5HT: 5 Healthyish Things, including setting boundaries and a Fixie Dust update

This week, I’m at Expo West, the Mecca of consumer CPG. I’m excited to share the trends I noticed, standout products, and more soon. In the meantime, it’s hard not to reflect on my own CPG co, Fixie Dust, which I shared with y’all for the first time last August. The plan was to launch that fall, buuut looks around that didn’t happen. I’m still very excited about it! But I’m also disappointed it’s taken a lot more time to launch.

For those newer here: Fixie Dust is a product I’ve been building that’s basically like Pixy Stix for your brain. I’ve been obsessed with brain health since my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and I built the formula around the supplements I’ve personally found most helpful through research and experimentation—delivered in a fun, nostalgic, straight-into-your-mouth format.

Two major challenges delayed delivering on that:

1️⃣ The Formula 

Unlike supplements that get mixed into water, this goes directly into your mouth, which means it can't be masked by fillers and flavors. That heavily restricted what we could use—and getting it to taste great took a looong time.

It didn’t help that our first manufacturing partner kept telling us things were “impossible.” So I basically had to turn into a li’l bit of a food scientist, and we did eventually crack it. Hooray! Then…

2️⃣ The Packaging 

Turns out, almost no one makes stick packs as thin as Pixy Stix. Most machines simply aren’t built for it. Cue us going to Pack Expo—the largest packaging trade show in the world—to find a needle in a haystack.

Thanks to an amazing Sherpa in Pelagic (recommended by our friends at Seed Health), we were able to find a stick pack machine maker experimenting with smaller stick pack sizes. They agreed to test our formula with their machines, and we ultimately found a size that worked! But now there was another problem. Because the stick was much more thin, the volume of the formula made the stick super long! I’m talking longer-than-my-head long. More magic wand than a Pixy Stix!

Cutting the volume would mean cutting the dose, making it ineffective—and I refused to do that. Sooo, back to the drawing board to reformulate. 

When our original manufacturers told us it’d be “impossible” (again) to get the volume down by a couple of grams (no surprise there) 🙄, I decided this was the moment to find an aligned partner we could grow with long term. It slowed us down more months, but we’ve now found that dream partner. Today, we’ve got two dope flavors in Watermelon Sour and Lemon—and we’re back on track!

I share all of this because we usually only see the finished product. The clean packaging. The slick website. The launch announcement.

What we don’t see are the months spent solving weird, invisible problems—like shaving grams off a formula so a stick pack doesn’t end up longer than your head. But that’s the difference between shipping something… and shipping something you’re actually proud of. And sometimes progress looks like stalling—when really it’s just refusing to cut corners.

(More to come on Fixie Dust soon!)

Between family, health stuff, and running multiple businesses, I've been juggling a looot lately. I used to think I could do it all like my man crush, Henry Cavill (aka Superman). Turns out… I can’t. And trying left me resentful and quietly angry. Not great. 😬

So, I’ve been working on setting healthyish boundaries to go from this 👇

To this 👇

The first thing I did to get better at this was get my friend Melissa Urban’s book (yep, the same Melissa who started Whole 30), The Book of Boundaries. No surprise, the book is killer. 

My favorite part is the way Melissa reframes boundaries as clearly communicating what you will (and won’t) do—not as conflict, awkwardness, or control over other people. Think ultimatums, not explanations or apologies.

Ultimately, it’s about your behavior. For example:

👎 What a boundary is not: “You can't email me after 7 p.m.”
👍 What a boundary is: “I don't respond to work emails after 7 p.m.” 

The difference is small, but important. And while it may feel uncomfy, you don't owe someone a huge explanation. Overexplaining is usually a sign you're trying to manage someone else's feelings, whereas clear, calm, short boundaries are actually more respectful.

Based on what I’ve learned so far, I’m starting to actively say no to new projects that aren't true priorities (even when they're interesting, flattering, or involve cool people). I’m also working on not responding to every email immediately and using kind yet short (!) responses. 

Buuut it’s still very much a WIP. Instead of going at it alone, I asked Melissa for advice... and it was too good not to share.

So I’m pumped to tell you: Melissa Urban will be joining 5HT for a mini-residency this month. 🥳

Each week, she’ll answer one community question about boundaries, so we can all get better at protecting our time, energy, and headspace. She starts next week, but if you want more from her now, check out her great newsletter.

Last week’s “take my data” post generated a looot of feedback. Some agreed. Some strongly disagreed. One pushback came from Amelia Edelman (one of our star Editorial Partners at my Healthyish Content agency). Her take from the female perspective is something I hadn’t considered (but should have), and it stood out so much I thought it should go in this newsletter.

Here’s her counterpoint:

Amelia: Regarding the appeal of “take my data” in hopes that AI would use it to translate lab work, connect dots, and make us all smarter patients—sounds nice enough! And if I were a dude with a cholesterol panel and a wearable, maybe I’d feel the same.

But I’m not; I’m a woman in the United States in 2026. For those of us who menstruate, health data isn’t just about HRV and recovery timelines. It’s about ovulation windows, missed periods, miscarriages, IVF cycles, and emergency contraception. It’s about whether a state like Tennessee (where I live, where I was able to access safe abortion care in 2020 prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, yet where Republican lawmakers have recently proposed that abortion should be punishable by the death penalty) could decide that our reproductive data is fair game for prosecution. 

When you’re a person with a uterus in a country where reproductive rights have already been rolled back staggeringly, the idea that the “harm is mostly hypothetical” doesn’t land the same way. We’ve watched period tracker data get discussed in legal contexts. We’ve seen news about women’s cycle data being turned over to Facebook—now the subject of a class action lawsuit.

Yes, health tech is here to stay. But there’s a difference between fragmented data in separate silos and centralized, searchable, pattern-recognizing systems that can infer things we didn’t explicitly disclose. Fertility patterns are not the same as workout data. The trade-off calculus changes when your body has been politicized against your will.

I want better healthcare tools, too. I want clarity and agency. But until the government stops waging a war on people with uteruses, refusing to share reproductive data with AI isn’t paranoia; it’s prudence

So I’m keeping my data to myself, thanks. Under his eye.

As a dad of two girls, I definitely want them to grow up in a world where they’re not worried about their fertility data being misused. Where they don’t have to worry about their symptoms being believed. Where access to care isn’t determined by wealth or luck. 

And where doctors are actually trained in women’s bodies. Because, as I’ve written before, medical research has historically overlooked women. It's embarrassing and infuriating—and rightfully inspires songs like this one.

While the system should be doing the work, it’s not. Until then, there are people like Jodi Neuhauser pushing it forward. I’ve known Jodi for a couple years and admired her work in women’s health long before that. Most recently, she launched 51&, a membership for any woman who’s navigating the healthcare system. 

Membership dollars go toward research, policy advancement, and innovation—because getting women’s health in the room and on the agenda still requires funding and force. I also like that 51& gives members access to discounts from 25+ women’s health companies. It’s both advocacy and practical leverage at a time when both are still lacking.

If we want a better future for women’s health, we have to build it. Ultimately, there’s a lot of work to do, and I plan to do my part—not just as a girl dad, but as someone who believes healthcare should work for everyone. 

If you want to support the mission, Jodi and her team (also readers!) are offering 5HTers 20% off the first year of membership. 

Use code “5HT20” and join 51&.

Lately, I’ve been wondering what beliefs I hold that may be quietly working against me. A great example comes from Nir Eyal’s new book Beyond Belief—specifically about aging:

Kind of 🤯 right? It’s a reminder that the stories we tell ourselves aren’t always true. 

I’ve been a fan of Nir since his first book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, was published in 2014 and became a must-read for anybody in tech. I’m grateful we became friends! This new book (out March 10, next week) is all about rethinking the assumptions that quietly drive our behavior—my guess is it’ll also become iconic. 

And because this week 5HT is the gift that just keeps on giving, Nir and his team are doing a giveaway so you can get your hands on a free copy. Enter here before March 15 for a chance to win!

Directions: Copy and paste the below prompt into your AI platform of choice to create a healthyish boundary.

👋 Who are you again? I’m Derek Flanzraich—founder of two venture-backed startups in Greatist (👍) and Ness (👎). I’ve worked with brands like GoodRx, Parsley, Midi, Ro, NOCD, and Peloton. I now run Healthyish Content, a premium health content & SEO agency (among other things).

Every Thursday, I share 5 health things I feel strongly about so you can live healthyish. (Disclaimer: I’m more your friend with health benefits. None of this is medical advice.) 

And oh, you also feel strongly about some health things? Hit reply—I’d love to hear it.