Huemn is an innovative health and wellness cryotherapy center focused on providing clients with a non-invasive, drug-free, natural way of recovering from athletics, injuries, pain and inflammation. Using a variety of non-toxic, natural interventions that trigger the human body’s innate healing systems, such as cryotherapy, photobiomodulation, oxygen therapy, neurotherapy, and lymphatic drainage, the company’s value is in bringing advanced, all-natural remedies to clients at an affordable price.
The Challenge
Although the popularity of natural healing therapies is on the rise as many people seek alternatives to surgery and medication, it’s not uncommon for such health trends to come and go quickly. The Huemn team knew that in order to build a successful, long-term business, however, they needed an easy and predictable way to monitor the positive impact that their therapies were providing their clients. Such a solution would not only demonstrate the value of the client’s investment, but it would also allow them to cross-reference the benefits of their healing modalities with other health metrics such as sleep quality, inflammation levels and heart rate variability (HRV).
The Solution
Huemn found Heads Up, a personal health platform that makes it super easy to track and analyze health data for actionable insights on therapies and lifestyle changes that most positively impact one’s health. The goal of the project was to design a customized solution for Huemn that made it possible to track and validate their cutting-edge proprietary programs and protocols at the aggregate group and individual levels. The solution comprised of two components: a backend system that enabled the Huemn team to customize their protocols and track client sessions; and a frontend interface for their clients to be able to easily add their favorite health apps and devices, view their health data in one single dashboard and track their improvements over time using Huemn’s healing programs.
Data-driven Programs & Protocols
One of the core principles of Huemn’s approach to recovery is supporting the body’s natural systems wholistically and synergistically. To achieve this, Huemn provides personalized programs for clients based on regular sessions of cryotherapy, oxygen therapy, neurotherapy and photobiomodulation, to name a few.
To validate the effectiveness of these four cutting-edge protocols, Heads Up built custom modules that made it easy to input data for each client session and track the progress they made toward achieving their recovery goals. With this data in hand, Huemn’s team of wellness experts are able to analyze the data for key patterns and trends on the particular lifestyle interventions that are having the most positive impact on a client’s ability to become fully recovered and rejuvenated.
Click on the images below to view customized recovery modules in detail.
With Huemn’s core protocols and input modules in place, it became much easier for practitioners to store client session data and track their progress over time on each protocol. For more advanced analysis, Heads Up team developed an analytics tool that made it super easy to analyze the impact each of Huemn’s protocols were having on their client’s physiology and recovery status.
Client Engagement Tools For Better Outcomes
With practitioner tools in place, the Heads Up team designed a beautifully simple end-to-end experience. The goal was to leverage user data to drive client retention and accountability for better health outomes. This comprised of personalized dashboards that displayed Huemn’s core recovery protocols, and weekly progress reports to drive client engagement and intrinsic motivation.
Client dashboards were meticuosly designed to visually present a user’s health data in the most easy to understand way possible. It included singular scores as well as trends across historical timelines. In conjuction with the dashboards, a personalized weekly progress report automatically gets send out regualarly. These reports help keep clients motivated and engaged knowing that they are making progress toward their health goals.
The entire user journey from sign in to sign out was custom designed according to Huemn’s modern brand aesthetics.
Click on the images below to view how we customized Huemn’s onboarding process for a highly pesonalized user experience.
Moverover, the platform was architechted so that both practitioners and clients would have a seamless experience across desktop, mobile and tablet.
Click on the images below to view Huemn’s custom designed light and dark themes.
Stay tuned as we dive deeper into Huemn’s story. In part 2, we will provide a comprehensive analysis of the metrics Huemn used to quantify their cutting-edge protocols and the outcomes they were able to achieve with clients that completed their recovery programs.
About Heads Up
Heads Upis a web and mobile platform for next-gen healthcare professionals who want to take a personalized and preventive approach to optimizing the health and wellness of their clients using science and data. Get a complete picture of your client’s health story by combing lifestyle data with clinical outcomes. Instantly centralize all client medical records, connect popular devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) anduse data to optimize your client’s health.
To learn more about how Heads Up can help you grow your health and wellness business or to schedule a call with a success agent, visit https://headsuphealth.com/contact.
Once you’ve got the basics of using the Keto-Mojo covered, it’s time to start looking at the bigger picture of how your keto lifestyle is affecting your overall health and performance.
1. Ditch the scale
Scales don’t always tell the full story (and they can drive you nuts). Lock the scale away in the closet and use the good ol’ fashioned tape measure!
Pro tip #1: Instead of daily scale measurements, just take a waist circumference measurement once a month. It’s a much more predictable (and lower stress!) way to assess your weight loss.
Optionally record your measurements in your Heads Up account so you can track your progress over time.
In the graph below, our social media manager (Lily) graphed her waist circumference and her glucose-ketone index in her Heads Up profile.
The results speak for themselves as she lost 5 inches off her waist over the course of 14 months!
2. Take the carb-tolerance test
Pop quiz: How high does your blood sugar go after your favorite restaurant meal?
If you don’t know, reach for the Keto-Mojo and test your blood sugar before you eat. Test your blood sugar again 1 hour after eating and again 2 hours after your meal. Record all three numbers.
Pro tip #3: Try to choose meals that keep your post-meal blood sugar below 120 mg/dL (6.7 mmol/L). Learning how to control post-meal blood sugar is a powerful tool in your health arsenal.
You can also record results using the ‘Carb Tolerance Test’ feature so you can keep a journal of which foods work best for your own body.
Click Here for Carb Tolerance Test!
The Carb Tolerance Test is a powerful tool from Heads Up Health that anyone can use to optimize their health.
3. Integrate fasting
There are so many health benefits to both intermittent and prolonged fasting (72 hours or more)! Benefits such as reduced inflammation, insulin, glucose, IGF-1 and helping with metabolic health. Not to mention the potential anti-aging and anti-cancer benefits. [1]
Pro tip #2: Track your glucose and ketones before, during and after you fast. You should see your glucose drop and your ketones rise as you go deeper into the fasted state.
You can also try our Fasting Timer. Record your fasting intervals and graph them alongside your Keto-Mojo readings to master your metabolism.
That’s all for now folks! Hope you enjoyed our tips. For more great information on how to optimize your health, join our FaceBook community, subscribe to our podcast, or hit us up on Instagram.
Ready to start tracking? Start your free 30-day trial (no credit card required) using the button below.
Heat therapies have long been used for healing and wellness, dating all the way back to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Mayans. The sauna is simply a small or large room designed specifically to help you sweat. What’s more, science stands behind saunas, and modern medicine has proven 10 clinical health benefits of saunas that will leave you wanting to get your own sweat on soon.
Different Types of Saunas
Today, saunas are an everyday part of many cultures, from the Finnish outdoor saunas to the Swedish batsu, the Korean jjimjilbangs, and Japanese sento. Variations of the dry and steam (or wet) saunas, as well as the latest infrared saunas, all offer a variety of health benefits, even after only a few minutes a day of use. Users report that a deep, healthy sweat generally relieves stress, reduces muscle tension, and delivers an overall sense of relaxation and well-being.
Over the ages, various types of dry and wet saunas have been invented, along with the latest infrared saunas that deliver direct heat to the body versus heating the air and room temperature.
Here’s a look at the types of saunas to consider as you evaluate incorporating them into your health regimen:
Dry saunas are heated with fire, hot stones, gas, or electricity
Steam saunas generate steam by applying water on the heating element
Infrared saunas use infrared heaters to emit light that delivers radiant heat that’s absorbed by the surface of the skin
Hybrid Saunas – Use combinations of Dry Saunas, Steam Saunas, or Infrared Saunas.
Infrared saunas are further broken down into the following types:
Near infrared saunas
Far infrared saunas (FIR)
Full spectrum infrared saunas
Infrared saunas deliver direct heat via the infrared light and at lower temperatures versus dry and wet saunas that heat the air to increase the room temperature.
Difference between infrared and near infrared
The main difference between far infrared and near-infrared saunas is the depth and intensity of the therapy. Far infrared saunas generate a longer wavelength heat that penetrates deeper into the skin, allowing for more effective therapeutic benefits. Near-infrared saunas, on the other hand, produce short wavelengths of light which remain closer to the surface of the skin. This type of sauna can still provide great results but is not as intense or therapeutic as far infrared.
Differences between full-spectrum saunas and infrared saunas
The main differences between full-spectrum saunas and infrared saunas are the type of heat used, the intensity and depth of therapeutic benefits, and their ability to detoxify. Full-spectrum saunas use both near-infrared and far-infrared light to produce heat, while infrared saunas only use infrared light. This gives full-spectrum a more intense and beneficial therapeutic experience than just far infrared alone. Additionally, full-spectrum saunas can help to release chemicals from fat cells through sweating, whereas infrared saunas don’t have this same detoxifying effect.
What Happens in the Body?
Whatever type of sauna therapy you choose, and regardless of the humidity level, the effects on the body are similar and create a variety of well-documented health benefits, such as releasing the ‘feel good’ endorphins, in addition to widening the blood vessels to improve circulation and blood flow.
Depending on the duration of sauna use, you will see circulation improvements that are similar to the effects of moderate exercise. Your heart rate may increase to 100 to 150 beats per minute while the growth hormone release increases by as much as 200 to 300%. Sauna use can also help improve athletic performance and stamina due to that increase in circulation.
Still not convinced? Then let’s dive into a few more proven health benefits of sauna use, and how to accurately measure the effects.
10 Proven Clinical Health Benefits of Sauna Use
1. Supercharge your cell power. Heat has been proven to positively impact your mitochondria, the ‘batteries’ powering your cells, helping your body naturally produce more energy and stay fit.
3.Detoxify heavy metals and chemicals. Everyday exposure to potentially toxic heavy metals through a variety of sources means even the most health conscious people still have toxins in the body. Regular sauna bathing helps excrete toxins such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury.
4. Make your heart happy and healthy. A 2018 study found that sauna bathing four to seven times per week reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by as much as 58%.
5. Reduce blood pressure. Sauna heat helps widen blood vessels and improve circulation, which reduces blood pressure.
6. Optimize athletic performance. Blood flow improvements from hyperthermic conditioning (heat conditioning) sends more blood to the heart, leading to an increase in plasma and red blood cell volume. That process delivers more oxygen throughout the body, fueling athletic performance.
7. Improve muscle function and recovery. As more blood flow and oxygen is delivered throughout the body, muscles increase in size and muscle breakdown is diminished. One study showed that two, one-hour sauna sessions for seven days straight increases production of the human growth hormone (HGH) by two to five times.
8. Fuel weight loss. Regular sauna use is shown to regulate the appetite, increase metabolism, and improve oxygen utilization, helping to fuel weight loss along with a reduction in body fat.
9. Boost brain function. The brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF increases with regular sauna use, activating the growth of new brain cells, better maintaining existing cells, and improving neuroplasticity, the brain’s process for forming new neural connections.
10. Ignite your immune system. Heat exposure from sauna use increases the heat shock protein, stimulating antigen-presenting cells, along with releasing cytokine, thus stimulating the body’s natural immune system.
11. BONUS BENEFIT: improve emotional health and mood. When your body and brain are healthy, detoxified, and destressed, and you’ve boosted endorphins, your overall mood and emotional health improves.
Who Should Sauna, and Who Shouldn’t…
Due to the extreme heat, certain people should avoid sauna use of any type, including pregnant women and those with specific health conditions such as low blood pressure and heart conditions. As with anything, it’s always wise to consult your medical practitioner before beginning sauna treatments.
How to Track Your Personal Sauna Health Benefits
Everyone is unique and may have very different outcomes from sauna use, so track your key metrics before and after use, as well as over a period of time, to understand specifically how sauna use is impacting you.
For example, the Heads Up app gives you a way to enter the type of sauna you’re using, the room temperature, date, and duration. From there, you can check health stats such as blood pressure, heart rate, and more. You may even see improvements in the quality of your sleep over time.
How to Track Your Client’s Sauna Sessions, Treatments, Outcomes, and more!
Heads Up Health is a useful tool for healthcare professionals who want to track their client’s sauna sessions, treatments, and outcomes. This comprehensive system allows users to store detailed records of their patient’s health data and easily access it with the click of a button. This includes information such as sauna session length and frequency, infrared heat temperatures used, notes from treatments and outcomes, and more. By using Heads Up Health, healthcare professionals can keep an accurate record of their client’s progress and make sure they are receiving the best possible care.
Ready to get started?
If you’re ready to ‘dive into’ sauna bathing of any kind, grab a 30-day free trial of Heads Up first and decide on some of your goals for sauna use, then monitor your key health metrics before and after. You may also want to monitor various durations and frequencies, and the correlated effects on those same metrics to determine which type of sauna and frequency level is right for you. And as we always say, be sure to consult your health practitioner before starting any new health regimen!
Are You A Health Professional?
Do you want to track your patients Sauna sessions or other treatments along with their health metrics like weight, HRV, glucose and more, in a beautiful dashboard to quantify the benefits of Sauna use? Click here to learn more about the health professional platform.
Many people mistake the practice of fasting with starvation, especially in the United States where food abundance and the idea of being hungry is perceived as a negative state (or altogether inhumane, something only happening to the ‘less fortunate’). The truth is, fasting and starvation are two completely different things. That’s why we put together this list of 11 remarkable health benefits of fasting… but before we dive in, a few other background points.
Starvation deprives you of nutrition and begins the process of breaking down your body, while the benefits of fasting on the other hand, are as long as they are deep. Fasting is a time-tested and controlled state that is not only beneficial to your health, it’s essential for creating optimal health, managing chronic diseases, reaching a healthy weight for your body type, reversing aging and much more. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the benefits of fasting… the healthy way, as recommended by Dr. John Limansky, the Keto Doctor… Heads Up friend and advisor. Thank you Dr. John!
The Health Benefits of Fasting
Achieve your optimal weight. Different than starvation, fasting gives your body a chance to burn the energy from food instead of storing it as glycogen or fat. During longer fasting periods your body will burn through the glycogen stores and then begin burning fat stores.
Overcome insulin resistance and balance blood sugar levels. Fasting gives your cells an overdue break from insulin so that they can ‘rediscover’ their sensitivity, overcome insulin resistance, and use glucose more effectively. That means blood sugar crashes along with your sugar cravings, taking the strain off of your overworked pancreas while significantly reducing your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Increase metabolism by as much as 18%. It’s been long-believed that fasting will bring your metabolism and weight loss efforts to a grinding halt. The good news is that’s no longer true. Research now shows that a stress hormone called norepinephrine increases during fasting, releasing fatty acids from the fat cells. This in turn makes it faster and easier for your body to use its fat stores.
Keep cortisol levels in check and better manage stress. Remember the research that suggested that your cortisol response depends on having glucose in the blood? In those same studies, participants who fasted and drank water had a much lower cortisol response than their peers who drank glucose solution. This indicates that fasting keeps cortisol levels low, helps us to respond to stressful situations in a much healthier manner, and protects us from the harmful effects of chronic stress.
Reduce inflammation by inhibiting the immune response. Inflammation occurs in response to pain, injury and/or disease, and in some cases, your immune system continues releasing inflammatory chemicals even after the original state is gone. Such sustained exposure to those chemicals can create other chronic disease states, but fasting helps inhibit that prolonged immune response and blocks the continuing release of inflammatory chemicals
Regenerate your immune system from the inside out. When you fast, your body saves energy by recycling old or damaged white blood cells. This drop in white blood cells flips a ‘regenerative switch’ in the body, stimulating the production of new stem cells. These stem cells then go on to develop into new, healthy immune cells, meaning you’re essentially regenerating a whole new immune system.
Improve heart health by reducing blood pressure and LDL cholesterol. Fasting is shown to reduce blood pressure and harmful LDL cholesterol, and it also helps to maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of diabetes. It also reduces heart disease risk by protecting your vascular system.
Improve brain health by stimulating the production of new neurons. Fasting stimulates the growth of new neurons and increases production of a hormone called brain- derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Altogether, this helps to protect against depression, improve brain function and memory, slow cognitive decline, and reduce the risk of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.
Protect against cancer. Cancer is characterized by the rapid and uncontrollable growth of cells. Although further studies are needed to confirm this, fasting is believed to help prevent cancer by depriving cancerous cells of the essential hormones they need to grow. Insulin Growth Factor, or IGF-1, is one such hormone, which goes into decline as soon as you stop eating.
Increase cellular turnover and regeneration. Fasting sends your body into cell recycling, a process of self-digestion at the cellular level called autophagy. But you’re not just digesting your fat to fuel yourself while fasting. Your body also targets malfunctioning cells and old tissues to optimize resources for survival.
Improve sleep quality. New studies show that routine intermittent fasting in many ways helps the body stay well aligned for sleep and strengthens the circadian clock. That means it’s easier to fall asleep and stay asleep so you can wake feeling more rested.
Is it working? Track it and see.
The best way to understand how your body is responding to fasting, no matter what plan you’re on, is with hard data. Getting an app that collects your key health metrics along with tracking your fasting cycles is not only an easy way to track progress and see how you’re changing, it’s also a fun and motivating method to stay on track.
The Heads Up app, for example, offers a fasting timer, along with a dashboard to track weight, body fat percentage, sleep, blood sugar, ketones and other vital health metrics, giving you a holistic view of your health before, during and after fasting. Start with their 30-day free trial to connect your other health data, then select an affordable monthly plan to continue tracking your metrics over time.
Should you fast?
With so many metabolic health benefits that are now research backed, it’s hard to say fasting doesn’t have some benefit to most people, however, it’s important that certain demographics should not fast at all, such as those with diabetes or other chronic disease, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, the elderly and children. Most importantly, check with your doctor before starting any new diet regimen.
Once you decide to give fasting a try, check out all the various fasting routines to get a sense of what type may be right for you. Not all fasting plans are right for everyone. The other key will be to find a useful tool (e.g. web or mobile application) that you can use to track your fasting plan as you go, and as importantly, to track your key health stats during the fasting state.
This will be a good indication of how fasting will work for you, and how it impacts your health day to day. It will also be the perfect data to offer to your doctor as you work to achieve your personal health goals over time.
The big picture? Fasting can become a steady and ongoing part of your healthy lifestyle plan for the long haul, rather than just a diet fad.
As with any healthy lifestyle plans, consult with your health practitioner first.
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Whether you’re ready to dive into the ketogenic diet for the first time, or you’ve tried it in the past and didn’t achieve the results you’d hoped, this article is for you! Using your genes for your methylation status, digestion and to help you avoid metabolic syndrome, we walk you through Sarah Morgan’s work in using your genetics to optimize the keto diet for you.
Genetics, through the study of epigenetics, can provide a framework for understanding why we react to our food and environment in a certain way, and why the same diet produces different results in individuals. Why do some people do exceptionally well from the beginning with a ketogenic diet while others struggle? Well, genetics may play a large part in that.
Due to the large increase in the quantity of fats consumed on the ketogenic diet, some people may struggle to be able to break down those fats and turn them into ketones for energy and brain power. It turns out that this is often due to several genes that affect how we process fats in our bodies.
Whether you want to focus on more of a traditional keto diet, a carnivore diet or a ketotarian diet, your success will come down to what your genes need to support them. So, you can see why knowing this information before beginning a dietary shift like this can be beneficial.
Just like you don’t have to fall victim to the keto flu with proper support, you also don’t have to struggle to get into ketosis if you know ahead of time how to navigate what your unique body needs.
The following genetic interpretations and information are based on the work of Sarah Morgan, the “Gene Queen.” (Make sure to check out her podcast episode). So grab your Nutrition Genome, 23 and Me or other genetic SNP report and learn how you can customize the keto diet based on your SNPs. Make sure to sign up to track your data with the Heads Up app (download in the app store for on-the-go tracking), where you can directly sync your blood test results with your food tracker, Keto Mojo, blood sugar, HRV, sleep and more.
Reading a Genetic Report
When interpreting genetic data, you will commonly see plus and minus signs next to the gene. The more plus signs you see, the more variants of that gene you have. Use the following to interpret them if they are not already labeled as such:
-/- Normal or Wild Type
+/- or -/+ Heterozygous
+/+ Homozygous
# 1 Gene: PEMT
What it does: Makes choline to support liver functioning. The liver needs to converts fats to ketones, so this is super important with the keto diet for keeping the liver healthy and not bogged down processing the increased fat in the diet. Choline is also supportive of brain health for memory and cognitive ability.
Where to find it on your report: Methylation Common symptoms associated with it/indicators for support:
How to support it: Eat choline-rich foods like egg yolks, Brussels sprouts, liver, and can also be used in a supplement form.
What labs to run to monitor its functioning: Liver function tests ALT and AST to monitor liver functioning and the potential need for additional choline in the diet.
# 2 Gene: FADS2
What it does: Indicates your ability to convert shorter chain omega 3 fatty acids to longer chain fatty acids, like EPA/DHA, which are critical for brain health. If you have one or two copies of this gene, you will need more fats from fish or supplemental support to get enough EPA/DHA for brain health, as you will not be able to convert enough of the shorter chain omega 3’s, (such as from plant sources like chia seeds, flaxseed, hemp hearts, etc.) for your brain’s needs.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Metabolic symptoms
Neurological symptoms
How to support it: Eat more fish or take a fish oil supplement What labs to run to monitor its functioning: Check EPA/DHA levels to see what your status is based on your diet and ability to convert plant-based fats to DHA and EPA for optimal brain function.
# 3 Gene: FUT2
What it does: Plays a part in how well you absorb your fats based on the type of bacteria living in your gut microbiome. If you have one or two copies of this gene, then you’ll need to bring in more prebiotic rich food for your good gut bugs to feed on.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion
Common symptoms associated with it:
Craving more veggies on a keto diet or not doing well on a carnivore diet.
More inflammation, or increase in inflammatory blood markers in response to a higher fat diet.
How to support it: Eat more fibrous vegetables (prebiotics) to feed the good bacteria in your gut and increase levels of bifidobacteria, which also helps lower inflammation. You’ll need 25 different plant species per week. CAUTION: Extremely restricted diets can be potentially detrimental, so use caution if you don’t have all of the information on how it will affect you before beginning a very restricted diet. Test, don’t guess, then monitor frequently in the beginning.
What labs to run to monitor its functioning: Comprehensive GI panel or Viome testing to see microbiome diversity as well as homocysteine, CRP, and Sed Rate to watch for inflammation.
# 4 Gene: ACAT
What it does: Allows your body to convert proteins and fats to ATP (energy). We make our body weight in ATP every single day, so we want to make sure we can get good energy from our fats and proteins when this is our primary source of fuel.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion
Common symptoms associated with it:
Fatigue or hypoglycemia symptoms on a high fat or carnivore diet.
Cholesterol goes up eating a high-fat diet.
How to support it: Eat a more vegetable-heavy form of keto and avoid carnivore if you have one copy of this gene, but especially if you have two copies. You are not a good candidate for a carnivore diet.
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Cholesterol labs – Total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, HDL, and LDL particle cholesterol testing if budget allows.
Liver Enzymes AST, ALT
Hemoglobin A1c, to monitor blood sugar averages
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
# 5 Gene: ADIPOQ
What it does: Relates to a hormone released in the intestinal tract when we eat foods, which has to do with how much insulin is secreted, affecting blood sugar, type 2 diabetes, etc. Those with this gene are more predisposed to metabolic syndrome.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion
Common symptoms associated with it:
Insulin resistance
Heart disease
Increased risk of colon cancer
How to support it:
Exercise
Intermittent Fasting
Omega 3’s to increase adiponectin secretion
Turmeric
Berries
Ginger
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Fasting insulin, to watch for insulin resistance
Hemoglobin A1c, to monitor blood sugar averages
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
Daily monitoring of fasting glucose at home with Keto Mojo
CRP to monitor for inflammation
# 6 Gene: SLC22A5
What it does: Picks up fats and shuttles them to the mitochondria to be burned as an energy source, which then goes through the digestive tract and is absorbed across the gut barrier. L-carnitine then picks up the fats and shuttles it to the mitochondria.
Where to find it on your report: Digestive Common symptoms associated with it:
Low energy
How to support it:
Getting enough L-Carnitine in your diet or through supplementation if needed
Adequate vitamin C intake
Making sure you’re methylating well
Adequate intake of amino acids
Optimizing digestion
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
# 7 Gene: PPAR Alpha
What it does: This plays a role in fatty acid metabolism and can make it difficult to get into ketosis.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Difficulty getting into or staying in ketosis
Problems in a cholesterol panel – HDL, LDL, triglycerides
Hypoglycemia on a high-fat, low carb diet
How to support it:
Exogenous ketones to get into ketosis
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Watch cholesterol levels closely if homozygous and taking exogenous ketones. Total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides.
# 8 Gene: ACSL1
What it does: Has to do with how well you metabolize saturated fats from animals like bacon, fat bombs from dairy, etc.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Higher fasting glucose
Insulin resistance
How to support it:
Focus on getting your fats from plant sources
Eat a more Mediterranean style keto diet
Coconut oil is okay
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Fasting insulin, to watch for insulin resistance
Hemoglobin A1c, to monitor blood sugar averages
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
# 9 Gene: APOA2
What it does: This runs an enzyme that regulates appetite. People with this gene who eat more fat, tend to be more hungry and consume more calories in a day.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Weight gain with higher fat diet
How to support it:
Exercise
Don’t have a sedentary desk job
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
CRP to monitor inflammation
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
Liver enzymes, ALT, AST to monitor liver functioning
# 10 Gene: FTO
What it does: Relates to the hunger hormone ghrelin, which regulates hunger.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Especially those who are homozygous (2 copies) may feel hungry all the time
How to support it:
Don’t consume a high glycemic diet
Pay attention to hunger signals
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Fasting insulin, to watch for insulin resistance
Hemoglobin A1c, to monitor blood sugar averages
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
# 11 Gene: TCF7L2
What it does: Has to do with incretin hormone which relates to insulin sensitivity.
Where to find it on your report: Digestion Common symptoms associated with it:
Type 2 diabetes
Weight gain
Dysregulated insulin
Carb cravings
How to support it:
Be careful with your carbs. If homozygous, be REALLY careful with your carbs.
What labs to run to monitor its functioning:
Fasting insulin, to watch for insulin resistance
Hemoglobin A1c, to monitor blood sugar averages
Fasting glucose, to monitor blood sugar levels
About Heads Up
Heads Up is an app designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use data to optimize your health.
If your goal for beginning the keto diet is to lose weight, trying to learn the ins and outs of your new diet can be a struggle. Add in all the numbers and ratios, and it can be a bit overwhelming at first. Fortunately, there’s good news – you can simplify the process to make it more easy, convenient and intuitive with a keto food tracker.
However with the keto diet, tracking your macronutrients (i.e. carbs, protein, fat) is critical – especially in the beginning – to ensure you stay in ketosis (when your body uses fat as fuel instead of carbs) and ultimately ensure your success.
Consistently Monitor Your Food Intake in a Keto Food Tracker
Let’s face it, if something isn’t easy and quick, we aren’t likely to stick with it. That’s why for keto diet followers, convenience and consistency are key. If you aren’t tracking what you are eating, you are likely to drift off course and fall out of ketosis.
The best way to combat this is to use a convenient app that allows you to easily enter your food intake whenever and wherever you are. Fortunately, the tech-driven world we live in means there is a variety of free (or close to free) keto food tracker apps to choose from. We recommend apps like MyFitnessPal, Cronometer and MyMacros+ to track your daily food intake and ensure you are adhering to your daily goals.
When you start out, calculate your target protein, fat, carb and calorie goals by using a macronutrient calculator designed for ketogenic diets. (You can find a list of calculators as the bottom of this blog. Note: If using a keto food tracker such as Cronometer, the keto calculator is built-in.) Once you have your target numbers, simply enter them into the app. This will allow you to track your day-to-day progress against those numbers.
Still not sure how you are going to have time to enter those details as you go? Try entering your meals in advance to help you plan your day and ensure you are not over-consuming in any area of your ratios. This will not only help you stay on course but will simplify the process of trying to remember to enter what you ate during the day. If you need to deviate from the plan, you can easily update it.
Identify Macros You are Over or Under Consuming with a Macros Tracker
By monitoring the ratio of your fats, proteins and carbs (keto macro ratio), you can ensure you are successfully staying in ketosis. Although this may sound daunting, all of the keto food tracker apps noted above allow you to easily track your keto macronutrient ratios and see where you stand against those ratios.
Once you see where you are falling short or consuming too much, you can adjust your diet to get the right mix. This takes a bit of work upfront, but it’s an important step in helping you achieve the right balance for ketosis. Once the ratios are entered, you’ll be able to easily see where you stand. It won’t take long for you to reach the point where eating to your target macronutrients is intuitive. Additionally, as you become more advanced with the ketogenic diet, you can adjust your macros based upon your progress to best suit your specific body and health goals.
Get a Holistic View of Your Keto Journey
The keto food tracking apps give you a good start for tracking your macros, but you will want a more comprehensive view of how your ketogenicdiet is impacting your overall health and success. This allows you to monitor other key areas impacted by the keto diet, such as your blood glucose, blood ketones, blood pressure, weight, measurements, HbA1c, insulin levels, etc. Based on this information, you can adjust your macros and diet to account for the most critical areas of your overall health.
With Heads Up, you simply enter the food you’ve eaten into your keto food tracker. The trackers mentioned link directly with your Heads Up account, and the calculations for your ketogenic ratio are done for you. You’ll not only know at a glance if you are on track, but you will also be able to compare those levels side-by-side with your ketone and glucose levels, weight loss, measurements, lab numbers and more.
We hope these three tips will help you closely monitor your food intake, keto levels and track your success with ease. If you are interested in making your keto diet journey easier and more meaningful, you can get started with Heads Up for free using the button to the right. We’ll give you the tools to track all your data and make it simple in the process!
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