Our Story
Learn about Joe and and how his battle with health drives the vision for Vital Routines.
Our co-founder and CEO’s personal health journey written in the first person.
A love for bread
My mom is a stereotypical, 3rd-generation, Jersey-born Italian, so I grew up eating mostly pizza and pasta. Like most kids would, I become obsessed with bread and loved nothing more than a plain bagel with cream cheese or a simple salami sandwich with yellow mustard.
I grew up alongside my two sisters, one older (Sofie), and one younger (Grace). When we were young, Sofie and I had very few health issues, but it seemed like my younger sister Grace was constantly sick. She was always visiting the hospital, had chronic respiratory illness, and pneumonia four times before she was just 6-years-old.
My mother visited countless doctors who found no explanation. However, determined to find the root cause of her low-immunity, she did her own research and had the idea that Grace might have Celiac Disease. She was able to work with a pulmonologist at Stanford’s children’s hospital who was able to help with further evaluation and treatment. At this time (2007) almost no one was aware of Celiac or had even heard the phrase “gluten free.” Grace was diagnosed, and after avoiding gluten and other food allergens, she was restored to full health and never had pneumonia again.
Joe at the beach with his younger sister
Years later, realizing that celiac is genetic and that mass-manufacturing was changing bread in a significant way, my mom decided to test our whole family. Funny enough, even knowing my sisters story and witnessing her transformation,
I was so obsessed with bagels and bread that when I tested positive for gluten sensitivity I cried (yes, literally cried) and chose to completely ignore the results.
I can remember the moment vividly. Basically, I was an addict ignoring that I had a problem and was unwilling to change.
Having some issues
The consequences of my decision to ignore my gluten sensitivity was not yet significant or obvious to me. Although now, looking back I can remember the plethora of issues it caused.
I was always skinny as a result of my fast metabolism and love for sports throughout my life. I was a starter for varsity soccer my freshman year of high school, played football, water polo, and became a year-round swimmer qualifying for the Junior Olympics.
Because I was always in good shape I, wrongly, thought the food I consumed was more or less irrelevant to my health.
When I attended college at Cal Poly, SLO I abused my freedoms. I ate pop-tarts, goldfish, fast food, chicken and waffles, and many other fried, low-quality, and highly-processed foods abundant on campus.
During the final quarter of my first year, my health was deteriorating significantly despite my commitment to fitness.
I was losing sleep, feeling depressed, and constantly fighting severe gastrointestinal discomfort. Basically, I felt like I was dying.
I saw a doctor on campus who, somewhat understandably, thought I was just another kid trying to get out of class. He gave me an anti-nausea prescription and told me to come back two weeks later if symptoms persisted.
A lifestyle prescription
I had an intuition that if I saw more doctors they would offer more prescriptions and invasive solutions instead of seeking out the root cause of my issues.
Seeking for an alternative, I was lucky enough to be recommended to see a functional practitioner who specialized in food desensitization and detoxification.
Using what at the time seemed to me like futuristic witchcraft, she was able to non-intrusively determine that I was likely suffering from leaky gut syndrome, GERD, and even detected repetitive thought syndrome. It was something I was experiencing but had not shared with anyone.
My experience with functional medicine deserves its own detailed story, but to summarize, it guided me toward lifestyle and diet changes that solved the root-cause of my problems, changing my life forever. I committed to an “auto-immune paleo” diet, continued to exercise, abstained from alcohol, and consumed medicinal herbs to build back my immunity.
Not only did I rediscover what it feels like to not be sick, but I experienced the incredible superpower that is approaching near-optimal health.
This was my turning point, and I started to fall in love with the idea of being unconventionally healthy.
The constant battle
I believe the medical industry today is too quick to match symptoms with prescriptions, and too frequently promotes intrusive solutions like surgeries. Many of us are also familiar with the ways US healthcare is economically broken.
More and more scientists are discovering that most, if not all, health issues are caused by poor lifestyle and diet. Unbiased and dedicated researchers like Dr. Andrew Huberman are hosting podcasts, publishing new research, and providing top tier, holistic advice in great detail.
Today, health and wellness is the most complicated subject for people to understand, and also one they believe is the most important. Unfortunately, we are overwhelmed by the never ending flood of conflicting advice in the news and on social media. It’s also becoming clear that government health recommendations, like the recent food pyramid, are increasingly in conflict with top research and data. Becoming increasingly hysterical, some think sacrificing food supplies will benefit climate.
So, as if the subject of personal health wasn’t already confusing enough, its further complicated by costs, sustainability, and ethics. Even if you can navigate all of this, there is still no one true answer for everyone because “healthy” is highly personalized.
Despite knowing the best information is out there somewhere, pursuing health feels more and more like a hopeless effort.
Something worth fighting for
"The fountain of youth is here right now, it's just hiding in a whole bunch of scientific publications." - Bryan Johnson (Braintree/Venmo, Kernel, OS Fund, Blueprint)
We are building the ultimate health dashboard and calendar so you can easily discover and implement protocols designed by experts for optimizing well-being and addressing the root-cause of your health concerns.
The process of establishing a healthy routine that works for you should be simple and easy.
We want to help you organize all your health efforts in one place so you can spend less energy deciding what to do, and instead focus on getting it done.