Ratna Singh: Artificial Intelligence For Better Wellness, On A Bike? | Wellness Force #Podcast

What I can guarantee you is that Carol is going to get you the fittest that you can be. It's more effective than any other form of exercise in terms of the health markers. And because we've been independently tested and proven by the American Council on Exercise, completely non sponsored, they bought the bikes, they compared us to 30 minutes of jogging every day versus Carol, three minutes, three times a week. And you know, we outperformed on every parameter, at least by double. From the perspective of adaptation, you do reverse the effects of sitting all day. The scientists have told us that because we see it in the blood work. The blood works. What? Telling you whether or not you're healthy, Right? So it's your insulin levels, your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your hip to waist ratio, all of fitness levels, all of those things. And we know that because we measure it and we can guarantee that it works.

That's Ratna Singh. And this is episode 339 of Wellness Force Radio. Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the physical and emotional intelligence to live life well.

You can have the same brain states as someone who's done an hour of meditation every day for 40 years. There's a lot of losses that we go through. So the ability to be able to.

Cope with those losses is very important.

To build skill in it, because loss will happen.

You know, you have to have spiritual courage to really grow spiritually.

Because if you really want to take.

Guidance from your soul, you have to.

Be ready to realize that many of the things that you're asking for guidance.

On your ego has some kind of.

An addiction to or an investment in.

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We partnered with Cured last year. I love this product. I believe in the founder Joe and the entire team. You can get 15% off. They're giving us a big discount 15% off@wellnessforce.com cured. You can also just go to the Cured website, use the code WellnessForce to get 15% off your entire order. Get some of this rich, organically grown in the sun. By the way, this is a sun baked product. I think it's easy for people to forget that, you know that giant orb in the sky. It's actually what helps us live well and it's what helps these plants grow. And then we eat the plants and then we grow and we sleep and we have a great life. You can get the discount 50% off at wellnessforce.com forward/cured. What's good my friend? It's Josh Trant. You made it to Wellness Force. Today on the show we're talking about the good side. I promise it's the good side. It is the good side of technology. So many people right now are so opposed to technology. We have like the tech technology enthusiasts and we have the technology haters. Well to be honest, I find myself I'm in the middle. I'm opposed to the authoritarian and Orwellian forms of technology like microchipping children. Uh, it ain't gonna happen. But I am not opposed to the bright side of technology where it can actually help us develop deeper levels of physical and emotional intelligence. Because this is not our grandparents world anymore. This is the information age. So we get to use tools like our guest created on the podcast today to optimize our life, to give ourselves a stack of the environment in our favor. We're talking with the co founder and CEO of Carol Cardiovascular Optimization Logic out of London. Now our guest is a microbiologist by training but instead has spent all of her professional career in advertising and management consultancy in the UK and the US. She was McKinsey and Company's first Entrepreneur in Residence in Silicon Valley with her co founder Ulrich in Healthcare Ventures before founding Carol and it's C A R O L a venture close to her heart. She's a mom of two, she's a homemaker and a full time entrepreneur. She's got a busy schedule, she had no time for exercise but she recognized the importance and that's how she created this incredibly powerful bike where you can use this technology to let go of old weight by Accessing deep muscle fibers and using science to make your metabolism more efficient. Now, this episode was a beautiful conversation. Like, I don't say that lightly. I was totally blown away with Retina and, and the way that she blends spirituality, physical and emotional intelligence together with artificial intelligence. And you know what, this is interesting. Like, it makes me think about the time we had Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine, on the show for episode 312 where he introduced to us the concept of the technium. The Technium, he believes, is essentially our imagination and consciousness expressing itself through technology. And this is exactly what I feel from Ratna with her ability to combine the, the chakras into the bike and her yogic training. Here's the thing. The bike is the coolest biohacking I've come across in like five years. This is way better than other things on the market. I mean, no comparison. You only need two sprints on this bike to get the deep muscle activation you need, especially if you're stuck at home. So if you're stuck at home and you're feeling kind of stressed right now, like short of breath and you don't like running, or maybe you have joint issues, get on the bike. This bike uses your own biology. It's customized so that you get what they call, and what I actually believe to be true, the most intelligent workout on the planet. So if you're tired of doing steady state Cardio, instead, do two 20 second sprints on the Carol. So in like 40 seconds, you can get the same benefits as a 45 minute jog. Now you're probably thinking, Josh, what? It's like, way too good to be true. It's actually not too good to be true. It's really hard. If you've ever done an assault bike, you know what I'm talking about. But it's also really good for you, which means it's true you'll have to work for it. It's sweat equity, but it's so worth it. We're going to learn about insulin and insulin resistance. We'll learn about the type of muscle fibers needed to increase your metabolism. And we'll also explore the personal story of why Ratna believes this is the time for a bike like this to truly serve people at home and at the office, wherever they are. We explore karma and emotional intelligence. And just a vast array of rich conversation with a woman I'm really proud to introduce to you. Let's dig in to using artificial intelligence on a bike for better wellness. I never thought I'd say that, but it actually makes sense now. So let's dig into this. And I almost forgot to try this thing. Try this thing during the lockdown, during the quarantine. Ratna is literally giving the Carol bike away. Almost giving it away. Give it a test drive. Try it yourself. You can get $150 off your own personalized bike using code wellnessforce@carolfitai.com you get free delivery first software, free financing available. Like, they really make it easy for you to test drive this bike. So go over to carol fit AI.com, enter code wellness Force, save yourself a bunch of money and start doing your workouts more efficiently. Let's dig into the science and the spirituality and also just the radical intelligence of this AI on a bike for better wellness. My guest today is the co founder of a company called Carol. You guys know that I love fitness and wellness technology. I used to moderate panels for ces. Well, this woman is a microbiologist by training, actually. This is why we always explore physical and emotional intelligence on the show. Show and why this guest is perfect today. She comes from advertising backgrounds. She's worked in the Valley. She's been through the normal everyday Silicon Valley conversations to come out the other side. And now she's created a product that uses artificial intelligence so we can have better wellness. But here's the thing, you guys, it's on a bike. Artificial intelligence for better wellness on a bike. Ratna Singh, welcome to Wellness Force.

Thank you so very much, Josh. I'm delighted to be here and thank you for having me.

Well, I love your academic background because I think for the analytical people, you know, the logical people, they can trust you. But we are very spiritual here too. We understand there's a mental, physical and emotional triad that all connects us to actually living our life well. And before we even begin to this artificial intelligence conversation, how did you find yourself in the microbiology sector? Is that a story that came naturally for you or was there bumps and bruises along the way?

No, I will explain that in a minute. But let me just go back about the spiritual thing that you mentioned. We are very spiritual in our company. I am particularly spiritual and believe it or not, but the Carol logo, the colors are the chakra colors. So there's a story behind even our logo. And on the, you will see that we have a mindfulness breath pacer, which is the color violet, which is, you know, for your upper head chakra. So we try to blend the spirituality aspects in with the physical aspect. But so to answer your question, why am I, Why did I Do microbiology. Well, listen, I'm Indian, okay? You're gonna have either doctors or you're gonna have lawyers in the family. Sorry about this stereotype. My sister is a lawyer, and my father, who's a doctor, he wanted me to be one. Unfortunately, I have OCD and I cannot deal with disease and I cannot deal with death. And I keep saying to my husband now that had I been a doctor, had I been in the hospital now working, I would be sectioned. Because anytime I hear any news about, I just take it very personally, and it becomes debilitating for me. So I didn't become a doctor. But I love microbiology because when we were. I was doing at school, I was. You know, we have something called A levels. You do them before you go to university. And I did biology, A level. And, you know, part of that, we were studying virology, and it was just fascinating. And I love genetics, and so I went and studied that, and I couldn't. However, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I couldn't imagine living a life just staring down test tubes all the time, because I do like to live my life. And so I thought, okay, I'm not going to do this. What am I going to do? And I love advertising. I love that entire connection with people. I love the creativity around there. And so I went into the world of advertising, and I was very, very lucky to be hired by BMP in London, which was like, doing the most killer work and the most smart people there. And I had a great time. And then I know you're not asking me for my life story, so I should stop there.

No, it's beautiful because I can imagine, like, in preparing for the show, I just. I understood that you've worked in the Valley, you know, with McKinsey's entrepreneur in residence before joining this agency. And then I also can see now that you are very spiritual. I mean, I had no idea that in the logo of an artificial intelligence wellness bike that'll actually give people a workout in nine minutes or less, that it somehow had a color connection to the chakras. I mean, brain. Brain expansion here, like, this is. Now I'm even more excited to talk to you because there is this spiritual component to what you all do. But it's funny. Like, do you ever have people ask you, why blend spirituality with artificial intelligence?

Because why not? Is my answer. And, you know, at the end of the day, you're trying to balance yourself. And we are spiritual as well as physical beings. And as we leave this world, we don't take the physical with us, but we take the spiritual. And the way I try to do is that as long as you live a karmically correct life, and I'm certainly not preaching to anyone, so please don't think I'm doing that, you know, it's the right thing to do.

I love this because right now so many people are having their spirituality and their faith. Let's be real questioned, you know, by the time the show comes out, we will either be through the lockdown or it will still be there. We don't know. There's a lot of uncertainty right now. And I think most of us, if we have a strong connection with higher power, if we have faith of some sort, that we are supported, we are loved, we believe that we're a physical body, but inhabited by a soul. There's a lot of people being questioned right now and a lot of people that aren't working out, that aren't taking care of their physical body, I believe Ratna, they're suffering the most. And I think really what this represents for people to actually get in workouts at home, this is a total game changer. As you know, I came from the fitness industry, so 10 years of my background was training clients in gyms. And I'll tell you, the classic gym subscription model that the fitness industry incentivizes, it's ineffective. It's built on selling equipment and built on memberships on eft. This is totally different. Can you paint the picture of what Carol actually is?

Yes, of course I can. And precisely for the reasons that you mentioned, we developed Carol. Not a single founder of Carol is from the fitness industry. We're all either, you know, management consultants, engineers, scientists, and we have a doctor as well. And what binds us all together is a collective dislike for the gym and the traditional. The traditional exercise system. But the reason Carol came about is because I was doing a disease management program in the Middle Eastern country where diabetes is the second highest in the world. And I couldn't get people to exercise despite having incredible gyms. And so it was just a case of racking my brain and doing the research. Why don't people exercise? Me included, you know, which is, I don't have the time, or rather, I don't want to spend the time. I don't find that it's convenient for me to go to the gym, you know, do the exercise, shower, get back in my car, come home, it's three hours gone, don't want to do that. And frankly, it's just boring. And the innovation that we see is you still have to do that exercise. All that you're now getting is more different types of entertainment, so a different, you know, music, or a spin class with a celebrity trainer, or you can do your emails on the treadmill. And you've got to ask yourself, you're doing your emails on a treadmill, you're not getting much out of the exercise. Absolutely, yeah. So we fundamentally had to turn exercise and what it is right now on its head. And we said, right, we got to knock out the time element, the inconvenience and the boredom. So we set ourselves a task to figure that out. And, you know, being a microbiologist, I understood the science of high intensity training. And the more I looked into it, the more convinced I became that this would be the answer. And then I met a doctor professor called Dr. Niels Vollad, who's at Barth University. And he'd been working on this his entire life. This is his life's work. And he had developed what's called rehit. And basically what he'd proven was that you need these two sprints interspersed between warm up, cool down and recovery. And that was enough for you to get all the benefits of longer exercise. And you wouldn't sweat, right? So I said, okay, great, that sounds fabulous. Let me go try it at home. So I got myself an exercise bike, cranked up the resistance, and I was failing miserably. Either it was too hard and I would dial it down, or it wasn't hard enough, or I would sweat. Something was not right and I didn't enjoy it. So I went to Niels and I said, niels, it's not working for me. What am I supposed to be doing? So he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, I should have told you. You need a special resistance which is individual, and you also have to follow a specific protocol. You have to go from literally pedaling at no resistance, very, very, very, very fast, just before a couple of seconds, just before the sprint kicks in. And you have to go from that to max instantly. Now, I wouldn't have no way of knowing what my resistance should be, let alone apply it instantly. And so he took me to his lab and he showed me, you know, the equipment they use. And oh my God, they were just like big clunky, ergo meters, literally physical weights that were hanging off there. And it needed an exercise physiologist to tailor it all.

Oh, my gosh, let me just jut in real quick. I went to the UCSD, the facility there where they do, like, the VO2 max testing, literally the only way they can create this is in a lab setting. So you've put that in the bike?

I have put that in a bike. I've taken everything that's in a laboratory, including the exercise physiologist, and put it in a bike. Because here's the thing, Josh, when you went to the lab, the exercise physiologist saw you and could tell whether you are heavy and fit or heavy or fat. They tailor the reason I have no way of knowing that when you log into the bike, we had to build artificial intelligence machine learning into the system because judging by how quick your fatigue, your heart rate, your power production, comparing it to a database, we tailor everything for you, but still maximize it.

It's fascinating to me that it's the 2 sprint model. This is on the website as well. So it's carolfitai.com for those of you listening here. I think that what people get wrong about hiit, and especially when I was a trainer, is they think high intensity interval training is where you go really hard for 60 seconds and then you rest for a couple minutes and then they. People just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. When it comes to HIIT training, like what is wrong with the fundamental knowledge about HIIT training, how have you guys put real scientifically backed hit into the bike?

Yeah, so the, you're absolutely correct about the throwing a spaghetti on the wall. And when you, when I say to you go as fast as you can or go as hard as you can, that is what you'll do. And mentally you have a comfort zone and you're not about to cross it. Whereas what you have to do for HIIT to work so effectively and so efficiently in such a short time is you have to go beyond your maximum and you have to do what's called supramaximal sprints. And that's what Carol does. So we initially start off with a resistance that's based on mathematical formula that's been used in all the laboratories. It's been validated over 50 years. Originally developed by the Wingate Institute in Israel. We start with that and then we tailor it based on your performance. And the reason we know that you hit supra maximal is because, and you will see this when you do our sprint, within the first five to ten seconds, you will hit your peak power. The graph is going to peak and then you're going to start to drop. From then onwards, it's like a momentarily you can keep that peak power. It's physically impossible to keep it going for 60 seconds. It's impossible to keep it going for a minute. So once you hit that peak power from then onwards you're on a power decline until you hit absolute fatigue at the end of 20 seconds. That's when we know that we've achieved supra maximal and we've taken the guesswork out of it for you. Carol has done the, done the application of the right resistance at the right time. When we notice that you're getting fitter and you may be able to sustain that peak for a second longer, literally a second, and your rate of fatigue isn't as high it was before, she'll just increase resistance so that we carry on. So you are not going to plateau because she knows what else you're capable of and what your performance is. So having that data, that knowledge feeding back into the self learning algorithms, we just make sure that we're optimizing every single ride for you. Because if we didn't then your 20 seconds, if you just try to guess it, those 20 seconds would not be optimal because you wouldn't push yourself to supra maximal. You don't even know what your max is, let alone your supermax.

The fascinating part for me is someone's on a bike, they're getting that bioelectrical feedback signal through the AI. The bike itself is varying the intensity and they're getting measured as they do it so that the end result is you can get the most really depletion of glycogen so that you can then repair and replace it over the course of nine minutes. Right? It's nine minutes that this happens. I think some people are thinking, what do you mean retina nine minutes. How am I going to get a workout in nine minutes?

Actually I will say I'll go further and I'll say you're not getting a workout in nine minutes. You're getting the best workout of your Life in just 40 seconds. The nine minutes, it's eight minutes, 40 seconds, eight minutes of you are basically at walking pace. You're warming up for two minutes, you're recovering for three minutes and then you're cooling down for three minutes. Now the reason we do a three minute recovery is so that as you said, the glycogen depletion actually happens within the first 10 seconds of the first sprint. You're not depleting more glycogen in the second one. You're activating different molecules. So in your first sprint, once that's happened, you basically need to your heart rate to Settle to recover so you can have a good second sprint and three minutes at the end so your blood pressure can go back up. You'll recover your heart rate as well. Because when people come off Carol, and they're feeling a bit woozy sometimes or feel like they're going to, it's mostly because of the blood pressure that's dropped. And so we even have the exact cadence at which you should be pedaling so that you. You bring your blood pressure back up. And that's it.

I have a lot more scientific questions for you. But before we get to, like, the head stuff, the science stuff, I just have to ask you, like, from a woman's perspective, do you feel like this is a training tool that any woman can use?

Oh, goodness, goodness, yes. Except if you're pregnant, I wouldn't want you to use that. Use it at that point. But any woman, any man, any child, 12 years and up. My daughter is 14. She uses it. Yeah. Can you.

Because there is such a stigma out there. And unfortunately, you know, I'm doing my part to break that stigma. And it is. If women lift weights, they get bulky. If women do high intensity training, it's too masculine. Can we just let go of these labels and just start working out effectively for ourselves?

Oh, it's just complete nonsense. You know? Exactly. It's what works for you. And at the end of the day, and I think right now, this message should be loud and clear. It's about how healthy you are, and you need to do something that keeps you healthy. And I will tell you that story about my friend later on if you like, but it's really about health, and everybody should be doing it. And as it turns out, Josh, our users, it's equally split between men and women. So we have a lot of women as well as a lot of men.

It's funny, because exercise, in my opinion, yes, it's gender specific, but it's not gender dependent. There are some things when women are pregnant that they need special attention for. But when we look at insulin, like insulin sensitivity, for every single human being that's alive and breathing, it operates in the same way. We've talked about insulin with Dr. David Perlmutter and many people on the show, but can you just give us a brief scientific synopsis of what insulin does for the body and how Carol works with insulin sensitivity?

Sure. So insulin is a hormone that is required in order for you to process the sugar or system. When insulin is present, you are not burning fat for energy, but insulin is busy storing the sugar that you have that's circulating around now. I always say to people, consider your muscles like the cabinets in your kitchen. And you've just been to the grocery store. You come in and you try to put your groceries in the cabinets, but they're full. Where are you going to put them? And so if you think about what insulin is, insulin job is, if it was a robot who bought the groceries in and it was programmed to shove the sugar in, all it'll do is it's going to keep trying. It's going to keep trying, or it's going to get more robots in to try and help them. It wouldn't be thinking that, Listen, the stores are full. I can't put any more sugar in there. So when that happens, that's when you become diabetic in the long run, if it continues to be chronic. Now, the reason you don't burn fat while high levels of insulin are present is because fat converts into sugar so that it could be used for energy purposes. If you've already got enough sugar in your bloodstream, you don't want more of it through the conversion through fat. So how do you deal with the empty cupboards? Well, how do you empty the cupboards? So you have. Yeah, how do you empty the cupboards? This glycogen is in your muscles and you burn it through exercise. That's the only way. And the reason we have Carol as a bike is because we target the biggest muscle group in your body and the potent stimulus that starts there is actually linked to your survival mechanism and it goes through and affects the rest of your body as well. Now, what happens is that you have in the 20 seconds, the first 10 seconds, you will deplete your glycogen. We measured it and we can see it on the charts. You've done it. If you hit your peak and you start to come down, trust me, you've started your depleted, depleting your glycogen. And when you do that, there's a panic reaction that goes out in your body which says, oh my God, Josh, running out of energy. Stop, stop. Running out of energy. You know, he needs, he needs more sugar, he needs more energy. He's not good enough to survive and he's not good enough to run away from the saber toothed tiger. Because from an evolutionary perspective, you know, you're still to a great extent caveman. So what then happens is the body has to adapt, and it adapts by making you more insulin sensitive. Now, muscles, they have receptors. We have receptors. They call insulin receptors. So the insulin has to bind into that. Think of it as a lock and key system and open the lock and so that the sugar can float in. So insulin will do its job, which is it'll unlock, sugar flows in. Once the sugar is gone, the insulin's gone. And that's what you want. You want low levels of insulin in your body. A to prevent disease, be to lose fat. Because remember, if you have high levels of insulin in your body, you're not gonna burn fat.

Oh, just pause the tape here so we can replay that again if you have any questions on the physiology of insulin or insulin resistance. Because that was a really succinct way to explain it. I love the analogy of the cupboards, you know, like emptying them and filling them, because that's what we are. You know, these actin and myosin fibers in our sarcomere. I'm bringing out my old school physiology training here. We have these tears, these little microscopic hooks in our muscles. And what happens is lactic acid is produced. But people are afraid of that burn. They feel like, oh my God, if it's burning, I should stop. What I think, and I'm curious how you feel. What I think happens is people go to the gym, they're told to do 30 minutes of steady state cardio and then do their like minute long hiit training session. They're actually out of the pathway of energy that's going to give them the best results. This long term steady state cardio is not going to affect insulin resistance or not going to affect insulin sensitivity. I'm sorry. Sorry. It'll actually bring people to the point where they're losing muscle. Have you seen this to be true in your research?

No. I mean, but I haven't really looked into that in that much detail. What I would say is that you will probably get better insulin sensitivity, but it will just take a long time and you're going to be doing a lot of damage to your joints. And the one minute hit is, I can guarantee, if it's hit in the way it should be, which is super maximal. It's physically impossible for you to do it for a minute. It's just not possible. It's medium intensity, which is better than than nothing. But that's why people don't exercise. They don't want to spend 30 minutes and a minute suffering.

Yeah, it's so true. And this is why we enjoy. It's funny, I did a Marathon in 2006 and right when I was done rat and I was like, never again, I'm not doing a Marathon again, because it was so arduous. And I thought, wow, I actually gained weight when I did marathon training because of all the steady state. And then when I started to go deeper into the physiology of burst training, like what you're saying, the scientifically backed HIIT training, you know what I found? I found that I could like be at the gym way less time and still get proper results. But then what you've done with Carol is you've taken it even further where you're giving people really like a scientist on a bike. You're giving them a scientist that's based on their own physiology, where they can use it 24. 7 at home remote. And you also offer programming to them too, right? I mean, this is incredible.

It's a scientist. You're exactly right. It's your ex, your personal exercise physiologist on the bike. And, and you mentioned about behavior change earlier. And we realized that this is a lot about behavior change. And if you think about it, it's not that people don't want to do something often they just don't know how to do it or where to do it. And so we've taken all the guesswork away. We don't even allow you to change the resistance because if you were able to change resistance, I guarantee you'll bring it down yourself and therefore render the whole thing ineffective. And so far, after a million rides, we have not seen anybody not do the. Do the complete the sprint. Yeah, they'll be fatiguing, but they definitely complete it because they're like, come on, it's 20 seconds. I can do this.

Anybody can do something for 20 seconds, right? Yeah. And it's their max. It's not like they're gonna just, quote, do the 20 seconds. They're giving their all for that 20 seconds.

It's their all. But here's the other thing. I have a lot of older people. We've got 80 year olds on the bike. And there was this one lady who was phenomenal. She's a computer scientist and she's in her 60s. And she said, oh God. When I got Carol first, I thought, I'm never going to be able to do this. It's scary. And then she goes, but I can. And I said, yes, you can. Because Carol is adjusting to you while she's forcing you to go supra maximal. It's what you're capable of. And the only reason we know how to do this is because of all the measurements that we take, take and adapt.

The fascinating thing for me is that this is not only scientifically based, but that you have the chakras. I just looked at it now while we're here on the, on the interview, and I found like, oh, the chakras are in place for a reason. What is your own personal reason? What is your own connection to spirit that drives Carol? I mean, it's there, right there on the panel when people are using the bike.

Yeah, I mean, I just, like I said, I really think at the end of the day, it's all about the spirit. Right. And I think that what this coronavirus, it's literally, in my humble opinion, the universe saying humanity on reset. So the chakra colors to me are really, I'm Indian background, I've grown up with this. And I think the colors and the positions along your body are very important. And I think that the chakra colors and the chakras themselves do the both physical and the spiritual balance. I mean, just, just by default, because they are parts of your body and yet they have a spiritual meaning. You know, it's just like merged into one. So that's where it came from. So that's a story around the chakra colors. But we're going to be doing, you know, like Kundalini breaths on our, on our bike soon. The next one that's going to be coming out and when is the victory breath, which I tortured my children with just before every.

We so love and appreciate breath work here on wellness for us. And we have a program called Breathe, and it's about reducing stress. So we know, like, you know, the Pranayama and all the different ancient philosophies that surround breath work. It's so powerful. And look what happens when we sprint for 20 seconds. Imagine if we sprint for 22 rounds in that nine minute and we're focused on our breath.

Yes, exactly, exactly. And people do, because if you like on the breath pacer, you have to take people by the hand, like I said, you know, and yeah, you don't. They don't want to do it. They're not going to do it. But if we literally start counting and showing them visually what to do, then they tend to do it.

The guided experience is the one people trust because they know that somebody who's created it has actually done it themselves. How long was the R and D to come out with this where you knew, wow, this is going to work?

Years, Years, years. We put all our money into it, all of it. And it, you know, there's manufacturing involved. You know, our bike has got nine more hardware components than any other regular exercise bike out there. And, and so just, you know, we'd never done manufact Taiwan. How does the whole supply chain. So we have to learn everything. But more importantly, Josh, we needed to get data so that we could make our algorithms accurate. And so we just had to gather a ton of data. And we always get more data. We gathered the smarter algorithms become. So it took about three, three, four years. Yeah.

Wow. Three to four years. I mean that's, that's to me like somebody that really did their diligence. And it comes from a place of your advertising background, your scientific background. Do you look back and go, wow, this was the perfect path because look what you're doing now. Look what the world actually needs right now. People are in their homes more than ever. I mean people are on lockdown without technologies like this. I mean people are going to suffer more. Like really, in a way you're helping to have people not just get good workouts, effective workouts, but in a way you're helping to ease suffering here. It gives people an out.

I think what we are trying to do and you know you can, like you said, like I said, I've got people who've got Carol bikes, but they still run because they like to be outdoors. Fantastic. But what I can guarantee you is that Carol is going to get you the fittest that you can be. It's more effective than any other form of exercise in terms of the health markers and, and also fitness is obviously part of that because we've been independently tested and proven by the American Council on Exercise. Completely non sponsored. They bought the bikes, they compared us to 30 minutes of jogging every day versus Carol three times a week. And we outperformed on every parameter, at least by double. So I know I can guarantee you do that. It is more effective when you. No, no, go ahead.

I was gonna say when you look at human evolution and you see where we've come from, us being in the fields, working and that was our professions to now most of us are behind a screen or we're sedentary in a way like this human body was designed to. I mean our body's the most intelligent thing I think on the planet. And it was from higher intelligence. We have survived through the ages because we have this adaptability. So how do you see this in technology? You know, because it's so different than where we came from, or is it 100%?

It is exactly that. Imagine if you, if you were in the, in the savannah and you jogged all day, you just wouldn't have the energy to run away from the saber toothed tiger. So you walked and you ran for your life. So your body is conditioned to be in survival mode, right? And that's what we do. We switch on your survival pathways. Now if you're sitting in front of the computer all day long and you're sedentary, as you said, your body adapts, your body adapts to a sedentary lifestyle and you would not be able to get away from the tiger. Therefore you will be extinct as a species. And that's why you get the diseases that you get. And you know, perhaps it affects the mortality, perhaps it does not, but it certainly affects the quality of your life. So from, from the perspective of adaptation, it is because you do reverse the effects of sitting all day by doing Carol rides. The scientists have told us that because we see it in the blood work. The blood works. What, telling you whether or not you're healthy, Right? So it's your insulin levels, your sugar, your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your hip to waist ratio levels, all of those things. And we know that because we measure it and we can guarantee that it works.

This brings me back to a conversation we've had on the show about hormesis, this adaptive response for the biological systems. Hormesis is our body, our body's ability to endure, you know, of cold, cold tanks, cold temperatures, or short bursts like on the Carol. So this hormesis, it really forces us to adapt. But the way that Carol does it, you can do it without hurting your joints. I think a lot of people are scared to do like full body range motion exercises because they might have joint pains or injuries or. So if somebody has, has these pre existing conditions like this bike, can actually signal people into having more of a hormesis effect, right?

Absolutely, 100%. And you know, because the impact, because the exercise is so short, you actually don't damage your heart muscles either. Runners, long distance runners, marathon people, because of this constant pounding on your heart and on your capillary and your cardiovascular system, they have micro tears. And the level of inflammation in those people is much higher than in that offspring, for example.

That's fascinating. I would. That makes sense.

Yeah. And so you just. We were not meant to be marathon people. We were not meant to do that.

Yeah.

And so you, your body starts to suffer. Can I just tell you a real quick story, Josh, on the cold shower?

Yes, please.

Okay. It'd be really quick. So I, I bought a car recently and the guy who sold me the car, he's a young Italian man, Fantastic. Very, very interesting guy. And he told me that he's in his mid-30s, that he recovered from a very aggressive, rare form of cancer. And I was like, well, how did you do that? And he said, I took a cold shower every single day. And ever since I started doing that, my immunity just went up and I'm now cancer free. It's not five years. I was just totally shocked. And if you listen to Dr. Davidson Claire, who is a genius who's been doing all this fantastic research on the sirtuins and NMN and resveratrol, et cetera, he talks about survival pathways. Cold shower. Anytime your body is under stress, you switch on your survival pathways. That's what this guy did with cold showers. And Carol will do it through the supramaximal exercise. It's the kind of stress that's going to be like the cold shower. And it'll switch on your survival pathways to make you healthier and hopefully disease free in the future. And as Dave Asprey has said, you can stack the hacks. You basically take your coffee now, you do your cold shower, then you have your coffee and then do Carol. And that's amazing. But most people are not going to do that. I don't. Sure as hell I don't. I just Carol and I'm done. Instead of. So the idea is about putting stress on your body. And I pointed this out because this guy's so young and he's cancer free and he says it's because of his cold showers.

I love this because we're totally flipping exercise on its head right now. And it just feels right to me. It just feels right because even in my own experience, Ratna, when I've done long workouts, I feel tired for the rest of the day. And I'm constantly iterating. I mean, I'm like the ultimate n equals 1. As I'm sure so many people with us are, where we're just like, hey, give me the truth of what works for me. You know, give me the actual truth of what works best for my body. We do know that some people are endomorphs, mesomorphs, ectomorphs. They have different body styles. We also know that some people have more type 2Amuscle fibers, you know, like the more burst fibers. In other words, some people are built like sprinters, others, some people are built more lanky and more thin. So does it matter what type of body structure people have to get max results from? Carol?

No, I honestly don't think so. And also the Fibers that you have there are the ones that can convert from one to the other, depending, again, on what's needed in your body. So, you know, the whole science of epigenetics, I think, is much more strong because even with our exercise, 20% of the population are what's called non responders. So no matter what you do, you will not respond as much as, say, know Usain Boltwell, who is a super responder.

Why do you think that is? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but why do you think they're non responders? What is that?

It's genetics. Having said that, it will only, you know, it will only affect 23% of the actual action. Epigenetics are really powerful, and you can influence. You can override your genetic programming by doing things that can help you. For example, you know, intense exercise will help you. And we can tell also by the way, who is likely to be a lower responder. I'm one. Genetically, I've tested to be one. But you can tell by the rate at which they're improving their fitness, because we give you your fitness scores and then we just send them messages, say, don't worry, you're likely to be one of these. It may just take you a little bit longer to respond. Whereas others go from base level to very high in a matter of four weeks. So we do see that variation in our population, and we can communicate with people about the types they're likely to be genetically. It's just genetically. Take Joe. I don't really know why, when it's this, I guess mom and dad.

Well, I, I. The whole definition of wellness is rapidly changing. One of the things that I saw that, that Carol posted on Facebook just a few days ago was this powerful quote from Global Wellness Institute, focus on wellness, not fear. Like, let's just let that land for a moment. You know that right there. Focus on the wellness, not the fear. Right now, so many people, people are feeling that vagal fear response. I mean, the amygdala is in full activation for so many people. What is your advice to people when it comes to their attention and also their, Their wellness right now?

Yeah. Well, I will say that, look, fear is a destroyer of everything. And forgive me, I don't want to preach. I don't want to say I'm not free of fear because obviously I am as fearful as anyone else. I try to manage it every day by trying to just surrender to what is, you know, you just kind of. I just say to myself, okay, it's out there. I'm Doing everything that I can to. I don't go out, you know, blah, blah. And if I get it, I get it, but I can't. I can't worry about it. And also, if you worry about it, it's really. You are saying a prayer to attract that bad thing. It's a prayer for whatever it is that you don't want versus what you do want. So by surrendering, this is my advice as possible. Surrender. Now, I'll tell you the other story that I was starting to tell. You told me to stop. We started recording. Is a really good childhood friend of mine recently passed away from the coronavirus. He was a very successful plastic surgeon. He's my age, two children, and his father, who's 80, a neurosurgeon, also had coronavirus. Now, the father survived, the son died. What's the difference? Well, they were both tied to diabetics, but the son was not active or fit, whereas the father would go to the gym pretty much every day. Now, I'm not saying that's the only reason, but we know that if you keep fit and you exercise, you do have higher levels of your immune boosters. Maybe that was the case. Maybe just the viral load was bigger for one than the other. I don't know. But the age difference to me seems like, you know, very similar genetic makeup. One made it, the other didn't. And it should have been the other way around. You know, I don't know. I'm just speculating at this point. I just wanted to say that, well.

First of all, you know, my. My breath and my. My deep bow, and really, my reverence is to your friend and his family and. And you in the circle is because, gosh, there's such a mystery here on planet Earth, isn't it there?

Oh, my God.

Just continually honoring the mystery is, I think, a daily practice for all of us, especially right now.

Josh, you know, if you were speaking to me yesterday, I was a different person. I was, like, down, completely down on my knees, devastated by this. And other people that I know and love who have been ill. Thankfully, they're coming out of it, but everyone's just coming out of it going, that was something I've never experienced ever in my life. And then one person said to me, well, that's God's will. And I just went, there's just no way a good God would want to create this much pain to you. And so in my searching, the only thing that makes sense is karma. It's the karma that you come with, and that's what determines what happens to you. And it individualizes everything in many ways. And I think it explains things because then you're not sitting there going, God's an evil person, or God can judge me, or God can punish me me. It's down to you. And I believe in reincarnation. I believe even in karma now. And I think that you are born with a certain karma and you can change it by being aware through your life, and then hopefully the next one is better. But it's got to be karma, wouldn't you think, Josh? I mean, what else?

I mean, I'm lit up right now like a Christmas tree. Because the exact thing you're mentioning about karma is something that we explored on the show with John Wineland. So we talked about, like, how you can change karma by having conscious relations with yourself and with other men and women. Like, it's conscious relating, you know, being in our body, fully inhabiting our body. Here's. Here's what I feel like most people, and I know this because I've gone down this path for 10 plus years myself, they come from trauma. Either it's big T or little T, right? We all have trauma. And that trauma either allows people to fully inhabit their body. Like, in other words, they feel comfortable, they feel safe, they feel taken care of in their body, or the trauma is so significant that the psyche just leaves the body. And then people are smoking, drinking, doing all these things to distract themselves from the trauma that's stored in their body. And so what exercise does and what cold therapy does and what short burst training does and all these things, you know what they do, they shake us up. They wake us up. They wake us up to the truth of, wow, I really live in a body. They're getting us back into our body. And so I don't have the answer. I don't know if, if how many lives we have or what that looks like for all of us. But I do know this. If we can just be more comfortable and more loving and just reside fully in our bodies, we can shift karma. I mean, we can shift karma if we're fully at home in our body. That's how I feel about your story. That's what it brought up in me. I'm curious how you see that.

No, I could not agree with you more. And there is the Raja. Yoga is a type of yoga which is more mental than physical. It's the highest form of yoga. And, and it's a meditation that you do with your eyes open. It's bloody hard. I've tried Doing it. And I still can't do it, but it's extremely hard. And the idea is. And it's a group of amazing ladies they call the Brahma Kumaris. They're around the world, they dress in white, and they're just amazing. You imagine your soul in where your third eye sits, and you basically, this is all they do. This is their meditation, is you leave your body, your soul. Your soul leaves, goes and goes into the atmosphere, into the universe, leaves earth, merges with the universe and comes back down again. And, and, and that is it. That to them, that is the cleaning of your karma. And, and daily action, which makes you aware if you do that kind of thing, that the, the feeling that you have when you merge with the universe is a very positive, good feeling, so that it makes you more aware of your inner body, as you have just said. And when you become more aware, then you know, you're more. You have more empathy, you have more understanding, and, and that affects your daily deeds and therefore your karma, if that makes sense. I don't know. I'm by no means perfect at this. You know, I'm. Ask my children. I'm screaming at the time.

So you haven't reached full enlightenment yet?

No, God, no. And I ever will. But I want to.

You know, I so enjoy this blending. I'll be honest with you, I didn't know exactly how this conversation was going to go, but I had heard you on Dave Asprey, and I knew Mary, who's a friend of the, of Wellness Force. And I'm just so enamored with the way that you're blending technology, specifically artificial intelligence and spirituality and like, the meaningful practices, the meaningful things that actually make a difference for us here in this world. Like, I just want to compliment you here on the show because, gosh, when people hear AI, they get scared. They're like artificial intelligence. Oh, my God, Terminator. It's going to come hurt us. Like, how do we embrace technology from a humanitarian, from an egalitarian perspective? And how do you personally see AI and wellness blended?

Yeah, you know, I think AI is scary in many ways, even though I'm involved in it, because some of the stories that I hear and that the reason I find it scary is not because I think they're going to go away and, you know, kill us or anything like that, but they're going to make a lot of jobs simply redundant. And then what's going to happen to all these people? How are we going to feed them? How are they going to survive? Who's going to be the person with the upper hand at the end of the day. Is it creativity? I don't know. For me, it's more of a question of ethics more than anything else. The kind of machine learning, the AI that we're doing right now, it's not dangerous in any way. It just means that you as a human can be more efficient, everything can be more personalized, everything can be more tailored so that it gives you time to enjoy yourself more. That's what I care about.

Me too.

But where, where this AI is going to go, I have no idea. I just hope that it doesn't make us redundant. I mean, and take that together with the. With an aging population and, you know, with us living longer and longer. I don't know. What is it? Is it. Do we have to own land? Do we have to own property? Do we. What do we do? Do we have to become really good painters? Creative that an AI couldn't do? You know, I don't know.

Oh, gosh. I mean, the coolest part about your profession and what you're delivering to the world is that at the end day, when you put your head on the pillow, you sleep well because you're putting something out there that people are actually getting a better life from like that. For me, I don't know how people work in industries where they're not doing that. So kudos to you there. And in this question of longevity and wellness, what does the research show? What does the research show from a wellness perspective, from a longevity perspective, when it comes to scientifically validated HIIT training compared to anything else.

Yeah. So, you know, scientifically validated hit training that you see published, you know, you'll see it on PubMed, et cetera, all of them use specialized equipment and they use certain formula and a protocol that then delivers the results that they get. Right up until now, you were not able to replicate that in the consumer world. So anything else that people were doing was not hit, it was pseudo hit. Now, when we develop Carol, it is the lab equipment, it is the exercise physiologist in your home. And it's not clunky, it's nice and tidy. So you can actually use it in your home. And in fact, it's smarter than the ones than the machines at home, sorry, in the laboratory, because a lot of scientists are now using our machines. Now, in terms of scientific validation, it's not about hit, it's about, does Carol work for you? And that's what the American Council on exercise, the wonderful Dr. Cedric Bryant, who is the chief science officer and also the president of ace. He said, okay, yeah, sounds really good. But I got it tested. And I said, I've got all this research. He goes, doesn't matter, I still have to test it. So he spent about $20,000 comparing Carol to the government guidelines, which are 30 minutes of exercise five days a week, right. It's 150 minutes. And he got Dr. Lance Dallek, who is a professor at Western University at Colorado. They have a massive exercise physiology research place there and they do a lot of high altitude research. So he charged him with it. And I had nothing to do with that. Didn't pay. They bought the bikes. I wasn't allowed to contact them during the course of the study. So that was completely neutral. And at the end of the eight weeks, the results were so spectacular that they blew even me away. And I think the reason for this is not just because we replicate the exercise system that labs have, but because, because we tailor it every time you ride. See, in the laboratories, once they set the resistance at the beginning of the study, let's say six week study, they don't change it, we do. We change it every time you ride based on your performance. Right. So we were able to push you beyond your comfort zone every time. The results after eight weeks, you can see it on our website. I can send it to you. You can put it on your website too. Were amazing. Now, from a wellness perspective, because that's what ACE is interested in, right? At the end of the day, is it going to be beneficial to the health care systems long term? Because look, this number four inactivity is number four on the list of killers. And it's no longer a noun, it's a disease category. And it is, you know, it's responsible for most of the chronic diseases as well as bad diet that people will get later on in life, like diabetes, heart disease, etc. And so they're interested in seeing whether or not your risk, Josh, of getting one of those diseases decreases with exercise and which type of exercise is more effective at decreasing your risk. Up until now, the government guidelines were there and it was 30 minutes of exercise per day. So the guys at ACE took loads of blood work, cholesterol, blood sugar, everything, blood pressure, fitness, and they plugged it into a score which is called the METS Z score score. And that is your risk of getting ill in the future. Right. And the idea is exercise should reduce the score. Now this is the fascinating bit. So the 30 minute group, obviously the government guideline group, is going to reduce meds ED score and they reduce the med Z score by 26%. Sorry, met Z. I'm sorry. Z score by 26%. We reduced it by 67%. I'll let that sit for a bit. 67%. Now imagine the impact on global healthcare systems that are already on their knees.

I mean, I'm just feeling the shake of that. Because science is not the enemy. Like, science is here to serve us. But the best part is that you've blended science with spirituality. That's what I love most.

Yes, I've done it for me and you. I've done it literally, if you think about it, I've done it for me because it was the only kind of exercise I'm going to do. I want to be around for my children. I want to live till I'm 110 or 111 years old. But I want to be healthy, you know, I don't want to have arthritis. I don't want to have heart disease. I don't want to take loads of pills. I want to still be young. And it can be done.

Yeah, with cardio, in my opinion, and I think you share the same. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's not about duration. It's about that burst. It's about that intensity. Like, you know, the minimum effective dose is really what we're talking 40 seconds or less here.

40 seconds, that's it? Yeah, that's it.

Anybody can do this. And that's why I love this the most. But what's special about this and I, I think was unique. People say that word, unique, but I actually can sense it with you. Your story, your mission, your vision, the way that you've connected all this scientific and academic background with spirituality. To see this lens of like, what are we doing here? How do we actually serve ourselves? And can we honor our unique differences? Like, Carol kind of hits the mark on all these things. I gotta be honest with you, it blew me away when I saw it. I'm like, oh, it's an exercise bike. But it's like it's so much more than that. This is something that people can customize for themselves. How do you see this plugging into someone's lifestyle for one year, two year, three years? Will it adapt for that long for someone?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then when you reach your peak, maybe you reach it in 10 weeks. Maybe you reach it future the in. In 12 weeks. We don't know. Then Carol will put you on a maintenance program. She'll say, fine, this is what you now need to do. You're always being told what's going on. So if you have it was too much for you, one day she'll take it down or she'll tell you, she said, oh, I pushed you too hard last time. I'm going to take it down today a notch. It could be in decimal points because we don't have any knobs. It's all computer control. It's up to her. She will tell you what your maintenance schedule should be like, the way it fits into people's lifestyles. Again, everything is inverting on its pyramid. And I swear to you, this is no lie. This is my morning routine. I get up, I shower, I get dressed, I do a Carol, I leave, not the other way around. You don't need to shower. And the reason you don't need to shower is because the two 20 second bits of hard work are so short, your body doesn't get hot enough to sweat. And that's another myth. You sweat because you get hot, not necessarily because you worked hard. Anybody who's done a car will turn around and say, that's the hardest workout with my of my life. And my God, I'm not sweating.

Yeah.

And so, and so, so that's how it fits into their lives. We say that we can give you your fitness and your life and that's what everybody wants. They want their fitness and they want their life. So that's, that's my, my takeaway on that one.

Well, the blending of the science and the spirituality, essentially, what I know you're doing and what I can tell deeply within you is that you're just trying to figure out how to live your life well. And you're sharing that with people. But how would you define this? You know, if you had to define wellness, how would you define wellness? What does wellness mean to you? To live life well.

Oh, God. To live life well for me will ultimately be about surrendering. You know, I go back to, I'm a Hindu, so I go back to the Gita, right? That's what essentially it's all about. It's about setting an intention and it's about not worrying about the result, which ultimately is surrender. To me, that is wellness, ultimately. But that spiritual wellness, you got to combine it with physical wellness. Because if you don't, then you're just not going to be around for very long for your loved ones. So if I can, for me personally, that's my mission. I want to get to the point of complete surrender mentally and physically. I want to be as fit as I possibly can with Carol. The two combined should give me the quality of life that I. That I aspire to. I hope.

I love your answer. I've so enjoyed this conversation and I want to thank you for your generosity too, because you gave Wellness Force, our entire global community, a pretty significant discount. Free delivery software for an entire year with unique programming and $150 off you guys. If you're looking for something and you're stuck at home and you're feeling like in a rut, give Carol this test drive. Can you tell us more about the offer you're giving for WellnessForce?

Yes, of course. So we call this campaign, during this Covid time, Pay it Forward. And the reason we're doing that is again, from a karma perspective, but also for us to say thank you. Because in the days that we were nothing, you know, we were babies. We still are. There was so much good goodwill that came towards us. So many people helped us and they didn't have to. And this is our way of saying thank you to them and paying it forward. We take a big hit on these kind of discounting because the bike, like I said, has got nine more hardware components. The software needs a lot of maintenance and continuous updates. So we're taking a big hit on it, but it doesn't matter. This is the humanity on reset and hopefully that our gratitude, gratitude to people who helped us means that we can help you and therefore you can get your fitness together. I'd be very grateful for that.

Well, thank you for that. The website is carolfitai.com use the code wellnessforce. The free delivery, the free year of software and $150 off Ratna. Just deep bow for the work you're doing in the world. This conversation boomed away. I had no idea of your spiritual side and the chakra connection to your work and how you're augmenting technology to help the human condition improve and become more aware. You know, more love, more connection. That's what to me this is about. It's much more than a bike. So thanks so much for what you do in our wellness world and thanks for coming on the show.

Oh, my pleasure. I'm so delighted to have been with you and I love that you are also a spiritual and a physical guy. I love spiritual stuff and. And you get it. And you can combine everything. And by the way, you have an absolutely gorgeous voice. Maybe you can do a voiceover for it.

Let me know. I'd be happy to. Well, thank you for all. Thank you for being with us, everyone. We're talking about this bike, this really wellness tool. It's not just a bike, it's a wellness tool in the group@wellnessforce.com group. Make sure you go to the show notes today as well to enter the wellness code so you can get your discounts and give your yourself more peace. This is about having peace and being well and living a life of rich wellness. So until we see you again next week, Ratna and I are saying love and wellness your way.

Love and peace. Exactly. God bless.

Hey, thanks for listening to the show my friend. Everything you learned on this podcast starts with your morning practices. So from over 300 world class guests, we pull together six simple yet powerful morning practices down into a 21 minute system guaranteed to increase your vibration and the way that you feel every day. Get this free powerful guide over@wellnessforce.com M21 and if you love this show, share it with somebody. Share it with somebody that you love or that you care about. You can support the show easily by leaving us a five star review on iTunes. Just go to wellnessforce.com review or if you're on your phone, just tap it. Hit the link in purple that says review this podcast. And the journey does not stop here. We're continuing this discovering process in our private Facebook group over@wellnessforce.com group. You can be a part of it. You already are. All you have to do is join us@wellnessforce.com group and I will welcome you at the door. Now go out into your life and live your life well. And until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness. Sa.