Helping You Reclaim Your Health: The Origins of Reclaim Lifestyles
Published by
Hayley Brown
on
Jeff White has a lot of energy. Within moments of meeting Jeff, anyone can see the man is lit up with a passion for people—for connecting with them, lifting them up, and helping them live better lives. And when you get him talking about Reclaim Lifestyles, it is clear he has found the ultimate outlet for his passion; and it's contagious. Now with a team of similarly impassioned individuals surrounding the project (assembled by Jeff's enthusiasm and their own beliefs in the cause), the Reclaim Lifestyles mission has only intensified and gained speed.
Starting Restart!
As you might have guessed from Jeff's seemingly boundless levels of energy, he's an active guy. He appreciates firsthand what an active lifestyle has afforded him in daily physical and mental fortitude, even as he moves through his early 60s. He'll tell you himself that he's the oldest dad in his daughter's second grade class, but he keeps up better with the seven-year-olds than a lot of the younger fathers. That's not by accident.
Jeff has been a competitive triathlete for years. (If you're worried this background counts you out of the Reclaim Lifestyles user pool, hang on with us; we're built for you, we promise.) In his quest to improve his triathlon performance, Jeff ran the exact same training run two days in a row with completely different results. Why? What variables were at play? How could he optimize those variables to make consistent strides forward in his training regimen?
Quickly, the dataset Jeff wanted to analyze became unwieldy. There just wasn't an easy way to track each and every factor. But throughout the process, Jeff realized his goal was not only to improve his triathlon times. As he hit 60, his interest zeroed in on the intersection of athletic performance and aging, and he found his why: ultimately, he wanted to maintain and improve his health so that he could be around for as long as possible for that seven-year-old, Lydia (his "14-years-in-the-making" miracle baby).
Through training, Jeff connected with another like-minded active man in his 60s with similar health goals, Tom Pecht, who quickly became Jeff's best friend and training partner, and ultimately co-founder of what would become Reclaim Lifestyles. But before Reclaim, there was Project 100: Jeff and Tom's first foray into health optimization apps, with the goal of getting to age 100 through diet, exercise, and other healthy habits.
With the inception of Project 100 came Nick Gartmann, a software engineer and co-founder of RokkinCat, a highly sought-after Wisconsin-based software development and consulting firm that chose Jeff's project as one of five per year (out of 100+ hopefuls) to work on. Nick has since moved on from RokkinCat, but has remained with Jeff since Day 1, helping refine the focus of Jeff's ideas from three separate companies (Rise Up, Restart!, and Step 3) into one Reclaim Lifestyles brand with one app: Restart!.
Throughout the process of research and app development, Jeff, Tom, and Nick realized everyone else on the market chases active adults—folks like Jeff and Tom who already have a solid baseline of physical health and activity. But according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, at least 74% of men and 81% of women in the U.S. were not meeting the minimum aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines in 2016. Post-COVID, it's probably safe to assume those numbers have increased. So who's reaching out to that group? And what about the folks who may be used to be quite active until something happened—life, an injury, surgery—and need help to get back on track? How do we help those people live to 100 and live well?
And so, the driving motivation for Reclaim Lifestyles was born: how do we meet people where they are with an inclusive approach that takes their individual wellbeing, aches and pains, and health history into account, and stays with them every step of the way as they start (or restart) their journey to a healthier life?
A Science-Driven Approach
All along the journey to Reclaim Lifestyles, Jeff, Tom, and their growing team let science and data guide their process, forming the cornerstone of the brand's approach. Research abounds that shows how inextricably linked our levels of physical activity and health outcomes are. The Reclaim credo became taking that empirical data and creating a tool with science at the forefront that empowers users to take their health into their own hands no matter where they are starting from.
As Reclaim Lifestyles continues to employ the latest scientific research on healthy aging and draw inspiration from the work of folks like Peter Attia, M.D., the brand is ever evolving. The last thing this team wants is to launch a static app that runs users through the same tired exercises over and over again. Restart! is built to be dynamic, leveraging the potential of machine learning and human expertise to support individuals in their unique health journeys.
It's Personal
While we can't solve all age-related diseases with an exercise app, we cannot ignore the abundance of research supporting the connection between regular exercise and mitigating signs of age-related decline, both physical and mental. If you have aging parents or loved ones, you may have witnessed the inexorable forward march of disabling dementia symptoms. For five months, Jeff had a front-row seat to age-related mental decline during what started as his octogenarian in-laws' Christmas visit.
For those five months, Jeff not only saw dementia take hold, he could see the pieces of what could have possibly helped lift these people he loved to a healthier aging existence. They were connected to their phones, but there was no tool in that tech to prompt the healthy habits that might have slowed their progress to and through the "decade of decline." "The tech is here," Jeff says. "We have to give them something more than playing games."
When Jeff tells the story of Reclaim Lifestyles, people are almost unanimously drawn to the mission because so many of us have similar experiences of loved ones lost to us or suffering before their time. For some, they've been looking for an inclusive tool like this for themselves that can take their unique challenges into account, from past surgeries to recent injuries. "I want that for my parent," or "Can I sign up?" are frequent responses. The Reclaim mission is so infectious because it's so personal. We all either know someone or are someone who wants to improve their healthspan. Our specific reasons may be different, but overall, living better lives for longer is a universal desire.
The Vision
As Reclaim Lifestyles gears up to launch the Restart! app, the team is excitedly anticipating onboarding the first wave of users and ensuring an experience that is inclusive, easy to use, and highly individualized without being intrusive. While the initial target audience for the app is folks on the edge of retirement, we're looking down the road at potential other use cases of individuals at any age who can take advantage of the accessible Restart! approach: people with disabilities, physical therapy patients leaving rehab, people experiencing homelessness, and more.
We believe in the positive ripple effects to come from reaching out to these folks and aging demographics: by supporting better health outcomes for our most vulnerable populations, we not only lower healthcare costs, but we help people become vibrant in their own realm. While completing an Ironman might be one person's accomplishment, making it down the driveway to the mailbox and back might be another's: both are worthy of celebration. And when people are living their most vibrant lives, they inspire those around them to find their vibrancy too.
Let's create a better, healthier world together.
Get Involved
Ready to start (or restart) your journey to a healthier, more active you? Or know someone who could use an inclusive tool to help them achieve regular physical activity? Get on the list to be the first to know when the Restart! app hits the App Store:
Interested in joining the team or becoming an investor? Reach out here to join the Reclaim Lifestyles mission and help more people become champions of their realms: