What Levels does—and why

The quality of your diet profoundly impacts your health and well-being.

Whereas nutrient-rich foods energize the body and help cells thrive, sugary, processed foods thwart cell function, sap your energy, drive weight gain, and increase your risk for serious illness. Research links high blood sugar to eight of the top 10 leading causes of death in the US, including Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cancer.

Other aspects of modern life compound the effects of low-quality food. Poor sleep, chronic stress, and physical inactivity all negatively impact your body’s ability to make and use energy, known as your metabolic health. Strikingly, only 7 percent of Americans are metabolically healthy; and 73.6% are overweight or obese. 

The good news? Your metabolic health is largely in your control. Most people can improve their quality of life and reduce their risk for disease through lifestyle changes, such as eating differently, sleeping more, and becoming more active.

Yet, simply being told to make these changes typically doesn’t work. What does? Seeing how your choices affect aspects of health and life that matter to you.

[Left] With barcode scanning and AI-assist, it’s easy and fast to log your meals—a critical first step to connecting how you eat to how you feel. [Center] Every meal gets a score that helps you keep track of what works for you; it even takes into account exercise around the meal. [Right] The score is based not just on your glucose response, but also on the quality of the food you eat.

Data over dogma: Using feedback to motivate change

Most people have a sense that their eating habits could be better. Yet, a history of failed fad diets and an abundance of conflicting information about nutrition can lead to inaction. Too often, yesterday’s superfoods become today’s kryptonite; and a nutrition program that worked for your best friend may not be the best plan for you. In short, it’s easy to lose motivation to eat right when you don’t know what “right” means for you.

To combat confusion and inaction, Levels gives you objective, personalized information about how your food choices affect your health. Rather than mandating a rigid diet (that may fall out of favor in a year), the app analyzes your activity and diet to identify choices that may be contributing to poor health. Based on this data, the app delivers personalized recommendations for improving metabolic health and achieving your health goals.

[Left] In addition to meal scoring, the app surfaces custom insights and recipes based on the foods you log. [Center] Habit Loops let you set goals around the areas you want to focus on most, and hold yourself accountable toward your progress daily and over time, allowing you to see streaks. [Right] The app also syncs with Apple Health to pull in sleep and exercise data and connect it to your metabolic health markers.

Accountability + insights = sustainable habits

It can be empowering to realize that your metabolic health is in your control. It can also be overwhelming. Since a number of factors affect your metabolism, Levels helps you set goals around manageable steps you can take each day to improve your health across three domains: food, sleep, and exercise. Then we help you reach those goals through simple accountability and insights, like using a Habit Loop to track your daily steps.

Food

Healthy eating is an essential first step on the journey to better health. However, that journey can look different depending on who you are and what you hope to achieve. For this reason, the app doesn’t prescribe a generic diet. Instead, it uses your food logs and biomarkers to generate personalized recommendations for food swaps, recipes, and other practical steps you can take to realize your goals. It also offers detailed macro tracking so you can ensure you’re giving your body all the protein, fiber, and healthy fats it needs while minimizing added sugars and unhealthy fats.

Sleep

Research shows that the quantity and quality of your sleep directly affect glucose stability. In one study, sleep-deprived participants cleared glucose out of their bloodstream 40% slower than their well-rested counterparts; and poor sleep has been linked to obesity, diabetes, and inflammation.

The Levels app seamlessly integrates your sleep data into its records, helping you observe how these patterns affect your blood sugar and your well-being.

Exercise

Most people can improve their well-being by becoming more active. Even low-intensity exercise, such as walking, can help blunt post-meal blood sugar spikes. By contrast, studies link a sedentary lifestyle to inflammation, insulin resistance, and other features of poor metabolic health.

Since physical activity greatly impacts your glucose stability, the Levels app factors this information into the insights you receive, offering positive encouragement for workouts. It also lets you set goals and track progress around things like steps or high-intensity training.

[Left] Metabolic health is about long-term trends, so the app lets you see your progress across metrics over time. [Center] Levels Labs lets you order on-demand walk-in blood testing directly from the app around five key markers. [Right] Results appear directly the in the app with guidance on how to interpret the values and improve them.

Blood sugar is crucial—but so are other factors

Glucose is a core metric to see how your body’s metabolic machinery responds to your diet and activity, and how you’re doing metabolically big picture. So it’s an important metric to track with a continuous glucose monitor and a critical feature of using Levels.

It’s totally normal for blood sugar levels to rise and fall throughout the day. However, when levels increase sharply (sometimes called a glucose spike), the crash that follows can cause cravings, fatigue, and irritability.

Frequent glucose spikes have also been linked to inflammation, blood vessel damage, weight gain, and other changes that predict poor long-term health. And though absolute glucose levels matter, studies show that large spikes and dips in blood sugar can damage tissues more than high but stable numbers. Based on this research, we believe that glucose stability is critical to improving metabolic health.

By providing real-time information about your blood sugar, Levels helps you connect subjective feelings to changes in glucose stability. You might, for instance, link that afternoon fatigue to plummeting blood sugar following a carb-rich lunch—a realization that can motivate you to make a different lunch choice next time.

However, blood sugar is only one metric of health. Long-term, we also care about other biomarkers such as insulin and cholesterol that can only be measured via blood test. It’s why we introduced Levels Labs, our on-demand blood testing service that measures five key markers and gives you results and guidance directly in the app. Watching these values helps connect your daily and weekly habits to your overall progress.

Take control of your health

From your weight and energy levels to physical performance and longevity, your metabolic health has far-reaching effects. It’s also the direct result of the choices you make each day. By putting objective, understandable data in your hands, Levels helps you confidently navigate these choices so you can feel your best and achieve your goals.