Here at InsideTracker, we are passionate about giving people the tools they need to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their own health and performance. To view the free InsideTracker demo, click here. RunKeeper, a company whose platform allows for the tracking, analysis, and sharing of workout data, and our neighbor here in Boston, is a like-minded organization who shares this vision, and we are proud to count them as one of our partners.
Our friends at RunKeeper recently invited us over to their offices so they could get to know us a little bit better. They asked to test out InsideTracker for themselves because the product is, as one RunKeeper team member said, “helping to give people more visibility into their health based on science, and providing recommendations on what action to take…that’s really exciting progress.”
The RunKeeper staff is an exercise-oriented group, participating in a wide range of activities including CrossFit, running, biking, and racing. They believe in and truly live the value of fitness, but they were eager to add a new layer to their understanding of strength, speed, stamina, and overall wellness. As one staffer said, “We don’t pay enough attention to the food we put in our bodies and there aren’t great ways of distributing education on nutrition.” And while several RunKeeper members said they had met with nutritionists in the past, they felt intimidated and discouraged by strict, unwieldy diet plans incompatible with their busy lives.
InsideTracker’s blood biomarker system, on the other hand, appealed to the team due to its user-friendly nature. “The process was incredibly simple,” one RunKeeper team member shared, and another said: “it was easy and I would do it again.”
As you may know, blood testing offers a powerful window into the workings of your body — and one that is not available through most traditional measures of health, such as stress testing or annual physicals. Your blood is a constantly changing, highly complex biosystem, and InsideTracker taps into this rich source of information so that you can understand what is happening and make safe, sustainable changes over time.
Both before and after participating in a live blood draw, which they called “speedy,” “friendly,” and “a breeze,” staffers learned about biomarkers and nutrition for athletes. They appreciated the down-to-earth advice: “I wanted to hug you!”
Because the RunKeepers were all physically fit and visibly healthy, their blood data provided a good illustration of how InsideTracker reveals much more than meets the eye. For example, over half of the participants had high levels of creatine kinase and about 40 percent had high cholesterol.
The staff found learning about their biomarkers to be quite rewarding personally. But perhaps even more important, seeing how they ranked in comparison to their co-workers and the general population enabled them to put their results into perspective as well as fostering a sense of camaraderie and boosting company culture and spirit. They even started a lively competition on social media to see which staff members had the healthiest biomarkers for their body type. “It was kind of relieving to hear that I wasn’t the only person who was high in LDL cholesterol or low in vitamin D,” one staff member said. “Everyone joked about everything and we got some great tips on what we could all do to get ourselves into our optimal ranges.”
Thanks to InsideTracker recommendations, which gave each member of the staff an individualized action plan pertaining to supplementation and nutrition, many RunKeeper members are going to make substantive changes to their daily regimen. “I’m definitely going to try and cut back on a few foods”, one staff member reported, “as well as invest in some supplements in order to get a few of my levels up to where they should be.” RunKeeper says they will recommend InsideTracker to others because it “highlighted key risk areas [for each of us] and gave a clear action plan for mitigating those risks.” They also emphasized the positive, team-building experience it provided for their organization.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time with RunKeeper and look forward to taking our partnership in exciting new directions! If hearing about the RunKeeper team’s experience has inspired you to take the next step in your or your company’s journey toward greater vitality, consider investing in an InsideTracker plan, or re-visiting your results and re-testing today.
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