Casey Means’ 10 favorite health and wellness products

Welcome to Health Stack, a series where founders, operators and experts share their favorite health and wellness products, gear, apps, and routines… 

Casey Means is the co-founder of Levels, a health technology company with the mission of reversing the world’s metabolic health crisis by empowering people to understand their own metabolic health. She received her BA with honors and MD from Stanford, was President of her Stanford class, and has served on Stanford faculty. She then trained in Head & Neck Surgery at Oregon Health and Science University before leaving traditional medicine to devote her life to tackling the root cause of why Americans are sick. She has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Women’s Health, and more.

Her upcoming book, Good Energy: The Surprising Connection between Metabolism and Limitless Health, will be published on May 14th, 2024 with Penguin Random House and is step-by-step guide in how to be metabolically healthy and reach your full health potential in this precious life.

Here’s Casey to walk us through her Health Stack:

Plunge

“I cold plunge in my Plunge XL a few mornings a week to increase my mental resilience, boost brown fat production, improve my mood and motivation by modulating dopamine, and amp me up for the day. I keep it around 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit, do it for 3-4 minutes each session, and usually blast Kygo or Taylor Swift while I’m in there! It is so much easier doing it with someone else! Recruit a friend or partner to tell you a story while you’re in there! I love the look of the Plunge – it’s like a chic sculpture in the backyard.”

Eight Sleep Mattress

“I don’t have central heating or air conditioning in my house, so Eight Sleep is my temperature regulator at night. Aside from the health and sleep benefits of being cooler at night, is just pure bliss to get into a colder bed on a hot day during LA summer, or a warm bed during a cool night in LA winter. I love that each side of the bed can be a different temperature and it will change throughout the night based on your temperature preferences.”

Levels continuous glucose monitor program

“I’d argue that understanding and managing blood sugar levels is the most important thing we can do in the modern world filled with such toxic food of refined sugars and carbohydrates. The majority of American adults have problems with their blood sugar… figuring out how to keep it in a healthy range through diet and lifestyle choices, and minimize large fluctuations, is transformational for health, mood, weight, and energy.”

Subpod worm composting system

“I consider this part of my wellness routine because one of the happiest parts of my day is when I’m “feeding” my worms in the backyard! Each day, I accumulate food scraps in a big bowl in my kitchen (think egg shells, vegetable scraps, fruit scraps, leftover food, juiced lemons, coffee grints, food that’s gone bad…) as well as “browns” like cardboard boxes from the day that get torn up into smaller pieces. Each morning, I take these out into my yard and “feed” them to the 2,000 worms that live in my Subpod and incorporate it into the compost. Over weeks and months, those worms transform hugs amounts of food scraps into “black gold” — pure, beautiful compost that we spread around our garden to grow more food. It’s awe inspiring, it gets my hands in the soil, and it gets me outdoors and in the sunshine first thing in the morning. And I think the foundation of all good health is understanding that we and our food and soil are part of a larger interextricably linked ecosystem.”

Lettuce Grow Farmstand

“We have a large Lettuce Grow Farmstand with 36 plants in the backyard that is constantly producing kale, lettuces, edible flowers, arugula, herbs, and other greens that seem to be endless! We pull out greens daily for salads, to use as an alternative for taco shells, and to make lettuce wraps. I could not be more obsessed with this product – it is a gateway to becoming a full fledged gardener! Especially as food from grocery stores becomes more and more toxic, with more gross pesticides, preservatives, coatings on produce, etc, learning to grow organic, toxin free food and home is important and also brings a lot of joy.”

Fitbit Inspire 2

“Currently loving Fitbit Inspire 2 for my wearable tracking for sleep, steps, and active minutes. It holds a long battery life, it has a screen to show me my steps (I aim for at least 10,000 per day), and it tells me exactly which hours I was active or not, so I can see trends in my activity levels. I talk about this A LOT in book, but one of the most important things we can do for our health is just move MORE. Simply walking about 10,000 steps per day (as compared with lower amounts) is associated with 50 percent lower dementia risk, 44 percent lower risk of getting type 2 diabetes, and 31 percent (or more) lower risk of obesity, and so much more.”

Underdesk walking pad

“I love my underdesk walking pad to keep me moving throughout the day and get as much non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) as possible… NEAT refers to any spontaneous physical activity that is not the result of voluntary exercise. Before the urbanization of work and the transition to a desk-based existence, NEAT was just life. NEAT includes activities of daily living that require movement, like cleaning, grocery shopping, gardening, puttering around the house, walking from the car to a store, going upstairs, using a standing desk, and playing with kids—even fidgeting counts. Unsurprisingly, available data support that more NEAT is an essential tool for body-weight control.”

Remedy Place and Open in Los Angeles

Ice Baths at Remedy Place LA

“Remedy Place (in West Hollywood) and Open (in Venice) make biohacking and breathwork so chic and social. I love going to Remedy Place for an infrared sauna or cold plunge treatment, and Open for a immersive breathwork class. A single hour of breathwork at (shoutout to instructor Olivia, who reminds us that breathwork is work — it should be intense, and the results are worth it!) felt like a psychedelic experience, all through breath! Consider wellness activities like this as healthier alternatives to meeting friends for lunch, dinner, or a drink.”

HVMN Ketone-IQ

“My boyfriend and I fast almost every week from Sunday night (after dinner) to Tuesday morning for 36 hours, just drinking water during it. As a treat mid-fast we have “ketone cocktails” on Monday night where we put a Ketone-IQ shot with a Spindrift and squeeze of lemon or lime, in a wine glass. One big takeaway that we have from our 36 hour weekly fasts is the the only real hard part is 2-6pm on Monday afternoon.. it’s pretty easy before and after that. That ketone shot cuts the hunger and creates a fun ritual during the fast.”

WeNatal multivitamins for her and omega-3s

“I love WeNatal multivitamins and omegas because they are incredibly high quality, are in sustainable packaging, get shipped directly to my house, is a mission driven company, and covers the key bases for vitamins, minerals, and omega-3s to optimize hormonal health and cellular health in the months and years before getting having a baby. And they aren’t just for people who may be trying to get pregnant in the future— they are a great multivitamin regardless.”