two flavors. One, there are, you know, as we were talking about Navy SEALs before, there's outlier physiology. Physiologically, a Navy SEAL is not like the average per human. And so some people are just resistant to this type of inflammation, which is fantastic.

Andres Preschel: I love that for them. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I just want to amplify that. Resistant meaning that they can mentally overcome it or physiologically they don't get the same response that everybody else does.

Andrew Herr: I'm going to start physiologically. I'm going to go to the mental in a sec.

Andres Preschel: Okay.

Andrew Herr: So I'm going to start physiologically. Like some people will just have less of an inflammatory response than others. Just as some people eat nightshades or dairy and it messes their gut up and other people are fine. So there's just inner individual variation. And the kind of person who has traveled all their life and it not bothered them is the like. maybe they wouldn't have traveled as much if it bothered them so much. So there's a little bit of back and forth there of who chooses. There's a little selection bias possibly. Second piece is some people just feel bad all the time. And they're just used to it. There's this phenomenon in sleep deprivation studies where you stop feeling worse, but your performance doesn't stop getting worse. And so some people are just in the, I feel bad all the time, so I don't notice when I feel bad place. Or they deny it and saying that there's something that flying makes them feel worse, feels like a hit to their ego. So there's absolutely that part too. And you're going to be wrong. Some people will just accept the pain and push through, but the level with which they can push through may be because their physiology is stronger, or because their ego is so insulted that they're going to have to. So it can go either way. And then, look, just as there are outliers in physiology that might have less inflammation, there's going to be outliers in physiology where the way we use to support that against inflammation isn't going to work as well. Based on our internal data, it looks like FlyKit reduces about 94% of symptoms. That's based on a study we did with a professional soccer team on a five-match, four-city, fully round-the-world trip in the U.S., Latin America, Middle East, Asia, all the way back around. 94% reduction in symptoms in people who chose to use the flight kit protocol. And then we see about a 93% response rate where 93% of flight kit users feel great and have minimal to no jet lag. So those are the numbers. We never claim 100%. Anyone who claims something works for 100% of people, is lying to you or wrong. And that's why we also just like, you know, just sort of from a company standpoint is why we do a money back guarantee. Because it's like, hey, it didn't work for you. Okay, no problem. We'll give you your money back.

Andres Preschel: So you should be getting your money back 7% of the time.

Andrew Herr: Let me tell you, we get a lot less than 7% of people asking for refunds. So maybe our numbers, you know, and to be fair, we've evolved the protocol since we collected that data even better. So maybe the answer is that we're running… 7% tops. Yeah, maybe we're running 95, 98% even. And that's awesome because I love helping people. And if we didn't help you, I'd just, we'll just give your money back.

Andres Preschel: And are you measuring this with wearable devices, for example, or is it all like just subjective or both?

Andrew Herr: Yeah. So the initial data was all done self-report subjective. Um, we'd love to do wearable also. I will say we very regularly get users sending us screenshots of whoop and aura like it's all green, even though I just flew 14 hours. Like I can't believe it. So, you know, we see it that way, but, um, we just haven't really had the funding yet to do the big studies. We won't, we're talking to the military about funding those studies.

Andres Preschel: Maybe I can help. I have so many clients that have used this that are sending me their reports. I'm seeing their data. I see the measurable change. Maybe we could do something together. That'd be super fun. I love it. Yeah, and I wanted to ask you, you know, what is there to say about, because, you know, if you look at some of the supplements you guys include, right, a lot of them are, I'd say, pretty common supplements, like omega-3, for example, right, like melatonin for some people, magnesium. So, if there's someone, let's say, that is regularly on a daily basis taking magnesium and omega-3s and maybe some sleep supplements, What is there to say about the flight kit then? Is it still going to have a substantial effect size? Is it still an appropriate measure, an added measure to take to counter jet lag? Or does the timing matter? Is there a specific dose? Tell us a little bit about that.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, so kind of all of those. One, the timing is super important. You could take the supplements in the fly kit at the wrong times and make your jet lag worse, which seems strange, but it's definitely doable. I could design the program using the same supplements and make you feel worse. Two, we have spent a lot of time thinking about dosing and ingredients that are optimized for this use case. So, um, yes, other things are going to usually be close, but not quite the same. For example, the omega-3s we're using are very potent and they're, uh, like an equal EPA, DHA concentration. And so we're using like a specific type of omega-3, not just the kind of standard off the shelf ones. And so yeah, I think that's the thing. And honestly, if you thought about buying, there are six different compounds, basically. So if you had to buy six bottles of supplements, I guarantee you're spending more than a fly kid. let alone the fact that like, you know, we've also taken some time to package it nicely for you. And when you buy a flak, you're getting very nice blue light blocking glasses for people who already have the light blocking glasses. Great. Just go buy a flak at refill. That's just the same thing without the glasses and it's cheaper. Like that's a totally cool way to do it. Although I will say, I'm sure your listeners know this, but for people who are new, Some people are like, oh, I have blue light blocking glasses for using on the computer. They're clear lenses.

Andres Preschel: And I say, oh yeah, nope, nope.

Andrew Herr: Those are going to help some for the computer because they're blocking a very specific frequency. And they're also blocking a little bit, but they're not blocking 99% of the blue light like you need. Those lenses have to be like the color you have or even darker to block that percentage of blue light.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it's something I'm very excited to dive into is the whole, you know, AI portion of this and how you guys have built this unbelievable app. Because I'll tell you, you know, before the flight kit, as a physiologist and health coach, you know, I was telling my clients, look, before you fly, you should probably take something anti-inflammatory like omega-3, maybe eat some blueberries, take some magnesium with you, you know, as soon as you get wherever you're going, you know, try to get some sunlight. If you're going to be there for a longer period of time, do you want to make that a habit? Like there's a lot of zucchini considerations, supplement considerations, but the way that you guys have packaged this and the way that the app works to help people understand exactly what they need to do and when, I mean, that is just absolutely priceless. So can you take us through what it was like to create something like this? And also, I should have probably asked you this in the beginning of the episode, but if you can share with us your specific knowledge and credibility in this space as a scientist before you answer the question.

Andrew Herr: Sure. So background, I did my graduate work in immunology, health physics, and national security policy. This is sort of like a weird combination of graduate degrees I got. Nice. And I was hired to run studies on the future of human performance for the Secretary of Defense's private think tank on the future of warfare, basically. I think that's the best way to describe it. So I worked for the Pentagon then for seven years, three years for that office. Then I spent several years helping design and develop programs to run research and development strategy for emerging tech. How can we predict where technology is going to go? Writing research and development strategy on synthetic biology, on human performance enhancement. And during this time, we got the opportunity to also work with fighter pilots I mentioned, Navy SEALs, like these different communities. And then after that, I spent several years sort of during that time. And then after coaching executives, sounds like some of the work that you do, helping them optimize their performance, feel better, perform better. So that's kind of my background is a mix of science and application.

Andres Preschel: And you went to school at Georgetown, right? Undergrad and master's.

Andrew Herr: Yep, I did all three of those master's degrees at Georgetown too. I obviously have a big love for Georgetown.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, awesome. So to answer that second part of this question, so how did you go about creating this AI app? Once you had these unique case studies and you were like, all right, there's definitely something here, I wanna bring this to life, how did you get together with the right team, how did you assemble them, and how did you really put together this unbelievable AI-driven app? Let's take a quick break because this ties right into today's topic. Recovery is something we all care about. And one reason it slows down as we age is mitochondrial decline. Timeline Nutrition's longevity gummies with MitoPure deliver Urolithin A, which activates mitophagy, your body's natural process of replacing worn out mitochondria with new efficient ones. In clinical trials, people improved energy and even increased muscle strength by 12% over 16 weeks. No stimulants, no gimmicks, just healthier cells doing their job.

Andrew Herr: Yeah. So, you know, it took us a bunch of iterations to get this right, because obviously like I could design these plans, but that's not scalable. And it took me finding a unicorn human being who was an AI engineer. one of the people who just knows how to learn things as well as anyone I can in the world, in the human performance, and had worked in a sleep science lab. Sort of like every piece of this together.

Andres Preschel: I need to meet this person. I would love to have them on the podcast.

Andrew Herr: Clayton Kim, our CTO, you could have on the podcast. It'd be great to talk about the circadian stuff. We knew each other through a series of serendipitous meetings. I knew a guy from the synthetic biology world who held dinners to get interesting people together. We were both at a dinner. We met. Anyway, so we reconnected. And after we had sort of, he was moving out to LA. He was based in LA. And we had lunch. And after that conversation, I was like, I need you to, like, we need to work together. Yeah. And so Clayton really built this algorithm that brought in and models every component of the sleep, you know, because there's different components of sleep pressure and circadian rhythm. and took the knowledge that I developed in terms of how the supplements work and how that influenced things. And he put it all together in an algorithm that can efficiently analyze billions of use cases, billions of potential places. Where's the optimal nap time? How long? Where's the optimal supplement placement? and do it in a way that you get your plan in like 10 seconds.

Andres Preschel: That is just an achievement. I mean, that is achievement is an understatement. That's that's that's paradigm shifting technology.

Andrew Herr: Yeah. So that's really what underlies it. That's why you can tell us your sleep cycle at home in the app. Tell us your sleep cycle that you want to be on. Give us your flights. Answer five questions that help us get a little insight in your physiology. If you don't sleep. If you get less than six hours of sleep for one night, how much does it affect you? How much caffeine do you consume? Anyways, a few questions and then this algorithm can customize a plan. So Andres, if you and I are on the same flight, we will have a different plan because We need a different plan because our sleep cycles are different or we need to like shift. That means, you know, if you sleep in later than I do or vice versa, then one of us has a bigger shift than the other. And so anyways, it's a, it's quite remarkable technology. And, you know, um, we now also have other cool AI features that are now available, which are like find the healthiest food anywhere in the world. Like the AI goes out and researches the healthy restaurants near your hotel or wherever you want to find it. Uh, get out of here. Yeah, it's incredible. And even we'll say, hey, order this dish, but if you want to make it healthier, make these modifications to it, order it with less sauce, do this thing.

Andres Preschel: Specific to fighting jet lag. I'm sorry? Specific to fighting jet lag or just generally healthy? This is for everything.

Andrew Herr: So it's great for travel. It's designed for travel, but you could use it at home. And take a photo of a menu, it'll do the same analysis. And we have a travel trainer walking to any gym in the world. You know, for people who aren't gym rats, they're not like, oh, it's new equipment. I might have less time than usual. Tell it how long you have. Give it the profile of your body. Take photos of the equipment. It'll make a workout for that equipment for the amount of time you have for the style of workout you select.

Andres Preschel: So this is already available in the FlyKit app? Yeah. Man, I need to be flying more. I need to catch up with all these features, man. This is unbelievable.

Andrew Herr: So yes, we have the Fit Trainer and the Foodie for helping you find the best food. So we have all this cool AI tech, and it's all right now around making it easier to stay healthy while you travel. Because when I coached before, one of the things I found, and I wonder what your experience is, was that travel is a big challenge for people who are high performers to stay healthy.

Andres Preschel: For sure. I mean, look, first of all, BH, my friend, this is amazing. And what I'll say is, yeah, you know, with my clients, it's like in some cases, my clients want to be totally dialed in when they travel and they want to use the flight kit and they want to have a whole system and they want to know what to eat and where and when, how to work out, et cetera. And then have other clients that say, hey, look, I'm going to, I'm going to take this, this trip. I just want to be completely to myself. I don't want to focus on anything health related. And what I'll do is I'll just give them a few, uh, a few tips. Like for example, I tell them, look, these are like your four non-negotiables. Well, I get technically five, use the fly kit for the flight. Then, make sure that you are eating a fist of protein with each meal. Eat that first to manage the postprandial glucose response and avoid overeating later. Also, take advantage of the thermic effect of protein. Don't have any naked carbs. I'm all for having ice cream when you go to Italy, but just have some kind of protein before to stabilize the glucose so that you're not eating impulsively and sporadically throughout the day because of that glucose rollercoaster that's taking place. Walk after your meals to kick up insulin sensitivity. Try to walk as much as possible. You have to go anywhere less than 45 minutes away. Walk there. You're going to get to know the place, the town better. You're going to be more present. You're going to burn more calories. So if you overrate, it's a great way to kind of have that insurance policy. Drink a hundred ounces of water a day. So obviously, you know, when we travel, we typically only drink water when we're sitting down to eat at a restaurant. So I'm like, either bring a reusable water bottle, buy one when you're there. And that way, energy levels are good. Inflammation, you know, is a little lower and you're inducing satiety to prevent overeating. And that's, you know, that's pretty much like my minimalist style stack for folks. But then there's folks that want to take it a step further. Again, it's like kind of like one or the other. It really just depends on the person. Yeah, I mean, what you guys have built and the way you continue to iterate on it is extremely impressive. And I think it's worth checking out. I mean, for anyone tuning into the show, you should absolutely check out the flight kit. I mean, it's it's it's really unbelievable. You guys are building and. It's exciting to, in some way, shape or form, be a part of this, you know, to make sure that the highest performing people in the world, folks that influence thousands, if not millions of people a year through their work, that they're taking the best care of themselves possible and fighting something that is otherwise inevitable as they go from place to place.

Andrew Herr: Well, yeah, I really appreciate it. I mean, look, if people don't know about this, it can't help them. And so our job is to use marketing and other things, but you know, people like you helping share the word is really powerful. And so I really deeply appreciate what you do in sharing the word and on this podcast, some of your clients, um, we don't get to help people otherwise.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, my pleasure, man. My pleasure. So what would you say is on the horizon? I mean, there's so much that you guys have accomplished in what seems like a short period of time. And this is just as a, you know, call it a social media follower. I mean, I see your ads are constantly evolving. I mean, I've seen the product evolving, you know, you're telling us about it. But what's on the horizon? What's coming next?

Andrew Herr: Yeah, so I mentioned the FlyKit domestic product, cheaper, easier to use, excited about that. And then from there, you know, from our, I used to run a coaching company and from that work, we saw other ways to use this knowledge, especially around inflammation to help people. So it's not widely discussed, but a major driver of PMS symptoms for women is inflammation.

SPEAKER_02: Of course.

Andrew Herr: A major reason you feel bad after you drink alcohol? Inflammation. And so there are things like this where it is possible to manage these or solve these challenges in ways that can really improve people's life. And so my background in immunology, the inflammation piece has always been quite present and something I'm really interested in. We just see a lot of other ways. We want to, we want to build this brand and travel and then come home with people meaning like, Hey, you saw, you could feel better when you traveled. What can we do to help you at home? And we have a lot of protocols and a lot of ways to help people at home. And so we already sell, you know, kind of a hangover mitigation thing based on this information insight. No way. We already sell that on our site because a lot of people drink when they travel. And we already sell an immunity kit that helps, you know, many of our clients report like they don't get, if they feel like they're getting sick, they'll take it and it'll stop that. So those are already there, but we want to just keep expanding the ways we can use this knowledge of the immune system to just really help you feel better every day.

Andres Preschel: Wow. I mean, that is just, that's unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, it kills me when I see people on the plane drinking alcohol. I mean, I get it. Some people are anxious and it's the only way they know how to reduce their anxiety and just distract themselves and feel better. But when I, when I'm on these international flights and I see people eating like pasta and they're just sitting still for the next six hours, like it, it drives me crazy. You know what I mean?

Andrew Herr: Um, this is, this is actually a crazy story about anxiety and flying. I don't know how prevalent this is, but I've got a good friend who describes to me that he gets anxious when he flies. Tell me more. He's like, yeah, after we take off, I'm just anxious for the flight. And I was like, wait a second. It doesn't make any sense. If you're anxious, if flying scares you, you should be anxious before you take off. One, takeoff is the most dangerous. Takeoff landing is the most dangerous parts. And two, like, anxiety is a thing about being scared about it, something to happen in the future. Yeah. And so we ran some experiments and the result to me is that, as you know well, Andres, inflammation causes anxiety. If you inject somebody with the cell wall parts of bacteria that freak out your immune system, cause inflammation. By the way, I guess we should, for people who are listening, like, what is inflammation? Inflammation is just activation of the immune system. When we use that phrase, we usually mean inappropriate activation, either activating for a reason that's not helping us, like fighting a virus, or activating for too long in a chronic way that is also not helping us and kind of then ends up sort of attacking our own body.

Andres Preschel: Right, because there's positive kinds of inflammation, like the acute inflammatory response following training that helps drive hypertrophy, for example.

Andrew Herr: Sure. We, our body, I almost don't even think of that as inflammation. I almost think of that as a, as a way our immune system is used, has, has been hijacked to drive another process. But sure. Like, you know, preventing, you know, fighting off a virus or, or a bacterial infection is good. If you break a bone, that inflammation is key to repairing the area. Um, which is why, like, we've actually seen that like icing, which lowers the inflammation, icing things actually doesn't even help you get better faster, just blocks off the blood flow. So, but. This inappropriate inflammation, inappropriate activation of the immune system is the malady of our time. One of the great maladies of our time. Everybody's inflamed. You see it in their puffy faces, in their skin issues, allergies. All these things are different types of inflammation. And so, um, yes, we want to help people manage that. And when you, as I said before, when you, in studies, if they inject people with the parts of the cell wall bacteria that freak out the immune system, they get more anxious and you can measure it. And so my buddy, the inflammation from flying was making him anxious. It wasn't flying. It wasn't the idea of flying. Yeah. And so some people who are anxious on flights, you might give FlyKit a try because we're there to block that inflammation that might be either causing or maybe just exacerbating that anxiety.

Andres Preschel: Wow. That's fascinating. Um, you know, I wanted to get your take on something else that, I mean, I'm sure you and I are going to nerd out on this, but, um, you know, exogenous ketone esters, right? Specifically. I mean, I'm a huge fan of ketone 8K4. I'm good friends with Frank Yosa, the CEO, and I know some of the most incredible, um, sports teams in the world uses. In fact, most of the Tour de France teams use ketone 8K4. There's other brands like Heumann and Ketone IQ, but if I'm not mistaken, those actually convert to ethanol in the liver, which most people don't know about, but K4 is like super powerful, it's super clean and super healthy. Anyway, I'm fascinated by ketosis in general around something like flying because I'm The way I understand it, there's a small but meaningful shift in RQ, the respiratory quotient, that automatically puts you in a more parasympathetic state. And I'm sure that can help counter inflammation. It can potentially help you feel better. A lot of my clients, I instruct them to take ketones or to be in a fasted state while they travel and just replenish with water and electrolytes. I'm curious to hear what you might have to say about ketosis and potentially using ketone esters to enable ketosis for fighting inflammation.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, I think it's useful to start with the fasting use case. Lots of people have described fasting helping them when they fly. makes total sense. Fasting decreases inflammation. You pull that, you pull like, one, you're not eating things that could be causing inflammation. Two, if your gut is inflamed, it's giving it time to rest and recover. You're not putting more inflammatory insults there. And then three, just by lowering blood sugar levels and things, your body has to turn down energy usage. And if you look in nature, like where is energy usage turned down when animals are starving? It's immune system and sex hormones. And so in humans, a hit to your testosterone or something from fasting isn't going to last very long, and that's not a big deal. But you're definitely going to turn down your immune system. So that's why fasting works. We actually take the opposite approach of having people eat small, protein-rich snacks often, because if we can already block the inflammation, we want to then fuel your brain and your body. There's a little difference there. So then on a ketogenic diet, for many people, tends to be anti-inflammatory if they can stick to it. Now, you can eat a ketogenic diet that is pro-inflammatory, but these are like, you know, like anything, you can eat a, you can eat any, any general diet strategy can be super unhealthy if you do it wrong. You know, you could eat a super high protein diet and eat all processed foods and like, that's not going to be good for you. Right. So I do think there, and I think for people who's, um, whose body is dysregulated by sleep and inflammation, you're gonna want a fuel source that is well used by your brain during that time. And for some people, when they're really dysregulated, their glucose uptake in their brain is gonna be affected. And so that may be another reason ketones help. So I think ketones are one of those things that can absolutely help some people. I'm big into experiments, meaning like, try it. If it helps, great. If it doesn't help, I think there are very few habits or supplements or diets that if you're consistent with them for a couple weeks and you don't feel better, I don't think there's many of those that really matter that much. That's my hypothesis. Now, occasionally there's a thing you don't notice, but it's shifting your blood levels and maybe that matters. But outside of that use case, which is very rare, I think it's rare that something that you can't feel the difference really matters, unless you're really dramatically out of tune with your body, which is another issue. But what's your take on that?

Andres Preschel: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously there's certain cases where that you know, where that wouldn't work or could potentially be irresponsible. So some people don't even have, like you said, they're, they're just so, um, sick or they're so weak or they're so unhealthy that they wouldn't notice that something's, you know, happening, but in fact it is, and perhaps we can measure it. But I think, yeah, for the most part, as long as there's a good foundation, if you're not feeling a difference, there's something to say about that too. But obviously, I mean, it can be very nuanced, but I'd say in a healthy person, for the most part, I can agree here. Yeah.

Andrew Herr: And again, there's always, you know, we talked about outliers earlier. There's outliers and not just, you know, Navy SEALs are outliers in a good way. There's people in a outlier physiologic state too, that's going to take longer to heal and is going to be slower because it's so dysregulated. But, you know, for the average person out there, they're like, Hey, I've been taking this supplement for a year. I didn't notice any difference. My general answer is like, You know, without knowing anything more, I would generally stop it.

Andres Preschel: Right. I'm curious, what do you have to say about EMF and the influence it has on, you know, flying, jet lag, inflammatory responses that take place? And before you answer the question, if you could give us your definition of EMF, what it means.

Andrew Herr: So EMF stands for electromagnetic frequencies. And I think, you know, we are, there are natural electromagnetic waves, light, other things, you know, going all around us naturally. And then there's non-natural, so there's, you'll see NN-EMF, non-natural, non-native EMF. And so this is like, everything from, uh, I guess you could technically say the light coming out of our LED light bulbs to cell phone, you know, waves going through the air to, um, all kinds of things created by, you know, jet engines and other things, anything, anything running at high power tends to emit EMF. It is a fascinating area of research. You know, this all got kind of wrapped up in the do cell phones cause cancer question. And that was, I think the answer to that one is a little bit out, but the real question is like, do these affect our bodies? And there's plenty of studies showing they can affect your body, but they're mostly done on cells and other things. So I think my guess, my gut says there is something real that they are affecting us. I don't think we fully understand how, but I do think there's enough reason to think about our exposure. I know people who turn off their Wi-Fi at night or do other things. I do think there's enough reason to think about our exposure to these. But again, like, then my question is like, so where in the priority stack is this if somebody is busy and already overwhelmed? I probably right now, I could change my mind a year from now. Right now, this is kind of lower in my priority stack, just is also much harder to mitigate for the average person. But I do think my guess is there's something there and that over the next few years, we're going to get more and more data showing how and why. And that's going to lead to changes. I mean, like the fact that we carry a reasonably powerful emitter of like electromagnetic waves in our pocket, a lot of us in our cell phone. Like just physiologically, that's got to have some effect.

Andres Preschel: Yeah. I mean, there's a great book by What's her name? It's Countdown by… Oh my gosh, Dr. Swan, I think Shawna Swan, that speaks a lot about like, you know, how testosterone and sperm have been declining over the past few decades. And she speaks about, you know, the influence that EMF might have inflammation in our modern lifestyles. But yeah, I mean, I don't think keeping our phone next to her testicles and just crossing our fingers and hoping that research eventually comes out in favor of or against or neutral, you know, I don't think that makes very much sense.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, and I think like, look, clearly something is wrong.

Andres Preschel: Yeah.

Andrew Herr: If you look at people's health and happiness and hormones, objective and subjective metrics, autoimmune disease, cancer rates, something is wrong. Yeah. And so many people have their, it's got to be this thing or it's that thing. I think the answer is probably a symphony of insults, a symphony of ways that our bodies are being poisoned by this modern lifestyle. And we've got to do the best we can to counteract as many of them as we can, and then also live. And so that's kind of the balance. A friend of mine called me a bearer of inconvenient truths. I would have that in common. Looking around at products people are buying, things they're eating, dyes, other things like, man, there's just a lot of nasty stuff in what we're eating, what we're putting on our bodies, these synthetic fragrances. I was thinking the other day that there are insults, there are like all five senses are being used against us.

Andres Preschel: Oh, for sure.

Andrew Herr: Smell. Every day, our smell organs are being bombarded with scents so strong that they couldn't exist in the natural world. Even while you're asleep, if you use Tide or some scented laundry detergent, your nose is being bombarded with these signals.

Andres Preschel: Or the off-gassing from the materials that we use to make our mattresses, all these unnatural materials that are off-gassing and are technically toxic.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, I mean, I think that that is just a straight poison. I don't even think that's working through one of our sensory organs, but 100%. So then, during the day and at night, we're being assaulted through our nose, smell, sight. The light we get at night is messing us up. The social media we are looking at on our phones, all that's being messed with. Taste. Caffeine and sugar is a potent anxiogenic combination, a potent anxiety-causing combination. Starbucks is basically selling anxiety in a cup. When people want to lower anxiety, the thing I tell them is like, look, you're probably not going to like this recommendation. And there's things we can do without doing this. But probably the biggest thing you could do would be stop drinking caffeine.

Andres Preschel: And plus, I mean, Starbucks coffee is terrible in quality. It's got mold in it and just nasty stuff. And that alone can be anxiety-causing.

Andrew Herr: And yet, and yet like it's the cool thing to do for kids because they sell caffeinated milkshakes. Yeah. So taste, and then let alone the like dyes and food and other things that are causing problems. Taste, touch, um, the things we put on our skin, these creams, somebody was telling me the other day, they're like, Oh, there's lip plumping things, basically like causing inflammation in your lips to make the lip plumper. Like all these things we're putting on our bodies are loaded with toxic compounds. Yeah. So what did I say? And then hearing like the messages and the words we hear are about fear and like how hard everything is and not positive, not beautiful. So like, I think I hit all five senses there. If I missed one, it's my mistake. But like, basically like we're, all of our senses are being used against us, but there's things you can do. And some of them are relatively easy changes and some of them are harder, but like. Moving to healthier food can be harder, but changing your laundry detergent and maybe the products you use might not be that hard after you find some new ones you like. So again, this is my trade-off. I understand that I'm an outlier. Like I bring all my own shampoo and body wash and everything when I travel and I have little bottles that I refill. And you know what? I use plastic bottles for those because You know, 80, 20, I use glass for lotion and plastic for things I'm intentionally washing off. And it's better even if it might not be perfect. But again, like I also, when I travel, I need to be able to go quickly and move quickly. And if I drop a bag and it shatters everything, it's not going to work. So again, there's trade-offs everywhere. Um, like a friend the other day was asking like, Hey, what do you think about wearing like Lululemon or other synthetic shorts if I'm wearing cotton underwear? And I was like, look. better, like you're in a better situation if you're not having it right on your skin. And so like there are, you know, there are non-plastic materials for workout shorts now, but, you know, like you're doing much better by doing what you're doing. So again, if you want an 80-20 rule, you can do 80-20. If you want to go 99-1, it's harder, but it's also doable.

Andres Preschel: Yeah. And I mean, I think we absolutely are just very aligned on how we approach our health in that sense, in that regard. And I'll admit that I wear little lemon shorts with cotton underwear and I have pretty short shorts. I mean, they're like a five inch inseam. So maybe there's a little bit of polyester touching my skin, but come on. At the end of the day, I like to work out on the beach. I'm not going to wear cotton shorts and then jump in the water and get my car wet and be disgusting all day.

Andrew Herr: But if you're sitting on something in a gym and your leg touches it, that stuff's probably made of PVC actually, which is even worse than the stuff your shorts are made of. So again, it's like, we have to live. There's definitely part of me that would love to live in the wilderness and not have all this jarring stuff. But it's just not where I am in my life and it's not right for me and my family. And I'm going to do the good things and I'm going to share what does matter to people. And then it's up to them to choose what to do.

Andres Preschel: Right. You say, if you can remind me, you said your friend was considered you a bearer of inconvenient truths.

Andrew Herr: He did say that I was a bearer of inconvenient truth.

Andres Preschel: OK, well, maybe maybe on a surface level, but then on a deeper level, you're also the bearer of convenient help and support and advice. And you can describe the underlying mechanisms. You know what I mean? It's like you get in the, you know, on the surface level. But there's so much truth given your understanding of the deep physiology and the power that we have, you know, to make better decisions.

Andrew Herr: For sure. And again, I get it. People don't like me saying, like, do you know this about what you're eating or what you're putting on your body sometimes? But yes, like, I'm not going to stop trying to help people. And, you know, they're autonomous and sovereign and they can choose what to do for themselves. But it doesn't actually make it that much better to be living in ignorance.

Andres Preschel: Right. Well said. And, you know, on the topic of of autonomous and sovereign, I want to know about your personal approach to the metal detectors in the in the airport. Do you do you opt out?

Andrew Herr: I have pre-check, so I never have to go through them anyway.

Andres Preschel: Oh, nice. There you go.

Andrew Herr: I don't have to go through the screeners anyways.

Andres Preschel: I have the clear. I don't have the pre-check yet, but I always opt out.

Andrew Herr: I used to get a pat down. I don't care about getting patted down. You're not going to find anything. I'm a human. All the parts are where they're meant to be. But yeah, I just go, I don't mind going through a metal detector, but I prefer not to go through those scanners.

Andres Preschel: I have a funny story. So I always have an interesting pat down experience because either way in the airport, I'm wearing the EMF proof underwear from a brand called no choice and it has silver fibers in it. So technically it comes up like If I do happen to get some kind of scan or something, it'll come up. And then like now my pelvic area has a big yellow square on it. So if I go through the metal detector, it's a problem. And if I get patted down, it's not as much as a problem. But either way, it's always like a funny story. And then I want to, I wanted to hear about your, your impression of, uh, of, of grounding before and after a flight, you know, uh, either swimming in an open body of water or using earthing sandals or just going barefoot somewhere. You know, what do you, what do you think about that?

Andrew Herr: I think it's probably good. You know, certainly moving and walking, getting into nature is clearly good for you. I think the kind of studies that have been done on grounding are pretty weak, but just because weak studies have been done doesn't mean it's not real. And I think there's something to be said. I like to get out on grass. Of course, like which grass and where and what's it been sprayed with is always on my mind also, but like. For sure. Yeah, I think it's probably good and certainly moving your body and being in nature. If you can go in the ocean, amazing. If you can just like get out, you know. In Japan, doctors prescribe forest bathing or walks in the forests to their patients and it works. Like, there's studies on this that show it works. Like, we as humans are meant to be, to have periods of calm, to have periods of time in nature. There's something special there. Some people have a spiritual explanation for that. Others have a physiologic and a psychology, whatever. They all point the same direction. You know, one of the most striking moments in my life was I was on a mountain in Mongolia with three other people and four horses and a very large eagle. It's a whole nother part to this story, but in between the horses breathing and the humans weren't talking, we weren't talking. I just had this, one of those most striking moments in my life. It was like, I think that might be the first time I've ever heard total silence.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

Andrew Herr: And it's just not something we get in the modern environment. There's a HVAC unit blowing in your house. There's, you know, leaf blower going on outside. There's a computer. There's a cell phone. There's people talking. There's something about Maybe even if it's not total silence, the sounds of nature and other things, that is, I think, profound, and I think very important. You know, if we look at, yeah, I think it's important, I think it's good, and I think we should get out there, and I think there's probably something to the grounding thing, too, on top of that.

Andres Preschel: I mean, I can, I really admire your appreciation for the natural world. Again, it's something that we have in common. And I know that some people tuning in, maybe they live in a big city and they can't, they don't have the same access that we do. So I want to combine two questions that I had, which is. What's your impression of the word and the concept of biohacking per se? And what kind of value do you think that it has for people that can't access nature the way that we can, you know, using a variety of, you know, cutting edge tools and technologies?

Andrew Herr: I like, I try to live in this world where I think nature and natural can be a beautiful way, but I'm also not inside technology. So, yeah, I think You know, the word biohacking to me at its core is great. It's about experimentation and trying and like, you know, hacking away, like in the way engineers use the word hacking away until something was piece of software works. Correct. I love that. I think it became a word to sell things. And once people have this strong incentive to sell, then it's much harder to keep the frame of, this doesn't work for everyone, you have to run the experiment and see if it works for you. It's easier to sell, this is the answer for everyone. And so it's hard, you know, that to me is what that word kind of became is like, I found the answer. It's this, you know, light gun for your eyeball or to put in your ear or whatever, you know, it's a million different products out there, which doesn't mean some of those don't work. Some of them are really powerful. It's just like hard for me when somebody is claiming something works for everyone. Cause I know that's never true. So I think that's how I feel about like the concept of experimentation. Like Brian Johnson, he got very popular. You know, the guy who says he wants to live forever. Like when he started, it was all about running experiments to see what worked for him. And it was like the perfect model. And then it became, I found what worked for me. I made it into products, buy them because they're the best thing for you. But there's a, there's a mistake in that logic chain, which is to say, what's right for me is right for you. that's right for him even if it physiologically might work for you your lifestyle is not his lifestyle so yeah anyways all that to say like that to me became and that to me became the challenge of of all these things and so that's why i always try to say like our like fly kid I am surprised by how many people it works for, by what proportion, but it doesn't work for everyone. And I'll never say it doesn't or does. And so, um, that's how I try to approach all these things, but I'm not anti-tech like. Most technology has a 30-day return thing. If you feel a big difference, keep it. If you don't, return it.

Andres Preschel: Right. Well, like you said, I mean, if we're on the same flight, we're going to have two completely different flight kit prescriptions, right?

Andrew Herr: So that's part of how we manage the inter-individual variability. Like, we're using the same supplements, but yes, we do give you a different program. So that's part of how we manage that. But even then, like, but yeah, I think, again, if you're buying a piece of tech and you don't feel the difference, for 30 days, I think every product out there pretty much has a 30 day return policy at this point, like, probably isn't that important. And listen, if you have unlimited money and unlimited time, then fine. But that's just not almost anyone. Like, you don't have unlimited money and unlimited time, then you want to optimize for the things that are really high return on investment. And so right. Yeah, that's how I would focus.

Andres Preschel: Right. I mean, I think then again, it's not to necessarily put Brian Johnson down, but I do think it's important to criticize him for this because it's the responsible thing to do, in my opinion, as scientists, right? If you look at it, it's anecdotal evidence that he's extrapolating and saying, oh, this worked for me, it's going to work for you because he wants to make some money. Obviously he wants to help people too, but I mean, that's just bad science. Whereas, you know, your process and your app, your platform is really taking into account the individual, their preferences, where they're going, how long they're going for, et cetera, to give them a more curated experience. So that to me, that's, that's real science, you know, and it's, and it's why I'm so passionate about this. It's not as simple as supplements and the blue walking glasses. There's really a system that's tailored for you. And, and so, I mean, yeah, it's, I think that stark contrast really helps you appreciate the way that you guys are doing things.

Andrew Herr: I appreciate it, man. That's very kind. And we definitely put a lot of effort into it. And we just want to help more and more people.

Andres Preschel: Sweet. Well, I have just a couple more questions for you before we sign off. Number one, if you had a word, message, or phrase that you can put on a billboard somewhere in the world, what would it say and where would you put it?

Andrew Herr: Man, I have so many things I'd like to tell people. I think in the contest of the health stuff, the answer would be experiment. I want people to try because the same thing doesn't work for everyone. But if you're willing to try it and give it a week, maybe two at most, you can find things that will really help you. And I'd like that to be everywhere. So pick a place where a lot of people see it.

Andres Preschel: On the moon.

Andrew Herr: Times Square. I don't think most people are going to see it, but Times Square is fine.

Andres Preschel: Sure. Great. Well said. And then last question for you here. I want to know, what are some of your personal favorite habits and stacks? I know you've mentioned a few and you've alluded to some, but if you can take us through some of your daily non-negotiables for health or performance.

Andrew Herr: Yeah. You know, this is not for everybody, and I don't push some people, but faith is really important to me, and so I pray three times a day. I have found a breakfast that feels good in my body, that my body runs clean on, and it's different. You know, it's pretty weird to most people, but I make a pudding out of almond butter, olive oil, and water, and mix it up. It makes like a pudding, and that's what I eat for breakfast, and I feel great on that. Nice. And then lunch and dinner, I try to eat super clean protein, veg, and rice works best with my body. Nice. For a carb, I don't work, my body doesn't like the super low carb. It works for some people, but ultra low carb, I don't feel good on. Yeah. You know, working out makes me feel great. And my goal is even on days where I can't put in a big workout, can I get 20 minutes in? If I can't get 20 minutes in, can I get 10 minutes, 10 kettlebell swings on the minute? It's a hundred kettlebell swings in 10 minutes. Really you're done in nine and a half. Cause the last one, you don't need the whole minute. Like that to me is the like five really just like don't have the time. That's the workout I'll go to. Relatively heavy kettlebell swings. Um. I like to get outside. I like to walk. Um, and then I'm super big on the no synthetic fragrance stuff. That stuff is really important to me. I'm hypersensitive to it. I know it's not as big to everyone else, but, um, yeah, I mean, I, I use no fragrance products whatsoever, even natural fragrances. I. Pheromones maybe good old pheromones. I can smell my body. I can tell when something's wrong. I can tell when things are good. Interoception. There you go. Interoception. And that one's like sort of a weird, not even interoception. Like I can smell myself, right? It's sort of like, I'm not even thinking about the inside. You smell. Olfactory bulb. When you're stressed, your sweat smells differently. You might not notice that if you have a ton of deodorant on, but your sweat smells differently.

Andres Preschel: Oh, for sure.

Andrew Herr: And it's worse. It smells worse.

Andres Preschel: Oh, for sure.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, it smells almost like sour. Then from there, there's all kinds of workout recovery. There's things that I didn't do there, depending on the type of workout. And then we get to the nuance stuff. Like, for example, you know, tart cherry juice became a big thing in recovery for teams. But it turns out that, like, you've got to get the right kind because if you look at the degradation curve for the most powerful anthocyanins, these compounds that help suppress inflammation, they're in a good way. Those degrade even at refrigerator temperatures. So you need the stuff that was stored frozen, which means it has to be a concentrate. Like it's all about finding these unique products and knowing the nuances that allows us then to get the most benefit. Cause you know, having one juice versus another is not more work. It's just knowing which one. And so I'll give a shout out to the brand that I like, I have no financial affiliation with called King Orchards, like their tart cherries concentrate. King, like the king, um, kingorchards.com, like their tart cherry juice concentrate is elite. It works so well. And so anyways, all these different kinds of things that we can do. Um, I mean, I will tell you, this is another one for people who don't sleep super well or have challenges sleeping. And there's research on this too. Shower before bed can be tremendously powerful.

Andres Preschel: The warm bath aspect by the Japanese, they coined that term.

Andrew Herr: So a hundred percent, um, it warms your body up. When you get out, then your body temperature drops. It's a signal to your brain that it's time to go to sleep. Also, then if you you're warm and you get into a cold bed, if you're cold and get into a cold bed, your brain doesn't want to go to sleep because it needs to make sure it's not going to die of hypothermia overnight. So if you're warm, warm up the bed, you can fall asleep more easily. Washing off the allergens. Like there's so many reasons it works. Um, strong recommend on the shower before bed.

Andres Preschel: Yeah, it's actually that decline in core temperature that initiates deep sleep. And so that's why the warm bath and the hot shower work so well. And yeah, I mean, I keep my room cold, but I don't go from, you know, feeling cold into a cold room that just I end up shivering and I end up staying up.

Andrew Herr: Yeah, cold room, warm into a cold room, cold bed. Perfect.

Andres Preschel: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Andrew, this has been such an honor and pleasure, man. So much fun. Honestly, one of the one of the funnest episodes that I've done. I mean, it's so nice to nerd out with you. And I absolutely if it's not clear, I love your products, love the mission, and I'm excited to see what's next. So thank you so very much. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you or learn more about, you know, the work that you're doing? Where's the best place to find you?

Andrew Herr: Yeah, come to our website, flykit.com, F-L-Y-K-I-T-T. You'll find all kinds of stuff about the products there. If you have questions for us, contact us through the website or at support at flykit.com, and we respond to every one of those messages. I don't spend much time anymore on social media. I was starting to do the thing where I was going to build a social media following. being on social media for me is a pretty big detriment. And so it's a trade off and I don't blame people who do it for work or even just for fun, but I'm pretty off social media. But if you DM me on Twitter, I'll probably get back to you. If you DM me on LinkedIn, I'll probably get back to you within a month. So yeah, best way would be to just shoot an email at the company and Blake, our head of customer service knows when to forward things to me.

Andres Preschel: Nice. Andrew, thank you so much. Honor and pleasure.

Andrew Herr: Fantastic. It was just such a joy.

Andres Preschel: Love it. Thanks for listening. And thanks again to Timeline Nutrition for sponsoring the show. If you want to stay strong and energized as you age, try their longevity gummies at timeline.com slash undress. Again, you get 20% off and trust me, your cells will thank you.