Meet Michael Luehrsen | Health Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michael Luehrsen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michael, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
We thought it would be fun, and because we thought we could make an awesome change in the world. We all love living this life and think it could be helpful to everyone. We have spent our careers in healthcare, food ingredients, athletics, fitness and nutrition. During that time we have learned a lot about such industries. With all of that experience, we thought we could make a positive impact in a very basic way; by fueling our bodies with healthier foods and beverages.

We are looking to make a positive change in the world. We live in an unhealthy world, yet we’ve learned so much and how we can make things better. We are trying to lead and demonstrate a new way of observing your overall health. We’re asking people to ask themselves what would a healthy life really look like? Could you feel physically and mentally great everyday? We think Yes! And we would love to share our thoughts.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My interests in health had started from a very young age. Since I can remember I was always curious about health, and so intrigued by how the body works. I remember as a young boy, going to the local corner store to get candy and thinking I was getting the best options because they said “fat free” on them; little did I know at that age that fat free didn’t necessarily mean sugar free, and so the sour patch kids, Swedish fish and airheads I use to demolish probably weren’t the best choice at the time. You can say I was definitely victim to some manipulative “fat free” marketing campaigns in the 90’s.

Growing up in Buffalo, New York, healthy eating is almost a sin, considering the city is famous for foods like chicken wings, hot dogs and beef on weck. Many people thought as long as you exercise you can eat whatever you want, and if you’re to get sick, you just go to the doctor to get a medication prescription. This was my belief for more than half of my life, and the community I grew up in all thought and think the same way. It wasn’t until my mid twenties when I started to see my body not achieving the same results it always had in my earlier years. This lack of results created confusion, which led to seeking out answers, which led to CHANGE! My workouts were still on point and consistent, but I needed to change the way I ate, I couldn’t continue to eat crap and expect to have a healthy mind and body. I learned how important it is to fuel your body and mind with nutrients that help the body heal, grow and recovery, rather than satisfy the cravings of the tongue.

Around the same time I started to pay more attention to what was going in my body, I also began a 10 year career in the pharmaceutical industry, working for 3 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. When beginning this career I was so excited to earn a living while contributing to improved health of fellow human beings. During this time I also started a successful pharmaceutical sales agency which really helped me learn a lot about the pharmaceutical industry. Working in this space for a decade I found out I wasn’t contributing to improving the health of others, and the pharmaceutical industry is no different than any other industry trying to attract as many “customers” as possible, but instead naming them “patients”. While working in hospitals, doctors offices and other medical clinics I would see the same patients week after week coming into get their medications, but not seeing any improvement in their health. Either these poor people were addicted to the medications they were prescribed or addicted to the hopeful idea that these prescribed meds would one day heal them from their health problems.

Prior to starting VUE it hit me, we don’t have a health care problem in this country, we have a problem with the way we care for our health. Medications are NOT the answer to healing and overcoming health challenges, they are simply a crutch that too many people get hooked on for life. If you truly want to be healthy and pain free, one must get to the root of the problem, and so much of that has to do with what is going into your body in the first place.

We are all born on this planet as perfect little miracles, eyes wide open to the world for the first time, eager to discover what life has ahead of us, with the support of most parents trying to give us a life better than they had. Our mothers feed us from their bodies, or with nutrient packed baby formula, not with artificial sweeteners or junk. But at what point do we fail our health? Is it when we as 7 year olds walk down the grocery store isles to see sugar packed cereal boxes with cartoon characters on the front. Or is it when you get your choir allowance and bike ride to the local convenient store to buy sugar packed soda products. Maybe its when you get a drivers license and cruise down the streets dominated by fast food drive thru after fast food drive thru. Is it when you’re in a hurry and need something quick to eat or drink and decide to grab a product which has ingredients that start with the letters X, Y, Z, in which you have zero clue how to pronounce or have the slightest clue of what they actually are. We fail our health, period. But most of us, including our parents don’t even realize we are failing our health until it is too late because we are not educated on proper eating and our food choices are unacceptable from the time we begin pre school.

Creating VUE is to give consumers better choices of great tasting healthy products in food and beverage form that they can recognize. We are thrilled to be able to introduce 22 different beverages, already in market and also 14 snack products such as healthy gummies, mints, chips, protein bars and many more!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love this city and everything it has to offer! Considering it is one of the most popular cities to vacation, I constantly have friends visiting from out of town and I make the joke a lot that my spare bedroom is pretty much an Air BnB with friends and family coming thru often.

When my friends come in to visit we usually start the morning off with an awesome work out at Anatomy Gym, followed by some recovery at the standard. After taking care of the mind and body, we have some many amazing options to grab coffee from at one of the many Pura Vidas, Dr smoods, or XO espresso bar. After having a great coffee, we’ll go hit a fantastic lunch place for shakes or açaí bowls at either apple a day or dreamer cafe. If the weather holds up and we still have the energy in the afternoon, we’ll go play some Pickleball at Miami Beach golf course, or rent out courts at reserve to play some padel!

I am a health nut and and don’t drink any alcohol, so we usually hit some of the kava bars that miami has to offer, my favorites are the two kava gardens on Miami Beach or Kava Villa in Wynwood. The vibe is awesome in all these places and its great to be surrounded by like minded people who are interested in having a good time in the healthiest way possible!

For dinner my favorite sit down restaurants on the beach are planta and full bloom. Both atmospheres are incredible and the food is out of this world! If we’re looking to get something healthy, quick and casual we hit up Avo in sunset harbor or one of the many carrot expresses around town.

And when friends or family come to town who simply want to take advantage of the greatest thing this city has to offer, we go post up on the sand and enjoy the best beach in the world- Miami Beach!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The VUE team! The VUE company was started by myself and two of my life long friends; Gordie Gronkowski Jr and Riley Didion. Also, my younger and extremely talented sister Jenna Luehrsen-Donnelly is responsible for all VUE design. Working with this group has helped me personally grow as an entrepreneur and has made this journey a lot of fun! I’ve obviously known my sister my whole life, have been friends with Gordie for 35 years, and have been friends with Riley for 20 years, so I am tight with this group and we all know a ton about each other, but when you start working with people you learn about a whole other side of them. It’s really cool when people you’ve known for your whole life show you a different side of them, and if it weren’t for VUE I wouldn’t have learned that about my friends and my sister.

Gordie and Riley are absolute monsters in the business world. These guys are so dedicated to whatever it is that they set their minds to. The amount of focus and effort these guys put into their business is unbelievable and extremely motivating; I can confidently say working with these guys have made me a better businessman and better person.

Jenna is so incredibly talented with design and has such amazing creativity. Jenna is solely responsible for VUE winning a “global cap contest” for the cap design on the VUE vitamin tea bottles, which ended up getting the company half a million free VUE designed caps to kick start production on that product line! Jenna doesn’t even realize how insanely talented she is and her potential for growth is enormous. I am super excited to see what she does next with VUE products!

Website: www.vuedrink.com

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Image Credits
Jenna Luehrsen, Gordie Gronkowski Jr, Riley Didion, Jillian Czyz!