What happens when someone decides to walk over two million steps in a single month? For Kwame Terra, founder of BEHr Health, it became a transformative journey highlighting the power of movement to change lives.
Terra's incredible feat—averaging 66,000+ steps daily for 30 days straight—wasn't just about breaking records. It emerged organically from seeing BEHr Health users transform their lives through million-step challenges, with participants losing 20 pounds and reducing medications. Walking became more than exercise; it became a vehicle for community connection and health transformation.
The physical demands were immense. "One day I was on my feet for 19 hours," Terra shares, detailing the knee pain, Achilles issues, and fueling challenges he faced. Yet even amid this grueling schedule, he placed 66th out of 16,000 participants in a major 10K race. His dedication speaks to the urgency behind his mission: addressing the shocking 26-year life expectancy gap between predominantly white and Black neighborhoods in New Orleans separated by just three miles.
BEHr Health tackles these disparities through a unique community-based approach. Rather than developing technology in isolation, Terra involves the communities he serves as equal partners in designing solutions. The platform centers around a comprehensive health score measuring seven wellness categories while connecting users to local healthcare providers, resources, and motivating challenges.
"We're not just another health app," Terra emphasizes. We're a health equity platform." This distinction matters deeply in his approach, which focuses first on communities facing the greatest health challenges and then scales learnings upward. By targeting solutions specifically for Black communities, Terra's team develops more culturally responsive tools to benefit everyone.
Ready to join this movement? Download the BEHr Health app using access code "HEALTHYLIVING" to discover your health score and connect with this growing community. As Terra prepares for BEHr Health's official launch in October, his journey reminds us that sometimes the path to health equity begins with simply putting one foot in front of the other.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Joe Grumbine, and today we have a very special
guest by the name of Kwame.
Tara.
Kwame is a health techentrepreneur, a public health
advocate and founder of BayerHealth.
He recently made history bywalking over 2 million steps in
30 days to raise awareness forcommunity-driven health
(00:28):
solutions.
Rooted in New Orleans andpowered by purpose, kwame's
building a future where healthof Black communities is informed
, inspired and well-directed.
And that's quite an impressivelittle intro there.
Kwame, welcome to the show.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm doing great, Joe.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Kwame, welcome to the show.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing great, Joe.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
I would just love to hear fromyour point of view.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Tell me a little bit about this.
2 million steps in 30 days,yeah.
So I came up with the ideaseveral months ago.
Last year we had a few userscomplete 1 million steps on the
app.
So for those who don't know ourcompany, we run a technology
platform where we give users ahealth score and we also run
steps challenges.
So steps became a big thingwithin the Bear Health community
(01:19):
and, like I said last year, oneuser did a million steps in May
.
He lost 20 pounds, he was takenoff blood pressure medication
and became a big story.
And just I said last year, oneuser did a million steps in May.
He lost 20 pounds, he was takenoff blood pressure medication
and became a big story.
And just steps again became abig thing in the community.
And then another user did it inJuly, Two users did it in
August and another user did itin October, and so we all got to
talking like you know what'sthe world record you think any
(01:40):
of?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
us, We'll go to the top right.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, why not?
And you know, the funny thingis that the Million Steps
Challenge was originallysupposed to be connected to a
fundraising campaign for thecompany.
So I wanted to take a millionsteps to raise a million dollars
for our company.
And the person that I kind ofasked to help me in that journey
Again, he's the first one to dothe million steps.
He's a doctor here in NewOrleans and it kind of lost the
(02:08):
plot.
We kind of got rid of the ideaof raising money around it
because he had such anincredible outcome around his
million steps and everybody thatdid it after that again also
lost 20 pounds and improvedtheir overall health and so kind
of, in a sense, we kind ofbrought back that same original
plot, but this time with abigger goal.
(02:31):
And so on March 27th, justbefore the beginning of April, I
decided that I would go afterthe world record to launch our
official campaign for the launchof Bear Health.
And so April 1st through April30th, I was clocking 66 plus
thousand steps per day.
Wow, 30, 30 miles, 30 to 35miles of walking per day that's
(02:56):
a lot of walking.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What else did you?
Didn't do anything else, reallyright.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
No, I didn't really have time.
One day I was on my feet for 19hours, wow, you know.
And when I was first planningit out I didn't have that much
time to plan.
I was thinking, okay, I canwalk around this meeting, I can
walk around this work.
But eventually, once I started,once I realized I just
literally wouldn't even haveenough time in the day, I
(03:23):
flipped my perspective to whereI can work around this walk.
I can work around this walk,you know, this meeting, so and
so forth.
So it it.
It took me making it the numberone priority for the month to
to accomplish it for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So in this walk I, I, I'm sure you had some
interesting experiences.
Why don't you tell me just acouple of little anecdotes of
this two million step walk, yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So, yeah, you obviously see a lot when you're
walking, you're slowed down,you're paying attention.
No more, you have to payattention so you don't get hit
by cars and things.
But one of the first things Inoticed and I don't know how
interesting this is, but Ithought it was interesting.
You know, people honk at eachother all the time, sure, and
(04:12):
nine times out of ten whensomeone was doing something that
caused another person to honkat them, they were waiting for a
person, a pedestrian, to walkacross the intersection, and
that's when they were stoppedand the person behind them
obviously didn't know or wasn'taware that they were waiting on,
you know, whatever's going onin front of them.
And I just thought that wasinteresting.
You know, again, like we, weassume that someone is just
being an idiot because they'rejust a terrible driver, as many
(04:36):
of us are.
But I don't know every.
Every time I saw somebody honk,it was because they were.
They were um, so the person infront of them was waiting on
somebody to cross the road.
So I just I just thought thatwas interesting because, you
know, we always assume thatpeople are doing things for you
know the wrong reason.
But but usually people havepretty good reason to be doing
(04:56):
what they're doing and beforeyou, you know, honk at them or
yell at them or critique them.
Maybe think about why you wouldbe doing the same thing in the
same situation and you mightstumble upon the fact that
they're just trying not to hitanother person walking.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Absolutely.
You know the old adage when youassume something, you make an
asset of you and me, and I can'ttell you how true that
generally is.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Another interesting thing Idon't think people realized how
much walking I had to do.
So you know people would comeon walks with me, obviously, and
that definitely helped thejourney for sure.
And you know we'd walk for likethree or four hours and they'd
(05:41):
be absolutely beat, beat, youknow, and but feelings
particularly accomplished, right, they just walked four hours,
that's, you know, a littlelittle under 10 000 steps, um,
or I mean a little under 20 000steps, and they're like, oh, so
you're pretty much almost doneand I'm like just about a third,
yeah, yeah, not even close, andso that that put things in
(06:04):
perspective for me and also forother people.
Um, just the sheer effort thatit took, it's almost like doing
a marathon every day it was justabout but yeah, yeah if I was
trying to run it, I would havebeen burning about 5 000
calories a day.
Wow, which is just not not no,it yeah, it wasn't so I was
(06:28):
burning about 5,000 calories aday, which is just not.
No, it wasn't so.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I was burning about 2,500 calories per day on top of
my resting calories.
Wow.
So when you're going alongdoing this, you know people that
do endurance sports often getplagued with injuries and things
like that.
How were you able to managethis?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, so I mean I do have an endurance background.
So I ran cross country andtrack in college and obviously
all through high school.
So, and I was training for a10k.
So the Crescent City Classicwas coming up here in New
Orleans major race, biggest raceof the year for the city and
I'm a part of a run club and wehad all been really training for
(07:12):
this for the past six monthsand so I was in good shape, I
had my legs under me for sure,but I wasn't sure how my body
would respond to all thistalking and so I actually
stopped training once April hitand I started this challenge,
just to be cautious.
And honestly, the first fivedays were absolutely brutal.
(07:35):
The tendons on the kind ofinner part of my knee both knees
I mean I couldn't flex all theway without pain and and just
kind of like discomfort.
Um, that took about five daysfor my, for my legs to adjust to
just the sheer volume and forthat pain to kind of go away.
Um, additionally, um, like, Iwas obviously burning a lot of
(08:00):
calories and so keeping up withmy fueling was a challenge for
me.
So I eat, I do intermittentfasting, so I typically eat.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Not much room for that right.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, right, yeah, I kind of went out the window in
April and so there was maybelike day three or four where I
would start getting sharp painsgoing through, you know, my head
.
And so now I'm gettingconcerned because I'm like, okay
, I want to do this attempt, Iwant to raise this awareness for
my company, but you know, is itworth the risk?
Um, but, but I just got muchbetter about about the feeling.
(08:31):
People started bringing me food, uh and, and so that that
definitely helped.
But the main, the main thingthat came up injury wise was
actually, um, about a week, aweek and a couple of days out
from the Crescent city classicrace.
So the race was scheduled forApril 19th, saturday, and, um,
the Thursday, not the Thursdaybefore, but but two Thursdays
(08:53):
before that Saturday I was doingkind of like a cool down jog
with with some of my run clubteam members and I couldn't push
off without pain, like Icouldn't.
I couldn't run without pain inmy Achilles, like sharp pain in
my Achilles, and that's notsomething obviously you want to
really play around with at all.
And so I pulled up after liketwo laps and just got back to
(09:15):
walking and I could walk with nopain.
But for the next eight days Iliterally could not push off at
all, like to the point where ifI saw other people like running,
I'm like, how are you doingthat?
It had really gripped me thatmuch.
And so, you know, I had once,you know, I was already
considering not running, just tolike not risk an injury Cause,
(09:37):
even though I could maybe run.
You know, I didn't want.
That didn't mean that somethingwasn't on the verge of collapse
, right.
But then once the Achilles paincame up, I was pretty much like
, oh, I'm not going to do it,but I still really wanted to.
And the Friday before the racewe were uh, my company, we were
tabling at an expo kind of theexpo, pre-race expo for the
Crescent city classic, and therewas a podiatrist there, um,
(10:05):
giving a talk, and so I'mwalking over to talk to the
podiatrist, but literally rightbefore I get there, a news
interview stopped me becausethey saw me wearing a shirt that
said walking to break a worldrecord.
And so we had a chat about thatand they asked me you know,
have I done the classic before?
Am I going to be runningtomorrow?
I'm like, oh, I'm actuallyprobably going to walk the whole
race.
You know, because I don't wantto risk injury.
I'm having some pain.
So after that conversation Iwent over to the the podiatrist
(10:26):
and asked him.
I mean, I told him what I wasdoing.
I'm like, hey, I'm walking thismany steps a day.
I'm already 18 days into it.
Um, I'm having this pain in myachilles.
Do you think I should evenconsider trying to run tomorrow?
And he told me to just put aheel insert in right, just like
a small lift, yeah, and makesure I'm stretching.
So mind you again, I hadn'tbeen able to run for eight
(10:48):
straight days.
Wow, I go grab, I walk to the,to the walgreens near the expo.
I put in a heel insert in andall of a sudden I can run with
no pain no way I'm so, I'm soserious.
And then so that night, um, Iwent on the treadmill just to
kind of test if I could get tomy normal, normal pace.
Uh, for, for, uh, for racing.
(11:11):
And I got up I started gettingsome pain, like closer to my
true race pace, so I decided Iwould kind of back off
officially.
But I ended up doing, uh, Iended up running that.
That next morning at theCrescent City Classic I placed
66 overall out of 16,000 peopleand ran 37 to 42.
Nice.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right on.
That's awesome.
Well, let's talk about yourBear Health.
Tell me a little bit about thecompany and maybe, really
importantly, what got you intoit.
Where did you come from thatsays I'm going to start a, a
platform like this?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
yeah.
So, um, you know, in undergradmy goal was to become a doctor,
but early on in my academiccareer I was introduced to
research and kind of developedan appreciation for addressing
problems from the the root ofthe problem, not necessarily,
you know, addressing thesymptoms or once they've become.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And that wouldn't make you a very good doctor.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, you know, our healthcare system on some level
is designed to manage and treatdisease right, not necessarily
create health Exactly.
And so I'm just more passionateabout that.
And so, you know, after Igraduated, you know, attend
conferences related to science,health, social justice, and,
like, I traveled all over thecountry doing this and just kind
(12:35):
of deciding exactly you knowhow I wanted to spend my time
here.
And it wasn't until theCOVID-19 pandemic that I really
was like, hey, I need to come upwith a solution to this, just
like everybody else, devastatedby the effect it was having on
their country.
And we just wanted to dosomething so that next pandemic
or next challenge that we face,we're in better health, have a
better outcome.
(12:56):
And my first thought was I don'tthink we really know how bad
we're doing.
I know, we know we're not doinggreat.
I know, we know we need to beexercising more and eating
better, but I don't think weunderstand the short and
long-term implications of ourcurrent health status.
Like I don't think many peopleknow that you can die from a
heart attack at 40 years old,you know.
And so I wanted to communicatethat clearly to people.
(13:19):
And so that's where I came upwith the idea of a health score.
I reached out to a technologycompany who had been working on
it.
We're going to health score anda technology platform to kind
of communicate that to people.
And so, yeah, I wanted to dotwo things I wanted to
communicate that clearly topeople, and then I also wanted a
method or system to where Icould follow up with people as
(13:41):
they fall off after beingeducated or excited about their
health, right?
So you can imagine, someonegoes to a major workshop and
they learn all these thingsabout their health and now
they're super excited aboutbeing healthy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
They go home January 1st yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, and then two weeks later, they're like back
in their old habits and sothat's fine, right, we still
need those workshops.
But how do we follow up withpeople?
That's more than like afollow-up email three months
later hey, how are you doing?
You still doing, you're stillon the, on the, the tips that I
get.
You're still working on the,the improving your health, like
like we talked about.
So I wanted something thatpeople can see change on a daily
(14:17):
basis.
So the health score on our appevery if you go on a run one day
, your score is going to go up afew points.
If you get two or three hoursof sleep one night, your score
is going to go down, and then,based on those changes, you'll
receive messaging from ourautomated coach, as well as be
able to connect with health careproviders and resources on what
we call Bear Connect.
And so really, I just wanted aone-stop shop health partner for
(14:38):
people, one to help youunderstand your current health
status and then be able toconnect you to resources, um and
coaching that you need to toimprove it wow, that sounds, uh,
sounds powerful.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I I at first I thought it was, you know like
one of these, uh, you know,rings and things that just kind
of track things but, you'reactually, uh, offering solutions
and um and resources connectedto that.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So yeah, absolutely.
I'll also say to your pointabout the wearables.
You know, and I've actuallybeen thinking about it a lot
lately when I came up with theidea in 2020, I immediately
enrolled in a master's of publichealth program with a
concentration in health equity.
(15:24):
And, for those who don't knowwhat public health and health
equity are, public health isdefined as the art and science
of prolonging life, and thenhealth equity is there to ensure
that each person, no mattertheir socioeconomic status or
what have you, gets the bestchance they can get at, you know
(15:45):
, prolonging their life.
And so, with that health equityconcentration, I learned about
an approach to research anddevelopment called
community-based participatoryresearch, which basically
involves you inviting thecommunity that you aim to serve
in as equal partners in a designand development of solutions
that you are building for them.
So, instead of just developingsome technology and throwing it
(16:08):
at people and hoping that somepeople use it, we engage the
community from the verybeginning.
And it's not like, hey, youshould download this app because
we think it'll be great for you.
It's what are you currentlystruggling with?
How are you currently trying tosolve that problem that might
not be working and how can wehelp Right, and then we build a
relationship, first and foremostwith the users, and then
(16:29):
ultimately you know everyone youknow ideally is ultimately on
the platform and we're able totrack these trends over time.
Part of what makes us differentis that we aren't just another
health app.
We're a health equity platform,because all of our user
insights go into this aggregatereport that we call the health
score report, and each month welook at these trends and use
(16:49):
that to inform modifications tothe platform as well as what
kind of events and experienceswe curate that promote health.
And so the app is one part ofthe solution, but it's not the
whole solution.
And if, after my work was done,I look outside and I see a
bunch of people obsessing overtracking their steps, counting
their calories and, you know,comparing their heart rate
(17:11):
variability and their VO2 max, Iwould not.
I would not be happy.
You know, like that, that's notthe.
To me, that's not, that's nothealth.
But if I look outside and I see, you know, a group of women
walking together or peoplehaving a healthy meal together,
like a large community meal,like that would make me, I'd be
happy with that, and we'll stillbe tracking it through the app.
(17:32):
You know the improvements onhealth through the app, because
we can't improve what we aren'tmeasuring.
But we're going to startfocusing more on the experience
with our company.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So how did you target a community?
We've got such a just a hugespectrum of of people and places
and variables.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So how did you narrow a community to target down?
Yeah, so so we focus on theblack community, primarily
because one that's where theproblem is closest to me.
I'm trying to solve a specificproblem, right, health
disparities that exist in theblack community, not necessarily
, um, just health broadly.
And when you think about thepolicies and the practices and
(18:16):
the beliefs that created thesedisparities, they were very
right and they were targeted andthey were effective and very
creative.
Right, and how they, you know,created these disparities.
And so, based on my educationand training, the solution
should be equally targeted,right, and it's not.
(18:38):
This isn't like a political orracial thing.
This is a problem that I'minterested in solving and, based
on my understanding, the mosteffective way to solve the
problem again, you know,ultimately the most effective
way to solve health will be onan individual level.
Right, I'm not in a positionwhere I can, you know, do
(18:58):
individual to shed, so I'mcurating solutions informed by,
by communities and cultures,very specifically the black
community right now, and and sothat's that.
That's really why we focus onand the problem is is great here
?
Right, you know they're,they're.
You take new orleans, you can,you can find disparities in life
expectancy as great as 26 yearsbetween lakeview, lakeview and
(19:21):
intermay here in new orleans.
So lakeview's predominantlywhite neighborhood, the average
life expectancy there is 80years, right, a little bit above
the national average.
But less than three miles away,in Treme, life expectancy is 54
years.
And so you know that Delta,right, that's, that's the urgent
problem that I'm interested insolving and it's affecting the
(19:45):
black problem that I'minterested in solving and it's
affecting the black communitythe most, particularly where I
am.
And so, yeah, that's why Ifocus on the problem.
And one of the fortunate thingsabout focusing on, you know, I
say the most dispossessed amongus, is that what we learn in
developing solutions for thesecommunities, the learnings can
scale upward right to othercommunities who are still
(20:12):
dealing with health challenges,but maybe not quite as many.
Right, but the learnings canscale up.
If we, similar to you know,most companies kind of went out
and just found the market thatwas most, you know, apt to
engage with our solution, thatwas most apt to engage with our
solution, then yeah, sure, maybewe'd be able to build a
successful business.
But, just like what happens allthe time, the impact and the
(20:34):
learnings and what we designedthe platform to do wouldn't
necessarily scale down to peoplewith unique experiences that
are leading to the greatestdisparities, and so I think, for
those two reasons, it makessense to to focus on the
community that we focus on so isthis?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
is this regional, or are you you know, or or is this
a broader scope as far as thiscommunity you're talking about?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yeah, so right now we focus in new orleans, so our
startup is based at xavieruniversity of louisiana and, uh,
you know, we're early, earlystage company.
Just, our app has been in themarket for just over a year now.
We've gotten up to about 2 000users here in the new orleans
area.
But we have a we have atechnical limitation currently,
(21:20):
right so, currently we're onlylimited to one data set, and
this is based on ourrelationship with our technology
partner, and so I really wantedto be able to say that our
current data set is reflectiveof this specific community.
However, in about five months,we're going to be migrating over
to our own independent platform.
We've been able to raise somemoney, get some donations and
such to make that migration, andat that point, we'll be able to
(21:44):
stratify our data in unlimitedways, right so?
By city, by state, by zip code,by partnering organization, by
university, and so we'll be ableto create tailored experiences,
you know, within differentcommunities, because each
community is different, right?
Just like each individual isdifferent.
We're starting at the communitylevel.
Each community is different,and so, you know, what I'm
(22:05):
really excited about is beingable to compare and contrast the
health score reports of eachcommunity, right.
So let's say, the averagehealth score in New Orleans is
515, right, but the averagehealth score in New York might
be 610.
What's going on in New Yorkthat's not going on in New
Orleans, that we can maybe adaptto elevate the health status
(22:26):
here.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So how does somebody say somebody's listening to this
, they're in your area, theyqualify for your demographic.
How?
Does somebody uh engage thisyeah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I will say, as of right now, anybody anywhere can
engage with the platform.
We're not going to say ifyou're not in new orleans, you
can't, you can't download theapp, um, but so our beta app is
out right now with ourtechnology partner.
So our technology partner is acompany called Dacadoo, that's
spelled D-A-C-A-D-O-O,d-a-c-a-d-o-o.
(22:58):
It's a Swiss-based company andyou can use access code
HEALTHYLIVING to create youraccount.
So when you go to the App Storeeither Google Play or the App
Store download the app.
It either Google Play or theapp store.
Download the app.
It's going to ask you for anaccess code and type in healthy
living and then you willcomplete your profile so name,
(23:19):
location, height, weight, suchand such, and then you'll be
prompted to complete yourinitial health score assessment
once you create your account.
It's going to be about 12questions from the seven
different categories of healththat we track.
So we have physical healththat's like your medical health,
so blood pressure, cholesterol,glucose, things like that, your
physical activity, yournutrition, your sleep,
(23:40):
mindfulness, mental well-beingand substance use or
self-control, and you're goingto have a couple of questions
from each of those categories inyour initial assessment and,
you know, get your score.
It's going to be a numberbetween zero and one thousand.
Um, anything under, anythingunder 550 is considered fair or
poor and and where we we see thegreatest risk overall for for
(24:04):
poor health outcomes.
But 550 and above is consideredgood.
Five, you know 610 isconsidered great, anything above
680 is considered excellent,and that's our ultimate goal is
to get everybody to thatexcellent health status.
You know, on some level we feellike the healthcare system
keeps people, or gets people toabout good or tries to get
(24:26):
people to about good yeah.
But our goal as a company is toget people to excellent health
and you know, within eachsection, after you complete your
initial assessment, you cancomplete the full assessment for
each section as well.
So you would go into thatcategory and click update your
answers and you'll complete thecomprehensive assessment in that
(24:47):
category to get the moreprecise score.
So the more information yousubmit, the more precise the
score will be.
And then again, as you liveyour life, the score will change
based on changes in yourlifestyle.
And then we ask people toupdate their answers once a
month so that when we pull thatreport we can see how people are
doing, just like a monthlycheck-in with yourself, with
(25:08):
your health, and then we'll justtry to improve the platform,
improve the experience and seeif we can bump that score, that
average score, up next month.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So you're talking about resources and different
practitioners and vendors andthings like that.
What is the scope of that?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, so currently those, those resources are
predominantly localized to NewOrleans, right?
So if you do come onto ourplatform right now, you'll see
healthcare providers in thelocal New Orleans area.
We do have some advertisingpartners that sell products and
services nationwide, and sothere will be promotions for
that.
We also do tons of challengesin the app.
We just did a challenge wherewe gave away two tickets to
(25:49):
Super Bowl 59.
Tons of challenges in the app.
We just did a challenge wherewe gave away two tickets to
Superbowl 59.
If you complete 59,000 steps ina week, you were entered in for
a chance to to go to theSuperbowl.
There was.
There was an additionalopportunity within that
challenge where, if you every1000 steps past 59,000 in that
week, gave you 10 additionalentries, and so one person
actually did 50,000 steps a dayfor 10 days during that.
(26:14):
One of those tickets.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Say that again.
One of those tickets.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, she did, all right, so that's really what we
want to do.
So, as opposed to saying, hey,everybody go take 10,000 steps a
day for your health, let'scurate a challenge that the
ultimate outcome is asignificant amount of people
take more than 10,000 steps aday for their health and also
can really discover the value ofwalking as a health-promoting
(26:44):
activity, because a lot ofpeople don't see it that way,
but it is super powerful andpeople again have literally
walked off their medicationsworking with us over the past
year.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So, yeah, Wow Well, kwame, I really like what I'm
hearing.
It mirrors a lot of things thatI'm working towards, really
exemplifies what this podcast isall about, and so I'm glad that
we were able to find each otherhere.
And so I'm glad that we wereable to find each other here,
(27:12):
and can you give us really yourelevator pitch as far as how
people can reach you and allthat?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, so I encourage people to follow us on Instagram
.
You can follow my personal pageit's Kwame Terra,
k-w-a-m-e-t-e-r-r-a, and thenfollow our company on Bear
Health it's atB-E-A-M-E-T-E-R-R-A, and then
follow our company on BearHealth it's at B-E-H-R Health
and then definitely download theapp, get your health score.
We're planning something bigfor the official launch.
(27:41):
I'm not going to give anydetails because we're building
it kind of in a community way,right?
So you have to, on some level,receive a personal invitation
and you can receive a personalinvitation if you're a user on
the app.
But we're planning somethingbig for the official launch of
Bear Health in October, sodefinitely something to be a
part of.
Another warm record to Tim.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Excellent.
Well, I appreciate you comingout here and joining the show,
and feel free, if there's anyupdates or developments you want
to come on back.
I'd love to hear about yourprogress.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Sure thing.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
You bet this has been the Healthy Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine,and we will see you next time.
Joe Grumbine, and today we have a very special
guest by the name of Kwame.
Tara.
Kwame is a health techentrepreneur, a public health
advocate and founder of BayerHealth.
He recently made history bywalking over 2 million steps in
30 days to raise awareness forcommunity-driven health
(00:28):
solutions.
Rooted in New Orleans andpowered by purpose, kwame's
building a future where healthof Black communities is informed
, inspired and well-directed.
And that's quite an impressivelittle intro there.
Kwame, welcome to the show.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm doing great, Joe.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Kwame, welcome to the show.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing great, Joe.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
I would just love to hear fromyour point of view.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Tell me a little bit about this.
2 million steps in 30 days,yeah.
So I came up with the ideaseveral months ago.
Last year we had a few userscomplete 1 million steps on the
app.
So for those who don't know ourcompany, we run a technology
platform where we give users ahealth score and we also run
steps challenges.
So steps became a big thingwithin the Bear Health community
(01:19):
and, like I said last year, oneuser did a million steps in May
.
He lost 20 pounds, he was takenoff blood pressure medication
and became a big story.
And just I said last year, oneuser did a million steps in May.
He lost 20 pounds, he was takenoff blood pressure medication
and became a big story.
And just steps again became abig thing in the community.
And then another user did it inJuly, Two users did it in
August and another user did itin October, and so we all got to
talking like you know what'sthe world record you think any
(01:40):
of?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
us, We'll go to the top right.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, why not?
And you know, the funny thingis that the Million Steps
Challenge was originallysupposed to be connected to a
fundraising campaign for thecompany.
So I wanted to take a millionsteps to raise a million dollars
for our company.
And the person that I kind ofasked to help me in that journey
Again, he's the first one to dothe million steps.
He's a doctor here in NewOrleans and it kind of lost the
(02:08):
plot.
We kind of got rid of the ideaof raising money around it
because he had such anincredible outcome around his
million steps and everybody thatdid it after that again also
lost 20 pounds and improvedtheir overall health and so kind
of, in a sense, we kind ofbrought back that same original
plot, but this time with abigger goal.
(02:31):
And so on March 27th, justbefore the beginning of April, I
decided that I would go afterthe world record to launch our
official campaign for the launchof Bear Health.
And so April 1st through April30th, I was clocking 66 plus
thousand steps per day.
Wow, 30, 30 miles, 30 to 35miles of walking per day that's
(02:56):
a lot of walking.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What else did you?
Didn't do anything else, reallyright.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
No, I didn't really have time.
One day I was on my feet for 19hours, wow, you know.
And when I was first planningit out I didn't have that much
time to plan.
I was thinking, okay, I canwalk around this meeting, I can
walk around this work.
But eventually, once I started,once I realized I just
literally wouldn't even haveenough time in the day, I
(03:23):
flipped my perspective to whereI can work around this walk.
I can work around this walk,you know, this meeting, so and
so forth.
So it it.
It took me making it the numberone priority for the month to
to accomplish it for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So in this walk I, I, I'm sure you had some
interesting experiences.
Why don't you tell me just acouple of little anecdotes of
this two million step walk, yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So, yeah, you obviously see a lot when you're
walking, you're slowed down,you're paying attention.
No more, you have to payattention so you don't get hit
by cars and things.
But one of the first things Inoticed and I don't know how
interesting this is, but Ithought it was interesting.
You know, people honk at eachother all the time, sure, and
(04:12):
nine times out of ten whensomeone was doing something that
caused another person to honkat them, they were waiting for a
person, a pedestrian, to walkacross the intersection, and
that's when they were stoppedand the person behind them
obviously didn't know or wasn'taware that they were waiting on,
you know, whatever's going onin front of them.
And I just thought that wasinteresting.
You know, again, like we, weassume that someone is just
being an idiot because they'rejust a terrible driver, as many
(04:36):
of us are.
But I don't know every.
Every time I saw somebody honk,it was because they were.
They were um, so the person infront of them was waiting on
somebody to cross the road.
So I just I just thought thatwas interesting because, you
know, we always assume thatpeople are doing things for you
know the wrong reason.
But but usually people havepretty good reason to be doing
(04:56):
what they're doing and beforeyou, you know, honk at them or
yell at them or critique them.
Maybe think about why you wouldbe doing the same thing in the
same situation and you mightstumble upon the fact that
they're just trying not to hitanother person walking.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Absolutely.
You know the old adage when youassume something, you make an
asset of you and me, and I can'ttell you how true that
generally is.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
Another interesting thing Idon't think people realized how
much walking I had to do.
So you know people would comeon walks with me, obviously, and
that definitely helped thejourney for sure.
And you know we'd walk for likethree or four hours and they'd
(05:41):
be absolutely beat, beat, youknow, and but feelings
particularly accomplished, right, they just walked four hours,
that's, you know, a littlelittle under 10 000 steps, um,
or I mean a little under 20 000steps, and they're like, oh, so
you're pretty much almost doneand I'm like just about a third,
yeah, yeah, not even close, andso that that put things in
(06:04):
perspective for me and also forother people.
Um, just the sheer effort thatit took, it's almost like doing
a marathon every day it was justabout but yeah, yeah if I was
trying to run it, I would havebeen burning about 5 000
calories a day.
Wow, which is just not not no,it yeah, it wasn't so I was
(06:28):
burning about 5,000 calories aday, which is just not.
No, it wasn't so.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I was burning about 2,500 calories per day on top of
my resting calories.
Wow.
So when you're going alongdoing this, you know people that
do endurance sports often getplagued with injuries and things
like that.
How were you able to managethis?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, so I mean I do have an endurance background.
So I ran cross country andtrack in college and obviously
all through high school.
So, and I was training for a10k.
So the Crescent City Classicwas coming up here in New
Orleans major race, biggest raceof the year for the city and
I'm a part of a run club and wehad all been really training for
(07:12):
this for the past six monthsand so I was in good shape, I
had my legs under me for sure,but I wasn't sure how my body
would respond to all thistalking and so I actually
stopped training once April hitand I started this challenge,
just to be cautious.
And honestly, the first fivedays were absolutely brutal.
(07:35):
The tendons on the kind ofinner part of my knee both knees
I mean I couldn't flex all theway without pain and and just
kind of like discomfort.
Um, that took about five daysfor my, for my legs to adjust to
just the sheer volume and forthat pain to kind of go away.
Um, additionally, um, like, Iwas obviously burning a lot of
(08:00):
calories and so keeping up withmy fueling was a challenge for
me.
So I eat, I do intermittentfasting, so I typically eat.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Not much room for that right.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah, right, yeah, I kind of went out the window in
April and so there was maybelike day three or four where I
would start getting sharp painsgoing through, you know, my head
.
And so now I'm gettingconcerned because I'm like, okay
, I want to do this attempt, Iwant to raise this awareness for
my company, but you know, is itworth the risk?
Um, but, but I just got muchbetter about about the feeling.
(08:31):
People started bringing me food, uh and, and so that that
definitely helped.
But the main, the main thingthat came up injury wise was
actually, um, about a week, aweek and a couple of days out
from the Crescent city classicrace.
So the race was scheduled forApril 19th, saturday, and, um,
the Thursday, not the Thursdaybefore, but but two Thursdays
(08:53):
before that Saturday I was doingkind of like a cool down jog
with with some of my run clubteam members and I couldn't push
off without pain, like Icouldn't.
I couldn't run without pain inmy Achilles, like sharp pain in
my Achilles, and that's notsomething obviously you want to
really play around with at all.
And so I pulled up after liketwo laps and just got back to
(09:15):
walking and I could walk with nopain.
But for the next eight days Iliterally could not push off at
all, like to the point where ifI saw other people like running,
I'm like, how are you doingthat?
It had really gripped me thatmuch.
And so, you know, I had once,you know, I was already
considering not running, just tolike not risk an injury Cause,
(09:37):
even though I could maybe run.
You know, I didn't want.
That didn't mean that somethingwasn't on the verge of collapse
, right.
But then once the Achilles paincame up, I was pretty much like
, oh, I'm not going to do it,but I still really wanted to.
And the Friday before the racewe were uh, my company, we were
tabling at an expo kind of theexpo, pre-race expo for the
Crescent city classic, and therewas a podiatrist there, um,
(10:05):
giving a talk, and so I'mwalking over to talk to the
podiatrist, but literally rightbefore I get there, a news
interview stopped me becausethey saw me wearing a shirt that
said walking to break a worldrecord.
And so we had a chat about thatand they asked me you know,
have I done the classic before?
Am I going to be runningtomorrow?
I'm like, oh, I'm actuallyprobably going to walk the whole
race.
You know, because I don't wantto risk injury.
I'm having some pain.
So after that conversation Iwent over to the the podiatrist
(10:26):
and asked him.
I mean, I told him what I wasdoing.
I'm like, hey, I'm walking thismany steps a day.
I'm already 18 days into it.
Um, I'm having this pain in myachilles.
Do you think I should evenconsider trying to run tomorrow?
And he told me to just put aheel insert in right, just like
a small lift, yeah, and makesure I'm stretching.
So mind you again, I hadn'tbeen able to run for eight
(10:48):
straight days.
Wow, I go grab, I walk to the,to the walgreens near the expo.
I put in a heel insert in andall of a sudden I can run with
no pain no way I'm so, I'm soserious.
And then so that night, um, Iwent on the treadmill just to
kind of test if I could get tomy normal, normal pace.
Uh, for, for, uh, for racing.
(11:11):
And I got up I started gettingsome pain, like closer to my
true race pace, so I decided Iwould kind of back off
officially.
But I ended up doing, uh, Iended up running that.
That next morning at theCrescent City Classic I placed
66 overall out of 16,000 peopleand ran 37 to 42.
Nice.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right on.
That's awesome.
Well, let's talk about yourBear Health.
Tell me a little bit about thecompany and maybe, really
importantly, what got you intoit.
Where did you come from thatsays I'm going to start a, a
platform like this?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
yeah.
So, um, you know, in undergradmy goal was to become a doctor,
but early on in my academiccareer I was introduced to
research and kind of developedan appreciation for addressing
problems from the the root ofthe problem, not necessarily,
you know, addressing thesymptoms or once they've become.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And that wouldn't make you a very good doctor.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, you know, our healthcare system on some level
is designed to manage and treatdisease right, not necessarily
create health Exactly.
And so I'm just more passionateabout that.
And so, you know, after Igraduated, you know, attend
conferences related to science,health, social justice, and,
like, I traveled all over thecountry doing this and just kind
(12:35):
of deciding exactly you knowhow I wanted to spend my time
here.
And it wasn't until theCOVID-19 pandemic that I really
was like, hey, I need to come upwith a solution to this, just
like everybody else, devastatedby the effect it was having on
their country.
And we just wanted to dosomething so that next pandemic
or next challenge that we face,we're in better health, have a
better outcome.
(12:56):
And my first thought was I don'tthink we really know how bad
we're doing.
I know, we know we're not doinggreat.
I know, we know we need to beexercising more and eating
better, but I don't think weunderstand the short and
long-term implications of ourcurrent health status.
Like I don't think many peopleknow that you can die from a
heart attack at 40 years old,you know.
And so I wanted to communicatethat clearly to people.
(13:19):
And so that's where I came upwith the idea of a health score.
I reached out to a technologycompany who had been working on
it.
We're going to health score anda technology platform to kind
of communicate that to people.
And so, yeah, I wanted to dotwo things I wanted to
communicate that clearly topeople, and then I also wanted a
method or system to where Icould follow up with people as
(13:41):
they fall off after beingeducated or excited about their
health, right?
So you can imagine, someonegoes to a major workshop and
they learn all these thingsabout their health and now
they're super excited aboutbeing healthy.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
They go home January 1st yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, and then two weeks later, they're like back
in their old habits and sothat's fine, right, we still
need those workshops.
But how do we follow up withpeople?
That's more than like afollow-up email three months
later hey, how are you doing?
You still doing, you're stillon the, on the, the tips that I
get.
You're still working on the,the improving your health, like
like we talked about.
So I wanted something thatpeople can see change on a daily
(14:17):
basis.
So the health score on our appevery if you go on a run one day
, your score is going to go up afew points.
If you get two or three hoursof sleep one night, your score
is going to go down, and then,based on those changes, you'll
receive messaging from ourautomated coach, as well as be
able to connect with health careproviders and resources on what
we call Bear Connect.
And so really, I just wanted aone-stop shop health partner for
(14:38):
people, one to help youunderstand your current health
status and then be able toconnect you to resources, um and
coaching that you need to toimprove it wow, that sounds, uh,
sounds powerful.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I I at first I thought it was, you know like
one of these, uh, you know,rings and things that just kind
of track things but, you'reactually, uh, offering solutions
and um and resources connectedto that.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So yeah, absolutely.
I'll also say to your pointabout the wearables.
You know, and I've actuallybeen thinking about it a lot
lately when I came up with theidea in 2020, I immediately
enrolled in a master's of publichealth program with a
concentration in health equity.
(15:24):
And, for those who don't knowwhat public health and health
equity are, public health isdefined as the art and science
of prolonging life, and thenhealth equity is there to ensure
that each person, no mattertheir socioeconomic status or
what have you, gets the bestchance they can get at, you know
(15:45):
, prolonging their life.
And so, with that health equityconcentration, I learned about
an approach to research anddevelopment called
community-based participatoryresearch, which basically
involves you inviting thecommunity that you aim to serve
in as equal partners in a designand development of solutions
that you are building for them.
So, instead of just developingsome technology and throwing it
(16:08):
at people and hoping that somepeople use it, we engage the
community from the verybeginning.
And it's not like, hey, youshould download this app because
we think it'll be great for you.
It's what are you currentlystruggling with?
How are you currently trying tosolve that problem that might
not be working and how can wehelp Right, and then we build a
relationship, first and foremostwith the users, and then
(16:29):
ultimately you know everyone youknow ideally is ultimately on
the platform and we're able totrack these trends over time.
Part of what makes us differentis that we aren't just another
health app.
We're a health equity platform,because all of our user
insights go into this aggregatereport that we call the health
score report, and each month welook at these trends and use
(16:49):
that to inform modifications tothe platform as well as what
kind of events and experienceswe curate that promote health.
And so the app is one part ofthe solution, but it's not the
whole solution.
And if, after my work was done,I look outside and I see a
bunch of people obsessing overtracking their steps, counting
their calories and, you know,comparing their heart rate
(17:11):
variability and their VO2 max, Iwould not.
I would not be happy.
You know, like that, that's notthe.
To me, that's not, that's nothealth.
But if I look outside and I see, you know, a group of women
walking together or peoplehaving a healthy meal together,
like a large community meal,like that would make me, I'd be
happy with that, and we'll stillbe tracking it through the app.
(17:32):
You know the improvements onhealth through the app, because
we can't improve what we aren'tmeasuring.
But we're going to startfocusing more on the experience
with our company.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So how did you target a community?
We've got such a just a hugespectrum of of people and places
and variables.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
So how did you narrow a community to target down?
Yeah, so so we focus on theblack community, primarily
because one that's where theproblem is closest to me.
I'm trying to solve a specificproblem, right, health
disparities that exist in theblack community, not necessarily
, um, just health broadly.
And when you think about thepolicies and the practices and
(18:16):
the beliefs that created thesedisparities, they were very
right and they were targeted andthey were effective and very
creative.
Right, and how they, you know,created these disparities.
And so, based on my educationand training, the solution
should be equally targeted,right, and it's not.
(18:38):
This isn't like a political orracial thing.
This is a problem that I'minterested in solving and, based
on my understanding, the mosteffective way to solve the
problem again, you know,ultimately the most effective
way to solve health will be onan individual level.
Right, I'm not in a positionwhere I can, you know, do
(18:58):
individual to shed, so I'mcurating solutions informed by,
by communities and cultures,very specifically the black
community right now, and and sothat's that.
That's really why we focus onand the problem is is great here
?
Right, you know they're,they're.
You take new orleans, you can,you can find disparities in life
expectancy as great as 26 yearsbetween lakeview, lakeview and
(19:21):
intermay here in new orleans.
So lakeview's predominantlywhite neighborhood, the average
life expectancy there is 80years, right, a little bit above
the national average.
But less than three miles away,in Treme, life expectancy is 54
years.
And so you know that Delta,right, that's, that's the urgent
problem that I'm interested insolving and it's affecting the
(19:45):
black problem that I'minterested in solving and it's
affecting the black communitythe most, particularly where I
am.
And so, yeah, that's why Ifocus on the problem.
And one of the fortunate thingsabout focusing on, you know, I
say the most dispossessed amongus, is that what we learn in
developing solutions for thesecommunities, the learnings can
scale upward right to othercommunities who are still
(20:12):
dealing with health challenges,but maybe not quite as many.
Right, but the learnings canscale up.
If we, similar to you know,most companies kind of went out
and just found the market thatwas most, you know, apt to
engage with our solution, thatwas most apt to engage with our
solution, then yeah, sure, maybewe'd be able to build a
successful business.
But, just like what happens allthe time, the impact and the
(20:34):
learnings and what we designedthe platform to do wouldn't
necessarily scale down to peoplewith unique experiences that
are leading to the greatestdisparities, and so I think, for
those two reasons, it makessense to to focus on the
community that we focus on so isthis?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
is this regional, or are you you know, or or is this
a broader scope as far as thiscommunity you're talking about?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yeah, so right now we focus in new orleans, so our
startup is based at xavieruniversity of louisiana and, uh,
you know, we're early, earlystage company.
Just, our app has been in themarket for just over a year now.
We've gotten up to about 2 000users here in the new orleans
area.
But we have a we have atechnical limitation currently,
(21:20):
right so, currently we're onlylimited to one data set, and
this is based on ourrelationship with our technology
partner, and so I really wantedto be able to say that our
current data set is reflectiveof this specific community.
However, in about five months,we're going to be migrating over
to our own independent platform.
We've been able to raise somemoney, get some donations and
such to make that migration, andat that point, we'll be able to
(21:44):
stratify our data in unlimitedways, right so?
By city, by state, by zip code,by partnering organization, by
university, and so we'll be ableto create tailored experiences,
you know, within differentcommunities, because each
community is different, right?
Just like each individual isdifferent.
We're starting at the communitylevel.
Each community is different,and so, you know, what I'm
(22:05):
really excited about is beingable to compare and contrast the
health score reports of eachcommunity, right.
So let's say, the averagehealth score in New Orleans is
515, right, but the averagehealth score in New York might
be 610.
What's going on in New Yorkthat's not going on in New
Orleans, that we can maybe adaptto elevate the health status
(22:26):
here.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So how does somebody say somebody's listening to this
, they're in your area, theyqualify for your demographic.
How?
Does somebody uh engage thisyeah.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I will say, as of right now, anybody anywhere can
engage with the platform.
We're not going to say ifyou're not in new orleans, you
can't, you can't download theapp, um, but so our beta app is
out right now with ourtechnology partner.
So our technology partner is acompany called Dacadoo, that's
spelled D-A-C-A-D-O-O,d-a-c-a-d-o-o.
(22:58):
It's a Swiss-based company andyou can use access code
HEALTHYLIVING to create youraccount.
So when you go to the App Storeeither Google Play or the App
Store download the app.
It either Google Play or theapp store.
Download the app.
It's going to ask you for anaccess code and type in healthy
living and then you willcomplete your profile so name,
(23:19):
location, height, weight, suchand such, and then you'll be
prompted to complete yourinitial health score assessment
once you create your account.
It's going to be about 12questions from the seven
different categories of healththat we track.
So we have physical healththat's like your medical health,
so blood pressure, cholesterol,glucose, things like that, your
physical activity, yournutrition, your sleep,
(23:40):
mindfulness, mental well-beingand substance use or
self-control, and you're goingto have a couple of questions
from each of those categories inyour initial assessment and,
you know, get your score.
It's going to be a numberbetween zero and one thousand.
Um, anything under, anythingunder 550 is considered fair or
poor and and where we we see thegreatest risk overall for for
(24:04):
poor health outcomes.
But 550 and above is consideredgood.
Five, you know 610 isconsidered great, anything above
680 is considered excellent,and that's our ultimate goal is
to get everybody to thatexcellent health status.
You know, on some level we feellike the healthcare system
keeps people, or gets people toabout good or tries to get
(24:26):
people to about good yeah.
But our goal as a company is toget people to excellent health
and you know, within eachsection, after you complete your
initial assessment, you cancomplete the full assessment for
each section as well.
So you would go into thatcategory and click update your
answers and you'll complete thecomprehensive assessment in that
(24:47):
category to get the moreprecise score.
So the more information yousubmit, the more precise the
score will be.
And then again, as you liveyour life, the score will change
based on changes in yourlifestyle.
And then we ask people toupdate their answers once a
month so that when we pull thatreport we can see how people are
doing, just like a monthlycheck-in with yourself, with
(25:08):
your health, and then we'll justtry to improve the platform,
improve the experience and seeif we can bump that score, that
average score, up next month.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
So you're talking about resources and different
practitioners and vendors andthings like that.
What is the scope of that?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, so currently those, those resources are
predominantly localized to NewOrleans, right?
So if you do come onto ourplatform right now, you'll see
healthcare providers in thelocal New Orleans area.
We do have some advertisingpartners that sell products and
services nationwide, and sothere will be promotions for
that.
We also do tons of challengesin the app.
We just did a challenge wherewe gave away two tickets to
(25:49):
Super Bowl 59.
Tons of challenges in the app.
We just did a challenge wherewe gave away two tickets to
Superbowl 59.
If you complete 59,000 steps ina week, you were entered in for
a chance to to go to theSuperbowl.
There was.
There was an additionalopportunity within that
challenge where, if you every1000 steps past 59,000 in that
week, gave you 10 additionalentries, and so one person
actually did 50,000 steps a dayfor 10 days during that.
(26:14):
One of those tickets.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Say that again.
One of those tickets.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, she did, all right, so that's really what we
want to do.
So, as opposed to saying, hey,everybody go take 10,000 steps a
day for your health, let'scurate a challenge that the
ultimate outcome is asignificant amount of people
take more than 10,000 steps aday for their health and also
can really discover the value ofwalking as a health-promoting
(26:44):
activity, because a lot ofpeople don't see it that way,
but it is super powerful andpeople again have literally
walked off their medicationsworking with us over the past
year.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So, yeah, Wow Well, kwame, I really like what I'm
hearing.
It mirrors a lot of things thatI'm working towards, really
exemplifies what this podcast isall about, and so I'm glad that
we were able to find each otherhere.
And so I'm glad that we wereable to find each other here,
(27:12):
and can you give us really yourelevator pitch as far as how
people can reach you and allthat?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah, so I encourage people to follow us on Instagram
.
You can follow my personal pageit's Kwame Terra,
k-w-a-m-e-t-e-r-r-a, and thenfollow our company on Bear
Health it's atB-E-A-M-E-T-E-R-R-A, and then
follow our company on BearHealth it's at B-E-H-R Health
and then definitely download theapp, get your health score.
We're planning something bigfor the official launch.
(27:41):
I'm not going to give anydetails because we're building
it kind of in a community way,right?
So you have to, on some level,receive a personal invitation
and you can receive a personalinvitation if you're a user on
the app.
But we're planning somethingbig for the official launch of
Bear Health in October, sodefinitely something to be a
part of.
Another warm record to Tim.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Excellent.
Well, I appreciate you comingout here and joining the show,
and feel free, if there's anyupdates or developments you want
to come on back.
I'd love to hear about yourprogress.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Sure thing.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
You bet this has been the Healthy Living Podcast.
I'm your host, Joe Grumbine,and we will see you next time.
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